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I want troops to actually be a serious threat in the game. Standard rifles should be feared by other infantry if flanked, and or out in the open.

I also hope that infantry receive some kind of cover bonuses against vehicles. The reason I say this is because infantry typically are the first targeted not because they are the highest threat, but because they are the easiest to kill (and people just simply like killing things).

I also hope that infantry are not made slower as foot sloggers are slow enough as it is.

Yeah, I really hope the average move is 6" in 8th edition. I'd be okay with slow troops (Plaguebearers, for instance) being less, but by and large? 6" or better.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
I want troops to actually be a serious threat in the game. Standard rifles should be feared by other infantry if flanked, and or out in the open.

I also hope that infantry receive some kind of cover bonuses against vehicles. The reason I say this is because infantry typically are the first targeted not because they are the highest threat, but because they are the easiest to kill (and people just simply like killing things).

I also hope that infantry are not made slower as foot sloggers are slow enough as it is.

Not always.
I run Space Wolves, rarely do I run Deathstars as such, I run Wulfen boosted TWC and they usually die to troops. Got to the point I started adding Flamer Dreads in Drop Pods just to clear the rotten things, works alright for Scattbikes and Vehicles as well.

In keeping with the spirit of the OP, I'll add my contribution to how troops might look in 8th Edition:

Guardian Defenders: 100 points

M: 6"

W: 1

Sv: 5+

Bv: 7

Ranged Weapons: Range/Attacks/To Hit/To Wound/Rend/Damage
Shuriken Catapault 12" 2 4+ 4+ -1 1

Weapons Platform 36" 2 4+ 3+ -2 D3

Description:
A unit of Guardian Defenders consists of ten models. It may include the following options:
Weapons Platform- 20 points
Up to 10 additional Guardian Defenders- 10 points each

Abilities:
Ancient Doom: All Eldar have an ingrained fear and hatred of Slaanesh and the followers of She Who Thirsts. Models from this unit make Battleshock tests at -1 Bravery if there is a unit with the Slaanesh Keyword within 6" of this unit, but also re-roll To Hit in the Combat Phase against models with the Slaanesh Keyword.

Battle Focus: This unit may Run before or after resolving its attacks in the Shooting Phase. You must completely resolve the shooting attacks and/or Run moves of a unit with Battle Focus before moving onto another unit in the Shooting Phase.

Weapons Platform: A Weapons Platform model is part of unit of Guardian Defenders for the purpose of Bravery Tests and casualties. A model from this unit of Guardian Defenders within 2" of the Weapons Platform may forgo its normal shooting attack to allow the Weapons Platform to make an attack. The Weapons Platform does not make any attacks in the Combat Phase. The Weapons Platform may be modeled with one of the following listed options; otherwise the Weapons Platform is modeled with a Shuriken Cannon

Scatter Laser: When an enemy model suffers damage from this weapon, the Weapons Platform may make an additional attack at the same enemy unit.

Starcannon: Treat this weapon as having an additional -1 for its Rend profile.

Eldar Missile Launcher: Add 1 to the damage dealt by this weapon to a unit consisting of 5 or more models.

Bright Lance: This weapon deals Mortal Wounds to enemy models. Roll a D6 to determine the number of wounds against an enemy vehicle model.

Bladestorm: Shuriken weapons are capable of penetrating even the heaviest of armour plate with their monomolecular blades. When resolving wounds from Shuriken Catapaults or a Shuriken Cannon, any roll of 6 To Wound adds an additional -2 to its Rend profile for that wound.

Keywords: Eldar, Craftworlds, Guardian Defenders

I expect to continue to not be given all the available weapon options for my Termagants. GW, I know it is too much, but give us spike rifles. And stranglewebs. That have better rules. And the right to buy actual ripper swarm broods through your site, but not 14 dollars for 1 single 13ppm base.

One of the issues I'm considering now is that while I'd like Tac squads, and all marine squads points to go up it's dependent on the rule set for 8th edition.
Space Marines have Tac squads and Scout squads as troop choices. The question I have is how many troop choices will be mandatory? In 2nd it was simply a matter 25% points spent on squads which governed every kind of squad, as far as I can remember. So you didn't have to take Tac's or Scouts if you didn't want to. I'm wondering about the army structure in 8th and if it's like AoS. That comes out to 3 Battle line minimum. (or is it 2? have to look.)
There's a few options for pricing units they could move to. Set a cost for the first number in the unit then a changed cost for the next amount and so on. 5+100 next 5+70 next 5 and ?
I'm an Ork player. Previously 1 Marine was roughly worth 3 Orks. Costs have come down with the power of special rules and the current standard equipment. A Marine having to Buy a Frag and a Krak at an additional 3 or so points, and the now standard issue of bolt pistol as well. (I can't be sure about that anymore.It may have been standard for longer.)
I just want them to find a good and balanced points cost for , drum roll please.... every unit in the game.
I have extremely low expectations.
We'll see. I'm hoping that ork bob sizes go up. I'd like to be able to field a mob of 40 or 50 boys.and a few smaller mobs in trukks. I'm a huge fan of troop choices more than the other slots. I love my green tides, I have easily 3 of them or more.
So being able to put a durable chunk of boys down with out all the trappings of over 100 models sounds good to me. And leave points for everything else.
Stats? doesn't really matter as long as I can keep them from running off or killing each other.

The thing is, Troops were never meant to be "good", at least not compared to Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. Troops are suppose to represent your most common troopers and were suppose to be a points sink. This is most evident with Space Marines as Veterans, Assault Marines and Devastators are all point for point much better than the standard Tactical Squad.

This is actually a balancing factor. One that was completely destroyed in 7th edition with formations and special detachments (arguably it was destroyed way back in 4th-5th edition with the few armies that could manipulate the FoC with very little drawbacks, like Orks and Dark Angels). They would not seem as bad if people were restricted from taking other options, rather than run "all (x)" armies left and right.

I am hoping to see... This would help troops more then anything.

Required Formation:
1-2 HQ choices
2-6 Troops choices
0-6 Fast attack (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Elites (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Heavy Support (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-2 Lords of War (No more then 1 per HQ choice)
0-2 Fortifications (No more then 1 per HQ choice)

Youn wrote:
I am hoping to see... This would help troops more then anything.

Required Formation:
1-2 HQ choices
2-6 Troops choices
0-6 Fast attack (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Elites (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Heavy Support (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-2 Lords of War (No more then 1 per HQ choice)
0-2 Fortifications (No more then 1 per HQ choice)

I like that I'd give it a go.

If we are talking about wishlisting; Id really love it open topped went back to str 3 when it explodes

Youn wrote:
I am hoping to see... This would help troops more then anything.

Required Formation:
1-2 HQ choices
2-6 Troops choices
0-6 Fast attack (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Elites (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Heavy Support (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-2 Lords of War (No more then 1 per HQ choice)
0-2 Fortifications (No more then 1 per HQ choice)

The only way this works is if troops are equally useful or at least well balanced for their points. Some armies really get a lot of mileage out of their troops, or simply have super cheap troops available to pay this "troop tax", while others have expensive or marginally useful troops. Take current elder as an example, they can pay their "troop tax" with scat bikes vs say Grey Knights needing to pay it with expensive Strike Squads, or Terminators. The "HQ tax" here is similar, some armies have good and cheap HQ choices and others do not. If you wanted a more balanced approach you would need to make it 1 choice for x points of Troops.

Just for example Orks could fill 2 HQ and 6 troops for 280 points, Grey Knight need to spend 330 just to get 1 HQ and 2 Troops

Eldar can get 2 HQ and 6 Scat bike squads for 556 points.

So for this to work we would need to assume that the GK stuff is way better than what is available to other armies point for point.

This also assumes that all books have equally good things in all slots. It benefits armies that have at least 1 good choice in all FOC slots, because you need to pay less tax to get good units.

I would like to see allies become more restricted with no battle brothers at all except for a very few exceptions like Inq with most non marine imperial factions. Only one "allied" detachment per army composition, most being allies of convenience. Each alien faction should have one allie or subfaction that they are battle brothers with ie.

Each army should have it's own flavor special strengths and be able to stand on it's own with allies adding spice not making them viable.


Oh and formations should be only for your main army/detachment not for allies. No more multiple formations in an army except for the army specific Decurion and those should be dialed back a little for most.

 Vryce wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 warhead01 wrote:
I'm hoping Marines go back up to 300 points a squad. where they should be.

So you just don't want to see marines at all do you.

It's not really that. I mostly want to see the points per model go away for block points per 5 or per 10. I'm a little tired of the way it is now.
I played with 300 point Tack squads, it was rough. And not the best use of points but things were different then.
I'd be ok with 100 points for 5 Marines.
But anything is possible in new edition.

Standard marines have no business being 20ppm. Thats GK Stike Squad prices, and a Tac Marine has neither the wargear, nor special rules to warrant such a cost.

And no one in their right mind uses PAGK.

TAC squads are not the reason any form of space marines are competitive. You need very specific formations to make them anything but useless.

I hope 8th just gives Sgt. and their equivalents 2 wounds, like how Skittari do. I would be more willing to invest into upgrades for them at that point and would lead to better challenge dynamics.

Youn wrote:
I am hoping to see... This would help troops more then anything.

Required Formation:
1-2 HQ choices
2-6 Troops choices
0-6 Fast attack (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Elites (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-6 Heavy Support (No more then 1 per troop choice)
0-2 Lords of War (No more then 1 per HQ choice)
0-2 Fortifications (No more then 1 per HQ choice)

You know some armies get what equates to Fast Attack and Heavy Support in the Troops choices right?

That's another thing, I hope they reshuffle the choices that were never meant to be in troop choices back to their appropriate place.

Like Eldar Jetbikes. The only reason they became troops was to keep Saim Hann Craft World Armies legal during the transition from 3rd edition to 4th edition (where Saim Hann use to have fast attack as compulsories instead of troops until the 4th ed codex) and every subsequent codex writer forgot this little fact.

Also I kinda wish they would ditch the old FoC with a min/max slot system in favour of something akin to Old Fantasy or AoS, where you get a minimum number of "Core/Troop" choices and a max amount of everything else per 1000 points.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

The Deer Hunter wrote:
A lot of BA players see their army as an assault one, but this codex is not designed for assault

We are an assault army.
Because if we're not assaulting, we're Marines-1.
Maybe not as assault focused as 'Nids or Orks but we're an assault army none the less.

I don't think so. BA are neither a shooting list nor an assault list. Because they really can't do either well.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The thing is, Troops were never meant to be "good", at least not compared to Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. Troops are suppose to represent your most common troopers and were suppose to be a points sink. This is most evident with Space Marines as Veterans, Assault Marines and Devastators are all point for point much better than the standard Tactical Squad.

I don't know, I'd like to see Troops being "good" as in good for the points. It's pretty lame when iconic units suck and are only taken because they have to be. I think it would be nice if elites, fast attack, and heavy support could be really good situationally and when played well but not worth their points in certain scenarios or when played poorly. I'm sure that's easier said than done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Also I kinda wish they would ditch the old FoC with a min/max slot system in favour of something akin to Old Fantasy or AoS, where you get a minimum number of "Core/Troop" choices and a max amount of everything else per 1000 points.

I like that way of doing things. I'm not sure what the point is in differentiating between Heavy Support, Elites and Fast Attack when it comes to restricting things.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The thing is, Troops were never meant to be "good", at least not compared to Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. Troops are suppose to represent your most common troopers and were suppose to be a points sink. This is most evident with Space Marines as Veterans, Assault Marines and Devastators are all point for point much better than the standard Tactical Squad.

I don't know, I'd like to see Troops being "good" as in good for the points. It's pretty lame when iconic units suck and are only taken because they have to be. I think it would be nice if elites, fast attack, and heavy support could be really good situationally and when played well but not worth their points in certain scenarios or when played poorly. I'm sure that's easier said than done.

I think this should be how it shakes out:

HQs
Come in three types. Hero types, who are great at what they do, Tactical types, who give short range buffs, and Strategic types, who give much larger range buffs.

Troops
Your basic, go-to unit. Can be made good for most situations, but will usually be outshone by something else that's dedicated to that role.

Elites
Like Troops, but a lot more specialized. For instance, one elite might be great at tank hunting, another might be great at clearing out hordes.

Fast Attack
Very fast. Highly mobile, and good for pushing flanks and ambushing people, but not so hot in direct, mano-a-mano combat (so, your average FA squad should lose to equal points of Troops-but, their mobility should let them gang up on the Troops).

Heavy Support
Very killy, very tough, or both, but slow, and vulnerable to certain tactics.

Lords of War
Possibly mimic HQs, but bigger.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
The thing is, Troops were never meant to be "good", at least not compared to Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support. Troops are suppose to represent your most common troopers and were suppose to be a points sink. This is most evident with Space Marines as Veterans, Assault Marines and Devastators are all point for point much better than the standard Tactical Squad.

I don't know, I'd like to see Troops being "good" as in good for the points. It's pretty lame when iconic units suck and are only taken because they have to be. I think it would be nice if elites, fast attack, and heavy support could be really good situationally and when played well but not worth their points in certain scenarios or when played poorly. I'm sure that's easier said than done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
Also I kinda wish they would ditch the old FoC with a min/max slot system in favour of something akin to Old Fantasy or AoS, where you get a minimum number of "Core/Troop" choices and a max amount of everything else per 1000 points.

I like that way of doing things. I'm not sure what the point is in differentiating between Heavy Support, Elites and Fast Attack when it comes to restricting things.

The original design philosophy from Warhammer Fantasy (which predated 40k and was the basis of it) was that Core Choices (i.e: their troops) would be the most numerous in most armies but also not very effective. They were not suppose to excel at any one thing but not terrible at it either. Special and Rare Choices (the equivallent of Elites, HS and FA all together) were more specialized, with Special choices having some unique abilities but still generally all around good, while Rare choices were devastatingly powerful in one aspect but could be easily defeated with a proper counter. Most armies also went another step with the 1+ restriction, where you had to field at least one unit of generic usefulness before you even got to any of the good stuff (this was often because the "elite" of the army was already in the Core Section, such as Ironguts, Stormvermin and Temple Guard). Heavy Support, FA and Elites were based on that idea, but compartmentalized instead into "Powerful Weapons but slower than the rest", "Quicker but more fragile" and "better than the rest but more expensive" rather than "slightly different but still generic" and "crippling overspecialization".

I think 5th edition did it the best where Troops were just suppose to be survivable units sitting on objectives, as that's basically their role. if you make them fast, killy, or too good for their points (i.e: all three happened to the Scatbike) then they not only invalidate other troop choices, but also the rest of the army.

That seems like a reasonable way of doing things. I think I just misunderstood you because the word "good" can have more than one meaning.

Slightly tonight down MCs would make troops way more viable.

Mobility is a huge problem for a lot of units, too. A 6" move really doesn't do enough, JSJ and Jetbike = laughing at 6" move.

I'm in the school of thought that the mobility issue isn't due to these units being slow, but due to movement modifiers and transports being far too ubiquitous. Previously when Rhinos were 50 points a piece, Bikes being over 30 points a pop (and in Fast Attack almost exclusively), Jump Units being fairly rare and expensive (Raptors use to be almost 30 points a pop as well!) and Beasts and cavalry only having 12" charge instead of 12" move, 6" of movement is fairly reasonable. Plus back then Deepstrike and Infiltrate were only usable in certain missions (and thus a lot of people only saw it as a bonus, never a strategy to build a whole army around) and Scout was exceedingly rare.

Now everyone and their grannies can move 12" through buffs or wargear and deepstrike/infiltrate/scout is not only everywhere but also manditory for all missions, so the base movement has become obsolete. This is another issue of the designers of the current rules system forgetting the design principles. I hope that 8th edition will scale back such movement speeds to be the exception rather than the norm.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I'm in the school of thought that the mobility issue isn't due to these units being slow, but due to movement modifiers and transports being far too ubiquitous. Previously when Rhinos were 50 points a piece, Bikes being over 30 points a pop (and in Fast Attack almost exclusively), Jump Units being fairly rare and expensive (Raptors use to be almost 30 points a pop as well!) and Beasts and cavalry only having 12" charge instead of 12" move, 6" of movement is fairly reasonable. Plus back then Deepstrike and Infiltrate were only usable in certain missions (and thus a lot of people only saw it as a bonus, never a strategy to build a whole army around) and Scout was exceedingly rare.

Now everyone and their grannies can move 12" through buffs or wargear and deepstrike/infiltrate/scout is not only everywhere but also manditory for all missions, so the base movement has become obsolete. This is another issue of the designers of the current rules system forgetting the design principles. I hope that 8th edition will scale back such movement speeds to be the exception rather than the norm.

That was kinda my point. A 12" move isn't the end of the world. It's when you've got units that can move like 18-24" and still fire a ton of weapons.

Rhinos, and any transport that exists solely to move units, are not a part of the problem, at least to me.

I expect to see granular point costs go away and burn in a fire like they did in AOS. So you can't buy model by model anymore.

 auticus wrote:
I expect to see granular point costs go away and burn in a fire like they did in AOS. So you can't buy model by model anymore.

I can see how that simplifies the list-building part of the game, but it can also be kind of frustrating, especially when it comes to high-cost units.

 auticus wrote:
I expect to see granular point costs go away and burn in a fire like they did in AOS. So you can't buy model by model anymore.

40K flips back and forth between Marines coming in anywhere from 5 to 10 or coming in precisely 5 or 10.

I made all my squads 10-strong back when that was mandatory, so changing back wouldn't affect me much.

if they make it 5, 10 or bust, then my chaos armies will have a conniption.

I'm still habitually building my armies based on the god's favoured numbers. Nurgle will be displeased if I no longer have 7 units of 7 plague marines.

They could always make the god specific chaos marines only come in the god numbers.

As for always 5 or 10, unless points work out evenly I'm not a big fan because it removes a way to pick up a few points here or there. It makes playing a variety of point levels more difficult.

Breng77 wrote:

As for always 5 or 10, unless points work out evenly I'm not a big fan because it removes a way to pick up a few points here or there. It makes playing a variety of point levels more difficult.

That's exactly why I hope they go that way. I'm starting to think not letting players completely control their points spending will lead to a form of balance.
(Although I fully expect players to learn to game that as well. It's what they do.)