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 DoomMouse wrote:

Interesting. Just went to the caledonian uprising tourney in the UK with around 100 players, including plenty of the 40k england team. Tyranid hive tyrant spam took 1st and 3rd, and eldar took second. Guard weren't represented until 10th despite quite a lot of players present...

Of course I'm not saying guard aren't very strong, but tyranids may be stronger than people think!

Nids are extremely strong. Chaos are also incredibly strong.

I think the Nid codex is probably the gold standard codex that every player wants to have, great internal balance, slightly strong in terms of external balance. So many viable options.

Breng77 wrote:


You know except if hordes are made up of multiple smaller units, or are orks, pox walkers, cultists with abbadon, tyranids Etc. but sure morale is the answer. You did not even address the important part about if the guardsman were in 10 man squads and that totally changing your numbers, to the point where they are no longer significantly better at killing guard than marines.

Morale is helpful, but you are speaking from a position of not understanding the actual numbers, which is unfortunate because this is basic math. Your example, Guardsmen in 10 man squads vs aggressors and tac marines

65 point marine squad, split the difference on rapid fire so 1.5 = 7.5 shots, 2/3 (hit) * 2/3 (Wound) * 2/3 (fail save) = 8/27 = 2 dead a round

(5 * 65)/40 = 8.1

111 point aggressor squad 29 shots, 2/3 chance to hit 2/3 chance to wound, and a 2/3 chance to fail the save = 8/27 * 29 = 9 dead a round, 10 because they can't succeed on morale

(1 * 111)/40 = 2.8 which is about as effective as lascannon devs shooting a LRBT.

So there you have it, and yes I changed your OP, trying to figure out where the ork is on a horse was giving me a fit of giggles.

Missed the point aggressors are as good or better at the role of killing marines as they are at killing guard. 2/3*1/2*1/3* 29= 3.22 dead marines timed 13 points per model is 41.8 points vs 40 points of guardsmen. If you remove tons of models dying to morale, which is essentially not going to happen.

Spoletta wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Err...no. Sorry to spoil this, but mathwise grots are even a better screen than guards, for the exact reason we say that guards are better than boyz i.e. lots and lots of cheap buffs.

You don't hear people complaining about them because orks have nothing worthy to screen, but if they had credible long range shooting, you wouldn't hear the end of it.

Except none of those "cheap" buffs are worth using on Grots. +1 attack on a S2 model? +1 WS on a 1 attack model? what cheap buffs do you see as worth it? The only buff I can think of is the Herders who make them borderline fearless. No, Grots are crap for the exact reason that I pointed out, while they are cheap, they serve no purpose because they lack any kind of damage output, Guardsmen can push out 1 S3 shot at 24 or 2 at 12, Grots can do 1 shot at 12, thats it. Guardsmen also have access to heavy weapons and other benefits, Grots have access to literally NOTHING.

No one ever talked about offensive capabilities. Grots have big squad numbers, fearless and 6+++, so they are nice screens.

im sorry what?

Grots do come in bigger squads but the rest is BS. They are not fearless unless you give them a Grot herder, and yes they can get a 6+++ but only if your willing to invest in a 50pt Painboy to babysit them. So that cheap 90pt squad just went up in price by 100% to get those minor buffs. Of course nobody would ever waste a Painboy on a 90pt squad of grots either because it doesn't make sense. So those 3pt grots are now approaching the same cost as boyz, and while slightly more durable they are woefully crap at Damage compared to those same boyz, and going back to the original comparison, to guardsmen.

You talked about offensive capabilities when you talked about the "cheap" buffs those grots have access to, the only defensive buffs are the ones listed and a KFF big mek, and if you do that you are literally increasing the cost of that 1 grot squad to approaching 260pts.

So why are guardsmen better as screening forces? because while they are slightly more expensive, they are more durable, they have access to better buffs, and most importantly, they do more then just screen, they can inflict damage on an opponent.

Breng77 wrote:
Missed the point aggressors are as good or better at the role of killing marines as they are at killing guard. 2/3*1/2*1/3* 29= 3.22 dead marines timed 13 points per model is 41.8 points vs 40 points of guardsmen. If you remove tons of models dying to morale, which is essentially not going to happen.

I didn't miss that point, but it requires 2 very specific things to be true

1.) Min unit size
2.) there is no split fire.

As soon as you include split fire (so you are not wasting casualties from morale), they are better at killing guardsmen. If it's better than min unit size they are better at killing guardsmen.

You guys lost this as soon as the math came out, you should be less attached to being right, and more eager to improve your tactics when presented with new evidence. This is a math based game, every interaction is probabilistic and can be modeled, and has been. Do you think GW didn't bother with this kind of back of the napkin stuff?

Flamers and dedicated anti horde weapons need a special rule for when targeting infantries, much like how certain weapons have reduced effect aginst vehicles.

Say, if a flamer was actually a 2d6 weapon, but the weapon type gets reduced to 1d6 when targeting vehicles, its efficacy against vehicles remain the same while increasing efficiency against infantries.

 skchsan wrote:
Flamers and dedicated anti horde weapons need a special rule for when targeting infantries, much like how certain weapons have reduced effect aginst vehicles.

Say, if a flamer was actually a 2d6 weapon, but the weapon type gets reduced to 1d6 when targeting vehicles, its efficacy against vehicles remain the same while increasing efficiency against infantries.

Flamers auto-hit, so in a space marines hands 3.5 auto hits is pretty much an assault 5 bolter, so a little better than a storm bolter in rapid fire range. The real purpose of a flamer in 8th ed is as a charge deterrent, and since it gets to shoot once and then probably never again it's not really good at that.

If I ran the zoo and were making a change to flamers, I'd give it back the ability to ignore cover bonuses to armor, and I'd make them a terror weapon, which forces an opponent to take morale test on 2d6 and discard the lowest. Because all weapons will kill you, but flamethrowers will do it painfully and relatively slowly, while leaving you active enough to scream the whole time.

 skchsan wrote:
Flamers and dedicated anti horde weapons need a special rule for when targeting infantries, much like how certain weapons have reduced effect aginst vehicles.

Say, if a flamer was actually a 2d6 weapon, but the weapon type gets reduced to 1d6 when targeting vehicles, its efficacy against vehicles remain the same while increasing efficiency against infantries.

2D6? Orks flamers are only D3 auto hits, I wish I had D6 flamers

SemperMortis wrote:

Spoletta wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Err...no. Sorry to spoil this, but mathwise grots are even a better screen than guards, for the exact reason we say that guards are better than boyz i.e. lots and lots of cheap buffs.

You don't hear people complaining about them because orks have nothing worthy to screen, but if they had credible long range shooting, you wouldn't hear the end of it.

Except none of those "cheap" buffs are worth using on Grots. +1 attack on a S2 model? +1 WS on a 1 attack model? what cheap buffs do you see as worth it? The only buff I can think of is the Herders who make them borderline fearless. No, Grots are crap for the exact reason that I pointed out, while they are cheap, they serve no purpose because they lack any kind of damage output, Guardsmen can push out 1 S3 shot at 24 or 2 at 12, Grots can do 1 shot at 12, thats it. Guardsmen also have access to heavy weapons and other benefits, Grots have access to literally NOTHING.

No one ever talked about offensive capabilities. Grots have big squad numbers, fearless and 6+++, so they are nice screens.

im sorry what?

Grots do come in bigger squads but the rest is BS. They are not fearless unless you give them a Grot herder, and yes they can get a 6+++ but only if your willing to invest in a 50pt Painboy to babysit them. So that cheap 90pt squad just went up in price by 100% to get those minor buffs. Of course nobody would ever waste a Painboy on a 90pt squad of grots either because it doesn't make sense. So those 3pt grots are now approaching the same cost as boyz, and while slightly more durable they are woefully crap at Damage compared to those same boyz, and going back to the original comparison, to guardsmen.

You talked about offensive capabilities when you talked about the "cheap" buffs those grots have access to, the only defensive buffs are the ones listed and a KFF big mek, and if you do that you are literally increasing the cost of that 1 grot squad to approaching 260pts.

So why are guardsmen better as screening forces? because while they are slightly more expensive, they are more durable, they have access to better buffs, and most importantly, they do more then just screen, they can inflict damage on an opponent.

You have no idea how screens work, i get it. I'll try to explain.

You don't take 30 grots and a painboy, you take 120 and one painboy. Since grots come in big squads, they can safely line to that single model (remember the now old commissar + conscripts lists?). This means that the single grot costs less than 4 points, but is morale immune and most importantly they come in big squads which is a huge bonus to screens. They also cover more area for less points. There is no contest here, grots are better than guards at that role, orks just lack the manticores to bank on that.

 Grimgold wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Missed the point aggressors are as good or better at the role of killing marines as they are at killing guard. 2/3*1/2*1/3* 29= 3.22 dead marines timed 13 points per model is 41.8 points vs 40 points of guardsmen. If you remove tons of models dying to morale, which is essentially not going to happen.

I didn't miss that point, but it requires 2 very specific things to be true

1.) Min unit size
2.) there is no split fire.

As soon as you include split fire (so you are not wasting casualties from morale), they are better at killing guardsmen. If it's better than min unit size they are better at killing guardsmen.

You guys lost this as soon as the math came out, you should be less attached to being right, and more eager to improve your tactics when presented with new evidence. This is a math based game, every interaction is probabilistic and can be modeled, and has been. Do you think GW didn't bother with this kind of back of the napkin stuff?

Sorry you are still wrong, guardsmen come in 10 man squads no one takes conscripts now precisely because of morale and costing the same as infantry squads. Other factions with larger units mitigate that morale issue. So we are only ever talking about 10 man squads. Splitfire, ok let's splitfire, you average 9 wounds. So hit 2 squads 5 die in one squad 4 in the other. Assuming LD 7 (not a given). The squad losing 5 loses extra
Models 66% of the time average 1.5 lost, the squad losing 4 loses 0.5 on average. So 12 dead guardsman takes you over a bit (48 points). Of course if those guardsman buff their LD (say take an inquisitor) now
They are LD 9 or 10, and largely ignore morale if you splitfire, now they are even more durable than those marines.... sorry you still aren't correct in your assumption that morale is the equalizer.

Guards are ~15% more durable than grots vs bolters point-for-point. IF you really want to waste points on a dok for, say, 120 grots...guards are still 12.5% tougher point-per-point. And we haven't even taken offensive capabilities into consideration. Guards are also ahead of grots in terms of damage that they can deal point-for-point. And i haven't counted the runtherd in yet. Grots need a runtherd or a boss to be able to not get evaporated by ld 4.

That's just...an odd arguement. Grots are an awful unit that doesn't have a place in an army. Why would you even want to whiteknight them? Are you Reece in disguise? He likes to whiteknight underwhelming units.

The fact that the conscripts ever existed with a commissar suggests that no GW doesn't do those back of napkin calculations, or brimstones etc

 koooaei wrote:
Guards are ~15% more durable than grots vs bolters point-for-point. IF you really want to waste points on a dok for, say, 120 grots...guards are still 12.5% tougher point-per-point. And we haven't even taken offensive capabilities into consideration. Guards are also ahead of grots in terms of damage that they can deal point-for-point. And i haven't counted the runtherd in yet. Grots need a runtherd or a boss to be able to not get evaporated by ld 4.

That's just...an odd arguement. Grots are an awful unit that doesn't have a place in an army. Why would you even want to whiteknight them? Are you Reece in disguise? He likes to whiteknight underwhelming units.

Whiteknight what?
My first statement was "Grots are useless", we are just discussing them in an hypotetical scenario just to have fun with math. Indeed grots against bolter fire are slighly less good, but screens receive as much S6 (Assault cannons, devourers) as they receive S4, so they even out on durability while winning on all the other key parameters (area occupied, squad numbers). Also, that's assuming guards immune to morale.

But don't get confused, we are just having fun with numbers here.

I'm just bitter my favorite unit got even worse that it has been.

 Grimgold wrote:


Flamers auto-hit, so in a space marines hands 3.5 auto hits is pretty much an assault 5 bolter, so a little better than a storm bolter in rapid fire range. The real purpose of a flamer in 8th ed is as a charge deterrent, and since it gets to shoot once and then probably never again it's not really good at that.

If I ran the zoo and were making a change to flamers, I'd give it back the ability to ignore cover bonuses to armor, and I'd make them a terror weapon, which forces an opponent to take morale test on 2d6 and discard the lowest. Because all weapons will kill you, but flamethrowers will do it painfully and relatively slowly, while leaving you active enough to scream the whole time.

Mathematical average of 3.5 auto hits against T3, 5+ Sv gives you a average wound of 1.56, with upwards of 2.67 wound at 6 hits and downwards of 0.44 at 1 hit. Against Orks with T4/5+Sv, you're looking at 0.33/1.16/2.00 wounds per flamer. Against MeQ with T4/3+Sv, you have 0.16/0.58/1.00 wounds. against TEQ, with T4/2+Sv, you're seeing 0.08/0.29/0.50 wounds per flamer.

Now, having said, which of the above units are most likely charge at you? The fact of the matter is, flamers for their cost amd expected role in combat (the suggested charge deterrent), really does nothing meaningful, especially as a horde/charge deterrent.

Flamers should net +1 hit for every 5 models in the target.

Spoletta wrote:
Flamers should net +1 hit for every 5 models in the target.

Nah, the problem with Flamers lie in the cost; 7 points are just too many, they should be 4pts

The biggest problem is range, since deepstrike is a big thing not being able to hit from deepstrike is an issue. It makes them mostly a defensive weapon.

Grimgold,

One of the main issues that we see in 8th ed is that hordes are too durable. Whether this was an intended change or not, we wont know.

What we see in 8th ed's simplified morale and battleshock system of removing models from the battlefield mechanics if the morale test is failed is essentially what we had in 7th and prior of the "sweeping advance."

Utilization of morale break was a powerful tool in 7th ed in that it can be used to slingshot your models forward, force enemy units to retreat until they pass the regroup test, etc. 8th edition removed all of those strategies for the above 'removal' system.

Anvil-and-hammer was so much more powerful before 8th. If the unit that was forced to retreat was unable to retreat due to intervening models, they were outright destroyed. Furthermore, a unit that broke once to morale often had to continuously test for it everytime it lost even 1 more model as it was based on the % loss from original strength. Now, it only removes so many units depending on the number of causalities suffered per turn. In order for you to utilize morale to guarantee a wipe on an infantry squad, you'd have to kill 8 guardsmen in one turn. This would mathematically require 18 bolter shots to hit the guardsmen, which would equate to 36 shots fired from a BS4 and 27 shots fired from a BS3 platform. Taking your aggressor counter, this would have to mean that the guardsmen for whatever reason, decided to get into 18" range of the said aggressor so they can be shot to death, instead of spamming FRFSRF.

Yes, morale is THE counter to hordes, but the system itself got so weak during the simplification that it punishes more expensive models that fails it on a bad roll than it hurts hordes on their bad rolls.

 skchsan wrote:
Grimgold,

One of the main issues that we see in 8th ed is that hordes are too durable. Whether this was an intended change or not, we wont know.

What we see in 8th ed's simplified morale and battleshock system of removing models from the battlefield mechanics if the morale test is failed is essentially what we had in 7th and prior of the "sweeping advance."

Utilization of morale break was a powerful tool in 7th ed in that it can be used to slingshot your models forward, force enemy units to retreat until they pass the regroup test, etc. 8th edition removed all of those strategies for the above 'removal' system.

Yes, morale is THE counter to hordes, but the system itself got so weak during the simplification that it punishes more expensive models that fails it on a bad roll than it hurts hordes on their bad rolls.

8th Morale in the old 6th/7th ed CAD force org would be more devastating, as you have fewer slots/ can't bring an additional 6 troop slots for a 2 hq "tax". But since 8th is basically non-bound edition, you can bring an exaggerated MSU. So the fault is with those dandy detachments, being bound, and basically being able to spam whatever you want. B/C a 50 man bloc of conscripts that takes 1 casualty de-facto for every casualty over 5 isn't so horrifying. But when 10 man infantry squads cost the same model for model, and can be spammed with cheap hq for orders too, why not? but its the loose detachment rules that allow it/are a significant part of the problem. trying to have enough ablative wounds in 3 troop slots would require larger units, and make new morale effective. same cause as reaper spam

 pumaman1 wrote:
8th Morale in the old 6th/7th ed CAD force org would be more devastating, as you have fewer slots/ can't bring an additional 6 troop slots for a 2 hq "tax". But since 8th is basically non-bound edition, you can bring an exaggerated MSU. So the fault is with those dandy detachments, being bound, and basically being able to spam whatever you want. B/C a 50 man bloc of conscripts that takes 1 casualty de-facto for every casualty over 5 isn't so horrifying. But when 10 man infantry squads cost the same model for model, and can be spammed with cheap hq for orders too, why not? but its the loose detachment rules that allow it/are a significant part of the problem. trying to have enough ablative wounds in 3 troop slots would require larger units, and make new morale effective. same cause as reaper spam

I'm not understanding the implications of possible result of applying 8th ed morale to 7th ed morale explains anything in terms of hordes. In fact, in 7th edition, you check for morale every time a unit lost 25% of its starting strength in any given phase. Now, failing a morale test didn't mean you lost any units, but must continue to retreat until the regroup test is passed. This was far more punishing for low Ld units as you just had to watch them continuously run towards your board edge until it killed itself.

For a unit of infantry squad, you are allowed up to 5 casualties in a single turn for the squad to survive the turn for them to be able to act again (which you couldn't do in 7th ed because you'd be falling back). Upon the 6th casualty, you'd wipe the squad on a roll of 5 or 6. On the 8th casualty, you'd consider that unit lost even without rolling your morale. What does this mean? This means that if you kill 50%, it will survive with at least 10% of its original strength. If you kill 60%, there's a 1/3 chance that the squad will wipe itself. If you kill 80% of a infantry squad, you guarantee it killing itself.

In 7th ed, losing 3 models (30%) could potentially could get the rest of the 7 models wiped if it was sandwiched between two enemy models or if it was too close to the board edge. 8th ed morale lets low Ld units live to fight another round FAR MORE than the previous editions.

 skchsan wrote:

 pumaman1 wrote:
8th Morale in the old 6th/7th ed CAD force org would be more devastating, as you have fewer slots/ can't bring an additional 6 troop slots for a 2 hq "tax". But since 8th is basically non-bound edition, you can bring an exaggerated MSU. So the fault is with those dandy detachments, being bound, and basically being able to spam whatever you want. B/C a 50 man bloc of conscripts that takes 1 casualty de-facto for every casualty over 5 isn't so horrifying. But when 10 man infantry squads cost the same model for model, and can be spammed with cheap hq for orders too, why not? but its the loose detachment rules that allow it/are a significant part of the problem. trying to have enough ablative wounds in 3 troop slots would require larger units, and make new morale effective. same cause as reaper spam

I'm not understanding the implications of possible result of applying 8th ed morale to 7th ed morale explains anything in terms of hordes. In fact, in 7th edition, you check for morale every time a unit lost 25% of its starting strength in any given phase. Now, failing a morale test didn't mean you lost any units, but must continue to retreat until the regroup test is passed. This was far more punishing for low Ld units as you just had to watch them continuously run towards your board edge until it killed itself.

For a unit of infantry squad, you are allowed up to 5 casualties in a single turn for the squad to survive the turn for them to be able to act again (which you couldn't do in 7th ed because you'd be falling back). Upon the 6th casualty, you'd wipe the squad on a roll of 5 or 6. On the 8th casualty, you'd consider that unit lost even without rolling your morale. What does this mean? This means that if you kill 50%, it will survive with at least 10% of its original strength. If you kill 60%, there's a 1/3 chance that the squad will wipe itself. If you kill 80% of a infantry squad, you guarantee it killing itself.

In 7th ed, losing 3 models (30%) could potentially could get the rest of the 7 models wiped if it was sandwiched between two enemy models or if it was too close to the board edge. 8th ed morale lets low Ld units live to fight another round FAR MORE than the previous editions.

Sorry if i was unclear, i was not advocating for 25% casualty loss to test for morale, i was more trying to identify that under 7th eds force org restrictions to be bound, you were much more likely to be taking larger squads, not exclusively min squads. And this under 8th ed morale means you'll be suffering the negative consequences of morale more often.

2ndly in 6th/7th, you didn't wipe, you just fell back, which let you snap shoot (-1 to shoot in 8th more-often-than-not), and could regroup and stay on the table. And you could attach an Independent Character to give a quick ld 10 boost with backfield hqs. I was sandwiched between enemy units far less often for that to be a concern personally. But i admit that was a possibility that i hadn't accounted for.

in 7th, if you took 5 casualties, you took a LD test, and on a 7 or better you passed, it wasn't until under 25% REMAINING you had to insane bravery (1-1) to pass.

I hope this answered some of your questions, but again I rest more blame on spammable detachments giving you bound-armies and easily exploited msu, where as in the days of formations and OP rules, many of the normal ones were in the 1000 pts neighborhood, and ironically IG had one that was 2100 pts min or so

KurtAngle2 wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Flamers should net +1 hit for every 5 models in the target.

Nah, the problem with Flamers lie in the cost; 7 points are just too many, they should be 4pts

be happy you aren't playing orks 8 points for the burna, and d3 hits instead of d6

Well, there are multiple corrections that needs to be made here and there.

 pumaman1 wrote:
...under 7th eds force org restrictions to be bound, you were much more likely to be taking larger squads, not exclusively min squads. And this under 8th ed morale means you'll be suffering the negative consequences of morale more often.

The "proper" unit composition followed the rule of "multiples of 4 plus 1." Because moral tests were made when there were 25% or more in casualty, calculated from the original unit strength, that meant that it was most beneficial for you to take 4+1, 8+1, 12+1, so on and so forth. When you have a unit of 4, that meant if you took 1 casualty, you would need to check for morale, while if you had 5 models, you'd be forced to take a morale test on loss of two models. Because of this 25% rule, it meant that having unit size of 6 or 7 would not be any more beneficial than it is to make a 5 man squad (unit composed of 5, 6, or 7 models would all be required to take a morale test if they lost 2 models.) Obviously, once you moved up to the second multiples of 4, you'd need to take 9 models for optimal morale mitigation, as unit of 10~11 would only be as beneficial as a unit size of 9. In that sense, more wasn't necessarily better.

 pumaman1 wrote:
2ndly in 6th/6th, you didn't wipe, you just fell back, which let you snap shoot (-1 to shoot in 8th more-often-than-not), and could regroup and stay on the table.

The shooting only occurred if you successfully regrouped. Even then it doesn't allow you to move for any reason other than to reestablish coherency.

 pumaman1 wrote:
in 7th, if you took 5 casualties, you took a LD test, and on a 7 or better you passed, it wasn't until under 25% REMAINING you had to insane bravery (1-1) to pass.

Right. How many models you lost before didn't affect the rolls required to pass morale. The issue here is that cheap, single wound models can be expendable for the purposes of morale, but it is devastating for expensive, multi wound models. A unit of 10 single wound models with 2 losses in a turn, resulting in 1 additional model lost on a roll of 6 is much less painful than a unit with 5 2W models who loses a model in the same scenario.

Bottom line is that cheap, single wound models are the most competitive models because:
1. ignores multi-damage weapons because damage doesn't carry over model to model.
2. high AP is often negligible because base Sv is already low.
3. new morale system punishes hordes less because they are more expendable.

EXPENDABILITY is the keyword in 8th ed's competitiveness.

"EXPENDABILITY is the keyword in 8th ed's competitiveness. "

Exactly.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/01/itc-2017-40k-year-in-review-statfest.html

IG can win often, but if we compare podium results, its not the OP expendable who places most, its SM and CSM (+demons) who are taking it most

 pumaman1 wrote:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/01/itc-2017-40k-year-in-review-statfest.html

IG can win often, but if we compare podium results, its not the OP expendable who places most, its SM and CSM (+demons) who are taking it most

How is it so hard for people to understand that these results are highly skewed by SM performing so well in the first half of 8th so far because they were the only dex? (3-4 months between SM dex and IG/CWE) Or the relation between participation rates vs win rates?

I'm pretty sure we all agree codex armies are more powerful than their index version right?

The most illustrative of the stats is the avg ITC score where SM are (probably where they are supposed to be) just below average (18th out of 29 with many of the codexes below yet to be released .) And this number is highly skewed by SM over-performance at the beginning of 8th and the under performance of those armies which were index only for months. I'd argue that the middle of that pack are pretty reasonably balanced against each other (CSM to BA) with the higher performers needing nerfs of some kind and those lagging behind some boosts (most of them will hopefully get this with their codexes, AdMech and GK really need some love though)

This also shows why I think those who rail against Gman just don't play in competitive metas. If he were the beast that the results of this poll would have you believe I find it hard to jive that with SM being such a lower middle class performer. Either that or those people think SM need an across the codex buff and Gulliman can get fethed (I'm 100% behind this if this is what's going on).

So with only a dex for a little more than halfish of the release so far IG have won 30% more tournaments than SM with 30% LESS participation (15% of entrants SM vs 10% AM).

Also if 15% of armies played were SM but only 9% of winners and that's with a couple months of being the only dex in town (sorry GK and AdMech, you guys don't count...) IG 10% participation 12% wins, Chaos deamons 4% vs 7%, Sisters 1.9% vs 3% wins, ynarri 4% to 5%, Orcs 6% participation vs 6% wins or GK 3% participation with only 1% wins...

We should probably look at those armies with outlier ITC score averages and wins out of proportion of their participation rates to find units/combos which are strong (IG - infantry, scions, out of LOS artillery -- Chaos - morty + magnus, demon princes, oblits -- Sisters - Celestine, transports with firing ports -- ynarri/CWE - reapers, shining spears).

The meta isn't close to settled yet but we all know what people say about lies, damned lies and statistics right?

 pumaman1 wrote:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/01/itc-2017-40k-year-in-review-statfest.html

IG can win often, but if we compare podium results, its not the OP expendable who places most, its SM and CSM (+demons) who are taking it most

According to the poll, outside of primarchs and the obviously broken reapers, most people seem to agree that infantry squads are one of the strongest units in the game... I suppose we're just all misguided.

You forgot Celestine, and that bumps the IG guardsmen out of the top 5.

 pumaman1 wrote:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2018/01/itc-2017-40k-year-in-review-statfest.html

IG can win often, but if we compare podium results, its not the OP expendable who places most, its SM and CSM (+demons) who are taking it most

Does that include "Space Marine" lists that are Guard armies with Guilliman as an auxiliary?