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 Purifier wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

broxus wrote:
I could care less about the IG.

So you DO care about Imperial guard? I think you meant to say "I couldn't care less"

I keep hearing about these big conscript blobs as being the future, however, they die quick.

Shed some light, how are you killing them?

Sure,

Flamethrowers, assault cannons, hurricane bolters, bolters, snipers, and assault squads.

Just snagged 200 more guardsmen fully painted on the cheap. I can now drop 450 guardsmen down with full commissar compliment to negate battleshock and some room for other things.

#gittinGud2017

 Galas wrote:
Wow man... who, 6 months ago, could expect that the most OP armies in 8th could be Orks, Tyranids and Imperial Guard?

Talk about shaking the meta!

The next question is of course who thinks those will still be considered OP six months from now?

broxus wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

broxus wrote:
I could care less about the IG.

So you DO care about Imperial guard? I think you meant to say "I couldn't care less"

I keep hearing about these big conscript blobs as being the future, however, they die quick.

Shed some light, how are you killing them?

Sure,

Flamethrowers, assault cannons, hurricane bolters, bolters, snipers, and assault squads.

So what I seem to be hearing across threads is "if you use many times their worth in points to take them down, they die easy." That doesn't really seem like amazing tips.

 Blacksteel wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Wow man... who, 6 months ago, could expect that the most OP armies in 8th could be Orks, Tyranids and Imperial Guard?

Talk about shaking the meta!

The next question is of course who thinks those will still be considered OP six months from now?

Orks won't. People claiming orks are OP now are basically just lumping them in with the other "horde" armies. The difference being, 3 points for a conscript and 4 for a guardsman is a good deal. 6 points for an ork boy is not even close to the same value. You also really need transports on top of that, if you want them to do damage. Or you can look at gretchin, which are the same price as a conscript while being weaker in virtually every way.

 Purifier wrote:

broxus wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

broxus wrote:
I could care less about the IG.

So you DO care about Imperial guard? I think you meant to say "I couldn't care less"

I keep hearing about these big conscript blobs as being the future, however, they die quick.

Shed some light, how are you killing them?

Sure,

Flamethrowers, assault cannons, hurricane bolters, bolters, snipers, and assault squads.

So what I seem to be hearing across threads is "if you use many times their worth in points to take them down, they die easy." That doesn't really seem like amazing tips.

Alternately "Easy one-round squad wipes are much harder to come by in 8th than they were in 7th".

(They still exist, but they're not the norm anymore. You have to devote actual effort to killing things.)

(Or point Flash Gitz at them. F*** Flash Gitz.)

 Purifier wrote:

broxus wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 Hollow wrote:

broxus wrote:
I could care less about the IG.

So you DO care about Imperial guard? I think you meant to say "I couldn't care less"

I keep hearing about these big conscript blobs as being the future, however, they die quick.

Shed some light, how are you killing them?

Sure,

Flamethrowers, assault cannons, hurricane bolters, bolters, snipers, and assault squads.

So what I seem to be hearing across threads is "if you use many times their worth in points to take them down, they die easy." That doesn't really seem like amazing tips.

Not to mention that Flamers now for the most part only doing D6 hits and not negating armour. Plus if you're in range to flame them, you're in rapid fire range. Also, you've got to get into Flamethrower range.

9 Crisis suits armed with 3 flamers each can on average do 42 wounds to the blob. But those 9 suits cost 621 points.

Really from what I can see the problem with conscripts is scaling - they synergize a bit too well with commissar and company commanders. If the commissar scaled so that the unit would lose a max of the multiple of ten (minimum 1), that would let morale at least whittle away at them. If conscripts, being the chaff, fairly recent recruits, had to actually roll to accept commands - say against their own leadership like in the past, or against a commissar's if one is nearby, suddenly orders are still useful but not automatic on them. I'd honestly rather see fixes like this and then seeing how it works out in the wild before just upping their points.

What are people's thoughts on stormtroopers? They seem fairly balanced to me and finally useable, except for plasma where they just skyrocket past the norm. This seems more a problem with the buffs and cost reductions plasma has received than with the stormies themselves though.

HWS are super fragile, so anything you can get into the backline, or anything with long range/ignores line of sight will be able to remove the pretty easily.

Artillery vehicles are also fairly squishy as far as vehicles go, but more importantly can be tied up in melee, so Kommando squads, warbikers, or stormboyz or anything fast or with deepstrike can get to them and keep them from being effective. Even if they fall back, they can't take orders, so can't shoot.

Taurox Primes with Gatling are probably broken, but remember the are T6, so tankbustas, rokkits, and klaws wound them on 3+, and their short range means they need to get close to you.

Scions, and especially command squads of them, are definitely busted, but their best option is plasma, which is only good if it has good targets. Using small squads in cover to deny deep strike, or units of cheap stuff like grots can keep them out of range of the things they want to shoot: characters, tanks, heavy infantry, and your big guns. Remember, if they don't come in by turn 3 they are dead, so if you can force your opponent to put them down somewhere that isn't that great, you've eliminated a lot of their value.

Leman Russes are expensive with low damage output, but high durability. Tank Commanders and Pask are scarier, but as a rule of thumb for Orks, if it doesn't have a punisher cannon, you can probably afford to focus on killing other things. If it has triple heavy flamers, stay away if you can, as it makes an expensive unit useless. Or hit it with things that don't care about being on fire, like empty trucks, which hilariously can force the tank to fall back and not shoot, or be locked in combat with a durable, but cheap model.

Most of the superheavies are very expensive, even given what you get for them, and are good targets for tankbustas. IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER CHARGE A BANEBLADE (or baneblade variant) BECAUSE THEY CAN SHOOT OUT OF COMBAT BUT YOU CAN'T SHOOT IN.

Now for the conscripts. Instead of marching 30 boyz at them, you need to maximize your ability to get close fast. Da Jump is good for one squad, but I would actually suggest trucks. It takes 2-3 full conscript blobs with all members in rapid fire range and getting FRFSRF to kill a truck. If you have your lobbas working over their HWSs they should have a lot less stuff to shoot at them that likes shooting at them, so they are decently survivable. Furthermore, you can charge with the trucks to eat overwatch fire, or just force them to fall back next turn or be tarpitted, while you boyz do other stuff if there are more important targets available. Remember, every time they use the order to shoot after falling back, they are not using FRFSRF, so you are cutting their firepower in half. Also, when you do charge them, see if you can use the 3" + 3" pile in and consolidate to get into combat with other units, as this means they don't get to overwatch you and have to fall back with multiple units.

It may be frustrating to try to stay in combat with conscripts, but being charged by 24 boyz and their trucks will wipe half the squad a turn, so it is still worth trying to get to grips with them.

The other option is to go full Green Tide, with enough support units to maximize your charges. Once you get a couple of units into combat (even if they've each lost 10 guys), they will wipe 50 conscripts a turn. With no chance to fall back and shoot you. Just *poof* gone. This will be trickier to do, since you still need enough stuff to stop HWSs and Taurox Primes from mangling your infantry.

Also note that only woods, craters, and battlescape reduce charge by 2", all other terrain does not, and barricades actually give you an extra 1."

In addition, commentary from those who have been playing suggests that tables need a lot more LOS blocking terrain on them in this addition because of the nerfs to cover saves. This should help keep you from being shot to death on your way up field.

But this is just my 2 cents. I don't play Orks and could be very wrong about some things.

@MaxT: I'm a Ork/Xenos, I don't get snipers.

@Commissar Benny: Just because you don't have the models/patience, doesn't mean other people won't as well - it's a damn effective list, expect to see it at tournaments. Weirdboyz can move one squad per turn (max); and Shootas are unreliably going to hit things (5+ BS). Conscripts cost less, and shoot more, even for the same BS - sure, the Shoota Boyz charge, but then the Conscripts fall back and return fire in their face.

But yes, you need to get EVERYTHING in melee at the same time - hard, even more so with a footslogging list.

@Kaiyanwang: I'm memeing? How so? Bringing up a legitimate unit that concerns me with it's potential, and asking about the best way to deal with it as an Ork is a meme?

@Latro_: Yeah; your best bet is tying them up in melee and requiring them to fall back; it'll negate half the shots (order).

@Elbows: 100% agree - the issue is the scaling on a mob of Conscripts; Guard squads are now balanced around being 10 man strong, and I presume the orders were designed with this number in mind. That said, it's magnified 5 times on a single Conscript squad - I'd say that Conscripts should either require a 1/6 roll for an order to succeed, or that only 1/5 of the unit benefits from any given order. These numbers reflect that a Conscript squad is 5 times as large as a normal guard squad.

@Marmatag: Exactly - having morale not apply to these models is a huge deal. If I lose half my Ork boyz, and don't have another squad nearby, I'll lose the other half (or most of it) as well - for Conscripts, morale literally doesn't matter if a Commissar is nearby; 1d3 dead is not an issue when there's 50 of them.

Morale killing should be an effective method of dealing with them.

@Inquisitor Lord Katherine: Money isn't an issue when it comes to tournament lists - also, I don't have any of those weapons that you mentioned, I'm an Ork. The most amount of shots I can output from one weapon is 3d6 (Deffstorm Mega Blasta on Gorkanaut, 365 points), or 45 shots from one unit, if I get lucky (1/3 chance, 255 points).

@ross-128: Just because it's unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen. People who play Warhammer 40k have deep pockets - and even if they don't, it's not hard to improvise models from other lines, or pick up a ton of models cheap on ebay.

@gungo: 100% agreed; you WILL see these lists in future tournaments. They're too effective not to be run. Plus, Guard armies are notoriously huge in any edition, so people will have a lot of models, or at least, no aversion to getting a large amount.

@Bobug: I support the removal of template weapons - however, there isn't enough firepower in the Index of most armies lists nowadays to bring down 50 models in one go. Which is reasonable, otherwise, why bring hordes? Morale should be the effective counter to a horde, but a commissar makes that point moot. Also; I'm an Ork, I don't have sniper units.

@SilverAlien: Yeah, haha. With templates and morale removed, you can't deal with them effectively - and enough dice will bring anything down; that was the Ork philosophy, I see the guard have accepted it as well (and are doing it better =( ).

@Blacksteel: Orks won't be considered OP in 6 months time; at least not against competent players. They're in a better spot then they were before, but they still have a number of issues; issues that other armies don't have.

@Kurhanik: Agreed - orders are 5x as effective on them, due to squad sizes. That's the real issue - I'd say either they have a 1/6 chance of successfully accepting an order, or only 1/5 of the squad should benefit; it keeps them in line with orders on other guard squads, who are 10 units max.

@Purifier/A Town Called Mallus: Yup - the amount of firepower required to dislodge them is exceedingly high when it comes to points costs. If you hit on 4+, wound on 3+ and they get a 5+ cover save; you need on average 150.15 shots to kill a full squad. Who has that kind of firepower, for those numbers?

@SuspiciousSucculent: Fair enough points: It's hard to maneuvar that much firepower and models into range of their squads, especially after getting shot up by the rest of their forces. Conscripts are cheap as chips; your other forces aren't.

gungo wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
By reminding the person planning to build them how long they'll take to paint?

As amusing as it is to math out, I think the all-Conscript army is likely to remain pure mathhammer unless some very determined, very patient player brings them to a tournament. You'll pretty much never see them in normal play, it's just too many models for a typical player to manage. Not to mention how expensive it would be to buy all those models (re-cast/china-cast aside), since they use the same models as infantry squads.

As long as they don't reach a certain critical mass they're fine, and I don't think most people will have enough models to get them to critical mass.

to be fair I don't know a single guard person who doesn't have almost 100 infantry models. I play DKOK guard and orks and I have about 150 of each infantry. They are cheap as chips. Ffs guard models are easily available in the secondary market or 3rd party manufacturers and one of the easiest model to collect. They style of guard models haven't changed since 2nd edition. My second edition orks are tiny compared to current ork models and my steel legion models make a perfect conscript squad for my DKOK. Unfortunately I only have 68 steellegion infantry models and 60 DKOK infantry models. 10 plasmagunners, 8 meltagunners, 7 flamers, like 4 of each heavy weapon team. (And various other units like a dozen sergeants, commanders, medics, vox casters, so anyone who has played guard or orks have a crap ton of infantry this isn't theory hammer. It's not terribly hard for me to paint another 30 infantry to spam another squad of conscripts in a month.

So you play Death Korps using the AM rules? The DKoK list doesn't have conscripts.

fe40k wrote:
@SuspiciousSucculent: Fair enough points: It's hard to maneuvar that much firepower and models into range of their squads, especially after getting shot up by the rest of their forces. Conscripts are cheap as chips; your other forces aren't.

Part of why I think Trukk boyz could be helpful is that it is a lot easier to maneuver them to where they need to be. As it stands, especially with people still setting up and using terrain designed for 7th's cover rules, the shooting coming at you will be painful. I think that boards need to be much denser to balance this out, which will be a huge help for Orks. The cover nerfs hit Orks hard. Conscripts are cheap as chips, for sure, but if you can get your stuff where it needs to be while still having about 2/3 of your forces left, you start mulching them VERY quickly. Getting there is going to be tough until people start putting more LOS-blocking stuff on the battlefield, though.

Odd question, but for we whom prefer Veteran armies/something other than the endless tide of bodies, is there a option for something else. And by option, I mean something that is competitive and feasible.

(Also, some of us cannot stand the thought of painting 200+ figures)

 master of ordinance wrote:
Odd question, but for we whom prefer Veteran armies/something other than the endless tide of bodies, is there a option for something else. And by option, I mean something that is competitive and feasible.

(Also, some of us cannot stand the thought of painting 200+ figures)

Tempestus Scions squads with full plasmas seems very powerfull and viable.

They're strong, but they don't have the staying power to carry an army by themselves. I don't think IG can really pull off a straight elite infantry list, mostly because that's the Space Marines' turf. Space Marines just do the whole elite infantry thing better.

However, plasma scions could be good support for a parking lot list. A parking lot list isn't exactly going to be top-tier either, but it could pull off some surprise victories simply by subverting the meta.

See, the meta in 8th is shaping up to be very infantry-heavy. This means most all-comers lists will be skewed away from anti-tank. They'll have some, but they're not likely to be prepared for a full parking lot list because they're not expecting to see one.

So, take a bunch of tanks. Hellhounds, Punisher Russes, and Taurox Primes for anti-infantry. Manticores for anti-tank, maybe Vendettas depending on how their cost works out, since lascannon boating is potentially a good vehicle-borne AT option. Scions fill out your troop slots so you can take high-CP detachments, and bring lots of plasma to shore up your AT ability. You won't need Commissars for this list, so you can take tech-priests instead to make your tanks more annoying to remove. Just make sure to space your stuff carefully to minimize enemy deep-strike opportunities, board control is one area where you'll struggle.

Because the tanks will put plenty of units on the table, your scions can all start in reserve. But if you see an enemy clogging too much board space to make deep strikes happen, you can stuff them in the Taurox Primes instead. Their jobs: plasma enemy AT units to death, assassinate characters, and teleport onto objectives.

It won't be top-tier, if someone list-tailors against you you'll get wrecked. Even an accidental bad match-up (or some unlucky rolls on multi-wound weapons) could ruin your day. But if someone isn't expecting it, they might quickly find that they don't have enough AT to deal with it. And then that AT dies, and you're laughing as your tech-priests repair any chip damage their anti-infantry weapons manage to put on your tanks.

i think the 'fix' to conscripts is pretty straight forward (in a way that reworking the points aren't, because they're too far down
at the shallow end, and changing the value means re-examining the value of guardsmen, cultists, gretchin, orks, neophyte hybrids and etc.

An additional rule offers a better solution.
'Ill-trained, Ill disciplined': a conscript squad cannot benefit from orders or the summary execution rule.

Alternately, change the squad size, and cap the maximum at 20, or even 10 like normal guard. Doesn't make much sense to train them to act like blobs when the (few) survivors will never be organized in that fashion.



@ross-128: the thing with anti-tank weapons is they're also just really good weapons in general, and deal with marines, 2 or 3 wound infantry, bikes, and even characters once you clear away the chaff. You don't really lose out buy bringing them, even against a lot of all foot armies. The AP alone is often worthwhile.

It's interesting to see the turnaround. Footguard in 7th was considered dead and I was a fool for running it (especially 50 odd veterans with all the upgrades (which I did for fluff but people said was stupid and wasteful)) and now it's strong.

Even though my particular vets got fethed over, I'm hoping they get fixed in the FAQ or IG Codex otherwise I don't know what I'm going to do with my army.

With my tyranids, my initial plan is going to be to first use lictors and/or Deathleaper to go after the commissar. If that fails, two brood of termagant supported by a tervigon, which I would take anyway, and venomthropes. Cast horror on conscripts. -2 to hit rolls between that and thrones. Fire preferred-enemy fleshborers until conscripts dead. Rinse&repeat.

Voss wrote:
i think the 'fix' to conscripts is pretty straight forward (in a way that reworking the points aren't, because they're too far down
at the shallow end, and changing the value means re-examining the value of guardsmen, cultists, gretchin, orks, neophyte hybrids and etc.

Except it really doesn't mean that. Go look at the value of the units you mentioned, then look at guard. Hybrids cost more than a guardsman despite being almost identical, gretchin cost as much a conscript but are notably worse, cultists cost more than guardsman but are worse.

Guardsman and conscripts are both a point too cheap compared to basically every other army in the game. You can see this is a running theme, every other army pays roughly the same amount. Sure, cultists are marginally worse the neophyte hybrids for the same point, but guard are cheaper than both for no good reason.

So no, changing the value of IG conscripts and basic guardsmen would just put them in line with every other balanced faction.

SilverAlien wrote:

Voss wrote:
i think the 'fix' to conscripts is pretty straight forward (in a way that reworking the points aren't, because they're too far down
at the shallow end, and changing the value means re-examining the value of guardsmen, cultists, gretchin, orks, neophyte hybrids and etc.

Except it really doesn't mean that. Go look at the value of the units you mentioned, then look at guard. Hybrids cost more than a guardsman despite being almost identical, gretchin cost as much a conscript but are notably worse, cultists cost more than guardsman but are worse.

Guardsman and conscripts are both a point too cheap compared to basically every other army in the game. You can see this is a running theme, every other army pays roughly the same amount. Sure, cultists are marginally worse the neophyte hybrids for the same point, but guard are cheaper than both for no good reason.

So no, changing the value of IG conscripts and basic guardsmen would just put them in line with every other balanced faction.

And all those other factions have powerful units and special abilities to call upon, which in turn make them more powerful than the Guard. Guard do not have special abilities, skills, or powerful units. They have cheap bodies, and that is apparently what we do in this new edition.
So please do not try and take our sole advantage from us.

Uh, guard has orders, which is more than some armies. The only thing ad mech has is canticles, which is roughly equivalent to orders. Not a whole bunch more that you don't have.

 Purifier wrote:
Uh, guard has orders, which is more than some armies. The only thing ad mech has is canticles, which is roughly equivalent to orders. Not a whole bunch more that you don't have.

And you get orders even if you bring a squad of Deathwatch.

 NivlacSupreme wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Uh, guard has orders, which is more than some armies. The only thing ad mech has is canticles, which is roughly equivalent to orders. Not a whole bunch more that you don't have.

And you get orders even if you bring a squad of Deathwatch.

How do you figure that? I just don't understand what you mean by this.

 Purifier wrote:

 NivlacSupreme wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Uh, guard has orders, which is more than some armies. The only thing ad mech has is canticles, which is roughly equivalent to orders. Not a whole bunch more that you don't have.

And you get orders even if you bring a squad of Deathwatch.

How do you figure that? I just don't understand what you mean by this.

Canticles only work if your detachment is all Mechanicum.

 NivlacSupreme wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 NivlacSupreme wrote:

 Purifier wrote:
Uh, guard has orders, which is more than some armies. The only thing ad mech has is canticles, which is roughly equivalent to orders. Not a whole bunch more that you don't have.

And you get orders even if you bring a squad of Deathwatch.

How do you figure that? I just don't understand what you mean by this.

Canticles only work if your detachment is all Mechanicum.

Right, now I get it. I thought you were telling me that I still got my version of orders, but right, you mean he still gets his orders while I lose my Canticles. Which is entirely true.

fe40k wrote:


@Kaiyanwang: I'm memeing? How so? Bringing up a legitimate unit that concerns me with it's potential, and asking about the best way to deal with it as an Ork is a meme?

I cannot take seriously an un-counterable blob. That's about it. Especially seeing its weak spots, and the way unconventional deployment of troops (deep strike, infiltrate) changed in the current edition.

 master of ordinance wrote:
And all those other factions have powerful units and special abilities to call upon, which in turn make them more powerful than the Guard. Guard do not have special abilities, skills, or powerful units. They have cheap bodies, and that is apparently what we do in this new edition.
So please do not try and take our sole advantage from us.

Nope, guard has access to special rules (orders are generally one of the better special rules out there) and has access to a ton of powerful units. Even without templates they have excellent tanks and most of the oddball units got buffed.

The index is in no way weak outside of infantry spam, certainly not to the point they need notable undercosted infantry than are virtually impossible to deal with without overspending.

Also, a Leman Russ Punisher goes through Conscripts like butter, and it comes up to only 211 points at BS3+, which is only 11 points more than the conscripts and their supporting characters.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Also, a Leman Russ Punisher goes through Conscripts like butter, and it comes up to only 211 points at BS3+, which is only 11 points more than the conscripts and their supporting characters.

Nobody forbids you to put there 2, one that hits with 2+ and one 3+, given that they can wound with 5+ or better a lot more stuff

Maybe it is just me but I think people are really over rating fall back from non-flying units. I may be wrong, but I feel like it is pretty easy to deny with positioning in many cases. Some of that is dependent on the positioning of my opponents models but if they spread out at all, you just surround one model and they are stuck.