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I agree on this concept. There are far too many weapons that work well against both vehicles and infantry.

Way back in 2006 even online had this same issue. You had the largest ships in the game (battleships) that could pump out an insane amount of firepower, and it never hampered you to face infantry or large ships, it took on all comers. The fix they implemented was to make the large weapons even more powerful, but harder to hit small stuff, but increase the hp of nearly every thing by a %. This made equal class ships much harder to kill and therefore players started target priority on equal class ships.

I feel like the special weapons squads and heavy weapons squads are not having to pick a niche; or have to diversify their weapons. Four las cannon shots with rerolls work just fine against 10 man squads as an autocannon. There is no reason not to shoot them.

Something to think about, maybe a -1 to hit infantry for certain heavy weapons, ala powerfists and such? Just throwing it out there.

 Elbows wrote:
A gun exploding is a gun exploding. You don't want it to explode on your fancy infantry? Don't overcharge it. Simple as that. You don't want to run the risk, don't buy them.

But the risk is not equal. Losing a guardsman and a losing a primaris marine is not the same thing. If there was first an armour save allowed like in the previous editions I might agree.


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 sfshilo wrote:


Something to think about, maybe a -1 to hit infantry for certain heavy weapons, ala powerfists and such? Just throwing it out there.

I was actually thinking the same thing and I think it might be a good idea. It makes sense that a heavy antitank weapon might have hard time hitting a person.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:
There are four "classes" in 8th ed, I tend to call them target profiles but to each their own. Each target profile has different weapons that are best for engaging it, some examples:

Light Infantry Requirements:
Str: Low
AP: Low
Rate Of Fire: High
Damage: Low
Unit Examples: Necron warriors, Imperial guard, Guardians, poxwalkers.
Weapon Examples: heavy bolter, scatter laser, Tesla, Hurricane bolter, chainsword.

Heavy Infantry Requirements:
Str: Low
AP High
Rate of fire: Medium
Damage: Low to Medium
Unit Examples: Space marines, Necron Immortals, Terminators, Tyranid warriors, Aspect warriors.
Weapon Examples: Plasma Cannon, dark reaper launchers, Grav Cannon, battle cannon, power sword, smite.

That means that Grey Knights, by and large are neither of these catagories. Storm bolter St low AP low RoF low Dam low. According to your chart GKs are extra low troops that cost at least 21PPM (which other people consider "elite").

I think you have misunderstood what I said, when i said heavy Infantry requirements, those are the attributes of weapons best used against them. Good AP, 4 str is fine, there will be more than 1 in a unit so multiple shots is better, and at 1 or two wounds apiece doing 1 damage at a time will probably get the job done.

 Galas wrote:
Any infantry unit that costs more than 15-16 ppm is elite. Of course, a 50ppm Custodes is more elite than a 18ppm Intercessor. But they are both elite.

I think, 9-14ppm is the range of "Medium" infantry. 8 or lower is Light infantry, and when you enter 3-4ppm is chaff.

I disagree somewhat with this. The problem is really mostly about 2-wound models. Three wound models do much better. Obliterators, for example, which are extremely elite (21 ppw) are doing well, and the same is Tyranid warriors which in my opinion are medium infantry, even at 24 ppm (a common loadout). And then there are pseudo-infantry like scarabs or ripper swarms, and they are essentially chaff even at 13 and 11 ppm respectively (if I remember correctly).

On the other hand, 1-W elite infantry like Necron Immortals and Tactical Marines are struggling because they are overcosted, not because the suffer disproportionately from multi-wound weapons. Those are easy to fix.

Ah! I did misunderstand. I had just asked for peoples' definition of "elite" prior to your answer.

 Grimgold wrote:

With that said one thing I do agree with is that the big weapons feel way to swingy, I know that it will average out over many shots, but from moment to moment it feels awful. If we could change all of the D6 damage weapons to 2+1d3 I think the play experience would be much better. It only inches the average up a little (3.5 -> 4) but with a tighter range I think they will play much better even if the maximum is lower.

That is a TERRIBLE idea. This would essentially replicate the struggles of two-wound models but for three-wound models. A wounding hit from a a missile launcher would be a guaranteed kill on a Crisis Suit, Nob Biker, Tyranid Warrior etc. It would be much better for the game to do the opposite. Make all 2 damage weapons into D3 damage weapons. That would help out two-wound models a bit, because every third wounding hit would not result in a kill.

 Crimson wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Sure, and I disagree.

Why?

Being in a situation where it's more easy to target your opponent should not make it impossible for your unstable weapon to explode.

Likewise, the target being shrouded or concealed in some way, often represented as a -1 to hit, should not make your weapon twice as likely to explode.

Stux wrote:


Being in a situation where it's more easy to target your opponent should not make it impossible for your unstable weapon to explode.

Likewise, the target being shrouded or concealed in some way, often represented as a -1 to hit, should not make your weapon twice as likely to explode.

That I can agree with, but this was really about the rerolls.

I wouldn't be strictly opposed to low-RoF heavy weapons having to-hit penalties of some sort against infantry.

I have zero problem with a lascannon ripping a terminator in half though. It's a lascannon. Same goes for missile launchers, melta weapons etc.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I wouldn't be strictly opposed to low-RoF heavy weapons having to-hit penalties of some sort against infantry.

I have zero problem with a lascannon ripping a terminator in half though. It's a lascannon. Same goes for missile launchers, melta weapons etc.

We can't do -to hit penalties for individual weapons or even cover anymore, too many armies already have -to hit abilities and with stacking them up is no bueno.

ERJAK wrote:

We can't do -to hit penalties for individual weapons or even cover anymore, too many armies already have -to hit abilities and with stacking them up is no bueno.

Sure. But they shouldn't have. Armywide hit penalties are a terrible idea.

 Crimson wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

We can't do -to hit penalties for individual weapons or even cover anymore, too many armies already have -to hit abilities and with stacking them up is no bueno.

Sure. But they shouldn't have. Armywide hit penalties are a terrible idea.

The army-wide ones (RG, Alaitoc, Styges) would be better implemented as "counts as in cover against shots from outside 12"". Still an improvement but doesn't stack on top of existing benefits or disproportionately punish weak BS as much.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

The army-wide ones (RG, Alaitoc, Styges) would be better implemented as "counts as in cover against shots from outside 12"". Still an improvement but doesn't stack on top of existing benefits or disproportionately punish weak BS as much.

Yep, that would definitely be much better way to handle it.

Nope, Nope, Nope.

The problem with 40K is it has become 28mm Epic. It should be more like Necromunda instead.

Get the game back to being about infantry with a dash of heavy weapons and one or two vehicles and it will be worth a damn.

As long as the game is about who can bring the most S6+, D3/D6 damage weapons to the fight, infantry - elite or not - won't be worth a damn unless you turn them into tanks with unrealistically high wounds (or units with so many models they might as well have a couple hundred wounds).

No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

 Stormonu wrote:
Nope, Nope, Nope.

The problem with 40K is it has become 28mm Epic. It should be more like Necromunda instead.

Get the game back to being about infantry with a dash of heavy weapons and one or two vehicles and it will be worth a damn.

As long as the game is about who can bring the most S6+, D3/D6 damage weapons to the fight, infantry - elite or not - won't be worth a damn unless you turn them into tanks with unrealistically high wounds (or units with so many models they might as well have a couple hundred wounds).

No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

The horror story you are describing is literally the opposite of the current meta

 Stormonu wrote:
Nope, Nope, Nope.

The problem with 40K is it has become 28mm Epic. It should be more like Necromunda instead.

Get the game back to being about infantry with a dash of heavy weapons and one or two vehicles and it will be worth a damn.

Well you're about two decades late on that front.

 Stormonu wrote:

As long as the game is about who can bring the most S6+, D3/D6 damage weapons to the fight, infantry - elite or not - won't be worth a damn unless you turn them into tanks with unrealistically high wounds (or units with so many models they might as well have a couple hundred wounds).

No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Honestly, a lot of the 2nd Ed. games I played basically handled the same way. Moar heavy weapons = moar wins.

The answer isn't to change the game scale, the answer is to use more terrain, and use better terrain. This will always help, otherwise infantry will get gunned down by heavy weapons because that's what heavy weapons should do. If you have more LOS blockers, maneuvering magically becomes more important, if you have denser tables, elite troops can be more effective because they can fight only small parts of the enemy's force at a single time.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

As long as the game is about who can bring the most S6+, D3/D6 damage weapons to the fight, infantry - elite or not - won't be worth a damn unless you turn them into tanks with unrealistically high wounds (or units with so many models they might as well have a couple hundred wounds).

No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Honestly, a lot of the 2nd Ed. games I played basically handled the same way. Moar heavy weapons = moar wins.

The answer isn't to change the game scale, the answer is to use more terrain, and use better terrain. This will always help, otherwise infantry will get gunned down by heavy weapons because that's what heavy weapons should do. If you have more LOS blockers, maneuvering magically becomes more important, if you have denser tables, elite troops can be more effective because they can fight only small parts of the enemy's force at a single time.

Yes and no. The heavy weapon issue isn't that heavy weapons are there, or that they're too big, it's that volume of heavy weapons fire has become a thing. The transition in 5th to volume of S6-S8 as tank killers, the introduction of hull points in 6th, and the skewed relationship between wounds and damage in 8th have made one lascannon/bright lance/et cetera fairly pointless; the number of high-power shots you need to actually kill any vehicles (7.8 lascannon shots on average rolls to blow up a Rhino, for instance) is what ends up making heavier infantry pointless. The damage-doesn't-spill-over thing is basically the right way to handle it, it just wasn't taken far enough.

So it isn't that a Space Marine should be able to withstand a lascannon shot, it's that there shouldn't be enough lascannon shots on the table to render Space Marine infantry pointless.

("Lascannon" in this post represents the amount of S7+ AP-3 or better firepower that's necessary to actually do anything when faced with vehicles these days, not literally lascannons in all possible cases.)

8Th did exactly this, it increased the cost of vehicles and heavy weapons to bring them on a different scale than infantry. They probably should have pushed a bit more.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:

As long as the game is about who can bring the most S6+, D3/D6 damage weapons to the fight, infantry - elite or not - won't be worth a damn unless you turn them into tanks with unrealistically high wounds (or units with so many models they might as well have a couple hundred wounds).

No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Honestly, a lot of the 2nd Ed. games I played basically handled the same way. Moar heavy weapons = moar wins.

The answer isn't to change the game scale, the answer is to use more terrain, and use better terrain. This will always help, otherwise infantry will get gunned down by heavy weapons because that's what heavy weapons should do. If you have more LOS blockers, maneuvering magically becomes more important, if you have denser tables, elite troops can be more effective because they can fight only small parts of the enemy's force at a single time.

Yes and no. The heavy weapon issue isn't that heavy weapons are there, or that they're too big, it's that volume of heavy weapons fire has become a thing. The transition in 5th to volume of S6-S8 as tank killers, the introduction of hull points in 6th, and the skewed relationship between wounds and damage in 8th have made one lascannon/bright lance/et cetera fairly pointless; the number of high-power shots you need to actually kill any vehicles (7.8 lascannon shots on average rolls to blow up a Rhino, for instance) is what ends up making heavier infantry pointless. The damage-doesn't-spill-over thing is basically the right way to handle it, it just wasn't taken far enough.

So it isn't that a Space Marine should be able to withstand a lascannon shot, it's that there shouldn't be enough lascannon shots on the table to render Space Marine infantry pointless.

("Lascannon" in this post represents the amount of S7+ AP-3 or better firepower that's necessary to actually do anything when faced with vehicles these days, not literally lascannons in all possible cases.)

Ok but consider this: What do you expect to happen to infantry under a high volume of enemy fire? You expect them to die, right?

How do you stop a high volume of enemy fire? I can think of two options.

1: Restrict (artificially) the number of weapons available.

2: Put stuff in the way. Infantry doesn't wither away to heavy weapon fire when only a few sources of the fire can see them. Firing only three "Lascannons" at a squad isn't going to hurt it much. Space Marine squads tend to get vaporised either when a lot of the enemy gets to fire at them, or when something really fancy gets the drop on them. Marines are pretty hardy when they're in cover and only a couple units can fire at them.

I do find it interesting that in this edition a marine actually gets a natural save vs. a Lascannon.


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Spoletta wrote:
8Th did exactly this, it increased the cost of vehicles and heavy weapons to bring them on a different scale than infantry. They probably should have pushed a bit more.

It might be that you could just increase the cost of Plasma across the board and you'd be in a different place. It's still a bit of a waste to fire Lascannons at basic marines, but a Plasma Gun can knock out two at short range for half the cost of the bigger gun. Imo Lascannons don't feel under priced, but Plasma Guns are a conspicuous go-to Special for Imperial types.

 Stormonu wrote:
No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Those weapons should turn any regular infantry into paste but the defense against those types of weapons for infantry was and should still be cover (or invuln saves). Sadly 8th botched cover so badly that its rarely a factor and the AP mechanics means that more AP defeats cover anyways.

 Vankraken wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Those weapons should turn any regular infantry into paste but the defense against those types of weapons for infantry was and should still be cover (or invuln saves). Sadly 8th botched cover so badly that its rarely a factor and the AP mechanics means that more AP defeats cover anyways.

I've seen this said a lot about cover mechanics in 8th, but haven't understood why it's so bad. What is the outstanding issue with cover in 8th, and what can be done to bring it up-to-par with the current mechanics?

Wait so I feel like we're losing the thread.

So what exactly is the problem here? That "elite infantry", which includes everything from Scions to Necron Wraiths, aren't seeing play? Or is there some specific facet of elite infantry that aren't seeing play? Or is elite infantry a smaller category than some posters imply?

I think heavy weapons should absolutely be able to gun down infantry. It's what they're for. So the solution would be to shut down the heavy weapons somehow, or find a way to hide from them, or bring so many infantry that the heavy weapons are inefficient (that's not an answer for some armies, e.g. pure Custodes).

 Insectum7 wrote:
...Ok but consider this: What do you expect to happen to infantry under a high volume of enemy fire? You expect them to die, right?

How do you stop a high volume of enemy fire? I can think of two options.

1: Restrict (artificially) the number of weapons available.

2: Put stuff in the way. Infantry doesn't wither away to heavy weapon fire when only a few sources of the fire can see them. Firing only three "Lascannons" at a squad isn't going to hurt it much. Space Marine squads tend to get vaporised either when a lot of the enemy gets to fire at them, or when something really fancy gets the drop on them. Marines are pretty hardy when they're in cover and only a couple units can fire at them.

I do find it interesting that in this edition a marine actually gets a natural save vs. a Lascannon...

Yes, I expect infantry to die under a high volume of enemy fire.

However I also expect "high volume" and "high power" to be more mutually exclusive than they are, generally. The way anti-armour weapons are designed this edition you get things like Hellblaster squads putting out S8/AP-4/D2 overcharge shots; a six model squad putting out twelve shots at 15" range will kill a Rhino on average rolls with no rerolls, but they'll also kill six Space Marines. Because one lascannon, or one Bright Lance, or whatever isn't an effective anti-tank weapon the designers assume you're going to need a bunch of anti-armour shots, and because you have a bunch of anti-armour shots things that are supposed to be "tough infantry" become irrelevant.

As to your solutions the problem at a basic level isn't that there are too many heavy guns, it's that there are heavy guns that are too efficient an answer to too many targets. You don't need to artificially restrict the number of weapons on the table, you need to tweak wound/damage counts until something like massed plasma is no longer an efficient answer to vehicles, add damage to things that are supposed to be good at anti-tank (lascannons, bright lances, that sort of thing) to keep vehicles under control with weapons that are too expensive and don't have enough shots to then turn around and render heavy infantry irrelevant again, and you need to change big ordnance to a primary damage/secondary damage model (see the Contemptor conversion beamer for a functional implementation in 8e) so something like a Leman Russ can engage vehicles effectively without becoming too effective against quantity of armoured infantry.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait so I feel like we're losing the thread.

So what exactly is the problem here? That "elite infantry", which includes everything from Scions to Necron Wraiths, aren't seeing play? Or is there some specific facet of elite infantry that aren't seeing play? Or is elite infantry a smaller category than some posters imply?

I think heavy weapons should absolutely be able to gun down infantry. It's what they're for. So the solution would be to shut down the heavy weapons somehow, or find a way to hide from them, or bring so many infantry that the heavy weapons are inefficient (that's not an answer for some armies, e.g. pure Custodes).

The problem is that the relationship between wounds and damage in 8e as it currently exists makes volume of high-Strength/good AP fire the most effective answer to vehicles, which means the designers have enabled volume of high-Strength/good AP fire to exist, which renders heavy infantry irrelevant because guns that can effectively ignore their defenses exist in sufficient quantity to render them kind of pointless.

This is as much a problem with how weak 'tanks' are, how ineffective single-shot anti-tank weapons are, and 'blasts' dealing uniform damage against all targets hit as it is a problem with the durability stats written into heavy infantry.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


However I also expect "high volume" and "high power" to be more mutually exclusive than they are, generally. The way anti-armour weapons are designed this edition you get things like Hellblaster squads putting out S8/AP-4/D2 overcharge shots; a six model squad putting out twelve shots at 15" range will kill a Rhino on average rolls with no rerolls, but they'll also kill six Space Marines. Because one lascannon, or one Bright Lance, or whatever isn't an effective anti-tank weapon the designers assume you're going to need a bunch of anti-armour shots, and because you have a bunch of anti-armour shots things that are supposed to be "tough infantry" become irrelevant.

Yes, Emperor forbid, a 200 point unit rapid firing (backed by about 100 point character, because you're not gonna overcharge Hellblasters without rerolls on ones) can kill 70 point vehicle or 80 points of infantry!

 Motsie wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
No infantry, I don't care how elite they are, should be able to withstand a shot from the likes of a plasma gun, melta or lascannon. Infantry should pop like a corn kernel against these sort of weapons.

Those weapons should turn any regular infantry into paste but the defense against those types of weapons for infantry was and should still be cover (or invuln saves). Sadly 8th botched cover so badly that its rarely a factor and the AP mechanics means that more AP defeats cover anyways.

I've seen this said a lot about cover mechanics in 8th, but haven't understood why it's so bad. What is the outstanding issue with cover in 8th, and what can be done to bring it up-to-par with the current mechanics?

Well if you are infantry then you need the entire unit entirely inside the area of the terrain so it makes infantry moving from point A to point B very unlikely to all fit inside area terrain. If you are not infantry then you still need to be entirely inside the area and you need 50% obstruction which is basically very unlikely to happen. In previous editions you could get cover from stuff being inbetween the shooter and the target which meant that screening units could give the units behind them cover and it basically made it a bit more difficult to gun down backfield units from a gunline. The other half of the issue is how AP and "cover saves" work in that its just adding 1 to your armor save instead of being a separate save option. An ork loota in 7th for example has a 6+ armor save while in ruins would have a 4+ cover save. Shoot at the loota with a battlecannon and regardless of that AP on the cannon the loota would have that 4+ save from being dug into that ruins (up to 3+ if you went to ground). In 8th its just +1 to that armor save so now that loota at best has a 5+ save and that battlecannon's AP will shred that save to gak. Before using weapons like melta guns or plasma at units in cover was somewhat a waste unless you had some ignore cover capability but now it basically doesn't matter as plasma is good against everything. Movement, target priority, and usage of cover was vital to a game of 7th but now you can play entire matches and not have the cover mechanic (or terrain in general) have an impact on the game.

The AP system being an armor mod is absolutely fine but I think cover needs to go back to being its own separate save (like invuln saves). Granted that would require reworking all the weapons/rules that would have some sort of cover negating property (like flamers, Smart Missile Systems, etc). Also allowing intervening models/terrain to provide cover to models behind them would also dampen the alpha strike potential of gunlines and force movement to find clear lines of fire. Still the nature of 8th's mechanics makes this a not so easy to fix issue so a simple patch wouldn't really correct the issue outright.

 Crimson wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:


However I also expect "high volume" and "high power" to be more mutually exclusive than they are, generally. The way anti-armour weapons are designed this edition you get things like Hellblaster squads putting out S8/AP-4/D2 overcharge shots; a six model squad putting out twelve shots at 15" range will kill a Rhino on average rolls with no rerolls, but they'll also kill six Space Marines. Because one lascannon, or one Bright Lance, or whatever isn't an effective anti-tank weapon the designers assume you're going to need a bunch of anti-armour shots, and because you have a bunch of anti-armour shots things that are supposed to be "tough infantry" become irrelevant.

Yes, Emperor forbid, a 200 point unit rapid firing (backed by about 100 point character, because you're not gonna overcharge Hellblasters without rerolls on ones) can kill 70 point vehicle or 80 points of infantry!

Or a 120pt vehicle (Razorback), or a 200+pt vehicle (Predator). Or 200pts of infantry (another 6-man Hellblaster squad), or 300pts of infantry (kitted Deathwatch, Terminators).

The degree to which units can make their points back in one volley (and people expect them to) is part of the march towards glass-cannon-dom and people getting tabled in 2-3 turns that is one of the bigger problems with 8th, but setting that problem aside for the moment the issue isn't whether Hellblasters can make their points back easily, the issue is that they can make their points back easily against too many different kinds of things.

The real reason Guardsmen are so blindingly effective in 8th is that plasma-spam, 2d6-shot S8 weapons, and the like are cost-effective answers to everything in the game that isn't a 4pt T3 infantryman, so they're a big blind spot in lists that aren't tailored to handle them.

I would just been interested in seeing how the game would have played if elite units like bikers and terminators had 3 wounds instead of 2. This means that D3 weapons only have a 1/3 chance of single shotting a hulking Terminator instead of 2/3 as it currently stands.

Sometimes I just feel like 2 wounds just don't make enough of a difference compared to 1 wound when we have a certain saturation of moderate wound weapons.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Or a 120pt vehicle (Razorback), or a 200+pt vehicle (Predator). Or 200pts of infantry (another 6-man Hellblaster squad), or 300pts of infantry (kitted Deathwatch, Terminators).

The degree to which units can make their points back in one volley (and people expect them to) is part of the march towards glass-cannon-dom and people getting tabled in 2-3 turns that is one of the bigger problems with 8th, but setting that problem aside for the moment the issue isn't whether Hellblasters can make their points back easily, the issue is that they can make their points back easily against too many different kinds of things.

The real reason Guardsmen are so blindingly effective in 8th is that plasma-spam, 2d6-shot S8 weapons, and the like are cost-effective answers to everything in the game that isn't a 4pt T3 infantryman, so they're a big blind spot in lists that aren't tailored to handle them.

I agree that Plasma spam is a problem, but Hellblasters are a bad exmaple, because they're one of the most expensive ways to do it. Guard can do it way more cost effectively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Eldarsif wrote:
I would just been interested in seeing how the game would have played if elite units like bikers and terminators had 3 wounds instead of 2. This means that D3 weapons only have a 1/3 chance of single shotting a hulking Terminator instead of 2/3 as it currently stands.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for three wound primaris terminators and (jet) bikes.

 Crimson wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Or a 120pt vehicle (Razorback), or a 200+pt vehicle (Predator). Or 200pts of infantry (another 6-man Hellblaster squad), or 300pts of infantry (kitted Deathwatch, Terminators).

The degree to which units can make their points back in one volley (and people expect them to) is part of the march towards glass-cannon-dom and people getting tabled in 2-3 turns that is one of the bigger problems with 8th, but setting that problem aside for the moment the issue isn't whether Hellblasters can make their points back easily, the issue is that they can make their points back easily against too many different kinds of things.

The real reason Guardsmen are so blindingly effective in 8th is that plasma-spam, 2d6-shot S8 weapons, and the like are cost-effective answers to everything in the game that isn't a 4pt T3 infantryman, so they're a big blind spot in lists that aren't tailored to handle them.

I agree that Plasma spam is a problem, but Hellblasters are a bad exmaple, because they're one of the most expensive ways to do it. Guard can do it way more cost effectively...

Yet again I'm not trying to list off all the problem units, I'm trying to describe a design philosophy that is the fundamental problem.

Dark Reapers, Guard plasma, Manticores, and Battle Cannons are also symptoms of this same set of issues. That isn't the start or end of the problem, there are plenty more things to go to. I picked out Hellblasters because they're representative of the problem with how weapons are written, whether or not they themselves are a fundamental balance problem, and I've got the numbers for them off the top of my head.

I'd like to point out that random damage can actually alleviate the elite infantry problem somewhat. When I use my blightlord/deathshroud a 2 damage shot isn't guaranteed to kill them, due to DR. A shot that gets through armor can do 0-2 damage, with actually less than a 50% chance to kill the terminator in question. This significantly helps them survive overcharged plasma and other two damage elite killer weapons.

Thus I think making most 2 damage weapons a d3 could help alleviate the elite infantry issue, while still leaving them fairly useful, while d6 weapons should end up as 2d3 to represent the fact they will always kill such units (not that this would make missle sniping primaris a good idea)