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endlesswaltz123 wrote:

With guard, 1 fully maxed platoon would allow them to unlock a single lemon russ (not a full squad, no one wants multiple tanks sitting on objectives with object secured)
.

No no and never. Right now our LR Battle Tanks are one of the few (as in 3 to 4) units available to us that are actually close to being worth the vast amount of points spent on them. If you made it so we had to bring a full maxed platoon - a bare minimal of close to 1000 points - for a single tank, and not even a squadron, then we might as well curl up and die. Now I know that many players out there get but hurt that the IG actually have something that is better than them but that is because we do tanks. They are our thing and you will not take them from us. End of discussion, the door is that way.

In answer to the OP, I do actually use core units in my IG army. My list includes several Veteran squads each with camo gear and a Heavy Bolter. Some also have Meltaguns. They make great ObSec units as one can quite simply stick them in cover and, with the camo bonus, they gain the save of a Space Marine at half the cost. Sitting there and plinking away is great fun and I have had them wreck all kinds of supposed 'Super Elite' units in the past, including Legion of the Damned, Terminators, Tac Squads, GK Terminators, GK Paladins, etc.

niv-mizzet wrote:
A few off the wall possibilities. Obviously not intended to be used all at once.

1. "Capture that objective!" A troop choice with objective secured may pick up and move ANY objective. This uses the same rules found under "the relic." (So no, no turbo boosting away with it you silly eldar jetbikes.)

2. "Backup is here!" A troop choice that has the maximum number of models may walk on from your board edge on your next turn after being completely destroyed. This new unit is identical, except that it does not benefit from any detachment bonus, does not award or contribute to awarding any victory points in any fashion when killed, and it cannot contain any upgrades or wargear that are not free by default, and does not come with a transport. (You may replace any upgraded models with standard models to satisfy this, such as replacing a plasma gun marine with a boltgun marine.)

3. "Hold the line!" A troop unit with objective secured that is controlling an objective is fearless, and may choose to either fire overwatch on full BS, or gain the counterattack USR, until the end of a turn where the unit is no longer controlling an objective.

4. "We're still in this!" Should you have a unit fall back, and its retreat path comes within 6" of a troop unit with objective secured that is not also falling back, the fleeing unit immediately halts at that spot and regroups. If this happens at the start of your turn, the unit may act normally this turn.

5. "Look out sirs!" If this unit grants a cover save via intervening models to another friendly non-vehicle unit, and that unit fails a save of any type, or gets no save against an attack, you may instead allocate the wound to any model in this unit that was providing cover to the targeted unit.

Now I like these rather a lot. I suppose these could be added as special rules on a per-codex basis, to add flavor.

#1 - Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, Skitarii
#2 - Guard, Tyranids, Orks, Chaos Daemons
#3 - Space Marines (including BA, DA, SW), Chaos Space Marines, Cult Mechanicus
#4 - Adepta Sororitas, Inquisition, Tau - I wanna say GK, too but they have ATSKNF anyway.
#5 - Necrons, maybe. Maybe.

I really like the #5 rule. Maybe all Troops should have that. Especially since I'm not convinced that Necron troops need any more special sauce - Warriors and Immortals get used all the time as it is, and the Decurion just makes that even more true.

 Powerfisting wrote:
So with all the cherry picking and front- loading that goes on in 7th, troops like tac marines, basic CSM etc are dismissed as a tax rather than the core of an army. What environment, no matter how much of a stretch, needs to be made to bring back the appeal of basic dudes? I like the idea of list building having lots of variety and being a dynamic system, so deathstars shouldn't be nerfed into the ground, per- say. But a front- loaded, point- and -click deathstar should be risky compared to a well-thought- out TAC list. This way, if I want to try something different, I can, but there are obvious drawbacks and disadvantages I will have to acknowledge in doing so.

Speaking as a tank-heavy IG player, and a Crusader-loving Templars player, I have never had reason to believe that Troopers are a waste.
My tanks run from grenade-toting units. And spend turns bowing up better-equipped infantry.

And Crusaders when done properly... Feth.

jade_angel wrote:

niv-mizzet wrote:
A few off the wall possibilities. Obviously not intended to be used all at once.

1. "Capture that objective!" A troop choice with objective secured may pick up and move ANY objective. This uses the same rules found under "the relic." (So no, no turbo boosting away with it you silly eldar jetbikes.)

2. "Backup is here!" A troop choice that has the maximum number of models may walk on from your board edge on your next turn after being completely destroyed. This new unit is identical, except that it does not benefit from any detachment bonus, does not award or contribute to awarding any victory points in any fashion when killed, and it cannot contain any upgrades or wargear that are not free by default, and does not come with a transport. (You may replace any upgraded models with standard models to satisfy this, such as replacing a plasma gun marine with a boltgun marine.)

3. "Hold the line!" A troop unit with objective secured that is controlling an objective is fearless, and may choose to either fire overwatch on full BS, or gain the counterattack USR, until the end of a turn where the unit is no longer controlling an objective.

4. "We're still in this!" Should you have a unit fall back, and its retreat path comes within 6" of a troop unit with objective secured that is not also falling back, the fleeing unit immediately halts at that spot and regroups. If this happens at the start of your turn, the unit may act normally this turn.

5. "Look out sirs!" If this unit grants a cover save via intervening models to another friendly non-vehicle unit, and that unit fails a save of any type, or gets no save against an attack, you may instead allocate the wound to any model in this unit that was providing cover to the targeted unit.

Now I like these rather a lot. I suppose these could be added as special rules on a per-codex basis, to add flavor.

#1 - Eldar, Dark Eldar, Harlequins, Skitarii
#2 - Guard, Tyranids, Orks, Chaos Daemons
#3 - Space Marines (including BA, DA, SW), Chaos Space Marines, Cult Mechanicus
#4 - Adepta Sororitas, Inquisition, Tau - I wanna say GK, too but they have ATSKNF anyway.
#5 - Necrons, maybe. Maybe.

I really like the #5 rule. Maybe all Troops should have that. Especially since I'm not convinced that Necron troops need any more special sauce - Warriors and Immortals get used all the time as it is, and the Decurion just makes that even more true.

I like those rules too, but I'm not sure why you're giving #1 to eldar variants. dark kin don't want to hop out and expose themselves to grab the relic; they'd rather let it sit there and score it at the end of the game after their still-intact army has hopefully killed everything in the area. Harlequins are in a similar boat, and wouldn't the relic take away rising crescendo and battle focus?

niv-mizzet wrote:
A few off the wall possibilities. Obviously not intended to be used all at once.

1. "Capture that objective!" A troop choice with objective secured

2. "Backup is here!" A troop choice that has the maximum number of models

3. "Hold the line!" A troop unit with objective secured

4. "We're still in this!" Should you have a unit fall back, and its retreat path comes within 6" of a troop unit with objective secured that is not also falling back

5. "Look out sirs!" If this unit grants a cover save via intervening models to another friendly non-vehicle unit, and that unit fails a save of any type, or gets no save against an attack, you may instead allocate the wound to any model in this unit that was providing cover to the targeted unit.

Well these are about troops. I think it says "basic dudes" in the OP, but it doesn't mention troops at all. What about Devastators, or all the troops+1 units like trueborn and chosen? How about the shame that a unit made of veterans can't be good unless they have special guns like special issue ammo and combi-weapons. They don't get anything out of this. In the meantime, Eldar jetbikes can be troops with objective secured, and they aren't "basic dudes" in need of this stuff.

Infantry with basic guns, that's what I'm looking at.

Dakkamite wrote:Coming from Infinity I've seen pelicaniforce's idea used in an effective manner. Small arms are cheap and effective at short range, heavy weapons are expensive and powerful at a distance, but are defeated up close via hit penalties.

Simple BS modifiers are an obvious means to implement that mechanically. "Heavy" weapons suffer a BS penalty less than half range, whilst the other classes suffer a BS penalty at more than half range.

jade_angel wrote:BS modifiers seem like a decent enough idea, possibly with a few exceptions here or there to help out some underrepresented weapons (heavy bolters, multimeltas) or some underappreciated ones (storm bolters).

There might be some other mechanic available to make light guns more effective at close range. The first things coming to mind are variations on Supporting Fire, Cognis, Preferred Enemy and Shred, but I think all of those would have possible balance problems.

I figure the idea is that there is already a balance problem with infantry being useless. Do you mean that it would be an uneven solution, that supporting fire and cognis would be pretty hard on cc Orks and not so useful against shooting armies?


My thoughts are about the main book rules. Having high strength shooting is flat out better than low strength shooting, and any type of unit other than infantry is better than infantry. There's no reason to have rifles when you can have plasma, and there's no reason to be infantry when you can be something relentless or fast or both.

I was thinking about a shooting phase with simultaneous enemy shooting, from infantry. I think if you move a unit up and start shooting at a target, that nearby enemy infantry should be able to try to shoot your firing unit. I'm not interested in taking tests or doing things that are situational like bonuses near objectives or regrouping buffs.

The theory is this. You move your units, and start your shooting phase. You have a unit and begin shooting with it at a target. If this unit is the closest of your units to an enemy infantry unit, and that enemy is the closest enemy unit to your unit, then the enemy infantry unit can start shooting at you, in initiative order. You can win or lose this shooting just like close combat, which increases the use of the leadership stat, and it addresses some of the complaints people have about not being able to use pistols in cc. If you have a tank, it shoots at initiative ten, but it can still be blown up for trying to fire while too close to an enemy meltagun. If you are shooting a heavy weapon, it counts as unwieldy, so if you shoot at a distant target you had better have some non-heavy guns to defend yourself so the near-by orks don't shoot your heavy weapon off the table before it gets to shoot.

 Selym wrote:

Speaking as a tank-heavy IG player, and a Crusader-loving Templars player, I have never had reason to believe that Troopers are a waste.
My tanks run from grenade-toting units. And spend turns bowing up better-equipped infantry.

I have always like this bubble-wrap effect that if you move your tanks too close, infantry can blow you up with grenades. This kind of effect is what infantry is supposed to be for, I think that if you move any type of unit, not just tanks, too close to infantry that they should be able to cause problems.

My thinking was hit-and-run raiding - grab the objective and move it away from the enemy, get the heck out of dodge. After all, you could always pick it up and haul it back out of movement range this turn, then drop it and charge, or drop it and get back in next turn, while someone else provides cover. Admittedly, that's probably more Craftworld than Dark, and Harlequins were mostly listed because I'm not sure which other would fit them, honestly, and "grab and go" seemed more fitting than the others. Also, if we're talking about standard objectives, in a Maelstrom game, it might matter that you can pull it away from the enemy scoring unit now, rather than just claiming it at the end of the game, or getting into a losing assault on top of it.

The relic wouldn't quite take away battle focus, though - if you moved out 6", then ran back D6, the relic has still only moved 6" that turn. Rising Crescendo, same thing, though it'd limit you to dropping the relic before charging, if you can do that (which I never can remember and I don't have my BRB in front of me).

Also I couldn't quite decide if Sisters ought to be #3 or #4 - went with #4 because it's thematically in keeping with a lot of things they can already do.

If you want to make infantry useful then do it for the reasons it is actually useful.

Low Profile: Models firing at units composed entirely of infantry models suffer -1 to BS when firing over half the weapon's range. Weapons with the barrage rule ignore this penalty.

You are not firing at an infantry with the same accuracy that you fire at a tank/bike/MC/walker, especially at long range. We are not playing fantasy with blobs of infantry marching forward, this is supposed to be modern/scifi warfare, those guys will try to avoid being shot!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maybe also remove it for Bulky and bigger infantries.

WH40k is fundamentally flawed by GW when their goal is to sell more models transitioning from an infantry squad combat game to a total warzone with aircraft and super heavy tanks and walkers.

The only good troops are the broken eldar jet bikes because the stupid editors forgot to write in, "for every 3 models, one jet bike can be upgraded to carry a scatter laser." But no they wont even errata it and they even raised the price so that 3 jet bikes cost like $50.

thank you GW for being greedy and ruining the game.

I Under stand that you have to create Imbalances to make a newly released codex attractive but damn you and your eldar.

How about one in ten for scatter lasers, one in four for shuriken cannons, and increase the price per upgrade from 10 points to 15, then reduce the armor save to a 4+ (Shining Spears can keep their 3+), reduce WS to 3 and move them to Fast Attack?

Honestly I'm not sure they'd be worth taking at that point, but...

I like the thought behind troops not counting as kill points, but that doesn't seem quite right - after all, you could take. All troops just to stop your opponent scoring at all. Instead, troops count as 1 kill point, everything else give 2, or even three.
I think that would give troops more worth by making it less of a risk to use your troops to take objectives than sending your elite troops.

 master of ordinance wrote:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:

With guard, 1 fully maxed platoon would allow them to unlock a single lemon russ (not a full squad, no one wants multiple tanks sitting on objectives with object secured)
.

No no and never. Right now our LR Battle Tanks are one of the few (as in 3 to 4) units available to us that are actually close to being worth the vast amount of points spent on them. If you made it so we had to bring a full maxed platoon - a bare minimal of close to 1000 points - for a single tank, and not even a squadron, then we might as well curl up and die. Now I know that many players out there get but hurt that the IG actually have something that is better than them but that is because we do tanks. They are our thing and you will not take them from us. End of discussion, the door is that way.

In answer to the OP, I do actually use core units in my IG army. My list includes several Veteran squads each with camo gear and a Heavy Bolter. Some also have Meltaguns. They make great ObSec units as one can quite simply stick them in cover and, with the camo bonus, they gain the save of a Space Marine at half the cost. Sitting there and plinking away is great fun and I have had them wreck all kinds of supposed 'Super Elite' units in the past, including Legion of the Damned, Terminators, Tac Squads, GK Terminators, GK Paladins, etc.

Did you not read the post? The suggestion would be that it would allow you to take A SINGLE Lemun Russ as a TROOP choice with OBJ SEC. You can still field however many you want in other sections of the army, this is just an option to unlock one in additional with a special rule. You could totally choose to ignore it still, and still field as many lemon russ as you want the old way...

Make it so that all infantry models can use grenades as a shooting attack if within 6" instead of just one per unit.

At least that's what I PERSONALLY would like as a SM player.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Make it so that all infantry models can use grenades as a shooting attack if within 6" instead of just one per unit.

At least that's what I PERSONALLY would like as a SM player.

Having once house-ruled that in, no.

Having 10 frag grenades out of a drop pod onto a guard blob is horrifying.

Giving all available marines a str 6 attack before charging a vehicle results in lots of deadness.

Increase the cost of a tactical marine by 50%, and that may be balanced-ish.

After some thinking:

Scoring becomes a stat with a value from 0 to 10.

Troops generally have this value at the 5-7 range. Other Units generally have this value at the 2-4 range.

When an Objective is ready to award points, award points based on the Scoring value (the objective itself may modify the total value). If the point is contested, subtract one player's total scoring value from the other's, and award the player with the positive amount, or 0 for ties.

Using the current set, Troops are generally inferior, cheaper versions of the more Elite choices.

My opinion of 7th, in my metagame, is that the rules have dramatically lessened the options for defensive play. My meta is purely aggressive, generally resulting in the most mobile army being able to co-ordinate devastating blows against the opposition. It sounds like fun, but I've accuratlely predicted the outcome of at least 90% of the games I've been involved in, at deployment. That's a drag.

A return to missions that allow for defensive tactics would help to improve the value of units that are "meat shields". That aren't fancy, just there to hold the line longer than your opponent can heap punishment on them.

For example, returning to the placement of objectives AFTER deployment zones are chosen. My sit'n'shoot Platoon is pretty much a non-issue in a game where they don't have an objective or two in their deployment zone to defend. I'm not going to be running my shooty platoon accross the board to claim an objective in my opponent's DZ. I'd have wasted all the points I put into heavy weapons.

Further, I can't use sacrifice units as I used to. It just doesn't seem to work this edition. Having "disposable" units would help with this. Making basic troopers cheaper, with more expensive upgrades would allow troops to fill these roles to a greater effect. Make 10 Tac Marines cost 100 points, but make the upgrade weapons twice the price. I could field 5 Tac Marines as objective hunters / sacrifice units, the same way I'd use 10 "naked" Guardsmen.

As has also been mentioned, having troops that don't have a more exciting version elsewhere would be good. In previous editions, I gladly spent points on my Platoons and Veterans [Troops] often spending half of my points on them. But Guard don't have a proper "Vanguard Vets" style unit that's better. Scions are garbage, but if they were better I'd probably not want to use as many Troop Choices, so kind of a Catch 22.

I like the current SM Tacticals more than I've liked them in other years... but I'd still usually rather play something else. If they could be noteably more durable, in an edition that allowed for defensive play, I'd probably love them.

jade_angel wrote:
How about one in ten for scatter lasers, one in four for shuriken cannons, and increase the price per upgrade from 10 points to 15, then reduce the armor save to a 4+ (Shining Spears can keep their 3+), reduce WS to 3 and move them to Fast Attack?

Honestly I'm not sure they'd be worth taking at that point, but...

No I really think it should be:

No point increase.

For every 3 wind riders, one may be upgraded to carry a scatter laser or shuriken cannon. So that 3 unlocks 1 and then 6 riders unlock 2 upgrades and then 9 riders unlock 3 upgrades. That way you dont get to spam as many.

back on topic.

Troops are just there to be a tax. The only way to make troops attractive is to make each one broken like wind rider by allowing a 1:1 upgrade ratio. For example: A tactical squad of 5 men can take 5 plasmaguns or missile launchers. Thereby making vanguard veterans and devastators nearly worthless. White scar or DA ravenwing bikers of 3 get to each carry a meltagun. Imperial Guards platoons of 10 men spam 10 plasmaguns. Allow cultists to carry 10 heavy stubers or flamers. Just a bunch of GW imbalances to make each and every troops as over powered as wind riders where each rider gets a special/heavy weapon.

At the most basic level, the basic troop unit should be able to do most things the more "interesting" units can do and ALMOST as well.

The specialist units are too good at what they're specialized at compared to the jack of all trade units.

Now I suppose it's one thing when those specialist units are something the army is intrinsically bad at- i.e. close combat specialists for Tau. Shooters for Orks.

But the difference between an assault squad and a tactical squad in close combat is probably too large. If X points of Assault squad charge X points of Tactical squad, the Assault Squad should barely win. Eventually.

The bonus to Assault Squads should be the jump packs,

Finally the suicide squad would have to be dealt with. How often do you see DS unit to kill the big nasty thing, while writing the unit off to their compesatory death?

They could stop adding a plethora of special rules+++ for every new release. Use the existing USRs rather than adding more bloated rules just to push sales of the the latest power armour snowflake.

MarsNZ wrote:
They could stop adding a plethora of special rules+++ for every new release. Use the existing USRs rather than adding more bloated rules just to push sales of the the latest power armour snowflake.

+1


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breton wrote:

But the difference between an assault squad and a tactical squad in close combat is probably too large. If X points of Assault squad charge X points of Tactical squad, the Assault Squad should barely win. Eventually.

And that's why I use crusader squads

Just make their weapons not suck. You don't want space marines, because you don't want bolters. Bolters don't kill anything fast enough. You take a ton of bolters to actually kill a squad of even Orks, and you take like 100 bolters to kill a monstrous creature. Give them salvo 2/3, give them shred, or rending, just give them something. Give sergeants a rule that allows them to boost bolter fire in a squad to make them just not a random suck ass challenge target.

Bolters should not be crap weapons.

Of course many other troops need love too. Shootaboyz should have a rule that reflects the massive weight of fire they unleash, guardsmen need freaking cheaper special and heavy weapons...

IG need their power weapons to get cheaper by 5 points each. They cost the same as a marine, but are less likely to hit, less likely to wound, hit later, and are on a very weak model, who will likely die before he can swing.

10 points for a poweraxe, please.

Orders seem to keep IG in the game though.

I propose Special Upgrades Recovery in squads for basic troops which are not elites or fast attack or heavy support unlocked by special hq or codex rule.

Example: The plasma gun in a tactical squad gets picked up by another marine should the original bearer gets hot and fails armor save. The Power Sword and melta bomb gets picked up by another marine should the sergeant fail combat. The lascannon gets picked up should a sniper kill him thru precision shots.

idea #2
Why are necron warriors so good? They get flyers for transports... The get a re-aninimation. They get 4+ armor. They get basic weapons that auto glance on 6s. All for the low cost of 13ppm!!!

To make marines on par with 13ppm of necrons. They need all bolters to rending. They need a free fnp of 6+ atleast. They need a cheap flyer as a transport.

Idea#3
For chaos space marines. You make them Even Cheaper! You mutate their rhinos to have daemonic flight! You rip the top off and make it a free upgrade for oppened top special rule. You give their bolters malefic ammo for free! Or 1 ppm. You give their ccw rending. You let them sacrifice a marine to auto pass a failed ld check. You Give them 2 rhinos at 20 men squads or a bigger transport. At 20 men they should get free marks and icons. at 20 men they should have 4 special or heavy weapons.

MarsNZ wrote:
They could stop adding a plethora of special rules+++ for every new release. Use the existing USRs rather than adding more bloated rules just to push sales of the the latest power armour snowflake.

Pretty sure the Eldar don't use Power Armour, and neither do the Necrons, but keep grinding that axe; sharpened weapons give you Shred, after all.

 Filch wrote:
I propose Special Upgrades Recovery in squads for basic troops which are not elites or fast attack or heavy support unlocked by special hq or codex rule.

Example: The plasma gun in a tactical squad gets picked up by another marine should the original bearer gets hot and fails armor save. The Power Sword and melta bomb gets picked up by another marine should the sergeant fail combat. The lascannon gets picked up should a sniper kill him thru precision shots.

idea #2
Why are necron warriors so good? They get flyers for transports... The get a re-aninimation. They get 4+ armor. They get basic weapons that auto glance on 6s. All for the low cost of 13ppm!!!

To make marines on par with 13ppm of necrons. They need all bolters to rending. They need a free fnp of 6+ atleast. They need a cheap flyer as a transport.

Idea#3
For chaos space marines. You make them Even Cheaper! You mutate their rhinos to have daemonic flight! You rip the top off and make it a free upgrade for oppened top special rule. You give their bolters malefic ammo for free! Or 1 ppm. You give their ccw rending. You let them sacrifice a marine to auto pass a failed ld check. You Give them 2 rhinos at 20 men squads or a bigger transport. At 20 men they should get free marks and icons. at 20 men they should have 4 special or heavy weapons.

I actually like that first idea. Now, crunch-wise, I think it'd make sense to do this - if a model with different wargear (a Sergeant, a special weapon/heavy weapon guy) would die (and I do mean die, as in lose their last wound or take a wound with ID, etc), they can essentially make a Look Out, Sir! roll on a 4+, even if they're not normally allowed to. This roll is made after any saves, FNP, reanimation, etc have already been failed. If they succeed, model with the unit's default wargear dies instead. If there aren't any, too bad. This represents a different guy picking up the weapons, and a failure means the weapon was damaged. It's a little funky for vet sergeants and their equivalent, since they have a different statline, but I think doing it this way cuts back on bookkeeping. Doesn't change much for Sergeants, since they can benefit from LOS anyway.

I think for that one, pretty much everyone should get it. It's most useful for Imperial armies, with their "a few alternate weapons scattered here and there" model, or for Dark Eldar who do much the same; less useful for Tau, Eldar and Necrons who tend to arm their units more uniformly. It makes no fluff sense for 'nids, but honestly, they've got the short end of the stick with "no shinies because they're unfluffy", so heck, they get it too. Almost makes sense for Warriors, even.

I think rending is a bit much for bolters - Eldar get away with it because shuricats have 12" range, and folks still rage about Terminators getting diced up by Guardians. Shred, maybe, or perhaps a boost to AP4. Another option might be to make bolters straight-up Assault 2, then buff Storm Bolters to either Assault 3 or Salvo 2/4 (the latter is much nicer for Terminators and Rhinos, of course).