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As above, how badly would it break the game to have all units who don't have rules otherwise stating they can't score (rage, swarm, supernumary ect) be counted as scoring? It would change tactics considerably granted, but at the same time I think it could work. Admittedly a) I'm fairly new, and b) I haven't done too much thinking about this. What do you think? anyone tried this before?

That's how the game used to work.

The changed to this was widely considered a vast improvement that benefited the tactical game greatly.

Good ol 4th edition. Who needed troops when you could get terminators and assault marines to get objectives! But yes I'll have to agree. While it seems very annoying that 2/3's the normal game requires a decent amount of troops, it does add in a bit more thought process when it comes to objectives

Although this is a bit annoying for older armies with less attractive troops

I've just always found it funny that my long fangs can be parked on an objective, making sure no one can get to it, but its merely contested. It's also what heavy weapons teams do... you park em on an objective, and blast the crap out of anyone who comes close.
I can see how it would force you to make some tough choices though. Do I advance my troops forward to kill those guys, or do I wait here and hold the objective?

As stated before, Terminators. Grey knight paladins on an objective? Unless you have a gak load of heavy ordinance, you can say goodbye to that objective.

liquidjoshi wrote:As stated before, Terminators. Grey knight paladins on an objective? Unless you have a gak load of heavy ordinance, you can say goodbye to that objective.

Draigo makes them troops, and the GM can make them troops as well.

And of course there's the Death/logan/ect/wing's out there that have termies as troops. Does it really break things that much? Making things troops has it's own benefits, the ability to score is merely one of them.
Has anyone played using the current edition with rules like this? how has it worked?

It wouldn't be broken, but you would lose a good tactical element of the game.

Think about it this way, if you didn't have to take troops for scoring, almost no-one would take any beyond the minimum two. (Except for 5th edition codices)

Death Company would become amazing.

The Troops slots would mostly be used for when you want to really spam something, like taking two Warbosses so you could have 50 Meganobz on the field at once.

If any infantry can take an objective, as stated troops like tactical marines become more or less pointless. Take 2 scout squads, and load the rest of your points into every other FOC.

From a fluff point of view I think troops being scoring makes sense most of the time as well. At the end of a battle, the troops would stay behind to secure the teritory, and the HQ/Elite/Fast/Heavy elements would pack up and move out, to bolster another troop element elsewhere on the planet. So troops are scoring because they would be left behind.

I also see the end of a game of 40k as a pretty signifigant event fluffwise. IE, if when the game ends one side does not hold its objectives, those units are written off for support and overwhelmed, while the victor gets reinforced due to having the territory, despite perhaps having suffered more losses than their enemy.

In non-territory style games, I envison objectives as things like orbital defense uplink nodes, where the end of the game signifies the enemy capital ship coming into range. If you hold enough nodes, the orbital defenses kill the enemy capital ship... if not the capital ship calls down reinforcement and the battle swings signifigantly. For that kind of objective, indeed only troops being scoring seems silly. Instead certian units would be nominated to be 'engineer' units or 'communication' units or some such, not a blanket 'troop' unit. Planetstrike tried something like this I believe.

Mr. Self Destruct wrote:Death Company would become amazing.

Death Company would still suck. Codex overrides rulebook and the BA codex says they don't score even though they're Troops. In any case Rage would make them not very good at holding objectives.

Well it certainly doesn't completely break the game, because as people have mentioned 4th edition worked like this, but it has a massive influence on all lists, codices and gameplay. It also would completely waste all the balancing work GW has put in to making troops worth taking, even 5th edition books wouldn't bother taking Tacticals, Grey Hunters, Wyches etc (beyond the required 2) when you can take Sternguard/Terminators, Wolf Guard (without Logan) or Incubi to do the same job. In 4th it was even easier to mini max than it is now, for example you could run armies like 2 units of 5 Scouts and then 30 Terminators with absolutely no drawbacks. In short its a step backwards, the game is much more tactical and enjoyable as a result of making only troops scoring, and suprisingly enough also produces more realistic/fluffy armies with a core of basic infantry + support (which is a win all round really).

So I guess I'm the only person who takes my troops because they're usefull rather than because I have to? But I _do_ play Space Wolves, so GH aren't a bad choice all around.

What? No you seem to have missed the point, in all the 5th edition books troops are both useful (because GW put some effort into game balance) and required (by the FOC Chart and because you need to keep them alive to win most games). The 4th edition books are handicapped atm because back when they were developed GW didn't put as much effort into making them useful (again partly because the system meant there was no need to), and beyond the 2 compulsory choice there was no reason to take them. However even with the 5th edition books if you change back to 4th edition capturing rules it doesn't matter how useful anyone's troop units are if you can take Elites, Heavies or Fast Attack with no drawbacks, its clearly going to be more optimal to take the hard hitters.

I would like this so I wouldn't have to keep my assault marines idle holding an objective, I'd park Sternguard or devastators on the objectives and send my full assault force forward but ya like what has been said before it gives you a more tactical decision when only troops can score (even though in the new codexes more and more things can be turned into scoring units that it barley is the case anymore)

Riddick40k wrote:I would like this so I wouldn't have to keep my assault marines idle holding an objective, I'd park Sternguard or devastators on the objectives and send my full assault force forward but ya like what has been said before it gives you a more tactical decision when only troops can score (even though in the new codexes more and more things can be turned into scoring units that it barley is the case anymore)

I play the grey knights and make lists usually revolving around what was mentioned here, turning special units into scoring units via crowe, draigo and coteaz. While it is proper to note that yes it can be a little over powered at times, by no means do I think that it is imbalanced, you have to pay to get those guys as troops choices, yes draigo is strong but he is expensive as well, and yeah purifiers are definately powerful with the access to cheap weaponry and the ability to control hordes, but crowe is NOT an independent character and is a 150 pt sink in my opinion. Coteaz gives the ability to get henchmen as troops choices, he offers the MOST versatility in regards to customizing the forces and deploying fun, wonky set-ups that can change every game. the only issue is that it is a little more glass cannon than one would think.

I guess what I am saying that there are draw backs to doing everything in 40k, there are always armies that will simply crush you because of either a certain aspect just countering you very well or the dice gods are frowning upon you.

In regards to the original post, I believe that making all troops scoring units is pretty OP as I have learned from making dreads scoring with draigo, yes it is a different point, but relevant due to the fact that I would most likely forego dreads if it meant purgation squads could be scoring units.

The change was made to give the finger to min/maxers who decided 'Screw the fluff, I'm going to spend 160pts on two five-man Scout squads and throw my other 1340pts into Terminators in Land Raiders!" Troops are supposed to be the basic core of your force, and it wasn't competitive to use them as the basic core of your force back then, so they decided to alter the rules to make Troops viable again. Which also explains why they're moving formerly Elites units into Troops (Wyches, GK Terminators, Tyranid Warriors), so they don't piss off the munchkin crowd too badly.

CoI wrote:I've just always found it funny that my long fangs can be parked on an objective, making sure no one can get to it, but its merely contested. It's also what heavy weapons teams do... you park em on an objective, and blast the crap out of anyone who comes close.
I can see how it would force you to make some tough choices though. Do I advance my troops forward to kill those guys, or do I wait here and hold the objective?

Its intentionally done this way to prevent you from taking 15 long fangs and parking it on an objective. Unless you have the points to spare, generally the tradeoff is ability to score vs. ability to be cheesy.

As others have stated, what you propose is the way the game used to work, which is mostly hwere hte concept of minmaxing originated. 2 minimum sized squads with maximum number of heavy/special weapons, and then all the other slots were filled/spammed to death.

CoI wrote:So I guess I'm the only person who takes my troops because they're usefull rather than because I have to? But I _do_ play Space Wolves, so GH aren't a bad choice all around.

Yeah, pretty much, even then a large part of the utility you have derived from your troops is because they can score. Remove that, and you wouldn't really be doing yourself any favors competitively to be taking more troops than you had to in most circumstances.

I for one hope we never go back to the old system. The game was so vastly improved by the troops as scoring only that I can't even imagine going back to the old way again. Ahhh.... I can still remember when the rumors first surfaced about the change to troops only... oh the nerd rage... so much nerd rage... and little child tears... so many tears... mmm... they were delicious tears indeed.

'cept for Orks. Orks is da best, you know.

Terminators? Paladins?
Forget that. MANz in cover is all you need. They don't have to keep units away from the objective, units will keep themselves away from the objective

I agree, the new "Troops Score" system gave people a reason to have more troops, and a reason to keep them alive (if you don't want to draw).

Actually even with removing the scoring bit, I'd still take my troops. I rarely have them parked, they're my work horses. LF/vindicator makes the enemy not want to leave cover, the troops move up and take them out.

Seriously though, with the advent of "Take this, make that troop" and the fact that even if many elites did become troops the game would still be balanced, I'm honestly seeing less need for troops at all beyond objective holders; as in if everything became troops, literally, even on the FOC.

With the exception of a loota army, I can't think of any other elites that are so good that they deserve to be restricted to 3 max.

I can come up with a few...

Incubi: I observed a game once in which a six-man squad tarpitted thirty 'Ard Boyz and a Warboss for four turns. These guys are seriously nasty.

Chosen, Trueborn, Hekiatrix, Vanguard Veterans: Why take normal Chaos Marines/Warriors/Wyches/Tactical Marines when you could just take these guys? They're like the normal Troops choices, but BETTER!

Battlesuits: If you asked a Tau player if he'd play an army that could run no Fire Warriors and only Battlesuits what do you think he'd say?

Perhaps its not the Scoring Units rules that are the problem, perhaps the FOC itself is just outdated now and in need of a revision.