Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am enjoying the discussion in this thread and the arguments going back and forth. I do not see to many personal attacks worth mentioning and the discussion is continuing in good faith.

Kudos to the participants and know that at least one person finds this very interesting.

I'm curious when they wrote the codex if they were just comparing them to the new codexes while trying to maintain the flavor of the old book. I mean the old gk werent slouches in cc either but add some stuff like psyfleman, storm raven, etc to them and you see a dramatic in the armies ability. Im curious about how the gk are too powerful crowd would balance the book without making them so over costed that they would still fit the fluff but still fit into a completely mech 5th edition. GK arent a mech army(or at least werent fluff wise).

This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

gendoikari87 wrote:If everything was a terminator you would be correct, however there are guardsmen, and orks. against orks power weapons are obviously useless, ore near useless.

What you have forgotten is that with an assault 2 weapon, you have effectively added 2 attacks to your model, at initiative 11. This is accounted for in the codex.

Ah, yes, of course. Because you don't get Mega-Armour, 'Eavy Armour, Carapace armour or the fluky ability to roll a 6 and save your hide regardless.

You're now comparing shooting attacks to melee attacks. I think it's already been explained further on....melee is greater than shooting, simply because one provides immunity to the other where the other doesn't.

In addition there are more chances to survive a shooting attack than a power weapon. What's more you're a bit flawed in your thinking there.

Power weapons aren't really useless against IG or Orks. They're not as effective but they still kill things without allowing them an armour save.

What was near useless against IG and Orks was a Heavy Close Combat weapon - which negated saves to a 4+ at best - something that didn't matter against armies where 4+ tended to be the best anyhow.

gendoikari87 wrote:

People aren't necessarily objecting to your equations, they are objecting to your arbitrary cost assessments.

what arbitrary cost assesments? Storm shields or the grenades, cause those are the only two that are arbitrary, based off costs in the books.

Furious charge? Fleet of foot? Were those costs not arbitrary?

Again, many people think your onto a good idea here and it just needs a little tweaking.
Don't mistake critiques or suggestions for attacks, as getting defensive will not help any productive discussions,

Leenus wrote:Garbage in garbage out!!!

For those people who are just poo'ing all over your base idea without critiques or suggestions -- Its hard to build and add. Its easy to tear down. Which makes for a better community? Sure gendoikari8 is a bit defensive, but that's no reason to be rude. Especially from someone who represents an entire country at the ETC.

You're now comparing shooting attacks to melee attacks. I think it's already been explained further on....melee is greater than shooting, simply because one provides immunity to the other where the other doesn't.

any you also get less turns of CC, which means less chance to do something, and you have to get theret o do something in the first place. So being good at CC is cheaper than being equally as good at shooting. Now if you have an assault 2 weapon you're good at both, or at least better at both.

Furious charge? Fleet of foot? Were those costs not arbitrary?

Furious charge is done by hand, by averaging the stats with and with out the bonuses.

Fleet as I have explained before add a distance modifier to the turns you can be in meele, what ever changes that makes to the profile are it's "cost"

So no, they aren't arbitrary, they aren't even direct costs, they are simply factors you put into the data that then computes the whole cost.

Again, many people think your onto a good idea here and it just needs a little tweaking.
Don't mistake critiques or suggestions for attacks, as getting defensive will not help any productive discussions,

I understand that but people are calling things arbitrary which are simply factors that go into determining combat effectiveness which afterward gets translated into cost. These factors are things i was able to model in the sheet just like rolling to hit and rolling to wound. So I fail to see how that is arbitrary.

gendoikari87 wrote: Now if you have an assault 2 weapon you're good at both, or at least better at both.

Incorrect, having an Assault class weapon has no bearing on a units CC capability other than the ability to initiate an assault after shooting.

An assault classed weapon has no bearing on the outcome of a close combat.


Likewise, it doesn't necessarily make a unit better at shooting, it depends on what their alternatives are. Guardians would actually be improved by gaining access to a 24" Rapid Fire weapon over the 12" Assault 2 weapon for instance given that they aren't ever really going to be assaulting anything and it'd give them more firepower at longer ranges while not changing their short range firepower one bit.

ncorrect, having an Assault class weapon has no bearing on a units CC capability other than the ability to initiate an assault after shooting.

An assault classed weapon has no bearing on the outcome of a close combat.

..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that.

Likewise, it doesn't necessarily make a unit better at shooting, it depends on what their alternatives are. Guardians would actually be improved by gaining access to a 24" Rapid Fire weapon over the 12" Assault 2 weapon for instance given that they aren't ever really going to be assaulting anything and it'd give them more firepower at longer ranges while not changing their short range firepower one bit.

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

gendoikari87 wrote:
..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that.

Here is your big mistake, you are looking at the shooting attacks as though they counted as part of the CC round. They don't. You're double-taxing those inflicted casualties as effectively counting twice.

Sure, the shooting may shift the odds more in the favor of the assaulting unit, but without counting towards combat resolution you cannot count them as being worth as much as the casualties actually inflicted during the combat even if you did count them as being in the assault phase and not the shooting phase (and in this case, you're counting them as occurring in *both* which simply isn't reflective of the true situation at all).

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

Potentially yes (given the relatively static nature of the Guardian unit the range tradeoff with the 24" RF gun is debateable) however the fact that the equation still drastically overvalues the assault weapon in this case shows it needs tweaking.

Just about everybody considers guardians to be drastically overpriced as is. Your calculator puts them at ~2.5pts higher than the price at which people already don't like taking them, whereas with a 24" RF weapon they suddenly go down to being 1.5pts cheaper than they are now with what is a more effective weapon.

Yay! I'm unbanned! Why is this thread still here? Oh god, what is all this?

..... no bearing on assault huh? So can all my models have 2 extra attacks at initiative 11 on the charge as long as they don't count to combat resolution? I'm fairly sure you'd change your mind after having to deal with that

Yeah! And my dev squad gets an extra round of close combat during my shooting phase where it throws out its strength 9 power weapon attacks at 48 inches! It does this three turns before you get to strike back!

You do realize that by the virtue of the shooting and assault phases being different things that assault weapons actually do have no bearing in the assault phase, correct? That they're a non entity except insofar as they set up the board for favorable assaults. Something heavy or rapid fire weapons can do as well considering that your calculations should not logically assume unit trajectories in a vacume. No. You don't. In actual practice you can safely assume that half of all assault weapons used in games on a platform that didn't pop out of an assault vehicle won't be fired at all due to the threat of casualties being removed from models in assault range (thus preventing the assault) or due to the use of fleet. Following this thread without being able to reply has been ironic torture.

Only because the range is 12", if they were Range 18 however, the assault weapon is much better.

That is correct. But they aren't range 18.

So no, they aren't arbitrary, they aren't even direct costs, they are simply factors you put into the data that then computes the whole cost.

you don't know what the word arbitrary means

ar·bi·trar·y   [ahr-bi-trer-ee] Show IPA adjective, noun, plural -trar·ies.
adjective
1.
subject to individual will or judgment without restriction; contingent solely upon one's discretion: an arbitrary decision.
2.
decided by a judge or arbiter rather than by a law or statute.

VaktathSure wrote:, the shooting may shift the odds more in the favor of the assaulting unit, but without counting towards combat resolution you cannot count them as being worth as much as the casualties actually inflicted during the combat even if you did count them as being in the assault phase and not the shooting phase (and in this case, you're counting them as occurring in *both* which simply isn't reflective of the true situation at all). .

Furthermore, most of the time you don't want to shoot on the way to assault.

A smart player will pluck off the models closest to your unit. Its very easy to deny the charge to someone by pulling off all the models that were within 6" of the shooting unit. This happens all the time in competitive play.
A clever C:SM player will use combat tactics to fall back, rally, then shoot the piss out of the assault unit. I do this with my C:SM bike army all the time to great effect.

Your probably already going to be assaulting with a CC hammer unit that is going to win, so the shooting on the way in does not do much good. Lets face it, not many people assault with eldar guardians after shooting.
That deathwing squad with 5 TH/SS will wipe out the 10 man TAQ squad weather or not they fired the cyclone ML into it first. The termies would feel really stupid if they could not assault b/c of the cyclone's shooting.

The bottom line, shooting before assault is something you don't want to do 75% of the time. As such, assault weapons don't bring that much to the CC party.

What assault weapons do is allow you to move and fire at full strength. That's why storm bolters are better than normal bolters, and why people take shootas. The ability to move to maximize your shots is invalueable.

Here is your big mistake, you are looking at the shooting attacks as though they counted as part of the CC round. They don't. You're double-taxing those inflicted casualties as effectively counting twice.

you are correct but they both get to be done. Period. end of story. Assault adds damage to the CC phase because you GET to shoot into it. otherwise you loose those attacks. Vice versa it could also be looked at as adding damage to the shooting phase, in the end it doesn't matter but both forms of damage are applied where normally only one would. That's HUGE.

you don't know what the word arbitrary means

no you don't understand what I'm saying. nothing in those is subjective, contrary to what you want to believe they are factors that go into calculating who does what. which then gets compared to a baseline, there is nothing about that, that is arbitrary.

The only arbitrary costs that are NOT factors in determining combat effectiveness are the shields and krak grenades.

P.S. Saying something is arbitrary does not make it so. I could call the speed of light arbitrary but that doesn't make it so.

gendoikari87 wrote:
you are correct but they both get to be done. Period. end of story. Assault adds damage to the CC phase because you GET to shoot into it. otherwise you loose those attacks. Vice versa it could also be looked at as adding damage to the shooting phase, in the end it doesn't matter but both forms of damage are applied where normally only one would. That's HUGE.

Right, I'm not debating that Assault weapons have additional value, but you're grossly overvaluing that. You're counting those shooting casualties as having happened twice, which just isn't true. The way the Assault weapon value is factored in also makes very little sense as I explained on the last page.

I'll ask again, putting aside all the calculations, would you pay 21pts for a basic Space Marine with a Storm Bolter over a 15pt Space Marine with a basic Bolter? Would you pay 21pts for a basic Space Marine with 2A base and a Powerweapon? Between the two, which would you take more often?

no you don't understand what I'm saying. nothing in those is subjective, contrary to what you want to believe they are factors that go into calculating who does what. which then gets compared to a baseline, there is nothing about that, that is arbitrary.

Please read that definition again. Keep reading it until you understand what it means. You are placing arbitrary point cost values on things. They are arbitrary because you are not basing them in any previous writ or established code and you are not vetting them through peer review or repetitious objective analysis. You are using subjective evaluations in your calculations which make the final results arbitrary. That's just what this gak means. It doesn't invalidate your efforts, but your treatment of these results as a science is foolish because virtually nothing in your efforts is sourced from quantitative analysis and indeed couldn't be.

The only arbitrary costs that are NOT factors in determining combat effectiveness are the shields and krak grenades.

Why are these ones arbitrary when nothing is arbitrary?

P.S. Saying something is arbitrary does not make it so. I could call the speed of light arbitrary but that doesn't make it so.

Correct. What it would do is further demonstrate that you seem to fundamentally misunderstand the definitions for both arbitrary and subjective.

expalin to me how Rolling to hit/wound/ and armor saves is arbitrary because that's how everything else is worked out. please explain that.

gendoikari87 wrote:expalin to me how Rolling to hit/wound/ and armor saves is arbitrary because that's how everything else is worked out. please explain that.

No. Because that part is a statistical analysis of results. While this is actually a bad argument and you're arguing results from what would logically be a biased sample with few constraints and several billion possible permutations, that's fairly irrelevant since it's not what anyone has been saying. What is arbitrary is the point costing you are assigning and then lensing through that analysis. The costing is what is subjective and arbitrary (well, that and most of the rest of it, but this is the one thats most important).

which people have been saying for four pages

Much as I like you Shuma with your jovial aggression and comically venomous retorts, I cant agree with you on this topic.

I've only read the first page like, If you have further elucidated on your opinion, then ... actually feth it, I cant be bothered reading it all. Im not interested enough if were not talking politics and Religion.

Yeah, but most codex can have ultra powered cheese lists that are ridiculous, but I think if you make a normal "fun" fluffy GK list, they will just be good, as all new dexs are, but at 1000pts I'm generally happier playing GK than endless SW fething Longfang spam.

15 ML shooting at 9 different targets at 1000pts gives me the rage.

mattyrm wrote: Much as I like you Shuma with your jovial aggression and comically venomous retorts, I cant agree with you on this topic.

I've only read the first page like, If you have further elucidated on your opinion, then ... actually feth it, I cant be bothered reading it all. Im not interested enough if were not talking politics and Religion.

Yeah, but most codex can have ultra powered cheese lists that are ridiculous, but I think if you make a normal "fun" fluffy GK list, they will just be good, as all new dexs are, but at 1000pts I'm generally happier playing GK than endless SW fething Longfang spam.

15 ML shooting at 9 different targets at 1000pts gives me the rage.

I got banned at like page 3 due to something I said in OT, so this isn't my thread. Never really was. It's gone to terrible places, you might like it!

Oh right, If its turned into a total bag of bastards then its got my full attention.

Definetley followed by BA

Draigo wrote:I'm curious when they wrote the codex if they were just comparing them to the new codexes while trying to maintain the flavor of the old book. I mean the old gk werent slouches in cc either but add some stuff like psyfleman, storm raven, etc to them and you see a dramatic in the armies ability. Im curious about how the gk are too powerful crowd would balance the book without making them so over costed that they would still fit the fluff but still fit into a completely mech 5th edition. GK arent a mech army(or at least werent fluff wise).

I think the costs are about right where they should be honestly. The storm bolter does to GEQ's what the force toys do to MEQ's/MC's, while the psyk-out grenades are situational to say the least and GK's aren't fearless thank god!
Hammerhand is annoying at times, but there's far worse that needs dealing with.

Things I'd change;
- Remove Psychotroke grenades completely. They're so beyond broken it isn't even funny. All they do is leave a bad taste in an opponent's mouth as with a single roll, a GK squad can pretty much auto-win any assault thanks to these. (and you can include a hienous amount through techmarines!)
At the very least, a new table needs to be put in place. The current one is awful!

- Rad Grenades don't affect the 'Instant Death!' threshold. This would go a long way to making all those T4 multi-wound units viable against the typical S6 builds you see a number of GK assault units pulling through the addition of a single IC.

- Psybolt costs scale according to what vehicle it's on. The cost is fine for somehting like a razorback, or a crusader as it loses the 'defensive weapon' attribute of it's hurrican bolters for example. But psyflemen dreads are again too good for their cost. I don't think most GK players would object if they had to pay 15-20pts additional tax simply because 4x BS4/twin-linked S8 shots really is that good!
I'd also make them a pts/model based cost for squads so that they become viable for smaller squads instead of a 'only worthwhile if you're 10-man' type of upgrade.

- Swap the cost of the Falchions & Halberds. Sorry, but even the MoS is only +1I. Halberds are grossly effective and are too easy a counter to units that rely on their high initiative to be effective. Plus, I think falchions are over costed for what's only +1A in a game where assaults are decided more by higher initiative.
Either that or drop the cost of falchion to equal the cost of halberds, AND reduce halberds to just +1I. (I5 is still damn good, but at least those I6 glass cannon units like incubi or genestealers become relevent again!)

- Fortitude becomes an upgrade that costs at least the same as extra armour! (more likely I'd cost it along the line of Daemonic Possession).
Again, lots of opponents cry because GK's get the game's best MSU mech for seemingly 'free' when you compare how much better Fortitude is to other similar upgrades. Plus, you have armies like Orks, Tau, Chaos Marines, Daemons and such who have no actual way to counter psychic abilities!

- Clensing Flame only affects models in base-to-base with the Purifyers. GK's already have solid anti-horde ability with their plentiful shooting. Flame is just unfair to armies like orks & 'nids who get utterly raped by just 6 models.

- Warp Quake only a 6" range. (My Daemons have had enough of d-bag GK players auto-winning by quaking the entire board thank-you very much!)

- Dark Excomunication does not remove a Daemon Prince's mark of chaos!!!

- Hammerhand's +1S bonus is applied after other modifyers like double strength of Daemonahmmers - not before! (again, this just smacks of GK's having to be 'the best' for no real reason - everyone else follows the rules, why should GK's get what's essentially a 'free' perk?!)



Things like the wound allocation shinanigans (abuses?!) of Paldains for example are rumored to be addressed come 6th ed, so fine, I can live with draigowing having it's year or so of domination if it's going to be brought into line come July. (just as mech is rumored to be getting a slight nerfing soas to make foot slogger viable again).

But I think there are a number of OTT design issues that didn't need to be so outragous and could do with only minor ajustments to make the Grey Knights far less obnoxious to most opponents. It's not like alot of the above 'ruins' them or makes them crap, but it would be nice to see for example 30 orks not explode anymore to just 5 models!

While the excel sheet is an interesting exercise by itself and can be used as a tool to BROADLY gauge certain stuff it's inherently flawed for two reasons

1) In any model you will input certain assumptions. The calculations following from those assumptions can't be disputed but they're only so good as the assumptions themselves. Since there is no objective measure of determining the input (you can't test a model in a lab and "measure" it's points cost) any conclusion drawn from such a model will be inherently subjective.

2) No unit functions in a vacuum, therefore any mathematical model that does not factor in the entire context of the game (and such a thing is too complicated to make) is unreliable. GW themselves realized this about ten years ago. They used to work with a similar system (WHFB 5th ed. rulebook had charts for this for designing you own characters, +1S was worth x, +1I was worth y) etc... and it simply doesn't work because it doesn't account for context. They now use a more holistic approach where units are costed relative to the value of certain things within the context of that particular army list

But by all means, continue

The best example has to be a KFF Big Mek. It's a two wound character with nob stats and has pretty crappy hitting power/durability.

Ain't nobody gonna argue he's undercosted!

Monster Rain wrote:This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

Thank you sir, hope to see you there this year.

Brother Dimetrius wrote: They now use a more holistic approach where units are costed relative to the value of certain things within the context of that particular army list

Still doesn't explain the Pyrovore.

I wasn't implying they were necessarily good at it

Dok wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:This thread is hilarious.

I've only lost to GK once since the book came out, and that was at the BAO against an excellent player.

I do enjoy the tears and hate though. It's just another reason why my next child, boy or girl, will be named Matt Ward.

Thank you sir, hope to see you there this year.

Credit where credit is due.

I am planning on showing up again, it was a great time. Reecius and the boys put together a nice event. This time I'll probably be playing my new and improved Necrons!

Methinks I found the assault weapon issue. It's somehow being overfactored in the Dead Marines CC equation, with it toggled to 1 instead of 0, it triples the number of marines counted as being killed in CC, blowing the points cost all out of proportion in a phase the weapon does not inflict casualties in.

huh? um... that should be the power weapon one I'll have to go check the fucntion. The assault weapon button adds the Shooting damage to the CC.

gendoikari87 wrote:

Methinks I found the assault weapon issue. It's somehow being overfactored in the Dead Marines CC equation, with it toggled to 1 instead of 0, it triples the number of marines counted as being killed in CC, blowing the points cost all out of proportion in a phase the weapon does not inflict casualties in.

huh? um... that should be the power weapon one I'll have to go check the fucntion. The assault weapon button adds the Shooting damage to the CC.

Yup, we've got two issues there, the PW and Assault weapon values are swapped, and you're counting the kills from the Shooting phase *twice*. If you're going to factor them into CC, you can't also consider them shooting kills.

You can't kill the same models twice.

If they're killed in the shooting phase they not only don't count towards combat resolution (meaning they can't be counted as being worth as much as those killed in the actual CC phase, which reminds me, you may want to check to make sure they *aren't* counting towards resolution) but also run the risk of killing too many guys and being unable to assault and so won't always fire if they aren't very sure they can make it. Additionally, given that the Assault weapons usually have a range of 18-24", it doesn't always mean they'll be in assault range when firing.

Grey Knights aren't overpowered. They're an army with a fabulously low model count, and there are plenty of armies out there that punish them for it.

If they want to fire beyond 24", they have Psyflmen Dreads and nothing else. I promise that for every game they go firing every turn and fortituding any stunned or shakens away there's a game where they fail a cover save turn 1 and explode before firing a shot.

Tau laugh heartily at them, because CC prowess on GK level is entirely wasted upon them, as units far less capable are also capable of cleaning their clocks. Railguns + cover save stripping Markerlights obliterate Psyflmen and transports, and Tau sweat AP 2 weaponry and torrential Str 5 shooting.

Eldar have a piece of wargear that makes one of the biggest strengths of the GK army, it's psychic powers, extremely risky to use, and it blankets the table with no range limit. Holo-fields and Re-rollable cover saves ensure that transports can stand up to Psyflmen fire, and with such mobility allow the Eldar to pick their fights. Also, the army sports both Banshees and Harlequins, units that, especially with psychic power support, are capable taking on most GK units short of Pallie deathstars in CC.

Imperial Guard are much the same as Tau, in that GK CC prowess is largely irrelevant, and they have the firepower to obliterate multiple GK units in a single shooting phase if they are left exposed. They don't have snazzy markerlights, but generally IG have a greater amount of weapons to save against, which should make up the difference.

Other Marines are who GKs are awesome against, and even then it's not by default. All of the current marine books have the ability to fight GKs on even ground. Pack as much Las, Plasma, and Melta into a Marine list as you can (it's a much higher number than you'd think), and see who wins the shoot out.