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RogueApiary wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

RogueApiary wrote:
How so?

Because it impacts their use to normal guardsmen, when the problem isn't normal guardsmen.

Normally, one does not perform surgery with a halberd when a scalpel is present.

You can easily fit 4 infantry squads wholly within said 12" bubble, in fact, here's 6 of them. How is this nerfing their ability to buff normal infantry again? Less pithy one liners, more actual arguments please.

EDIT: I'd like to add that the photo is not even the best case scenario for the regular infantry squads assuming a 12" wholly within bubble. Since morale checks that are likely to cause dudes to run are usually after 3-4 guys die you could push each of those squads out a couple inches and take casualties from the ones outside the bubble until you end up with the 5-7 survivors still within the bubble. The enemy either kills too few to force a morale check likely to cause fleeing models, or it's business as usual and the Commissar blams one.

So, you can literally barely fit 50 models in base to base around a commissar at 9". The bubble around a commissar at 12" is large enough to fit about two full size conscript squads.

The fun thing about this is when I say "fit two full size conscript squads", I mean that's literally THE MOST things you can fit in there. This is talking with a computer generated model with the most optimium spots around.it. A person could probably work that out, but you thought moving that many conscripts was slow before, oh just WAIT until you make them have to pay attention to where every last mini goes.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, also, people get to choose one of the below:

1. Claim sniper rifles aren't useful because of hiding from LOS and mock players who suggest otherwise.

-or-

2. Suggest that "reasonable" leadership mechanics involve preventing commissars from ever practically going within 12" of any significant sized terrain, in addition to becoming something that by virtue of bad rules, becomes even harder for an assault army to cope with. Before there's the possibility that a guard player might screw up and let a commissar get in range of a melee consolidation. Now every commissar is in the epicenter of the conscript atom, so he's even harder to assault.

The best solution is the just change up the conscripts themselves still. Make them a 6+ armor save, weapons that were ap - have more value as a result.

Easy? Yes. Best choice? No. The entire purpose of guardsmen is to soak up damage. They're decent at that. But the problem with reducing their ability to soak up damage is then players using them become more reliant on their ability to benefit more from orders due to their size to increase their offensive capability, which again is another thing people complained about.

It'd be better that they keep their defensive value but have their offensive value nerfed, and the way that happens is by nerfing their ability to receive orders.

You see that is something that I have frequently seen but not a real concern still. Their offensive power is good when orders come into effect, because high pt. to order efficiency. But allowing a greater amount to be killed via more common means also diminishes that efficiency.

50 conscript unit will still survive at least two turns. It's just they become a more viable target than before.

That's the thing, conscript squads can already be taken down in two turns if you focus on them. But again, nerfing their defense will make people rely more on their offense, which kinda defeats the purpose of the unit to begin with. They should be good at taking damage, but iffy elsewhere.

 Melissia wrote:
Easy? Yes. Best choice? No. The entire purpose of guardsmen is to soak up damage. They're decent at that.

They are not decent at that, they are the best at that (for screening purposes at least, we can make a case for others being better objective grabbers due to cover).

You can say "the whole point is to soak damage" and that doesn't matter a bit if we all agree they are too good at that. A unit designed as a glass cannon's job might be just to kill as many enemy units as possible, but it still shouldn't be able to deal out three times its point cost in damage a turn. Conscripts who face an army with a ton of anti infantry weapons should be expected to crumble. If you strategy is "bubble wrap expensive shooty units with chaff" and someone takes units to clear chaff, your big expensive units should be exposed by turn three at the latest.

Let's look at a random example from the tank side. It would take roughly two turns average for two units of heavy weapon guardsman with lascannons to kill a razorback, over which they cost a little under twice as much. They are a reasonably fragile unit, so we can assume this is fairly top tier. A predator is a more resiellient unit, loaded with four lascannon star it costs a bit more but still should generally be able to do it in two turns, albeit not as reliably.

That should be the norm for killing conscripts. They should not be a roadblock expected to last 3-4 turns, any unit being targeted by a counter unit twice it's value should only be able to do its job, whether it be screening or firing heavy weapons, for a couple turns. That's reasonable.

 Melissia wrote:
That's the thing, conscript squads can already be taken down in two turns if you focus on them. But again, nerfing their defense will make people rely more on their offense, which kinda defeats the purpose of the unit to begin with. They should be good at taking damage, but iffy elsewhere.

The number of units that can take down a conscript squad in two turns for twice its cost is extremely limited, and most of those are melee units who won't even get in range till turn 2-3.

But they aren't "too good" at soaking up damage.

Focus on them and you can delete them. Duh.

 Melissia wrote:
But they aren't "too good" at soaking up damage.

Focus on them and you can delete them. Duh.

Except, again, not wth a reasonable amount of firepower. I can take twice their price in anti infantry shooting in most armies and they'd be lucky to kill them by turn three. That's unreasonable.

Anything can focus anything down given infinite points, but pricing is an issue. Twice their cost is what it should take to have a good shot at wiping in two, almost guaranteed by three.

SilverAlien wrote:
I can take twice their price in anti infantry shooting in most armies and they'd be lucky to kill them by turn three. That's unreasonable.

Not for a unit intended to do literally nothing else but take damage.

It's not unreasonable at all.

 Melissia wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
I can take twice their price in anti infantry shooting in most armies and they'd be lucky to kill them by turn three. That's unreasonable.

Not for a unit intended to do literally nothing else but take damage.

It's not unreasonable at all.

Except, a unit that's intended to nothing but take damage surviving twice it's cost in tailored anti whatever firepower for two turns has done it's job. That's two turns your guns have been firing totally unmolested, with the enemies anti infantry tied up clearing the chaff and the anti tank unable to effectively engage. If you haven't managed to gain a major advantage in that time, well that's on you.

Guard doesn't need to sit in the corner with their big guns firing unmolested for 4+ turns to win.

SilverAlien wrote:
Guard doesn't need to sit in the corner with their big guns firing unmolested for 4+ turns to win.

So fething shoot their big guns with your fething lascannons already. Or are you one of those players that only ever plays with terrain that blocks off line of sight to a full third of the map from all angles, and lets the enemy use that side every time?

All the conscripts do really is stop you from rendering said big guns completely useless by tying them up in an eternal assault. And dedicated assault armies can tear through conscripts pretty damn fast. If the conscripts are too far forward you can assault them with multiple dedicated assault units and wipe them out in a turn or two. If they're too far back, they'll run out of places to Fall Back to and thus be stuck in melee until you annihilate them.

 Melissia wrote:
All the conscripts do really is stop you from rendering said big guns completely useless by tying them up in an eternal assault. And dedicated assault armies can tear through conscripts pretty damn fast. If the conscripts are too far forward you can assault them with multiple dedicated assault units and wipe them out in a turn or two. If they're too far back, they'll run out of places to Fall Back to and thus be stuck in melee until you annihilate them.

Plus prevent all short range and melee anti tank options from being able to approach them, turning things into a long range shootout with IG, a fight most armies can't win, outside of builds most people agree are fairly broken (stormraven). Or melee armies can spend 2-3 turns being bombarded just trying to get through the chaff. Because again, you are going to take at least some period of time to get into melee range, barring like 1-2 psychic powers and a few units that can reliably charge out of deepstrike.

Dunno, I'm just failing to see how this is a balanced build. If it were vulnerable to an anti infantry heavy build, it'd be one thing. But it isn't. It's not even weak to melee builds, because again the number of armies who can clear them in melee are limited. Plus you can just fall back and concentrate fire on most of those given they tend to be very fragile.

It seems like the only winning strategy is to outshoot them with long range firepower. Which is annoying both in the sense guard are good at that so many armies won't be able to, and two it's the single most boring and dull way to play 40k.

SilverAlien wrote:
Dunno, I'm just failing to see how this is a balanced build. If it were vulnerable to an anti infantry heavy build

It is vulnerable to anti-infantry.

In fact, supremely so. Devastator squad with four heavy bolters along with a razorback with twin assault cannons is 24 shots, half of which are S5 (8 hits, 5.33 wounds, 4.44 unsaved) and the other half S6 (8 hits, 5.55 unsaved). They fire this, dealing ~10 unsaved wounds. Then you ram a rhino with assault marines in, pile in to them and deal 31 S4 attacks (11 base, +10 more from chainsword, +10 more from shooting pistols) at WS3+ for another ~10 unsaved wounds. That's half the squad annihilated in one turn, and you're setitng yourself to annihilate the rest of the squad the next turn or keep the conscripts tied up so you can focus on the vehicles.

 Melissia wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
Dunno, I'm just failing to see how this is a balanced build. If it were vulnerable to an anti infantry heavy build

It is vulnerable to anti-infantry.

In fact, supremely so. Devastator squad with four heavy bolters along with a razorback with twin assault cannons is 24 shots, half of which are S5 (8 hits, 5.33 wounds, 4.44 unsaved) and the other half S6 (8 hits, 5.55 unsaved). They fire this, dealing ~10 unsaved wounds. Then you ram a rhino with assault marines in, pile in to them and deal 31 S4 attacks (11 base, +10 more from chainsword, +10 more from shooting pistols) at WS3+ for another ~10 unsaved wounds. That's half the squad annihilated in one turn, and you're setitng yourself to annihilate the rest of the squad the next turn or keep the conscripts tied up so you can focus on the vehicles.

That's what, a bit over 400 points of models to clear less than half of a 150 point squad? That's not vulnerable to anti infantry at all. Vulnerable means, if you see 1000 points of dedicated anti infatry coming up the field, you realize your three squads of conscripts likely won't see turn three. As it is, those conscripts are far too resistant to anti infantry fire.

It's trivial for a IG to include 4+ units of conscripts, and even an army entirely made of dedicated anti infantry would struggle to clear that many in a decent time frame. 600 points of conscripts, 660 with commissars, would take an army made up up of literally nothing but anti infantry to clear them in two turns. Say we take 5 sets of the above units, going over 400 points a bit. That's 100 wounds per turn, so two to clear the conscripts once they get in range, meaning three if we factor in they aren't getting turn one charges from a rhino, That's not at all a reasonable ratio.

SilverAlien wrote:
That's what, a bit over 400 points of models to clear less than half of a 150 point squad?

A 150 point tarpit squad. Said squad should reliably perform its duty of being a tarpit, because that's what it's intended to do. You're just mad you can't just point at the enemy, say "pew pew" and ask them to remove all their models without effort.

And I find it hilarious that you're complaining about conscripts in here but you're whining about the flyer nerf in the other thread, as if 6+ stormravens in a single list was somehow less awful than a couple conscript squads.

 Melissia wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
That's what, a bit over 400 points of models to clear less than half of a 150 point squad?

A 150 point tarpit squad.

And I find it hilarious that you're complaining about conscripts in here but you're whining about the flyer nerf in the other thread, as if 6+ stormravens in a single list was somehow less awful than a couple conscript squads.

Tarpits are supposed to stop a type of unit, not every type of unit. Tarpits again, should be easily cleared by the appropriate counter unit. four squads of conscripts should not see turn three if an entire army is anti infantry, costing in excess of three time said unit's cost. Even if the anti infantry isn't the best anti infantry, that shouldn't be a thing.

Whining about the nerf? That's not what I'm doing. I'm currently arguing the flyer detachment shouldn't exist actually, that all flyer lists shouldn't have ever been an option, GW originally allowing the option was moronic and them patching it up hastily doesn't deserve praise. .

Have there really been that many of you repeatedly getting pounded by conscripts? Or is most of this based off 1-2 time bad experiences and/or band wagonning based of pure number crunching in a vacuum? I find it hard to believe that everyone here crying nerf has substantial play testing already against guard lists wielding a high model count of conscripts...

Truth, it's all really math hammer Nelson.

It could take the entire 2000 points to clear the a few squads of conscripts in a turn. Doesnt matter. If youre mass assaulting them, then youre good to go for getting at the meat behind them in turn two. The points required to take out a single unit are meaningless in the scope of the game, the end result is whats important.

If you gotta get through em, dedicate wbatever is necessary to get through em. Its that simple.

It's like a crab, gotta crack open to get to the soft inside.

RogueApiary wrote:
So, I think I have something that might satisfy both parties without nerfing Guard/Conscripts into the ground.

Change the Commissar's abilities to 'units wholly within' and increase the bubble to 9 or 12 inches. This stops spaghetti lines to cover and requires each Conscript blob to have a Commissar without damaging the impact they have on line squads.

It would also limit his influence to the range of his bolt pistol, which is stunningly fluffy where conscripts are concerned.

Nelson Mechanized wrote:
Have there really been that many of you repeatedly getting pounded by conscripts? Or is most of this based off 1-2 time bad experiences and/or band wagonning based of pure number crunching in a vacuum? I find it hard to believe that everyone here crying nerf has substantial play testing already against guard lists wielding a high model count of conscripts...

Here is what generally happened: I lost and could tell the issue was I couldn't get through the conscripts fast enough. Most of my army would be shot off before I could get through. So I looked for better alternatives, using math hammer. Realized I was using the best option for my army. Looked for options in my other army. Realized there weren't any better options. Began looking at just taking more of the previous options, realized it was far too costly, would basically amount to list tailoring.

So yeah. Basically there aren't any good options of someone is running 4 squads of conscripts. By the time anything I field gets through them, most of my army is shot off the board. Or I just get wiped.

So I can either tailor my list with tons of snipers, or just run my army as if it were guard at just trade shots, which is still an uphill battle but actually less of one than trying to clear the conscripts to expose the units. Neither is ideal. The basic idea is: if the conscripts aren't dead and the artillery isn't exposed by the start of my third turn, it'll have done too much damage for my army to recover. It needs to at least be taking wounds and getting tied up in combat by then or it's a sweep.

How many IG players have even run an optimized list? 200 conscripts, tons of artillery and heavy weapons, no overcosted tanks etc. Have any of you even tried to run such a list?

SilverAlien wrote:
Here is what generally happened: I lost and could tell the issue was I couldn't get through the conscripts fast enough.

tl;dr: Nelson was right.

 Melissia wrote:
tl;dr: Nelson was right.

And how many games have you played while running 200+ conscripts? With artillery? Please share if you have so much more insight. I'm feeling pretty good about the four or so I've done comparatively, considering so far none of the people defending conscripts have even stated they've run more than two full squads. Actually, I'm not positive anyone has claimed to have run two full squads.

In case it wasn't clear, my games were: two games to realize I didn't have enough firepower, followed by my vain attempt to find a better source amounting to nothing. One to confirm snipers did indeed work if I could get LoS on the commissar, and one to realize what an awful idea trying to quickly clear conscripts with bezerkers was.

None. I witnessed one, and in the one I witnessed, the guard army lost.

But the difference is here?

I'm not fearmongering about them, but you are. In multiple threads, at that.

I'm not saying "OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO OP PLS NERF!" in every thread, even ones completely unrelated to conscripts, as happened so many times in this forum. And you've participated in this.

The conscript "discussion" got so bad that the mods were handing out warnings left and right for derailing threads, and plenty of threads were closed because of it.

And for what? Because you lost a match or two, and you've driven your psyche in to a corner doing biased mathhammer whining about how you'll have to devote a lot of points to taking down in a single turn a unit whose only purpose is to be hard to take down?

If you wonder why I seem dismissive of you, that's why.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not fearmongering about them, but you are. In multiple threads, at that.

I'm not saying "OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO OP PLS NERF!" in every thread, even ones completely unrelated to conscripts, as happened so many times in this forum. And you've participated in this.

The conscript "discussion" got so bad that the mods were handing out warnings left and right for derailing threads, and plenty of threads were closed because of it.

Fearmongering? We are arguing about balance issues in a single forum with maybe a couple dozen people participating. We aren't even arguing in the place where people actually go for tactics advice. It's not like this will have any effect on the game, this is an academic exercise for (at least for some of us) fun. I've even stated I don't think changes from GW right now are warranted due to just how rapidly codices are going to be coming, which will heavily alter overall balance.

This is theorycrafting and debate not me trying desperately to get something nerfed. I'm not quite arrogant and delusional enough to think GW is reading every post in this thread, waiting with baited breath for each point and counter point, every post bringing us closer to a point adjustment or something.

As for derailing, if you didn't defensively start posting about how conscripts are fine every single time someone mentions them being unbalanced it wouldn't be an issue. People just reference it as an obviously broken unit which, by your own admission they are to some degree, even if only due to orders and when used for non screening purposes.

The fact your only useful argument continues to be "they are supposed to be hard to kill, therefor it is impossible they are too hard to kill" hasn't been helping the issue die down. You did this even when the suggestion that would "ruin their usage" amounted to an additional two conscripts on average lost per morale phase compared to the current version. Which is why you've apparently switched to getting weirdly personal and acting like this is somehow a personal affront to you, a person who doesn't even use or play against the unit in question to any great degree by your own admission.

So there, it's a theorycrafting thread we all know won't matter, I want to argue about numbers and math hammer online and this is an engaging topic with a lot of interesting discussion. We all on the same page now?

The reason it got locked Melissa was because people were throwing out accusations and personal attacks. Chill. Right now we know IG are overpreforming to an extent. We know Scions, flyers, and atry is a part of that. Others say it also encompasses conscripts and I agree with them.

No personal attacks Melissa, keep it clean.

It looks like the new Marine codex is introducing more anti-infantry units. So, I'm guessing GW saw this coming.

The new primaris mini-centurion devastators look like they'll chew infantry spam up, and spit it out at a fair price-point under their basic load-out.

They have something like 2 assault 6 S4 guns, and can fire twice per shooting phase. Come in squads of 3-6.

Add in a primaris rhino or a captain's aura and you're talking about a ton of lead being thrown a fair distance downrange with very, very good accuracy.

If nerf conscrips and how they work with commissars they need to nerf the Tyranid and Orc hordes and immunity to moral tests.

Bolters and standard infantry weapons are your answer to conscripts.