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Conscripts squads hype is misplaced they aren't going to win any tournaments.....scion command squads on the other hand well that's a different story those are extremely efficient units and I expect every competitive tournament imperial list to have them. i guess a case could be made so that conscripts can't take orders or something conscripts w a commissar should be just like Ork grots with a runtherder or pink horrors w some high leadership character or termiguants. I don't think conscripts should be raised in price they are suppose to be like other horde lists cheap fodder units.

 Talamare wrote:
Tell me how many points does it take for Snipers to kill a Commissar in 1 turn...

and yes it needs to be in 1 turn, I still need to deal with the blob... and potentially additional Commissars

Only counting the guys carrying the weapons, and not other members of their squads armed differently or optional gear on the model (i.e. camo cloaks). On average:
56 for 8 Ratlings
60 for 10 Guardsmen with sniper rifles
64 for 8 Guard Veterans with sniper rifles
70 for 2 Skitarii with Transuranic Arquebus
120 for 8 Sniper Scouts w/o camo cloaks
147 for 7 Wrack Acothysts with hexrifles
160 for 8 Eldar Rangers
160 for 8 Deathmarks
180 for 2 Vindicare Assassins
294 for 14 Sniper Drones and 1 Firesight Marksman
378 for 21 Sniper Drones with no support
430 for 5 Haemonculi with hexrifles
504 for 8 Sydonian Dragoons with Radium Jezzail

No options for Chaos, Orks, or Tyranids

This is all not taking into account other external buffs like nearby leaders allowing rerolls or bonuses to hit. The only one I included was a Firesight Marksman, who's primary purpose is to buff drones.

Medicinal Carrots wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
Tell me how many points does it take for Snipers to kill a Commissar in 1 turn...

and yes it needs to be in 1 turn, I still need to deal with the blob... and potentially additional Commissars

Only counting the guys carrying the weapons, and not other members of their squads armed differently or optional gear on the model (i.e. camo cloaks). On average:
56 for 8 Ratlings
60 for 10 Guardsmen with sniper rifles
64 for 8 Guard Veterans with sniper rifles
70 for 2 Skitarii with Transuranic Arquebus
120 for 8 Sniper Scouts w/o camo cloaks
147 for 7 Wrack Acothysts with hexrifles
160 for 8 Eldar Rangers
160 for 8 Deathmarks
180 for 2 Vindicare Assassins
294 for 14 Sniper Drones and 1 Firesight Marksman
378 for 21 Sniper Drones with no support
430 for 5 Haemonculi with hexrifles
504 for 8 Sydonian Dragoons with Radium Jezzail

No options for Chaos, Orks, or Tyranids

This is all not taking into account other external buffs like nearby leaders allowing rerolls or bonuses to hit. The only one I included was a Firesight Marksman, who's primary purpose is to buff drones.

Note that Orks and Tyranids can cut through the horde like butter. And really, so can the Guard.

My 2c:

Yesterday, I played a game using 50 conscripts, 10 infantrymen, a Manticore, a Wyvern, a CC, and a Commissar. Hiding the commissar was incredibly easy, I used a Bastion that had been plopped on the field, and parked my Wyvern next to it to protect him. the 50 conscripts occupied my entire deployment zone, so even when my enemy charged them it wasn't a big deal. I only lost about a dozen models [he was playing Harlequins and had gone entirely with fusion pistols, because I usually play a game with all tanks.]

However, on Saturday, I played a game against the Ork player running a Green Tide with a list that consisted of Pask and a Leman Russ Punisher and a min squad of Scions, and also wiped the floor handily with them despite having no way to clean out the boss giving buffs because the rate of fire on the Punisher cannon was absolutely shredding them.


If you're not equipped with the ability to chew through the horde, you definitely need marksmen. It's really a case of having the right gun for the purpose.


Actually, I'm quite pleased with this edition. It's nice to see some Space Marines with their undies in a bunch, as it were, about not having enough guns to kill all the things I brought. I think of it as revenge for the Gladius being a thing last edition.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Actually, I'm quite pleased with this edition. It's nice to see some Space Marines with their undies in a bunch, as it were, about not having enough guns to kill all the things I brought. I think of it as revenge for the Gladius being a thing last edition.

You do know that Space Marines were never supposed to go toe to toe against horde armies, but rather to perform surgical strikes to take out strategic threats? Annihilating the horde isn't a SM strategy. . . theirs would have been to use scouts to remove the commissar and then to deal just enough wounds that they would break.

I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

Medicinal Carrots wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
Tell me how many points does it take for Snipers to kill a Commissar in 1 turn...

and yes it needs to be in 1 turn, I still need to deal with the blob... and potentially additional Commissars

Only counting the guys carrying the weapons, and not other members of their squads armed differently or optional gear on the model (i.e. camo cloaks). On average:
56 for 8 Ratlings
60 for 10 Guardsmen with sniper rifles
64 for 8 Guard Veterans with sniper rifles
70 for 2 Skitarii with Transuranic Arquebus
120 for 8 Sniper Scouts w/o camo cloaks
147 for 7 Wrack Acothysts with hexrifles
160 for 8 Eldar Rangers
160 for 8 Deathmarks
180 for 2 Vindicare Assassins
294 for 14 Sniper Drones and 1 Firesight Marksman
378 for 21 Sniper Drones with no support
430 for 5 Haemonculi with hexrifles
504 for 8 Sydonian Dragoons with Radium Jezzail

No options for Chaos, Orks, or Tyranids

This is all not taking into account other external buffs like nearby leaders allowing rerolls or bonuses to hit. The only one I included was a Firesight Marksman, who's primary purpose is to buff drones.

I like how the 3 most efficient answers to the Commissar are Guard units.

Intruder wrote:
I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

Try looking through other people's Indexes, and seeing what they have (or more likely, don't have). It boggles the mind that you'd make that statement without considering the options available to other peoples.

Seriously though, try playing a non-Imperial army for a change.

I'm an Ork; my best unit for clearing a Conscript/infantry squad is a squad of Boyz - but they're 1.5-2x as expensive, have a 6+ save as opposed to a 5+, and even if they do make it to melee - you can just fall back and turn around and shoot them - with the same Conscript squad!

The Imperium as a whole get access to 2 entire Indexes to build their army from; Chaos get 1 whole index; and Xenos get a 1/3 of an Index at best.

Try looking at the Orks weapon-list page at the very beginning of the Xenos 2 book, and compare that to SM/IG. We have practically 0 weapon choices, for anything. Meanwhile, the Imperium has so many different units, that they have to list them in the back of the Index separated by Force Org chart; while the Xenos get lumped into a single alphabetical list.

Oh, and we don't even have snipers to take care of the supporting characters!

Why don't you try looking in someone elses book for a change, and considering what they might have available before making such an insensitive statement. Imperium/AM get the best troops, best elites, best heavy vehicles, most diverse army lists, and so much more; if you're a Xenos, you get jack all.

Just because I'm triggered right now doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Arachnofiend wrote:I like how the 3 most efficient answers to the Commissar are Guard units.

Isn't it grand?

fe40k wrote:

Intruder wrote:
I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

Try looking through other people's Indexes, and seeing what they have (or more likely, don't have). It boggles the mind that you'd make that statement without considering the options available to other peoples.

Seriously though, try playing a non-Imperial army for a change.

I'm an Ork; my best unit for clearing a Conscript/infantry squad is a squad of Boyz - but they're 1.5-2x as expensive, have a 6+ save as opposed to a 5+, and even if they do make it to melee - you can just fall back and turn around and shoot them - with the same Conscript squad!

The Imperium as a whole get access to 2 entire Indexes to build their army from; Chaos get 1 whole index; and Xenos get a 1/3 of an Index at best.

Try looking at the Orks weapon-list page at the very beginning of the Xenos 2 book, and compare that to SM/IG. We have practically 0 weapon choices, for anything. Meanwhile, the Imperium has so many different units, that they have to list them in the back of the Index separated by Force Org chart; while the Xenos get lumped into a single alphabetical list.

Oh, and we don't even have snipers to take care of the supporting characters!

Why don't you try looking in someone elses book for a change, and considering what they might have available before making such an insensitive statement. Imperium/AM get the best troops, best elites, best heavy vehicles, most diverse army lists, and so much more; if you're a Xenos, you get jack all.

Just because I'm triggered right now doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Good point, let me have a look at my chaos army.
Lets see, we have:
Daemon Prince with 2x talons (My favourite)
Chaos cultists
Terminators with combibolters (Don't knock combi-bolters, they might actually be worth it this edition)
Khorne berserkers
Helbrute with power scourge
Raptors (limited use)
Warp talons
Chaos spawn
Havocs with heavy bolters
A defiler with power scourge
Lord of Skulls (a bit overkill though)

And the best thing is most of the things on this list are barely affected by lasgun spam. I've tried conscript spam but it is incredibly boring. It feels like crap to roll 100 dice and get maybe 2 wounds on a space marine squad in cover. I think that's the big thing - most people have never even played against conscript spam in 8th. They just jump on the bandwagon and start complaining. Conscripts, even with FRFSRF, do extremely low damage.

"Nah, but they'll just fall back and fire again"
30 boys (90 attacks!) charging into 50 conscripts should kill over half of them in one turn. Of course, that's assuming they get there unmaimed. But that's also ignoring the extra attack from 'The Green Tide' rule. So it evens out. Not only have you killed over half of them, they can't fire at you unless they receive an order from an officer - and give up FRFSRF.

I don't have any models with power scourges. I don't have Havocs with heavy bolters. But that's the thing. Light infantry have entered the game of Warhammer 40k tabletop. You can't just delete them from the table like in 7th. You actually need things to counter them now. You wouldn't build an list with nothing to deal with vehicles/monsters, and then run around on the forums complaining about how overpowered they are. I don't know what orks options are, man. That's for you to find out. It wasn't that hard to find options in my chaos army, and they're not imperuml/AM hm?

It's bit hard to see stuff like the daemon prince to be particularly good against infantry? He kills 7 models a turn at best. It takes some time to go though an unit of 30+ models. I would even say, that if I had a horde of infantry, I would be happy if most of the units on that list would be killing those lowly troopers instead of something else more important. Which I suppose is the main reason, why the infantry hordes are considered to be good in the first place.

@Intruder

None of the units you listed come close to dealing with one block of conscripts in any reasonable amount of time - and most of them cost well over the 150/180 conscript squad.

It's not just about the conscripts, it's about the things behind them too. The op artillery units; you have to spend the entire game chewing through conscripts, while getting blasted by massive amounts of high s ap ignoring firepower.

anything that is about equal points to a conscript will die faster than they will. Anything that costs more than them and is having to waste time shooting them is a win for AM

In reality, this game has been about fighting Space Marines for so long, that the options to deal with massive amounts of chaff haven't really been written. Ork boys aren't chaff; they're slow and expensive. The majority will die before making it to combat - that's just how they're designed to work. You can get x2 conscripts for any number of boys. More firepower and wounds too.

Plus, positioning stops 30 ork boys from getting all their attacks off in cc, maybe 20 of them will, if that. Drive a vehicle out before the conscript squad, the irks won't ever be able to get past it, or deep strike close enough to charge

Morale should be the answer to chaff; not heavy amounts of firepower; but that's not an option due to the commissar

Firepower > all, all the time

Intruder wrote:
I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

You really blatantly haven't done the math on any of those units.
Triple heavy bolter punisher = 4.4 +2 dead conscripts. So about 6 or 7 dead each turn. So by the end of the game, it would probably have wiped out the 150 point unit. That's pretty underwhelming for a dedicated anti infantry platform.

As for snipers killing the commissar, I'm going to point out LoS again. And even if it is planet bowling ball, he can hide behind tanks, and not be seen.

If a ~150 point tank can kill a 150 point unit.. it's not too bad, right?

RoninXiC wrote:
If a ~150 point tank can kill a 150 point unit.. it's not too bad, right?

Over the course of an entire game? It's absolutely terrible. Many, many units in this game are designed to murder or be murdered in one or two turns.

By simple comparison keep in mind the same tank is killing a full mob of orks in 4 turns. It's both statistically better against orks (same to wound, worse save), and their model cap is in a sane place. Mind you, this still isn't fantastic, but it interacts with expectations a lot better.

The problem is conscripts are an absurd outlier in a place the game isn't designed to deal with. Weapons and units are designed with the expectation that most infantry squads will be 10, morale will apply, and point costs are plus or minus 10 points per model. Stray from that, and the game warps really noticeably. Cheap infantry is significantly better and expensive infantry don't bring enough to the table.

RoninXiC wrote:
If a ~150 point tank can kill a 150 point unit.. it's not too bad, right?

Kill it in 2 turns? good enough. In 6 turns...not so good.

Why would a 150 point models needs to kill 3x150 points in game to be considered good?

RoninXiC wrote:
Why would a 150 point models needs to kill 3x150 points in game to be considered good?

Basics of game strategy. When you bring a unit in your list, it has a job. It's usually killin' dudes, and typically focused at killin' certain types of dudes. Obviously there are other jobs like transports who just want to move another unit from a to b in a hurry, body swarms gettin' all up in your way, force multiplier dudes etc.

For your army to do well, you want a significant portion of your units to do their job, and you want them to accomplish it in a timely manner. Because, especially in the case of units whose job is killin' their dudes or harassing them so they can't do stuff, every turn it takes to do that job is another turn that the opponent's unit(s) have to accomplish THEIR job.

You want units to be able to do their job in 2-3 turns, because they might not even live longer than that. Taking all game to do a job is a fail. The unit is either going to get killed before finishing, or the unit it was supposed to be killing will succeed in whatever they wanted to do, maybe twice over.

Tyel wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 BuFFo wrote:
Flamers are the best they've been in over a decade.

Use them.

Flamers average less hits and don't ignore cover? How is this better?

depends, their hits against spread out units are about the same, and their effective range has improved (only need 1 model in range to hit multiples), especially now that you can kill things beyond the max range of your gun. You can also run and shoot them super effectively now so that is another range buff.

On average a flamer will kill one and a half conscripts or ork boys now (and say 2 gaunts).
I feel if you were only getting that many kills from a flamer against such targets in 7th you were either so far away you were just clipping the unit or doing something wrong.

Against more elite units taken in smaller numbers (like say Marines) they are roughly the same but since that was not what you used them for this doesn't help much.

With units spreading out to max coherencey you were likely getting 4-5 hits max, so really not much better. It is more about having multiple flamers in one unit, which in general is much better than 6th or 7th, because the removal of only killing things in range.

@jamopower A demon prince with 2x malefic talons is 156 points. So if he ties up a 50 man conscript squad + commissar (180 points), you're actually getting the better cost efficiency. Not only that, he's also going to kill them all before they kill him.

Not that I would straight up charge them like that - I have a tactic now called 'suddenly Heldrake'. He kills priority targets (eg. commissars) these days because 30' movement.

@fe40k Don't talk about things you don't know.
Daemon Prince, 2x Malefic Talons - 156 points
Hebrute. Power Scourge + Helbrute Fist(w/ combi-bolter) - 157 points
5 Warp talons, 2 lightning claws each - 140 points
5 Chaos Spawn - 165 points
5 Havocs, 4x Heavy Bolters - 105 points
5 Chaos Terminators, 5x combi-bolters, 5x power axes - 190 points

And all would beat the conscript squad. The only things 'well over the 150/180 conscript squad' is the defiler and the lord of skulls. Which is fair enough, seeing as they would decimate the conscript squad.

And concerning the 'op artillery units' - why do we take in the conscripts support and not the other sides?? You don't think I'll bring the rest of my fething army to kill gak too? The point is moot, anyway - this is a thread about infantry spam. I have no idea whether AM as a whole is overpowered, and neither do you.

@Voss I play Pask Punisher + 3 HB sponsons. Ups the damage considerably. Will beat a conscript squad with ease. No I'm not going to fething sit there shooting them all game, they barely do any damage at max strength let alone when half of them are dead.


It's pretty clear that no-one has played with or against conscript spam here, you all just like playing mathhammer all day. Yes, they're not easy to grind through, but they have their weaknesses. The squad as a whole is clunky, slow and deals gak all damage. And one commissar kill and they can be snuffed out in an instant. If you want to instakill 50 man squads of conscripts, go back to 7th edition. In 8th, everything is tougher.

Can you kill 50 conscripts + commissar in 1-2 turns with double the points or less?

You have 360 points. Build a small force (not subject to force org, we'll assume it's part of a bigger army) that can eliminate that in 1-2 turns.

Assume that the commissar is protecting the conscripts with reasonable line of sight issues and challenges, and you can't deep-strike charge the commissar.

Intruder wrote:
..I have a tactic now called 'suddenly Heldrake'. He kills priority targets (eg. commissars) these days because 30' movement.

I don't know how effective a helldrake would be at killing characters. Most cheap buff characters are going to make sure they have a few infantry spread around them, so it is impossible to get them as the closest target. Or just deny you space to move by spreading out.

fe40k wrote:

Intruder wrote:
I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

Try looking through other people's Indexes, and seeing what they have (or more likely, don't have). It boggles the mind that you'd make that statement without considering the options available to other peoples.

Seriously though, try playing a non-Imperial army for a change.

I'm an Ork; my best unit for clearing a Conscript/infantry squad is a squad of Boyz - but they're 1.5-2x as expensive, have a 6+ save as opposed to a 5+, and even if they do make it to melee - you can just fall back and turn around and shoot them - with the same Conscript squad!

The Imperium as a whole get access to 2 entire Indexes to build their army from; Chaos get 1 whole index; and Xenos get a 1/3 of an Index at best.

Try looking at the Orks weapon-list page at the very beginning of the Xenos 2 book, and compare that to SM/IG. We have practically 0 weapon choices, for anything. Meanwhile, the Imperium has so many different units, that they have to list them in the back of the Index separated by Force Org chart; while the Xenos get lumped into a single alphabetical list.

Oh, and we don't even have snipers to take care of the supporting characters!

Why don't you try looking in someone elses book for a change, and considering what they might have available before making such an insensitive statement. Imperium/AM get the best troops, best elites, best heavy vehicles, most diverse army lists, and so much more; if you're a Xenos, you get jack all.

Just because I'm triggered right now doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Arachnofiend wrote:I like how the 3 most efficient answers to the Commissar are Guard units.

Isn't it grand?

I can flip through to my other, non-Imperial Guard forces, and find great solutions to Conscripts.

Let's see: Seraphim work well. Dominions and Immolators/Repressors would work too.



Conscripts are a resilient unit. A unit equal to their points cost should not be able to kill them in one or two turns.

Also, Orks seem to be functional against Guard.

I don't play Orks, and I haven't faced Conscripts yet...but wouldn't a Truk full of Burna Boyz or the like lol through a blob? (Drive up, off load, charge Truk, hose down with Flammas charge Boyz)

 Marmatag wrote:
Can you kill 50 conscripts + commissar in 1-2 turns with double the points or less?

You have 360 points. Build a small force (not subject to force org, we'll assume it's part of a bigger army) that can eliminate that in 1-2 turns.

Assume that the commissar is protecting the conscripts with reasonable line of sight issues and challenges, and you can't deep-strike charge the commissar.

This is a nice way of looking at the problem. If still quite mathhammery.

An nice way to do it would be 6 bullgryns with Brute Mauls and Slabshields(2 squads for the double Bone'ead) and a priest. 319 points. Conscripts would do less than a wound on overwatch. 32 attacks, hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+. If it turns out Militarum Auxlia is a <Regiment> then I'd take a Company commander with the remaining points for Fix Bayonets. If not, I'm not sure. Maybe a heavy bolter HWS for 36 points?

A cheat's way to do it is 6 full heavy weapons teams of mortars. But that's points abuse - HWS, especially mortars, are clearly underpriced. And who has that many mortar teams?

The way I would so it is with Pask in a Punisher with 3x HB sponsons and a storm bolter. 223 points.
As for the rest of the points, the world is my oyster. 10 Scions with hotshot lasguns + Tempestor Prime for the orders? That's 364 points. 2 squads of normal guardsmen with grenade launchers? 333 points. But I guess that would play into the whole "Infantry spam". 3 ogryns and a priest. 348 points. Pick your poison.

There are more ways I can think of, but I'm assuming you want to mathhammer this gak so I'll leave AM there.

As for chaos. A daemon prince with 2x malefic talons and two 5 man squads of khorne berserkers with chainaxe + chainsword. 326 points. Either daemon prince of khorne for the extra attack (and fluff!) or another god for the psychic power infernal gaze, to try and snipe a commissar. Which would be an autowin. Don't forget that 6s explode in close combat against Imperium. Rerolling to hit rolls of one because of the daemon prince. I think I need to try this in a game!

 Marmatag wrote:
Can you kill 50 conscripts + commissar in 1-2 turns with double the points or less?

You have 360 points. Build a small force (not subject to force org, we'll assume it's part of a bigger army) that can eliminate that in 1-2 turns.

Assume that the commissar is protecting the conscripts with reasonable line of sight issues and challenges, and you can't deep-strike charge the commissar.

I'm going to go with Seraphim and Celestine, 395 points.

Both move 24+1d6" on turn one using their Act of Faith, shoot, then charge. Celestine soaks the overwatch, then everyone fights in close-quarters-combat.

They deal an average of 22 wounds to the Conscripts in the opening turn of the game.

On turn 2, they get to shoot twice, or recover losses, using their Act of Faith, which should result in the Conscripts being non-existent.


Now, I this isn't really an accurate metric, because I don't intend for Celestine to engage conscripts. It's a waste of her damage potential. She just has to be present to help launch the Seraphim forwards. More accurately, Seraphim + Dominions, coming up around 332, or Seraphim + Battle Sisters, coming up less, will be attacking the Conscripts, while Celestine goes off to maul a Leman Russ. And Seraphim + Dominions results in an average of 30 wounds to the conscripts.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

fe40k wrote:

Intruder wrote:
I've never understood everyones problem with hordes. As a guard player, I look through my index to see what options I have to deal with it, and I find:
Punisher Leman Russ
Gatling Cannon Taurox
Hot shot volley and lasgun Scions
Wyverns
Mortar HWT, Heavy Bolter HWS
Ogyrns and Bullgryns
Any baneblade variant
and ratlings for sniping off the support characters. Which hordes need to be effective (Maybe not orks).

And I could just take conscripts of my own. Or regular infantry squads. Frag grenades. Grenade launchers. Special weapons teams with flamers. Vehicles with a lot of shots in general - almost immune to lasgun fire. Dedicated melee units. The list goes on.

It boggles the mind to think that no other army has options against light infantry. Maybe you should look through your index and see for yourself. It is not our fault that light infantry could be deleted in previous editions and so you never built something against them.

Try looking through other people's Indexes, and seeing what they have (or more likely, don't have). It boggles the mind that you'd make that statement without considering the options available to other peoples.

Seriously though, try playing a non-Imperial army for a change.

I'm an Ork; my best unit for clearing a Conscript/infantry squad is a squad of Boyz - but they're 1.5-2x as expensive, have a 6+ save as opposed to a 5+, and even if they do make it to melee - you can just fall back and turn around and shoot them - with the same Conscript squad!

The Imperium as a whole get access to 2 entire Indexes to build their army from; Chaos get 1 whole index; and Xenos get a 1/3 of an Index at best.

Try looking at the Orks weapon-list page at the very beginning of the Xenos 2 book, and compare that to SM/IG. We have practically 0 weapon choices, for anything. Meanwhile, the Imperium has so many different units, that they have to list them in the back of the Index separated by Force Org chart; while the Xenos get lumped into a single alphabetical list.

Oh, and we don't even have snipers to take care of the supporting characters!

Why don't you try looking in someone elses book for a change, and considering what they might have available before making such an insensitive statement. Imperium/AM get the best troops, best elites, best heavy vehicles, most diverse army lists, and so much more; if you're a Xenos, you get jack all.

Just because I'm triggered right now doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Arachnofiend wrote:I like how the 3 most efficient answers to the Commissar are Guard units.

Isn't it grand?

I can flip through to my other, non-Imperial Guard forces, and find great solutions to Conscripts.

Let's see: Seraphim work well. Dominions and Immolators/Repressors would work too.



Conscripts are a resilient unit. A unit equal to their points cost should not be able to kill them in one or two turns.

Also, Orks seem to be functional against Guard.

I agree, conscripts should be resilient, but they are ignoring the balancing mechanic put forth to limit hordes.

Most horde infantry have terrible saves. Plus, the whirlwind always can target the unit with no cover

problem is horror spam they have a 4++ save, and sadly they are the cheapest troops in the game, you can spam 30 models for 60pt, for me is broken

Medicinal Carrots wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
Tell me how many points does it take for Snipers to kill a Commissar in 1 turn...

and yes it needs to be in 1 turn, I still need to deal with the blob... and potentially additional Commissars

Only counting the guys carrying the weapons, and not other members of their squads armed differently or optional gear on the model (i.e. camo cloaks). On average:
56 for 8 Ratlings
60 for 10 Guardsmen with sniper rifles
64 for 8 Guard Veterans with sniper rifles
70 for 2 Skitarii with Transuranic Arquebus
120 for 8 Sniper Scouts w/o camo cloaks
147 for 7 Wrack Acothysts with hexrifles
160 for 8 Eldar Rangers
160 for 8 Deathmarks
180 for 2 Vindicare Assassins
294 for 14 Sniper Drones and 1 Firesight Marksman
378 for 21 Sniper Drones with no support
430 for 5 Haemonculi with hexrifles
504 for 8 Sydonian Dragoons with Radium Jezzail

No options for Chaos, Orks, or Tyranids

This is all not taking into account other external buffs like nearby leaders allowing rerolls or bonuses to hit. The only one I included was a Firesight Marksman, who's primary purpose is to buff drones.

I haven't really read the chaos index yet. Orks and Nids, OTOH...

Orks. A 30-strong un-upgraded squad of boyz. Good old sluggas and choppas. Take a wyrdboy and use the ork power that adds +1A. As long as you have >20 boyz in the squad they get 5 attacks each + a pistol volley in your shooting phase. Even outnumbered nearly 2:1 they will mulch the entire conscript squad in 1-2 turns for ~180 points + the cost of the Wyrdboy. Bonus points for you if you can get the wyrdboy into position to 'eadbannger the commissar somehow (assuming the coward is leading from the rear). If the commisar is close enough to the front to attack your boyz, just chop him into bits.

Nids? Same deal only replace boyz with Termagaunts and the psychic power with The Horror.

Bottom line in both cases, you horde better than guard. You have powerful CC tools they simply don't.

Chaos is kind of screwed unless you can get rid of the commissar unless I'm missing something, but I haven't really read that index enough yet.

jamopower wrote:It's bit hard to see stuff like the daemon prince to be particularly good against infantry? He kills 7 models a turn at best. It takes some time to go though an unit of 30+ models. I would even say, that if I had a horde of infantry, I would be happy if most of the units on that list would be killing those lowly troopers instead of something else more important. Which I suppose is the main reason, why the infantry hordes are considered to be good in the first place.

I could see a winged prince being effective if the commissar isn't buried in the middle of the conscript squad. His ability fly would simply allow him to land next to the commissar and charge him directly. Once he's dead the conscripts are toast.

Marmatag wrote:Can you kill 50 conscripts + commissar in 1-2 turns with double the points or less?

You have 360 points. Build a small force (not subject to force org, we'll assume it's part of a bigger army) that can eliminate that in 1-2 turns.

Assume that the commissar is protecting the conscripts with reasonable line of sight issues and challenges, and you can't deep-strike charge the commissar.

Yes. I don't have my books in front of me at the moment, but yes. I'll come back to this thread when I get home.

IMO, the secret to the conscript squad is to either counter-blob them (see 30 boyz with choppas and sluggas in CC or likewise a horde of termagants with proper support from a nid psyker) or to kill the commissar and abuse the conscript's leadership of 4.

Meh, unbalanced lists can always look good due to rock, paper, scissors matchups. I'm glad to see balanced lists having a reasonable chance, especially given mission variability.

Terrain is going to have such a huge impact on any horde army that the main decider of a game will be who used the terrain the best. 30 boyz are deadly, but force them to attack you through a narrow 5 man gap and they lose a lot of their effectiveness. Stick a flamer russ guarding a street and no way are those boyz getting past in a hurry.

I know that you would just take the boyz another way but that is the tactical game at play, using terrain to dictate the enemy's actions, or counter-playing them. I hope that terrain usage goes up, it makes the game far more interesting. It would also make sense for GW to prefer larger terrain games, it makes them more money!

Chaos is kind of screwed unless you can get rid of the commissar unless I'm missing something, but I haven't really read that index enough yet.

We have Berserkers, high attack/damage monsters and dreadnaughts, and Forge World goodies. That's ignoring the tons of shooting we can bring. Just because we can't snipe the Commie doesn't mean we can't mulch through the entire blob in one turn if we wanted. It'll cost more than the blob, sure, but it'll leave whatever the blob was defending completely defenseless.