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I've always been hesitant to reference IA13 for much; the random Ld on a cheapest-possible-unit list always seemed like hugely extraneous bookkeeping, and I'm not sure what's going on with the flat 10pt cost for BS3 (10pts to make 30pts of pistol/CCW troopers BS3, or 10pts to make a Baneblade BS3, or 10pts to make your Hellhound with all template weapons BS3?). I'll definitely sit down and go over it in more detail before redoing the militia/cults side of the list, but I've started on the Guard/Chaos veterans side first since I've got a clearer idea of what I'm doing with it.

Also: Double-checked the quad-mortar/heavy mortar profiles against my reference material; the quad-mortar's got shell shock back (leaving it out initially was an omission) and the heavy mortar has lost Shred (it was there initially because I misremembered how the Kriegers' special alternate ammo worked).

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I've always been hesitant to reference IA13 for much; the random Ld on a cheapest-possible-unit list always seemed like hugely extraneous bookkeeping, and I'm not sure what's going on with the flat 10pt cost for BS3 (10pts to make 30pts of pistol/CCW troopers BS3, or 10pts to make a Baneblade BS3, or 10pts to make your Hellhound with all template weapons BS3?). I'll definitely sit down and go over it in more detail before redoing the militia/cults side of the list, but I've started on the Guard/Chaos veterans side first since I've got a clearer idea of what I'm doing with it.

Also: Double-checked the quad-mortar/heavy mortar profiles against my reference material; the quad-mortar's got shell shock back (leaving it out initially was an omission) and the heavy mortar has lost Shred (it was there initially because I misremembered how the Kriegers' special alternate ammo worked).

Ahh, so that might have been what irked me on the thudd guns. Granted i am curios if it works from a balance perspective since going from 33% but better damage stats to close to 50% hit chance but weaker damage stats is kinda a wash.


I can tell you what the intention of the flat upgrade cost was it's not just the Militia training (also BS and WS get improved , not just one or the other):
The idea was, to incentivise a non MSU playstyle. Something that, let's be really honest here, was allways the preffered way of playing any army with morale as an drawback in the past or one that had low T /SV /W value units, to lead to overkill of squads as to achieve more durability then they in essence had. Further the editions itself didn't favour Troop or infantry units.

thematically though R&H with the whole slew of formation types you could represent from rabble to elite formations, are however dependant upon their infantry. And in that regard the "Bulk Discount" worked really well.

There's an argument to be made though, that tanks should just use the equivalent IG stats, AKA start at BS3 and don't get the 10 pts discount, preciscly because saving 30 pts on 3 nearly equally as effective Hellhounds just because you are R&H compared to guard is nonsense of the highest degree. Further, assuming Chaos, you'd find the strongest most "competent" within the vehicles anyways so Removing it as a balance hurdle would go a long ways.

Artillery (field guns, emplacements, etc) i guess you could for the same reason apply at most a 5 pts discount with a cheaper "militia" training.

As for the bookkeeping.
Morale is pretty self explanatory and since lists are anyways mandatory writing down as stated in the "uncertain leadership" rule as to what morale unit XYZ has is a no brainer. Further the bookkeeping is imo a better solution compared to the militia and cultists list from 30k for multiple reasons, last but not least that you DON'T get free rules advantages. ( As an aside, there's still technicaly the issue within the list of not beeing able to call upon the LD of the command vox carriers due to you not knowing their morale beeing superior then the one in the squad which you just potentially determined. .... Just one of those things that could've been solved long ago and a fault that went on to be an issue since the "free Vraks PDF"... )

It's pretty clear what x y z does. And the cheapest possible starting point is to allow the customizability necessary to represent the whole bandwidth of traitors. So equipement option lines will be a bit more filled but that is imo a better trade off, then to start to attempt to balance "free rules" piles as we have now with traits or you'd have with the dual level from 30k list, because it is ultimatively easier to tweak pts cost for Militia training or sub flak armour then it is to weigh up the doctrine freebies torwards each other.

Not Online!!! wrote:
...As for the bookkeeping.
Morale is pretty self explanatory and since lists are anyways mandatory writing down as stated in the "uncertain leadership" rule as to what morale unit XYZ has is a no brainer. Further the bookkeeping is imo a better solution compared to the militia and cultists list from 30k for multiple reasons, last but not least that you DON'T get free rules advantages. ( As an aside, there's still technicaly the issue within the list of not beeing able to call upon the LD of the command vox carriers due to you not knowing their morale beeing superior then the one in the squad which you just potentially determined. .... Just one of those things that could've been solved long ago and a fault that went on to be an issue since the "free Vraks PDF"... )...

My point is that if you have, say, ten identical rifle squads you need to be able to work out quickly which unit is represented by which line on your army list. It's completely possible, yes, but I think it'd make the list harder to use than it needs to be.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
...As for the bookkeeping.
Morale is pretty self explanatory and since lists are anyways mandatory writing down as stated in the "uncertain leadership" rule as to what morale unit XYZ has is a no brainer. Further the bookkeeping is imo a better solution compared to the militia and cultists list from 30k for multiple reasons, last but not least that you DON'T get free rules advantages. ( As an aside, there's still technicaly the issue within the list of not beeing able to call upon the LD of the command vox carriers due to you not knowing their morale beeing superior then the one in the squad which you just potentially determined. .... Just one of those things that could've been solved long ago and a fault that went on to be an issue since the "free Vraks PDF"... )...

My point is that if you have, say, ten identical rifle squads you need to be able to work out quickly which unit is represented by which line on your army list. It's completely possible, yes, but I think it'd make the list harder to use than it needs to be.

Well, you can technically just decide to completly remove morale determination. That way you have 0 bookkeeping to do and bypass the core issue with the command vox.

Something like this :
Militia, mutant. LD6,
Champions and veterans LD 7.
Disciples, Enforcers, marauders, Demagogues LD8
Archdemagogues LD9

Command vox allows to grant all squads with vox nets within 12" to use the higher morale, Sigil to ignore the first failed pinning or morale check, so you still have the same decisions of shooring up the rather low morale with the corresponding equipment whilest also having eliminated morale bookkeeping.
IS it worth a shot, possibly, it certainly would make it even more important to protect Champions, Demagogues and Archdemagogues aswell as enforcers so morale is still one of the determining weaknesses of the theme of the army, however, i have seen that all charachters still get precision attacks on 6+...whith no explanation as to what that is, assuming the old 6th-7th paradigm i am unsure if that is a great idea to leave in.

Update: Guard book revised after this discussion; it's now just the Guard/Traitor Guard book, Doctrines have been rewritten, Carapace armour is a bit cheaper, and Platoons have been simplified a bit further. Additionally Void-Hardened (reroll saves against blasts/templates) and Lumbering (-1" to random movement) are now USRs so I can hand them out to more people.

I like the looks of your SM codex. Any thoughts on doing a CSM one?

Really not a fan of TLOS. Even the remnants of it are pointless argument-fodder in 8e; the more abstracted it can be, the better. Especially with Size as an actual stat.

Not sure what the point of Hybrid statlines is; why not just give "normal" Vehicles WS0, A0, etc?

WS vs WS is good for making duelists/combat units harder to hit in melee, but BS scaling the way it does is largely pointless. If you don't want to make it a 2+, 3+, etc, like Saves, then why not make it a stat test? Roll under your BS.

The simplified Wound table could also be phrased as modifiers. Wound on a 4+, add your Strength, subtract the enemy Toughness. 1 always fails, but 6 doesn't autosucceed. Only thing you'd lose is the extra 6+ column, but you could finagle that.

Allocate wounds; is that the closest model to the attacking model, or the closest model to the attacking unit? Also, do you really want the ability/outcome of spreading wounds around every model in a 2+ Wound unit?

Is Feel No Pain intended to use an existing save, or be a separate save?

I remember quite liking the old Leadership test to shoot/charge at anything but the closest unit; it added more uses to Leadership and more of a sense of discipline vs disorder.