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All the newer codices have a trend of allowing you to take Elite Infantry as Troops depending on your HQ choices. Given that I love Kasrkin models I was thinking of a way to rebalance StormTroopers to make them a viable troops choice.

First things first: Vets with Grenadiers come in at 10 points per man. Stormtroopers come in at 17. How much of that price difference is from the equipment and how much is from the special rules?

You can outfit a Warrior Acolyte in GK with Hotshots and Carapace for 12 points a man. You are missing BS4, a CCW and Hotshot laspistols but 12 points a man is Sisters of Battle territory and they get Power Armor, a 6+ invuln and BS 4. Granted they don't have AP3 weapons but to kit an acolyte to Sisters level would cost 13 points each and you still miss out on BS4 and that invuln save. I would say a conservative cost for a Stormtrooper with no special rules just stats and gear would be 13 points (paying a point more than GK for BS4, the pistol and a CCW).

With that in mind this means that the Special Rules come in at anywhere from 20 points to 35 points depending on the size of the squad (or 4 points a model but I'll get to that in a moment).

I suggest making StormTrooper special operations cost 20 points as an upgrade for the squad. If taken as an Elites choice then they MUST pick one of the 3 rules at a cost of 20 points for the squad. This would make a bare bones 5 man squad the same cost as it is now but a 10 man squad would be 15 points cheaper.

Lets throw in a character that can make Stormtroopers a Troops choice (not that bothered about who it is at this point but StormTrooper armies do exist in the fluff both in IG and for the Inquisition). The limitation on taking StormTroopers as troops would be that those units taken as Troops cannot purchase a Special Operations upgrade. You can take StormTroopers as troops and get the improved gear and stats but you don't get to deep strike in the entire army.

Vets still have a place as they can take one more special weapon and a weapons team and are cheaper but StormTroopers are now only 3 points a man more expensive than carapace vets rather than 7 for their AP3 weapons and extra attack in close combat.

Thoughts?

I'd recommend making a variant Stormtrooper Company or Inquisition list to do this rather than altering the existing framework. Stormtrooper Company would look a lot like Elysians, with Stormtroopers riding in Valkyries as Troops, no heavy ground vehicles, and airborne Fast Attack/Heavy Support units, built as a highly mobile close-range shooting force. Inquisition would follow the framework of the old Daemonhunters/Witch Hunters books, allowing Stormtroopers as Troops, Assassins as Elites, and having some mechanism for permitting allied units from the Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, Space Marines, and Guard lists above and beyond the normal Allies rules. Either that or stick a Special Character Inquisitor in the Grey Knights book who permits you to take Stormtroopers with the option for Valkyrie or Chimera transports from the IG book as Troops.

If Sgt. Bastonne was a stormtrooper sergeant instead of a veteran sergeant, and made stormtroopers troops, he would be almost worth taking (still a bit pricey). From his fluff, he's essentially a Kasrkin isn't he?

While this idea has its merits, I'd much rather see the hot-shot lasguns upped to a decent range and strength. Hell, I'd settle for decent range or strength.

I know I sound boring, but fix their problems before potentially adding to them.

...Hotshot lasguns are better than a boltgun at shooting anything with a 4+ or 3+ armor save (which includes a lot of things) without any change to Strength, and the range is seldom an actual problem. Stormtroopers are decent as-is; give them the option to take Valkyries (hopefully not Vendettas, that would be a tad unbalanced) as Dedicated Transports and you've got a pretty good Troops choice.

Yes , Sergeant Bastonne is a Kasrkin who can be taken by a vet squad , I like this idea but i disagree with the not being able to take the Deep Strike upgrade on the Infantry , Deamon , all space Marines , Tyranids all get the abliity to either deploy via the warp , take drop pods for insanely cheap ( Codex marines 30 , Space Wolves 35 or something like that ) were Tyranids take the Mysetic Spore ....... And thats all on standard troop choiced so we (Guard ) as well as many other armies got boned by such a thing . But i do fancy the idea of my 120 Kasrkin (i used them in Apoc leave me alone ) riding into battle aboard Valkyries/Vendettas as well as deep strikeing

>> I always thought that Kasrkin were more like Veteran Grenadiers than Stormtroopers anyway. They're never described as having Hellguns, which is the traditional weapon of a Stormtrooper (Hot-shot Lasgun beetles nothing!), they don't have Schola training, and they're hardened by battles against Chaos, not special-operations glory boys.

The fact they repurposed the '13th Black Crusade' Kasrkin models as the Stormtrooper model kind of annoys me, actually.

Kasrkins are modelled with a hellgun, they have a hellgun in Dawn of War (for what its worth), in all the book where they're featured (Cadian Blood, Gunheads) they have carapace armor and hellguns as well.

Now as far as veterans with hellguns go there's the Death Korps Grenadiers, which are 18 ppm, can't have special operations or a plasma gun, but can have a few heavy weapons and a demo charge.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...Hotshot lasguns are better than a boltgun at shooting anything with a 4+ or 3+ armor save (which includes a lot of things) without any change to Strength, and the range is seldom an actual problem. Stormtroopers are decent as-is; give them the option to take Valkyries (hopefully not Vendettas, that would be a tad unbalanced) as Dedicated Transports and you've got a pretty good Troops choice.

Valkyries would still be overpowered, missile pods everywhere.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...Hotshot lasguns are better than a boltgun at shooting anything with a 4+ or 3+ armor save (which includes a lot of things) without any change to Strength, and the range is seldom an actual problem. Stormtroopers are decent as-is; give them the option to take Valkyries (hopefully not Vendettas, that would be a tad unbalanced) as Dedicated Transports and you've got a pretty good Troops choice.

I like this a lot.

For me, to make Stormtroopers more than the 5-man suicide drop squad would take the following:

1) Taking Bastonne allows you to take up to 3 Stormtrooper squads as Troops choices.
2) Ability to take 3 special weapons (Vets get 3 Specials AND a Heavy Weapon, after all)
3) Dedicated Valkyrie transports. Possibly only the option for HB door gunners or maybe upgrade to missile pods. No Lascannons (including swapping the multi-laser).

Would certainly give the Necron Air Force a bit of competition.

DoW

 Furyou Miko wrote:
>> I always thought that Kasrkin were more like Veteran Grenadiers than Stormtroopers anyway. They're never described as having Hellguns, which is the traditional weapon of a Stormtrooper (Hot-shot Lasgun beetles nothing!), they don't have Schola training, and they're hardened by battles against Chaos, not special-operations glory boys.

The fact they repurposed the '13th Black Crusade' Kasrkin models as the Stormtrooper model kind of annoys me, actually.

Nope , Kasrkin are the Cadian special forces Stormtroopers not trained by the Scha but the best of arguably the best guard unit in the imperium , their one job fluff wise is to guard Cadia and her systems with their lives . Besides the hotshot lasguns are. A newer model the. The hellguns , your guys are using " hand me downs "

Naah they are the one of the 3 things in IG codex that i consider elite so no watering down for us... no sir.. Though i might agree with a character that gave that army the ability

Well, stormtroopers used to be only 10 points apiece. You could give them deepstrike for +1 point per model. As such, they got 5 points more expensive for making their small arm Ap3, and their deepstriking into their new ultra-insertion ability.

Generally, I think this is fine (though I want it 15 points a model because they are a LITTLE rich in price, and, most importantly, it's the only unit where adding more of them isn't divisible by 5, which really screws things up for me), and wouldn't want much done to them.

I think being able to take them as troops with a valkyrie dedicated transport would be neat. Of course, I'd continue on the special character route. A CCS commander who gave his squad carapace armor and made stormtroopers troops.

The problem with this is that stormtroopers are, by far, best deepstruck, and you can't do all-reserves armies anymore... which kind of defeats the point. You'd have to do something vaguely akin to drop pod assault for this to work.

If you did this, you could bring back the old air-cav style of guard, which would be nice. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of that style, but it's sad that it got whacked by 6th ed rules.

 Ailaros wrote:

Generally, I think this is fine (though I want it 15 points a model because they are a LITTLE rich in price, and, most importantly, it's the only unit where adding more of them isn't divisible by 5, which really screws things up for me), and wouldn't want much done to them.

I think that could be their "clever" mechanism for enticing you into taking a multiple of 5 of them, as you mention. GW seems to have a thing for five or ten of a particular model.

I would just like to point out that not every new codex has FOC changing options. The new Necron codex has no option to change FOC locations.

Nor does it have any need to. Necrons still don't have enough units (1 HQ, 1 pseudo-HQ, and a handful of SC, 4 (but really 3) Elite choices, 2 Troops, 4 Fast Attack and 6 heavy support?) to make FoC-shenanigans necessary.

Nevertheless, the wishlist goes: A character to make Flayed Ones troops. A character to make Wraiths troops (no-one takes that seriously), a character to make Destroyers troops.

There is a character to make Destroyers troops, the Destroyer Lord. I guess they just forgot to put that in

Yeah, the guard doesn't need "makes X count as troops", but if there's one thing that guard players in general have been begging for, it's to get their stormtroopers as troops again, like they could be made in the old codex.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
...Hotshot lasguns are better than a boltgun at shooting anything

Not at >18".

Or 9-12".

Boltguns are better at 9" of their 24" range, or 1/3 of the time. And that's against optimimum targets, i.e. T4 3+ with no invulnerable.

They're also better against MCs, anything with an invulnerable, armour. AP3 just isn't worth the premium GW think it is.


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 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, the guard doesn't need "makes X count as troops", but if there's one thing that guard players in general have been begging for, it's to get their stormtroopers as troops again, like they could be made in the old codex.

The reason I got into guard wasn't because I wanted hordes of stormtroopers. I think few people do.

But whether or not foot guard can work while making them fluffy remains to be seen.

Testify wrote:The reason I got into guard wasn't because I wanted hordes of stormtroopers. I think few people do.

It's more old-guard guard players pining for old stuff. Back in the day, you could run a drop troops army, or a stormtrooper army, or a warrior weapon army (replace lasguns with pistol+CCW), etc. Also I've heard old catachan players wishing they had their old special rules back.

Of course, doctrines were largely superseded by new codex options, and it's still possible to make an army of BS4 dudes in carapace armor, but it's just not the same as stormies.

Testify wrote:But whether or not foot guard can work while making them fluffy remains to be seen.

And that's the trick. Back in the day, if you took the stormies-as-troops doctrine, they couldn't deepstrike or infiltrate. The analogue to vets is pretty clear, here. The trick would be to find some way to make them scoring without making them hideously overpowered.

The only way I can think to do this would be to make them more expensive, which I wouldn't condone, even if it made them scoring.

You can still roll a warrior weapon armor using the Krieg rules

Hey, this isn't just about Guard players! I want my Stormtrooper-based Inquisition list from the 3e Daemonhunters book back...

Yeah, well I want my old alliable inquisitors back too.

Regular humans posessed of insane heroism and training to reach the absolute peak of non-genetically-modified human abilities while having an absolute carte blanche to do absolutely anything to save the imperium was cool.

Demons wearing power armor that are technically loyal, but shoot anyone who looks at them isn't.

That's why I came up with an explanation to tie the 3e Codex's fluff to the 5e book. The reason there were 3,000 Grey Knights, 12 Grand Masters, and no Supreme Grand Master before and there are 800 Grey Knights, 8 Grand Masters, and a Supreme Grand Master now is because there was a political schism over the High Lords' attempt to appoint a Supreme Grand Master to give themselves more direct control over the Grey Knights, they bought eight of the Grand Masters to get their approval, but most of the general populace were against it, which led to doubt, and a couple of Inquisitors used the imbalance to increase their own influence by prodding the rebellious Grey Knights to up and leave, meaning that there are now people with the training, abilities, and gear of Grey Knights working directly for the Inquisition that the Grand Masters still on Titan and Draigo don't want anyone to know about because it'd undermine their authority.

I'm thinking either MrSako's 5e Inquisition fandex or a GK/Elysians list to get that old concept back would work, but if we get a variant on the Elysians list written that uses Stormtroopers for Troops it could be cool.

... Literally the only thing Elysian Grenadier Veterans are missing to make them Stormtroopers is the hot-shots, and they get auxiliary grenade launchers anyway.

But hotshots are <3

 Furyou Miko wrote:
... Literally the only thing Elysian Grenadier Veterans are missing to make them Stormtroopers is the hot-shots, and they get auxiliary grenade launchers anyway.

...You know, he/she/whatever kind of does have a point there. I need my own copy of Kastorel-Novem now.

Yes, you do. I love that army list.