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It is that. Sometimes you can even kill enough infantry to make them move a tank. Small victories.

Martel732 wrote:
It is that. Sometimes you can even kill enough infantry to make them move a tank. Small victories.

And then find out that they only had move 5" so they still get to fire twice.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
This may seem like an odd question, but I am really kind of at a loss here.

Surely someone else is having this problem?

Just let your opponent have 1st turn.

this makes it very challenging.

or more of a challenge.

when i play MY IG, and my opponent has a casual list, i let them go first.

Martel732 wrote:
Old habits die hard. Just like IGYG. Unit activation is the way to go.

Why bother, even with unit activation BA would be underpowered and there would be a lot of perceived unbalances to whine about. No need to go through the effort really..

Seems that the answers are:
1) play different missions, especially ITC missions,
2) limit your use of toughness 8 units,
3) use the index rules when appropriate.

I would also house-rule terrain and targeting to grant easier advances on your line. For instance, in older editions, target models not units, out of range models cannot be wounded, individual models behind cover may not be targeted if out of LoS, and so on.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
We usually played Matched Play on Eternal War missions

Play other missions, EW missions in the core rulebook are pretty garbage, and they all involve just lining up and shooting at things. (Which your IG blob is good at.)

Instead of dumbing your game down maybe just help your friends out?

Eternal War are bad missions.

I don't think I've played an Eternal War mission since like the 2nd Week of 8th Edition, because the "stand in a corner and shoot" mechanic is FAR too powerful.

Things are more varied and interesting when you have to go do things.

 sfshilo wrote:

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
We usually played Matched Play on Eternal War missions

Play other missions, EW missions in the core rulebook are pretty garbage, and they all involve just lining up and shooting at things. (Which your IG blob is good at.)

Instead of dumbing your game down maybe just help your friends out?

Not everyone is interested in that, nor does everyone have the same potential (or desire) for competition.

Often the easiest way is to adjust yourself downwards and purposefully take bad choices.

Ordana wrote:

 sfshilo wrote:

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
We usually played Matched Play on Eternal War missions

Play other missions, EW missions in the core rulebook are pretty garbage, and they all involve just lining up and shooting at things. (Which your IG blob is good at.)

Instead of dumbing your game down maybe just help your friends out?

Not everyone is interested in that, nor does everyone have the same potential (or desire) for competition.

Often the easiest way is to adjust yourself downwards and purposefully take bad choices.

OOoooohhh boy it's like the "competitive players" thread all over again.

There needs to be an orkmoticon of eating popcorn.

You're playing an incredibly strong army that's undercosted across the board. I find it funny we see these threads cropping up quite frequently since 8th dropped.

Play with 1500 points versus their 2000. That should probably make for a balanced game.

If you have another army, maybe play that? It sounds like you have Necrons, too.

Honestly I think you are a troll. Astra Militarum isn’t stronger than Blood Angels or Eldar. I have yet to beat an Eldar list since their codex came out as pure Astra Militarum. BA is very powerful but is strategem based and if the player is unskilled he won’t do that well.

Vs those 2 They should beat you unless they are unskilled so I can’t say much other than they should get more experience.

Tau has limited ways to beat guard as last ed models won’t work. Greyknights are paying too much for their melee and psychic powers that you also just won’t lose to them.

If you want to try to lose to greyknight s use lots of chimeras and valkyries without decent models inside. Against tau same thing I guess.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
The specifics go mostly as follows.

The BA player goes very heavy on Primaris Marines and Terminators with a lot of short ranged fire power with some Devastators hanging back,

Tau opponent goes heavy on suits with fusion weapons and pulse weapons with a few Hammerheads and Pathfinders.

Eldar player has a good mix of Dark Reapers, Dire Avengers and Hemlock Wraith fighters with some Falcons in there too.

GK player has a smaller army, it's almost entirely Terminators mounted in Land Raiders.

Emperor's Children player runs all noise marines with Lucius, Fabius and a Land Raider. Oh, and a few Las-preds.


Is the problem here that they all run kinda elite lists? I'm just noticing it after typing it out. Is this edition really that bad for small units?

That's not your problem.

Their armies make me cry. Eldar is probably okay, but damn, Terminators and Land Raiders?

First, they should field lists with 100% reductions in terminators and land raiders and increases in things that aren't absolute crap. [Okay, Land Raiders aren't as bad as terminators, but I kind of considering anything more than 300 points that isn't a superheavy crap] That's a start.
Second, use Russes instead of Basilisks/Manticores. Russes aren't actually very good, with the exception of the Punisher, and if you're currently using Russes and they still can't kill them then it's their fault and they need some antitank weapons in their lists.


This edition is bad specifically for Terminators, but that's not new to this edition, so I'm not sure how they were winning before. This edition does favor massed infantry, and armies have to be equipped to deal with it.

IG is MUCH stronger than BA. In fact, they are the hard counter. Put 150 infantry out, most BA lists have no answer at all.

Martel732 wrote:
They don't REALLY have trouble, because Move move move exists, but we can pretend it does.

That only works for one turn, and usually forces a squad to be horribly exposed. In missions like maelstrom it means the guard player needs to leave his nice cozy deployment zone and risk being destroyed piecemeal if he wants VP's.

Being exposed doesn't matter if the enemy is crippled.

Martel732 wrote:IG is MUCH stronger than BA. In fact, they are the hard counter. Put 150 infantry out, most BA lists have no answer at all.

Martel732 wrote:Being exposed doesn't matter if the enemy is crippled.

Careful with all that salt intake, my doctor told me that leads to health issues

IG are highly powerful, but they're hardly the only army out there. If OP's meta is struggling to deal with a pure IG list that's not even trying I'd hate for them to see the really scary stuff Eldar, Death Guard, Blood Angels (yes really) and other top codexes can throw down. Any army still stuck on an index will naturally struggle some, but I think most codexes in a casual environment should be doing fine if the IG player is not intentional curbstomping newbies.

There was a reason pure IG didn't take the top tables as a pure army, and that's because we have a couple of key weaknesses that actually show up in those missions. Half the reason IG is insanely broken in the casual meta is because eternal war missions couldn't be more broken in IG's favor unless I wrote them myself to I be in my favor. Once you force IG to move up on the opening turns and spread out his precious screen, they become very vulnerable to fast, elite armies, aka the ones that won ITC. It makes it a far more even playing field. Especially now that your secondaries are picked at the start of the game to tailor to your opponent's army. Stormtroopers alone give up 2-3 points in a single drop of a couple of squads with an officer if you take the right missions.

OP wanted something to make games more interesting and fun for him and his opponent. The new ITC missions do that. I had a game against an almost entirely primaris list last night where I knocked out 75% of his army and he still fought me to a tie because he played the mission. Granted OP will need to dial it back a bit against things like a full terminator/land raider list, but with proper missions people like the eldar player will have a much more balanced playing field.

IG are meant by design to be the Kings of attritional warfare and proper slugging matches. Our traditional weakness has always been playing the objective or anything to do with speed and rapidly reacting. It's why we use Stormtroopers as such a crutch. If you are seriously just lining up and shooting at IG with any list you're almost always bound to lose. Which is what I suspect to a degree is happening with OP with eternal war missions. They by design encourage that kind of fight.

So yes, ITC and Maelstrom really do help balance IG a bit, definitely enough for a casual area like OP's. Just because these missions are for the most cutthroat tournaments around doesn't change the fact that they allow for more balanced and interesting missions in casual games with stuff like PL as well. Once OP does that, he can make more informed decisions from there about what else may need to change, be that dialing back his list even further, letting his opponent run his army for a game or two to learn it's weaknesses, or even just helping teach them how to play better.

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
The specifics go mostly as follows.

The BA player goes very heavy on Primaris Marines and Terminators with a lot of short ranged fire power with some Devastators hanging back,

Tau opponent goes heavy on suits with fusion weapons and pulse weapons with a few Hammerheads and Pathfinders.

Eldar player has a good mix of Dark Reapers, Dire Avengers and Hemlock Wraith fighters with some Falcons in there too.

GK player has a smaller army, it's almost entirely Terminators mounted in Land Raiders.

Emperor's Children player runs all noise marines with Lucius, Fabius and a Land Raider. Oh, and a few Las-preds.


Is the problem here that they all run kinda elite lists? I'm just noticing it after typing it out. Is this edition really that bad for small units?

Is the Tau player running them as Crisis Suits or Commanders? That is a massively important difference since Crisis suits are garbage. Commanders are more accurate, more wounds, and harder to target due to character rules. He will go from missing half his Fusion shots to hitting more often than not. Is he spamming drones around his Crisis teams? With Battlesuit Spam you should have at least 2 gun/shield drones per Suit in addition to more drones in a fast attack slot. Did he mark one of his Hammerheads as Longstrike? All of this should increase his alpha strike without purchasing new models.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 TheCrazyCryptek wrote:
The specifics go mostly as follows.

The BA player goes very heavy on Primaris Marines and Terminators with a lot of short ranged fire power with some Devastators hanging back,

Tau opponent goes heavy on suits with fusion weapons and pulse weapons with a few Hammerheads and Pathfinders.

Eldar player has a good mix of Dark Reapers, Dire Avengers and Hemlock Wraith fighters with some Falcons in there too.

GK player has a smaller army, it's almost entirely Terminators mounted in Land Raiders.

Emperor's Children player runs all noise marines with Lucius, Fabius and a Land Raider. Oh, and a few Las-preds.


Is the problem here that they all run kinda elite lists? I'm just noticing it after typing it out. Is this edition really that bad for small units?

That's not your problem.

Their armies make me cry. Eldar is probably okay, but damn, Terminators and Land Raiders?

First, they should field lists with 100% reductions in terminators and land raiders and increases in things that aren't absolute crap. [Okay, Land Raiders aren't as bad as terminators, but I kind of considering anything more than 300 points that isn't a superheavy crap] That's a start.
Second, use Russes instead of Basilisks/Manticores. Russes aren't actually very good, with the exception of the Punisher, and if you're currently using Russes and they still can't kill them then it's their fault and they need some antitank weapons in their lists.


This edition is bad specifically for Terminators, but that's not new to this edition, so I'm not sure how they were winning before. This edition does favor massed infantry, and armies have to be equipped to deal with it.

That attitude very quickly finds you without any opponents to play and sitting in a corner while everyone else is having fun.

Plenty of people play the way they want to play with models they like. Not whatever the internet tells them is the next best netlist.

Ordana wrote:

That attitude very quickly finds you without any opponents to play and sitting in a corner while everyone else is having fun.

Plenty of people play the way they want to play with models they like. Not whatever the internet tells them is the next best netlist.

At what point do you absolve yourself for the bad decisions other people make?

 daedalus wrote:

Ordana wrote:

That attitude very quickly finds you without any opponents to play and sitting in a corner while everyone else is having fun.

Plenty of people play the way they want to play with models they like. Not whatever the internet tells them is the next best netlist.

At what point do you absolve yourself for the bad decisions other people make?

When your playing in a tournament for competition and not fun games at your local store/club.

I understand the OP. I'm in a similar position. There is one other good player at my club, both of us have placed top 10 in the national GT. and everyone else plays fun stuff they like. Terminators, land raiders. Multple 10man tactical squads ect. They're tactically bad players bringing bad lists.
I can bring my good lists and club seals until they refuse to play me because they lose without a shimmer of hope or I can purposefully bring 'gak' lists to have a fun game we can both enjoy.

I don't think your army is overpowered. AM is still the top tier army but the bullies they used to be a few months ago. Chaos, eldar and BA, some of your main opponents, shouldn't be very far in terms of competitiveness.

Try to start second every game and change missions.

It's probably a matter of experience, bad/low optimized opponents' lists and type of missions that favors shooty armies. AM ultracompetitive lists are very tough, casual ones are good and they can be even strong, but not unbeatable.

The problem most people run into with Guard is that almost the entire codex is way more effective then most others. I'm not talking about toptier tournament lists here, just any old random pile of models.

Take a couple of tanks, some infantry units with varied equipment and some HQ's, BAM you have a casual army that can deal with most other casual armies with relative ease.

Also, if you're genuinely having issues - how much terrain do you have on the table? If you're playing the shop standard of three random buildings and a copse of trees...this only exacerbates A) First Turn advantage, and B) Gunline/shooty armies, etc.

Heavy terrain has always been a factor in 40K ( so much so they used to tell you in the rulebook "use a lot of terrain or the game will be boring!").

Playing against the armies you're playing against you should be able to have some decent games if they're not really limited on army choice. Also, are the people you're playing new, or lacking the budget to evolve their army? A lot of people just have "their army" and it rarely changes so they can be stuck if the units they own are cool, but not super effective. In this case it would behoove you to adjust your list somehow to make the games a bit more fun.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Martel732 wrote:IG is MUCH stronger than BA. In fact, they are the hard counter. Put 150 infantry out, most BA lists have no answer at all.

Martel732 wrote:Being exposed doesn't matter if the enemy is crippled.

Careful with all that salt intake, my doctor told me that leads to health issues

IG are highly powerful, but they're hardly the only army out there. If OP's meta is struggling to deal with a pure IG list that's not even trying I'd hate for them to see the really scary stuff Eldar, Death Guard, Blood Angels (yes really) and other top codexes can throw down. Any army still stuck on an index will naturally struggle some, but I think most codexes in a casual environment should be doing fine if the IG player is not intentional curbstomping newbies.

There was a reason pure IG didn't take the top tables as a pure army, and that's because we have a couple of key weaknesses that actually show up in those missions. Half the reason IG is insanely broken in the casual meta is because eternal war missions couldn't be more broken in IG's favor unless I wrote them myself to I be in my favor. Once you force IG to move up on the opening turns and spread out his precious screen, they become very vulnerable to fast, elite armies, aka the ones that won ITC. It makes it a far more even playing field. Especially now that your secondaries are picked at the start of the game to tailor to your opponent's army. Stormtroopers alone give up 2-3 points in a single drop of a couple of squads with an officer if you take the right missions.

OP wanted something to make games more interesting and fun for him and his opponent. The new ITC missions do that. I had a game against an almost entirely primaris list last night where I knocked out 75% of his army and he still fought me to a tie because he played the mission. Granted OP will need to dial it back a bit against things like a full terminator/land raider list, but with proper missions people like the eldar player will have a much more balanced playing field.

IG are meant by design to be the Kings of attritional warfare and proper slugging matches. Our traditional weakness has always been playing the objective or anything to do with speed and rapidly reacting. It's why we use Stormtroopers as such a crutch. If you are seriously just lining up and shooting at IG with any list you're almost always bound to lose. Which is what I suspect to a degree is happening with OP with eternal war missions. They by design encourage that kind of fight.

So yes, ITC and Maelstrom really do help balance IG a bit, definitely enough for a casual area like OP's. Just because these missions are for the most cutthroat tournaments around doesn't change the fact that they allow for more balanced and interesting missions in casual games with stuff like PL as well. Once OP does that, he can make more informed decisions from there about what else may need to change, be that dialing back his list even further, letting his opponent run his army for a game or two to learn it's weaknesses, or even just helping teach them how to play better.

ITC missions do help, but every IG player I know has tabling as Plan "A" vs lists that lack a -1 to hit trait. It's just so easy for them without that trait in play.