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Grots are pretty smart little buggers, I’d say they could use lasguns better than guardsman due to sheer Vietcong-esque virtues. They’re certainly more agile and spiteful, and have a higher propensity for traps.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Grots are pretty smart little buggers, I’d say they could use lasguns better than guardsman due to sheer Vietcong-esque virtues. They’re certainly more agile and spiteful, and have a higher propensity for traps.

This just ain't true. Guardsmen are already fairly elite in comparison to most human forces in the Imperium (being drawn from among the best troops on recruiting worlds), and if they're well-trained in one thing, it's how to use a lasgun. Especially if they come from a place like Cadia, where even kids are (or were... ) expected to have basic lasgun competencies.

They’re certainly a better shot and a better soldier, but can they crawl through your sewer pipes to shoot your butt when you’re on the latrine?, thought not.

Plus you have child soldiers trained from birth, orks have competent soldiers from birth.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Grots are pretty smart little buggers, I’d say they could use lasguns better than guardsman due to sheer Vietcong-esque virtues. They’re certainly more agile and spiteful, and have a higher propensity for traps.

This just ain't true. Guardsmen are already fairly elite in comparison to most human forces in the Imperium (being drawn from among the best troops on recruiting worlds), and if they're well-trained in one thing, it's how to use a lasgun. Especially if they come from a place like Cadia, where even kids are (or were... ) expected to have basic lasgun competencies.

Custodes are better trained, Astartes are better trained, Sororitas are better trained, Tempestus are better trained, Skitarii are better trained.

IG is better trained than random PDF, too bad random PDF is irrelevant to the scope of the game.

Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:They’re certainly a better shot and a better soldier, but can they crawl through your sewer pipes to shoot your butt when you’re on the latrine?, thought not.

Plus you have child soldiers trained from birth, orks have competent soldiers from birth.

Fair enough.

Tyran wrote:Custodes are better trained, Astartes are better trained, Sororitas are better trained, Tempestus are better trained, Skitarii are better trained.

Aka the overwhelming minority of Imperial forces (just the ones that get all the attention).

Tyran wrote:IG is better trained than random PDF, too bad random PDF is irrelevant to the scope of the game.

... but not the scope of the lore, which is what I was talking about. Compared to most unaugmented human soldiers in the larger 40k universe (PDFs, militias, etc), the Imperial Guard is quite prestigious and elite.

Besides, you could make an argument for Conscripts being reflective of PDFs and other human militaries.

In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

Hecaton wrote:
In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

Wasn't that the edition in which SM cost 30ppm though?

Hecaton wrote:
In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

No. Keep AoC, make ALL basic boltguns AP0 (including the "extra super special" primaris bolters). The game needs less lethality, not more.

 Blackie wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

Wasn't that the edition in which SM cost 30ppm though?

Yes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

No. Keep AoC, make ALL basic boltguns AP0 (including the "extra super special" primaris bolters). The game needs less lethality, not more.

AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Hecaton wrote:
Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off.

Then grow up?

Hecaton wrote:
Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Because unlike you and Space Marines, they don't tend to have that much contempt for their opponents while there's a scrap going on...

Hecaton wrote:
AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Agree, especially that AoC is incongruous. If you want to make power armour essentially 2+ GW, just make it 2+ (maybe in 10th).

And as said before, things like doctrines should work around weapon stats, not vice versa. It makes no logical sense that a doctrine can grant bonuses like extra AP anyway. Special ammunition sure... not intangible, abstract things like doctrines.

But you do understand that there are just as many power armoured factions with doctrines as there are without it. And the balance to power armour or termintor armour being bad, can't be tweeking to the doctrins.

But I would love to get special ammo, the way GK had it. +1Str, blessed ammo so should be doing D2 like SoB blessed bolter, and then give GK a psychic power option to either turn 6' to hit in to MW or auto wound on +4. GW can remove smite from the game after that.

Karol wrote:
But you do understand that there are just as many power armoured factions with doctrines as there are without it. And the balance to power armour or termintor armour being bad, can't be tweeking to the doctrins.

Why not? All's fair in love and Warhammer (and 10th ed).

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Agree, especially that AoC is incongruous. If you want to make power armour essentially 2+ GW, just make it 2+ (maybe in 10th).

And as said before, things like doctrines should work around weapon stats, not vice versa. It makes no logical sense that a doctrine can grant bonuses like extra AP anyway. Special ammunition sure... not intangible, abstract things like doctrines.

As mentioned in here many times - get rid of the crutch rules for marines and just fix the game/weapons to not need them. Rather than giving them a 2+ save though, just strip back on d2+ and AP in general seems a wiser plan, but we know they won't do that so we're stuck with "power armour is less easy to penetrate".

I mean, they might do that with 10th (or other updates). Rules like AoC are essentially tacit acknowledgement by GW that they know the current state of things isn't working.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Agree, especially that AoC is incongruous. If you want to make power armour essentially 2+ GW, just make it 2+ (maybe in 10th).

And as said before, things like doctrines should work around weapon stats, not vice versa. It makes no logical sense that a doctrine can grant bonuses like extra AP anyway. Special ammunition sure... not intangible, abstract things like doctrines.

AoC is not a buff for power armours though. It's a buff to every unit, or almost every unit, that belong to a few specific factions. Terminators, tanks, etc... all benefit from AoC. If the rule changes in order to give +1save to the units that benefit from it, those who already are 2+ need to be 1+ which isn't supported by the rules. And units like terminators or land raiders, but also any other vehicle that has or hasn't a 2+ sv, deserved that buff much more than 3+ sv dudes, which were already performing well.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
I mean, they might do that with 10th (or other updates). Rules like AoC are essentially tacit acknowledgement by GW that they know the current state of things isn't working.

Oh I agree, but as much as we saw the lethality tide creep in over the last 2 years, if they decide that a course correction is needed, I'm not sure waiting 4 years to get there is a wise move. They'd need to go back to index hammer or a more flexible digital distribution.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Karol wrote:
But you do understand that there are just as many power armoured factions with doctrines as there are without it. And the balance to power armour or termintor armour being bad, can't be tweeking to the doctrins.

Why not? All's fair in love and Warhammer (and 10th ed).

There is nothing fair in w40k. Fair and balanced could be a synonym for bad, specially as the edition progresses. The GK codex in 8th had had a whole paragraph in the codex release article about how GW wanted to make the army balanced and fun to play. They achived their goal. 4 codex in, it didn't even matter that much what you were playing. Perfect balance as long as you play vs yourself.

As mentioned in here many times - get rid of the crutch rules for marines and just fix the game/weapons to not need them. Rather than giving them a 2+ save though, just strip back on d2+ and AP in general seems a wiser plan, but we know they won't do that so we're stuck with "power armour is less easy to penetrate".

Aha, and how would you do that? the problem is not the case of lets fix one book and it will be good. No they would have to fix, GK, 1ksons, DG, BT, IF, SW,Ultras, CSM, SoB, DW, RG, WS and possibly more if we ever get a WE or EC book in this edition. The "fix" would last years, and because it would have to affect so many books, it would only be done at an edition start. This means that GW would have to notice and aknowladge that there maybe a problem with power armour factions over a year before 9th ed end, so they can rewrite 10th core rules and the rules for the initial space marine books.
This means, that there is little chance that the early 10th ed codex and core rules will have those changes, unless GW decides to make 9th ed longer.

And even this is just half the problem. Because while working on the marines, GW would still have the problem of all the armies that were build to kill 2W t4 +3sv models, with multiple options to ignore invs, cause MW etc. So if GW just focused on marines and the first year of 10th was 12 power armoured books one after another, those new books would have to face against those 9th ed power houses, which would love the idea of weaker marines with fewer defences and lower killing power.

Karol wrote:

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Karol wrote:
But you do understand that there are just as many power armoured factions with doctrines as there are without it. And the balance to power armour or termintor armour being bad, can't be tweeking to the doctrins.

Why not? All's fair in love and Warhammer (and 10th ed).

There is nothing fair in w40k. Fair and balanced could be a synonym for bad, specially as the edition progresses. The GK codex in 8th had had a whole paragraph in the codex release article about how GW wanted to make the army balanced and fun to play. They achived their goal. 4 codex in, it didn't even matter that much what you were playing. Perfect balance as long as you play vs yourself.

As mentioned in here many times - get rid of the crutch rules for marines and just fix the game/weapons to not need them. Rather than giving them a 2+ save though, just strip back on d2+ and AP in general seems a wiser plan, but we know they won't do that so we're stuck with "power armour is less easy to penetrate".

Aha, and how would you do that? the problem is not the case of lets fix one book and it will be good. No they would have to fix, GK, 1ksons, DG, BT, IF, SW,Ultras, CSM, SoB, DW, RG, WS and possibly more if we ever get a WE or EC book in this edition. The "fix" would last years, and because it would have to affect so many books, it would only be done at an edition start. This means that GW would have to notice and aknowladge that there maybe a problem with power armour factions over a year before 9th ed end, so they can rewrite 10th core rules and the rules for the initial space marine books.
This means, that there is little chance that the early 10th ed codex and core rules will have those changes, unless GW decides to make 9th ed longer.

And even this is just half the problem. Because while working on the marines, GW would still have the problem of all the armies that were build to kill 2W t4 +3sv models, with multiple options to ignore invs, cause MW etc. So if GW just focused on marines and the first year of 10th was 12 power armoured books one after another, those new books would have to face against those 9th ed power houses, which would love the idea of weaker marines with fewer defences and lower killing power.

They release either indexes at the start of the edition again or a PDF with new points and weapon stats - easy and we're already 1 year out now, 10th is estimated to be summer next year. The fact they handed out AoC shows they know there is a problem.

 Blackie wrote:

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Agree, especially that AoC is incongruous. If you want to make power armour essentially 2+ GW, just make it 2+ (maybe in 10th).

And as said before, things like doctrines should work around weapon stats, not vice versa. It makes no logical sense that a doctrine can grant bonuses like extra AP anyway. Special ammunition sure... not intangible, abstract things like doctrines.

AoC is not a buff for power armours though. It's a buff to every unit, or almost every unit, that belong to a few specific factions. Terminators, tanks, etc... all benefit from AoC. If the rule changes in order to give +1save to the units that benefit from it, those who already are 2+ need to be 1+ which isn't supported by the rules. And units like terminators or land raiders, but also any other vehicle that has or hasn't a 2+ sv, deserved that buff much more than 3+ sv dudes, which were already performing well.

Hell, why not just give them a 1+ save at this point. s fail anyway.

I personally think armour should be reworked. Make higher armour stats better (0 = no armour, 2 = flak armour, 4/5 = power armour, etc), and make attackers roll to beat them. That way there's no limit on the maximum armour values, and you don't end up with stupid concepts like 1+ saves. Also makes saves easier to calculate on the fly... 2-1 is easier than 4+ -1).

I know it's important for defending players to feel active during their opponent's turn, but that happens more often now with strategems anyway.

1+ or even 0+ saves worked perfectly in Warhammer Fantasy for ages. The concept is far from being stupid, its application (aka 1+ = 2++) might be.

Hecaton wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
In 2e, Boltguns were S4 AP -1. I'd be down to go back to that, as long as we get rid of AoC. At the same time, they should flatten most longarm bolt weapons to that same profile. There's too much bolt weapon bloat in the game.

No. Keep AoC, make ALL basic boltguns AP0 (including the "extra super special" primaris bolters). The game needs less lethality, not more.

AoC is a bad idea because it privileges "protagonist" factions. Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off. Why don't Meganobz have that ability?

Putting some ap on bolters while toning down some of the more egregious weapon profiles is fine. But I guess I'm assuming Doctrines would be reworked in that context. If Doctrines stay basically the same, Boltguns can stat AP 0.

Ok, I have to admit, I don't know how to argue with the logic that basically says "Factions that I don't like/play shouldn't have nice things". I mean, at least you're honest about your bias. But, why would you want to extend the "privilege" to them of increasing the lethality of their most basic and widespread weapons? In fact, the most common weapons in what is already a far too lethal edition? Removing Doctrines would only affect loyalists, CSM, SoB, and Death Guard would not be affected.

Also, it's very interesting to discover that CSM are a "Protagonist faction". That seems odd, considering they've been poorly treated for the past decade and a half. Perhaps you could write a memo reminding gw that CSM are "Protagonists ", and should get the proper treatment. I mean, not on the level of "Protagonists" like loyalists or CWE, but maybe SoB level? Hopefully, if that happened, it wouldn't "piss you off". We obviously wouldn't want that.

A return to indexhammer is extremely unlikely, it will piss of the entire fanbase far more than the imbalance does.

Plus it is GW, their way to "solve" things is with rule creep so I expect 10th to have more inbuilt defensive rules: more terrain rules, night fight, maybe even penatlies for firing at max range, etc.

I think a full on reset is unlikely.
But its not impossible they could release some "weapon updates in 10th" that strip out a lot of the AP, damage etc.

In terms of the protag thing it’s like Sm->other imperium armies->Csm->Eldar->other xenos

Guard kinda exist in a weird nebulous state that fluctuates along the scale though.

 Dysartes wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Frankly as someone who doesn't play any of them it pisses me off.

Then grow up?

Appreciating fairness is a mature outlook, not an immature one.

 Dysartes wrote:
Because unlike you and Space Marines, they don't tend to have that much contempt for their opponents while there's a scrap going on...

If all you have in response to my comment is to be a clever dick, then you don't have much to contribute.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Ok, I have to admit, I don't know how to argue with the logic that basically says "Factions that I don't like/play shouldn't have nice things". I mean, at least you're honest about your bias. But, why would you want to extend the "privilege" to them of increasing the lethality of their most basic and widespread weapons? In fact, the most common weapons in what is already a far too lethal edition? Removing Doctrines would only affect loyalists, CSM, SoB, and Death Guard would not be affected.

You've completely misunderstood what I was saying. I don't want my factions to have nice things at the expense of others, I want the game to be approximately fair. I play Harlequins too, I know exactly what having an unearned advantage looks like.

Moreover, I was describing a hypothetical future rebalancing of the game. You'd have to take into account something different to do with the other power-armored factions in that case.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Also, it's very interesting to discover that CSM are a "Protagonist faction". That seems odd, considering they've been poorly treated for the past decade and a half. Perhaps you could write a memo reminding gw that CSM are "Protagonists ", and should get the proper treatment. I mean, not on the level of "Protagonists" like loyalists or CWE, but maybe SoB level? Hopefully, if that happened, it wouldn't "piss you off". We obviously wouldn't want that.

Get off it. You know what I meant; CSM getting AoC is an incidental byblow; they've been without 2w basic troopers for a while now, because GW lavishes attention on certain factions while putting others in a disinvestment cycle. It's one thing to have uneven levels of attention in a release schedule, it's quite another to have uneven levels of attention in balance, and it's not good for the game.

Hecaton is correct. Chaos Marines of all flavors got AoC through luck, not consideration.

GW don't want people thinking they deliberately gimp CSM and hand all the shiny toys to the loyalists, but they're happy to do it as long as it doesn't look like it on the surface.

I just want to highlight this, and its not to piss on I_am_a_spoon, he just happens to be the most recent target of this mindset. This is how a lot of gamers apply logic in this game and get upset when the game doesn't match their version of how the game should look. This isn't just Marine players btw, its all players.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

My actual preference for a standard boltgun statline would be S4, AP1, Damage D3. Heavy bolters could easily go from Damage 2 to Damage D3 without it causing too much of a ruckus, or even Damage D3+1. Although I could see an argument for +1 Strength instead for bolt weapons given that they essentially fire high-velocity mini-rockets, I like the idea of representing a bolt's internal explosion as extra damage instead of just raw power – first you get the impact from a high-velocity/calibre round, then upon penetration its delayed explosion pulverises internal organs, ruptures vessels, causes systemic hydrostatic shock, etc. D3 damage would be clunkier than just +1 damage, but would give bolt weapons a bit more utility and dynamicism against MEQ or Gravis/Custodian units... which is exactly what occurred during the Horus Heresy, so fluff points there. It would also set bolt weapons aside from other basic infantry weapon statlines, and give them a bit extra oomph against the scary bigger monsters they're often deployed against. A decent chance of additional mortal wounds could achieve something similar in a way that involves less die rolling, and which would synergise well conceptually... but which would be a bit less fun/unique/dynamic.

Now compare how he views Ork weaponry on the table top.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

I personally like the idea of Ork shootas being something like Assault 4, S3. They seem like they should have the same power as something like a high-calibre autogun or lasgun, but be able to saturate a target with massed dakka... even indiscriminately, on the move. A big shoota would then ideally be something like Assault 6, S4.

Maybe Ork weapons like shootas could even have "User" or "User-1" values in place of a flat Strength value... the bigger the Ork, the higher they are in the pecking order and the bigger the gun they get.

Now, you could absolutely adjust points to match this mindset, but the argument as presented in these two similar posts is that basic Marine Weaponry (bolters) should get AP-1 AND go from 1D to D3D. While at the same time, the lackluster (useless) Shoota should go from Dakka 3(2) to Assault 4 but lose strength. And the as crappy Big Shoota should go from Dakka 5(3) to Assault 6 but again, lose strength.

So against a Marine, the bolter just went from 2 shots, 1.33 hits, 0.66 wounds and 0.22dmg to 2 shots, 1.33 hits, 0.66 wounds and 0.66dmg or 3x the dmg output vs a T4 3+ model.
The shoota just went from 3 shots, 1 hit, 0.5 wounds and 0.16 dmg to 4 shots, 1.33 hits, 0.44 wounds and 0.14dmg

Impressive how often these mindsets appear where people want to buff their own weapons...in this example to 3x the power, while literally decreasing or giving a side grade buff to everyone else.


And again, i'm not picking on you spoon, because trust me you aren't the only person on these forums who makes these arguments.

If you really want to the game to match the fluff...well you are going to have a bad time. In the fluff a single spacewolf can run rampant through a mob of hundreds of boyz. So 1 Space Marine should cost 300pts and 1 boy should cost 1pt, that way we can have the game accurately reflect the fluff. Also in the fluff Wazdakka Gutsmek can 1v1 a Warlord Titan on his warbike. So.....how do we accurately depict that?

Also, Marine Bolters fire caseless ammunition, but because GW is made in the UK where none of them know what a gun is, all their models have ejection ports and most fluff pictures have them releasing a stream of casings from their ejection ports...which shouldn't exist because...caseless ammunition. Yes I am aware that GW has since retconned this little error but it still makes my point, fluff isn't a part of the game and it really should be because half the authors who write fluff are muppets who didn't do anywhere near enough research. The great and terrible Matt Ward and his Grey Knights bathing in Sisters of Battle Blood is a great example of wtf

Semper, quick note-I think Spoon meant Damage d3, not Damage 3.

Even if it was Damage 3, it could only double damage against ordinary MEQ-they're only 2 wounds apiece. At d3, damage increases by a factor of 1.67.