Why are Guardsmen so awesome in game?

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**the_scotsman**

Asmodios wrote:
I have a serious question for all the people chomping at the bit for a guardsmen nerf. If guardsmen are so broken and so OP why have we not seen a spam guardsmen list perform at the top of the meta? We know that spam has been taken in guard lists this edition (conscript and hellhound) so its not like its against some internal code. Also, spam, in general, has been incredibly strong we have seen
Cultist Spam
Termigants Spam
Hellhound Spam
PBC Spam
and on and on and on
So where are the 200 guardsmen lists? there's effectively no limit on how many you can take. According to dakka they are always going to be in rapid-fire orders range melting everything on the field and they are utterly unkillable. So why do we see not only other units but other troop units spammed to great effect but not the beyond overpowered guardsmen? Its almost like there real strength is CP generation and that's what we see them for. We saw more of the loyal 32 before the CP generation change and more battalion now but still no actual spam lists.

Honestly curious why we haven't seen it if they are the super soldiers some seem to think they are

Ah yes, the old "if evolution is real, why do we not have a link between man and this LAST link I asked for???" argument.

in the span of time between conscripts not being mathematically superior to guardsmen and now, I see 31 winning "guard-primary" lists on bloodofkittens. The vast majority have brigades, usually with 6 squads, then a soup detachment to take care of the one thing guard don't do best of the imperial factions - spend CP on killing heavy elite models. Custode Captains, Smashcaptains, and Raven Castellans are taken to do that.

Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

catbarf wrote:
An Actual Englishman wrote:
I've already said like a hundred times in this thread that they aren't only taken in minimum sizes to fulfil CP requirements. Are you sure you read the last few pages?

Scotsman also mentioned a cheaper Imperial Battalion in Ad Mech. If cost was the only factor that would be taken instead but it isn't.

Perhaps I'm missing a post, but I haven't seen much evidence of soup players using more than the bare minimum required for CP. Looking through the top ITC lists for October from Blood of Kittens, and feel free to tell me if this is an outlier, I see the following:
Minimum battalion: 5
Minimum brigade: 2
More-than-minimum battalion: 1 (6 Inf + Straken + Priest, so going for that melee blob)
More-than-minimum brigade: 1 (all-Guard list save for a Castellan, took 8 Inf squads)

That doesn't exactly scream 'infantry are great and you should spend lots of points on them' to me, it says that they're the best choice for soup lists to fill battalion/brigade slots. I can absolutely buy that they're the best CP tax available to soup lists, but being the best CP tax doesn't necessarily mean they're brokenly overpowered. It just means that they're the only sub-200pt battalion that actually pulls its own weight (in contrast to, for example, the useless Tech-Priests in AdMech battalions), which is a very different thing from performing above their cost. Kill CP farming and I suspect the number of Guardsmen showing up in tournament-winning lists will drop considerably.

I've said before and feel I should reiterate: I'm strongly in favor of Guardsmen going to 5ppm, and I'm okay with reworking orders to make them a little more subtle/reasonable, since Guardsmen seriously should not be the most flexible infantry in the game. I just don't think this idea that Guard hordes are sweeping the tournament scene is an accurate assessment; they show up in every soup list because they're the best CP battery, and killing that mechanic should cut down on the number of Guardsmen showing up in tournaments. Then we can look at how they actually perform as a unit without this 'they're in 2935% of tournament lists!' baggage muddying the waters.

I'm also not sure why people keep repeating that AdMech have a cheaper battalion. That is only true as of CA a couple of weeks ago, so of course we're not seeing it much in tournaments yet (although one of the winning lists in the link above did actually take an AdMech battalion for CP). Give it time.

"guardsmen spam is sweeping the tournament scene" is not the argument being put forward, it is the argument being assigned by the opposition to create a strawman.

Exactly what you listed is the argument: min detachments of guardsmen massively outperform min detachments of anything else, leading to a balance problem where they are an auto-include to generate CPs.

**Bharring**

Farseers are OP. You rarely see 2, never see 3.

Shining Spears are OP. When was the last time you saw a list with 3 9-mans?

Castellans are OP. Lists with one outnumber (and outperform) lists with more than one.

**Apple Peel**

the_scotsman wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
I have a serious question for all the people chomping at the bit for a guardsmen nerf. If guardsmen are so broken and so OP why have we not seen a spam guardsmen list perform at the top of the meta? We know that spam has been taken in guard lists this edition (conscript and hellhound) so its not like its against some internal code. Also, spam, in general, has been incredibly strong we have seen
Cultist Spam
Termigants Spam
Hellhound Spam
PBC Spam
and on and on and on
So where are the 200 guardsmen lists? there's effectively no limit on how many you can take. According to dakka they are always going to be in rapid-fire orders range melting everything on the field and they are utterly unkillable. So why do we see not only other units but other troop units spammed to great effect but not the beyond overpowered guardsmen? Its almost like there real strength is CP generation and that's what we see them for. We saw more of the loyal 32 before the CP generation change and more battalion now but still no actual spam lists.

Honestly curious why we haven't seen it if they are the super soldiers some seem to think they are

Ah yes, the old "if evolution is real, why do we not have a link between man and this LAST link I asked for???" argument.

in the span of time between conscripts not being mathematically superior to guardsmen and now, I see 31 winning "guard-primary" lists on bloodofkittens. The vast majority have brigades, usually with 6 squads, then a soup detachment to take care of the one thing guard don't do best of the imperial factions - spend CP on killing heavy elite models. Custode Captains, Smashcaptains, and Raven Castellans are taken to do that.

Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

If we decided to throw infantry squad spam lists into these tournaments, would we expect to see similar results, with the spam lists taking all the top lists or not? Lets look into a world where some of the tournament players, not all, we still need soup presence lists for the argument, took IS spam lists, regardless that they could spend the command points better in a soup list. Would they outperform Imperial Soup lists?

**Asmodios**

the_scotsman wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
I have a serious question for all the people chomping at the bit for a guardsmen nerf. If guardsmen are so broken and so OP why have we not seen a spam guardsmen list perform at the top of the meta? We know that spam has been taken in guard lists this edition (conscript and hellhound) so its not like its against some internal code. Also, spam, in general, has been incredibly strong we have seen
Cultist Spam
Termigants Spam
Hellhound Spam
PBC Spam
and on and on and on
So where are the 200 guardsmen lists? there's effectively no limit on how many you can take. According to dakka they are always going to be in rapid-fire orders range melting everything on the field and they are utterly unkillable. So why do we see not only other units but other troop units spammed to great effect but not the beyond overpowered guardsmen? Its almost like there real strength is CP generation and that's what we see them for. We saw more of the loyal 32 before the CP generation change and more battalion now but still no actual spam lists.

Honestly curious why we haven't seen it if they are the super soldiers some seem to think they are

Ah yes, the old "if evolution is real, why do we not have a link between man and this LAST link I asked for???" argument.

in the span of time between conscripts not being mathematically superior to guardsmen and now, I see 31 winning "guard-primary" lists on bloodofkittens. The vast majority have brigades, usually with 6 squads, then a soup detachment to take care of the one thing guard don't do best of the imperial factions - spend CP on killing heavy elite models. Custode Captains, Smashcaptains, and Raven Castellans are taken to do that.

Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

So what im getting from you is
>I see people taking a brigade of guard for an easy 12 CP that most lists deemed necessary after the CP regeneration change
yeah once again nobody is denying that CP generation is an issue. But what im seeing in this thread is that guard is some powerhouse unit that is ppm better then everything else in the game yet we haven't seen guard spam. At the same time, you will see that cultists and termagants are awful and terrible in comparison but we have seen winning spam lists of those this edition. Heck, when conscripts were clearly OP with commisar moral immunity guess what we saw...... conscript spam. but please respond when you want to answer the actual question

**Apple Peel**

MInd you, this is theoretical, and I'm not speaking for any side in this part here.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
in my prior post

**catbarf**

the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

Edit:

the_scotsman wrote:
"guardsmen spam is sweeping the tournament scene" is not the argument being put forward, it is the argument being assigned by the opposition to create a strawman.

Exactly what you listed is the argument: min detachments of guardsmen massively outperform min detachments of anything else, leading to a balance problem where they are an auto-include to generate CPs.

Several in this thread have explicitly stated that Guardsman spam armies are overpowered. I distinctly recall one user outright saying that it's virtually an auto-win against even meta lists. I'll go dig up the quotes if you want; I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth.

And I'm not sure that Guardsman detachments being able to pull their own weight is necessarily reflective of them being intrinsically overpowered, more that there's a general lack of cheap battalions where the HQs synergize with the Troops and aren't just slot-fillers. The Guard minimum battalion is unique in that both the HQ and Troops choices are cheap, but the HQs directly buff the Troops as well. That's a problem when they can generate CP and be a decent combat force in their own right, where other factions have to choose to spend their points on one or the other- so let's kill the cross-faction CP battery mechanic, and then it stops being an issue.

**Lemondish**

Asmodios wrote:

So what im getting from you is
>I see people taking a brigade of guard for an easy 12 CP that most lists deemed necessary after the CP regeneration change
yeah once again nobody is denying that CP generation is an issue. But what im seeing in this thread is that guard is some powerhouse unit that is ppm better then everything else in the game yet we haven't seen guard spam. At the same time, you will see that cultists and termagants are awful and terrible in comparison but we have seen winning spam lists of those this edition. Heck, when conscripts were clearly OP with commisar moral immunity guess what we saw...... conscript spam. but please respond when you want to answer the actual question

The bolded is what's called a strawman. It's been used so often in the past few pages that I think it's starting to fall apart right as we read it...

**Apple Peel**

Lemondish wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

So what im getting from you is
>I see people taking a brigade of guard for an easy 12 CP that most lists deemed necessary after the CP regeneration change
yeah once again nobody is denying that CP generation is an issue. But what im seeing in this thread is that guard is some powerhouse unit that is ppm better then everything else in the game yet we haven't seen guard spam. At the same time, you will see that cultists and termagants are awful and terrible in comparison but we have seen winning spam lists of those this edition. Heck, when conscripts were clearly OP with commisar moral immunity guess what we saw...... conscript spam. but please respond when you want to answer the actual question

The bolded is what's called a strawman. It's been used so often in the past few pages that I think it's starting to fall apart right as we read it...

I see multiple arguments going on across all of these pages, and I'm sure other people are looking at different posts and making a confusing jumble. Is it a strawman for what you might be referring to, or someone else's argument with someone else over a similar issue?

**Asmodios**

catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

^
exactly and the proof is the list composition they are taken in in tournaments

thus how do you fix them?
You curb either the amount of CP they generate or their ability to share it. What you don't need to do is up their point cost so that themed lists that do take heavy guard infantry to do even worse

PS. I'm all for nerfing the catachan trait as it is imo far too efficient

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lemondish wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

So what im getting from you is
>I see people taking a brigade of guard for an easy 12 CP that most lists deemed necessary after the CP regeneration change
yeah once again nobody is denying that CP generation is an issue. But what im seeing in this thread is that guard is some powerhouse unit that is ppm better then everything else in the game yet we haven't seen guard spam. At the same time, you will see that cultists and termagants are awful and terrible in comparison but we have seen winning spam lists of those this edition. Heck, when conscripts were clearly OP with commisar moral immunity guess what we saw...... conscript spam. but please respond when you want to answer the actual question

The bolded is what's called a strawman. It's been used so often in the past few pages that I think it's starting to fall apart right as we read it...

ummmm go read the thread.... the entire thing. This is the argument that is being made over and over and over. Nobody is arguing that generating CP isnt an issue

**the_scotsman**

catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

**Ice_can**

Lemondish wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

So what im getting from you is
>I see people taking a brigade of guard for an easy 12 CP that most lists deemed necessary after the CP regeneration change
yeah once again nobody is denying that CP generation is an issue. But what im seeing in this thread is that guard is some powerhouse unit that is ppm better then everything else in the game yet we haven't seen guard spam. At the same time, you will see that cultists and termagants are awful and terrible in comparison but we have seen winning spam lists of those this edition. Heck, when conscripts were clearly OP with commisar moral immunity guess what we saw...... conscript spam. but please respond when you want to answer the actual question

The bolded is what's called a strawman. It's been used so often in the past few pages that I think it's starting to fall apart right as we read it...

No it's someone misquoting to change the narrative to better suit their own agenda, but quite frankly at this point it's a pattern of behaviour that a group of problem guard players continue to embrace without care for the impact it has on their fellow guard players or the health of the game in general.

**Asmodios**

the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

**catbarf**

the_scotsman wrote:
If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

I don't know. I could see it going either way. But I'd like to actually see the outcome of that change before making further conclusions about what nerfs Guard do or don't need, because right now the issue of CP generation and the issue of Guardsmen being OP for the price are wrapped up together and it makes it hard to do any kind of objective assessment.

As for how to implement: CP generated by a detachment can only be spent on stratagems for that detachment, or something to that effect. Or give each player a starting number of CPs that they spend on detachments, rather than generating them. There are a couple of ways to kill the CP battery as a mechanic.

Also, I edited my previous post while you were replying, to address your post to me. Just FYI.

**Ice_can**

Asmodios wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

No thanks my sisters of silence and mixed tau doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion just so guard can keep their ability to break the current CP rules.

**Asmodios**

Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

No thanks my sisters of silence and mixed tau doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion just so guard can keep their ability to break the current CP rules.

Sorry, I assumed you had read the other threads. Tau wouldn't be affected as the entire army consists entirely with the <tau> or whatever keyword. What I'm proposing is that you couldn't give <Imperial guard> CP to <knights>. You can then balance the cost of knights strategems because you know they can't gain access to 12 CP. This would bring every mono codex army in the game up in power level and reduce every popular soup in power level encouraging more mono builds thus making the game much easier to balance as you dont have to worry about the point cost of a unit in another codex making strategems too cheap even though many players will never play from the other codex

**An Actual Englishman**

Guys, guys, guys.

Imagine a 40k game where there is no CP generation and no units other than troops.

Guardsmen win every game. Their performance, both in theory and evidenced by the fact that they are by far the most popular ingredient in Imperial soup lists, is an outlier for their cost.

The reason we don't see armies of nothing but Guardsmen is for a few reasons. The army would be boring and time consuming to play (an issue now chess clocks are a thing), it is not as efficient as taking Guardsmen + Smash Captain + Castellan, people don't own 300+ Guardsmen, they would struggle to deploy their force legally etc

Also the existence of other, OP units does not impact on whether Guardsmen are OP. Castellans and Smash Captains are also OP and they perform certain functions better than Guardsmen. This does not mean that Guardsmen are fine.

"Why don't we see armies of only Guardsmen?" is a complete and utter false equivalence. The answer is the same reason you don't see armies of pure kabalite warriors, or 4ppm Cultists or any other troop unit you believe to be under costed. There is a strength in taking mixed lists that maximise efficiencies, strangely enough.

**Asmodios**

An Actual Englishman wrote:
Guys, guys, guys.

Imagine a 40k game where there is no CP generation and no units other than troops.

Guardsmen win every game. Their performance, both in theory and evidenced by the fact that they are by far the most popular ingredient in Imperial soup lists, is an outlier for their cost.

The reason we don't see armies of nothing but Guardsmen is for a few reasons. The army would be boring and time consuming to play (an issue now chess clocks are a thing), it is not as efficient as taking Guardsmen + Smash Captain + Castellan, people don't own 300+ Guardsmen, they would struggle to deploy their force legally etc

Also the existence of other, OP units does not impact on whether Guardsmen are OP. Castellans and Smash Captains are also OP and they perform certain functions better than Guardsmen. This does not mean that Guardsmen are fine.

"Why don't we see armies of only Guardsmen?" is a complete and utter false equivalence. The answer is the same reason you don't see armies of pure kabalite warriors, or 4ppm Cultists or any other troop unit you believe to be under costed. There is a strength in taking mixed lists that maximise efficiencies, strangely enough.

1. Was conscript spam not boring/ time consuming to play? Cultist Spam? Termagant Spam? yet we have seen all of those
2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here
3. People clearly have the models as conscript spam was just as many bodies and uses the same models, or did people melt their armies after the nerf?
4. Once again the combination of several units that on their own do not perform in mono lists extraordinarily are too good when combined together..... maybe we should start focusing on how these units keep interacting as everytime you nuke one unit it will simply be replaced by the next best thing and all together mono lists get hurt more then the intended soup build.

also we did see armies of massed cultists and termagaunts win multiple GTs this edition and remain popular lists

**Ice_can**

Asmodios wrote:
Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

No thanks my sisters of silence and mixed tau doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion just so guard can keep their ability to break the current CP rules.

Sorry, I assumed you had read the other threads. Tau wouldn't be affected as the entire army consists entirely with the <tau> or whatever keyword. What I'm proposing is that you couldn't give <Imperial guard> CP to <knights>. You can then balance the cost of knights strategems because you know they can't gain access to 12 CP. This would bring every mono codex army in the game up in power level and reduce every popular soup in power level encouraging more mono builds thus making the game much easier to balance as you dont have to worry about the point cost of a unit in another codex making strategems too cheap even though many players will never play from the other codex

Why did I ecen think you could be reasoned with

I did read them and showed you time and again areas where your grand guard fix nerfed a bunch of non power builds, but you didn't care. As it protects your precious guardsmen at 4ppm.

So index armies and other things like inquisition and assasins should just be squated then?

**Daedalus81**

Asmodios wrote:

1. Was conscript spam not boring/ time consuming to play? Cultist Spam? Termagant Spam? yet we have seen all of those
2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here
3. People clearly have the models as conscript spam was just as many bodies and uses the same models, or did people melt their armies after the nerf?
4. Once again the combination of several units that on their own do not perform in mono lists extraordinarily are too good when combined together..... maybe we should start focusing on how these units keep interacting as everytime you nuke one unit it will simply be replaced by the next best thing and all together mono lists get hurt more then the intended soup build.

also we did see armies of massed cultists and termagaunts win multiple GTs this edition and remain popular lists

There are several barriers to all horde lists - some of them have been added since the days of index conscripts...a year and a half ago.

- Purchasing
- Chess clocks
- Painting
- Chess clocks
- Deployment
- Chess clocks
- Multiple morale tests
- Chess clocks
- Issuing orders can take a really long time
- Chess clocks
- It's boring as hell
- Chess clocks

Cultists and gants are just a single blob instead of 3 or 4 individual units that each need their own commander to be in place and you don't need to worry about differentiating different units.

**Crimson**

Asmodios wrote:

2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here

So where is Marines + Sisters soup? Ad Mech + Custodes soup? If the soup in itself was some magic thing that makes stuff über, we would be seeing wide variety of different soups. Yet almost always the core element of the Imperial soup is the Guard.

**Apple Peel**

Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

No thanks my sisters of silence and mixed tau doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion just so guard can keep their ability to break the current CP rules.

Sorry, I assumed you had read the other threads. Tau wouldn't be affected as the entire army consists entirely with the <tau> or whatever keyword. What I'm proposing is that you couldn't give <Imperial guard> CP to <knights>. You can then balance the cost of knights strategems because you know they can't gain access to 12 CP. This would bring every mono codex army in the game up in power level and reduce every popular soup in power level encouraging more mono builds thus making the game much easier to balance as you dont have to worry about the point cost of a unit in another codex making strategems too cheap even though many players will never play from the other codex

Why did I ecen think you could be reasoned with

I did read them and showed you time and again areas where your grand guard fix nerfed a bunch of non power builds, but you didn't care. As it protects your precious guardsmen at 4ppm.

So index armies and other things like inquisition and assasins should just be squated then?

It has been a while, but what stratagems did Inquisition and Assasins have access to besides the BRB ones?
Also, If I remember correctly from that one Vigilus Weekender, didn't GW say they didn't really envision inquisition in the table top army seen much anymore or something similar to that regard? If so, then GW is already on that.

**Asmodios**

Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
Ice_can wrote:
Asmodios wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman wrote:
Argument: There does not exist a CP-generating unit with better firepower, faster movement speed, or greater durability per point than guardsmen.

Response: Then why isn't anyone taking a list with only them in it?

Because you use something else to spend the CP the guardsmen generate.

Then the most straightforward and necessary nerf is to kill their ability to generate CP for other things, no?

If they're only being taken in the minimum quantity needed to generate those CP, then clearly they're being chosen for CP first and firepower/movement/durability second.

That still does not address the other three problem with Guard. There is no unit even close to their price range that does what they do, and it has never been demonstrated that just because you take them in the configuration where the squads grant you CP, they are not overly efficient with that CP generation being a factor in their cost.

Guard squads are taken in multiples of 3, or 6, most commonly, because in those configurations the guard squads are generating you CPs in addition to their other capabilities.

If you removed their ability to generate CPs for Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, would we see people taking lists of only Knights, Blood Angels and Custodes, or would we see people taking lists of only Guard, replacing the heavy element with something like a Catachan Shadowsword in a Supreme Command?

We don't know, because that hasn't happened, but in tournaments prior to the Blood Angel/Knight codex release, Catachan Brigades with a Shadowsword were pretty common, usually showing up alongside a Celestine+culexus mini-detachment.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another issue is that we don't yet have a way to nerf a unit's "CP generation" besides making them not troops, upping minimum squad size, or upping point costs.

There is actually a super simple way to nerf the CP generation. Just make detachments unable to share CP. Then you can balance CP costs for armies based on how cheap their minimum detachments are not guards

No thanks my sisters of silence and mixed tau doesn't need to be nerfed into oblivion just so guard can keep their ability to break the current CP rules.

Sorry, I assumed you had read the other threads. Tau wouldn't be affected as the entire army consists entirely with the <tau> or whatever keyword. What I'm proposing is that you couldn't give <Imperial guard> CP to <knights>. You can then balance the cost of knights strategems because you know they can't gain access to 12 CP. This would bring every mono codex army in the game up in power level and reduce every popular soup in power level encouraging more mono builds thus making the game much easier to balance as you dont have to worry about the point cost of a unit in another codex making strategems too cheap even though many players will never play from the other codex

Why did I ecen think you could be reasoned with

I did read them and showed you time and again areas where your grand guard fix nerfed a bunch of non power builds, but you didn't care. As it protects your precious guardsmen at 4ppm.

So index armies and other things like inquisition and assasins should just be squated then?

No I've said multiple times that this would allow you to actually balance armies that aren't seen. Also, index armies need to be updated into an actual codex.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Crimson wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here

So where is Marines + Sisters soup? Ad Mech + Custodes soup? If the soup in itself was some magic thing that makes stuff über, we would be seeing wide variety of different soups. Yet almost always the core element of the Imperial soup is the Guard.

those soups arent at top tables because they are being played for fluff and don't leverage the broken part of soup (CP generation). The funny part is my proposed change wouldn't make those lists any less viable then they are and would only hurt the truly abusive soup builds. There still needs to be a drawback to soup, bringing up a few weird fluff builds that won't be affected doesn't change that

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Daedalus81 wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

1. Was conscript spam not boring/ time consuming to play? Cultist Spam? Termagant Spam? yet we have seen all of those
2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here
3. People clearly have the models as conscript spam was just as many bodies and uses the same models, or did people melt their armies after the nerf?
4. Once again the combination of several units that on their own do not perform in mono lists extraordinarily are too good when combined together..... maybe we should start focusing on how these units keep interacting as everytime you nuke one unit it will simply be replaced by the next best thing and all together mono lists get hurt more then the intended soup build.

also we did see armies of massed cultists and termagaunts win multiple GTs this edition and remain popular lists

There are several barriers to all horde lists - some of them have been added since the days of index conscripts...a year and a half ago.

- Purchasing
- Chess clocks
- Painting
- Chess clocks
- Deployment
- Chess clocks
- Multiple morale tests
- Chess clocks
- Issuing orders can take a really long time
- Chess clocks
- It's boring as hell
- Chess clocks

Cultists and gants are just a single blob instead of 3 or 4 individual units that each need their own commander to be in place and you don't need to worry about differentiating different units.

Yeah, this doesn't address why we were seeing cultist and termagant 200+ model spam and not guard. They both have the same exact limitations yet guard has never been effectively taken (except for when conscripts were broken)

**Vaktathi**

An Actual Englishman wrote:

"Why don't we see armies of only Guardsmen?" is a complete and utter false equivalence. The answer is the same reason you don't see armies of pure kabalite warriors, or 4ppm Cultists or any other troop unit you believe to be under costed. There is a strength in taking mixed lists that maximise efficiencies, strangely enough.

If I may offer a counterpoint: there are other units also composed of Guardsmen that can fill other roles in ways which have no equivalents for these units from other armies, that do allow you to build a whole cohesive army. Heavy and Special weapons squads and Veterans. Yet these units are relatively rarely seen next to the Infantry Squad, despite being similarly costed with the same orders and abilities and weapons and arguably even more cost effective in some respects at many tasks.

What we see 90% of the time in the competitive arena is just enough troop guardsmen to fill out the detachment requirements, with these other units rarely fielded (HWS's appear sometimes, almost exclusively with just mortars).

Now, to be fair, the rule of 3 kneecaps these other units to some extent, but we still see these other Guardsmen composed units relatively rarely despite otherwise offering pretty much the same advantages except theyre just not Troops.

Ice_can wrote:

So index armies and other things like inquisition and assasins should just be squated then?

These things aren't really armies in the first place in and of themselves, and GW handling of them really needs to be changed. They need to be generic plug ins for Imperial armies, Assassins are not an army on their own in any sense and shouldnt be treated as such. Neither is the Inquisition, they take command of armies but are not an army inherently. Index lists need to be updated.

The CP sharing needs to be addressed however, Guardsmen or no. Allies shenanigans are, above and beyond any one faction, the single largest issue the game faces.

**An Actual Englishman**

Asmodios wrote:

1. Was conscript spam not boring/ time consuming to play? Cultist Spam? Termagant Spam? yet we have seen all of those
2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here
3. People clearly have the models as conscript spam was just as many bodies and uses the same models, or did people melt their armies after the nerf?
4. Once again the combination of several units that on their own do not perform in mono lists extraordinarily are too good when combined together..... maybe we should start focusing on how these units keep interacting as everytime you nuke one unit it will simply be replaced by the next best thing and all together mono lists get hurt more then the intended soup build.

also we did see armies of massed cultists and termagaunts win multiple GTs this edition and remain popular lists

1. Yes, it was. Which is why they didn't last long. Cultist and Termagant spam happened when? Must've missed that dominating the meta.
2. There is no army of only troop units that would beat a well rounded army with maximum efficiencies. Makes no difference to the fact that Guard are currently vastly undercosted.
3. Perhaps people want to play with their big, stompy, 'cool' knight model?
4. Guardsmen also perform extraordinarily well in mono Guard lists. Guardsmen are too efficient compared to any other troop in the game.

Where are these pure Gant/Cultist armies? When did they dominate?

**Daedalus81**

Asmodios wrote:

Yeah, this doesn't address why we were seeing cultist and termagant 200+ model spam and not guard. They both have the same exact limitations yet guard has never been effectively taken (except for when conscripts were broken)

Yes, it does, because we're not seeing 200 cultists or gants. 80 or 120 tops for cultists. It's also much simpler to manipulate 3 units than 20 units plus commanders.

**Bharring**

Aren't there far more IG-based Soup armies that place top 10 than non-IG-based Soup armies? By based, I mean 30+ Guardsmen.

If IoM Soup > Non-IoM Soup, and IG were not much better than AdMech, SoB, etc, then shouldn't we see more non-IG IoM Soup placing above non-IoM lists?

**An Actual Englishman**

Bharring wrote:
Aren't there far more IG-based Soup armies that place top 10 than non-IG-based Soup armies? By based, I mean 30+ Guardsmen.

If IoM Soup > Non-IoM Soup, and IG were not much better than AdMech, SoB, etc, then shouldn't we see more non-IG IoM Soup placing above non-IoM lists?

You'd think wouldn't you?

That does make complete logical sense.

But I reckon someone will have an answer as to why this isn't the case shortly. Possibly something around the magical power of soup and interactions between units.

**Asmodios**

An Actual Englishman wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

1. Was conscript spam not boring/ time consuming to play? Cultist Spam? Termagant Spam? yet we have seen all of those
2. So its not only "not as efficient" as soup..... so once again soup is the real issue here
3. People clearly have the models as conscript spam was just as many bodies and uses the same models, or did people melt their armies after the nerf?
4. Once again the combination of several units that on their own do not perform in mono lists extraordinarily are too good when combined together..... maybe we should start focusing on how these units keep interacting as everytime you nuke one unit it will simply be replaced by the next best thing and all together mono lists get hurt more then the intended soup build.

also we did see armies of massed cultists and termagaunts win multiple GTs this edition and remain popular lists

1. Yes, it was. Which is why they didn't last long. Cultist and Termagant spam happened when? Must've missed that dominating the meta.
2. There is no army of only troop units that would beat a well rounded army with maximum efficiencies. Makes no difference to the fact that Guard are currently vastly undercosted.
3. Perhaps people want to play with their big, stompy, 'cool' knight model?
4. Guardsmen also perform extraordinarily well in mono Guard lists. Guardsmen are too efficient compared to any other troop in the game.

Where are these pure Gant/Cultist armies? When did they dominate?

We have seen several competitive spam cultist lists and termagant lists this edition. The only time we saw spammed infantry from guard was with conscripts. People clearly have the models and inclination to run massed guard infantry but they don't. Also for you "mono list" number 4 its funny that DE were the single most winning mono list in all of 8th but I don't see a "nuke DE" thread every day on dakka

**SemperMortis**

Why? because they are dirt cheap and are insanely durable for their low points cost and even with a S3 weapon can put out a decent amount of ranged firepower when teamed with orders or in double tap range.

Guardsman: T3 5+ Save 4pts
Ork Boy: T4 6+ save 7pts.

Guardsman: S3 Weapon, ranged 24 rapid fire BS 4+ easy access to buffs to increase accuracy.
Ork Boy: S4 weapon, ranged 12/18 pistol/assault 2 BS5+, only 1 real klan that gives a benefit to shooting. (two if you count freeboota)

Ork boyz are only better in assault. So one out of 3 phases the boyz are better than the IG.

So why are they awesome? because they are dirt cheap and are significantly better than their price would indicate.

**Asmodios**

Daedalus81 wrote:
Asmodios wrote:

Yeah, this doesn't address why we were seeing cultist and termagant 200+ model spam and not guard. They both have the same exact limitations yet guard has never been effectively taken (except for when conscripts were broken)

Yes, it does, because we're not seeing 200 cultists or gants. 80 or 120 tops for cultists. It's also much simpler to manipulate 3 units than 20 units plus commanders.

There's been plenty of spam cultist and gants lists do incredibly well this edition. even popular 40k talking heads like TLWs kenny was made because his 200 cultist list wouldn't be as effective. Yet (other then conscripts at the beginning of 8th) nobody has taken guardsmen to the same effect