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 Kanluwen wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
going back to the OP's original suggestion, one thing that could be done is to return to the days of 5th edition's guard FOC chart. where the guard could not TAKE Infantry squads as troops. instead they took infantry PLATOONS.

So a troops slot for the guard would consist opf a platoon of Mandatory: 1 Platoon Commander, 2 infantry squads and or vetearn. and could include an additional 3 infantry squads (and or vet squads) , 0-5 Heavy weapons squads, 0-2 special weapons squads, and 0-1 conscript squads.
this would address a number of the guards problems, it'd reduce the "overly cheap CP battery" issue, it'd allow conscripts to be made nice and dirt cheap (because you had a "infantry squad tax" for them) and proably would be of minimal problems to anyone actually running a guard list anyway.

Why does everyone think Platoons will make things better?

They won't. They were atrocious then, they'll be atrocious now. No army should have to take multiple units for a single Troops choice.
You want to fix the "overly cheap CP battery issue"? Then you remove the ability for anything larger than a Patrol, Outrider, Spearhead, Vanguard Detachment, or a Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment to be taken as an Allied force.

Make it so if you want to take anything other than those you have to be sharing a minimum of two faction keywords across your army. It'll have a bonus effect of tagging Chaos and Eldar soup and potentially Tyranids+GSC stuff that could be coming down the pipeline.

It keeps Allies as a viable thing but it drastically limits the amount of CPs that can be brought by your Allies(unless you're literally just stacking stuff from the same book or doing stuff like Marines where they have the Adeptus Astartes and Imperium keywords). Couple it with a few things here and there to further address some of the sillier outliers; I'm fond of Astra Militarum getting a rule called "We are but mortals..."(or something to that effect) where they can never be the Warlord if there's an Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Custodes, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, Adepta Sororitas, or Inquisition Character in the army.
Boom, there goes your Grand Strategist nonsense in these regards for Imperial Soup.

I agree with most of what you say but why would mechanicus, ministorum and sororitas automatically outrank the imperial guard? outside specific situations i see no reason for that (sorry for the out of topic)

Kaneda88 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
going back to the OP's original suggestion, one thing that could be done is to return to the days of 5th edition's guard FOC chart. where the guard could not TAKE Infantry squads as troops. instead they took infantry PLATOONS.

So a troops slot for the guard would consist opf a platoon of Mandatory: 1 Platoon Commander, 2 infantry squads and or vetearn. and could include an additional 3 infantry squads (and or vet squads) , 0-5 Heavy weapons squads, 0-2 special weapons squads, and 0-1 conscript squads.
this would address a number of the guards problems, it'd reduce the "overly cheap CP battery" issue, it'd allow conscripts to be made nice and dirt cheap (because you had a "infantry squad tax" for them) and proably would be of minimal problems to anyone actually running a guard list anyway.

Why does everyone think Platoons will make things better?

They won't. They were atrocious then, they'll be atrocious now. No army should have to take multiple units for a single Troops choice.
You want to fix the "overly cheap CP battery issue"? Then you remove the ability for anything larger than a Patrol, Outrider, Spearhead, Vanguard Detachment, or a Superheavy Auxiliary Detachment to be taken as an Allied force.

Make it so if you want to take anything other than those you have to be sharing a minimum of two faction keywords across your army. It'll have a bonus effect of tagging Chaos and Eldar soup and potentially Tyranids+GSC stuff that could be coming down the pipeline.

It keeps Allies as a viable thing but it drastically limits the amount of CPs that can be brought by your Allies(unless you're literally just stacking stuff from the same book or doing stuff like Marines where they have the Adeptus Astartes and Imperium keywords). Couple it with a few things here and there to further address some of the sillier outliers; I'm fond of Astra Militarum getting a rule called "We are but mortals..."(or something to that effect) where they can never be the Warlord if there's an Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Custodes, Adeptus Mechanicus, Adeptus Ministorum, Adepta Sororitas, or Inquisition Character in the army.
Boom, there goes your Grand Strategist nonsense in these regards for Imperial Soup.

I agree with most of what you say but why would mechanicus, ministorum and sororitas automatically outrank the imperial guard? outside specific situations i see no reason for that (sorry for the out of topic)

IF a commander of a Adeptus Astartes, Adeptus Custodes or Adepta Sororitas force wanted to take control they could and it would be a rare Imperial Commander would would not defer to such "children " of the God Emperor esepcially at the level of conflict being portrayed by a typical 40k engagement. However they are often happy to let the Guard do for the most part unless it conflicted with something they were doing and are quite often highly focussed on a specific mission.

The Inquisition is easy - you do what they say. However they dont always take direct command.

Adeptus Ministorum,Adeptus Mechanicus, - more tricky both have imense power but neither has the Divine Patronage of official power to take control. They can do it but its not automatic at all.

When my marines ally with guard the warlord is always a marine character, even though that's not optimal. I try to keep my armies fluffy an some IG officer commanding marines would just seem wrong.

Depends on the chapter. For yours, it'd be unfluffy for the Marine to not relieve the IG commander. For mine, it would be unfluffly for a small force of Wings of Dawn to relieve the commander of the broader force they are supporting. The Marine ranking officier is in charge of the Wings of Dawn and whatever assets are provided to them to do their part, but only of their part: the IG ranking officer should have more familiarity and visibility to the far-right flank at any given times than the Captain who's breaching the far-left flank with his Tacs.

On the other hand, it would be unfluffy for the Wings of Dawn ranking officer to not relieve the commander if they are taking over the operation. In this case, you'd see the Captain in about the center of the force, and the Marines spread throughout.

Both scenarios are fluffy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Re: points for the whole unit -
Sometimes, I just want to take a 6th guy. Not necessarily for the points - my Swooping Hawks and Fire Dragons squads are both 6-mans. I rarely ever field them as 5-mans. It's just not who they are.

That doesn't mean you can't do as you say - it's been done previously.

The base unit - 5 Marines - costs 65 points. You may add additional Tac Marines at the cost of 10ppm. Thus, you can have any number of Marines, but the total cost is not evenly divisible by the number of methods.

Another option is to upcharge (or even downcharge if you're encouraging small squads) the Sarge. So you make the Tac Marine Sarge 25ppm, and Tacs 10ppm. 5-mans are now 65 pts. 10mans are 115 pts. Alternately, if you want larger squads to be disincentivised, you could do Sarge as 5ppm and Tacs as 15 - still 65 for a 5-man, but prohibitively expensive to take a 10man.

Now, these numbers are just to show the concept, not to state what the points really should be.

Kaneda88 wrote:

I agree with most of what you say but why would mechanicus, ministorum and sororitas automatically outrank the imperial guard? outside specific situations i see no reason for that (sorry for the out of topic)

On paper, Mechanicus are their own line of command.
Ministorum are zealots who make Commissars look like happy fun people.
Sororitas are the Daughters of the Emperor, with their ranks containing literal saints.

Honestly the biggest reason is simply to showcase that the Imperium is a fractured entity with too many chefs in the kitchen.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I was considering how to effect the Guard, without altering points, and I may have discovered an answer. What about:

1. Guard squads now have a ballistic skill of 5+, 4+ if no movement in last turn. Vet squads keep their 3+
2. Guard squads now need to have a commissar for every 3 squads. So you are forcing a point increase, but thematically it makes sense.
3. Scions get no changes, they cost a ton as is.
4. Every squad of Conscripts now requires a commissar, no matter the size.


This forces point increases, while maintaining lore and effectiveness. And btw, I rock guard, so these changes effect me. But still, I would be okay with these.

Thoughts?

You can't just reduce their BS, as its connected to the lore, that's like making SM's BS 4 to balance them (if they were OP) That's a terrible way to start balancing armies. Having the same BS as tau is just daft.

Eldar are no longer top tier, just get used to it.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I was considering how to effect the Guard, without altering points, and I may have discovered an answer. What about:

1. Guard squads now have a ballistic skill of 5+, 4+ if no movement in last turn. Vet squads keep their 3+
2. Guard squads now need to have a commissar for every 3 squads. So you are forcing a point increase, but thematically it makes sense.
3. Scions get no changes, they cost a ton as is.
4. Every squad of Conscripts now requires a commissar, no matter the size.


This forces point increases, while maintaining lore and effectiveness. And btw, I rock guard, so these changes effect me. But still, I would be okay with these.

Thoughts?

The first BS change would just further increase the stand-and-shoot issue.

I think that an effective solution to the infantry problem would be to return Command Squads to play. There's already a precedent for a small squad having the Character rule in St. Celestine, so an IG Company Command Squad could consist of an officer and 4 upgradable veterans for about 55 points base. Add to this a 5 point increase in the cost of Guardsmen, and I think that presents a reasonable increase in the cost of infantry firepower, bring them down to acceptable levels.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

The first BS change would just further increase the stand-and-shoot issue.

I think that an effective solution to the infantry problem would be to return Command Squads to play. There's already a precedent for a small squad having the Character rule in St. Celestine, so an IG Company Command Squad could consist of an officer and 4 upgradable veterans for about 55 points base. Add to this a 5 point increase in the cost of Guardsmen, and I think that presents a reasonable increase in the cost of infantry firepower, bring them down to acceptable levels.

Nope. Not one of these ideas is solid.

So we bring Command Squads back. CP batteries sometimes already show up with Primaris Psykers instead of Officers if the intention is literally just to hold space and generate CPs, with the added bonus of a Psyker.

"Bringing back" the old Guard book is not and never will be an answer. Not with the way the game is now.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I was considering how to effect the Guard, without altering points, and I may have discovered an answer. What about:

1. Guard squads now have a ballistic skill of 5+, 4+ if no movement in last turn. Vet squads keep their 3+
2. Guard squads now need to have a commissar for every 3 squads. So you are forcing a point increase, but thematically it makes sense.
3. Scions get no changes, they cost a ton as is.
4. Every squad of Conscripts now requires a commissar, no matter the size.


This forces point increases, while maintaining lore and effectiveness. And btw, I rock guard, so these changes effect me. But still, I would be okay with these.

Thoughts?

The first BS change would just further increase the stand-and-shoot issue.

I think that an effective solution to the infantry problem would be to return Command Squads to play. There's already a precedent for a small squad having the Character rule in St. Celestine, so an IG Company Command Squad could consist of an officer and 4 upgradable veterans for about 55 points base. Add to this a 5 point increase in the cost of Guardsmen, and I think that presents a reasonable increase in the cost of infantry firepower, bring them down to acceptable levels.

The thing is Guard perfectly fit into 8th edition. There isn't a lot of changes you could make across the board that wouldn't end up making them unplayable. You'd have to change issues with 8th to actually balance them. Other armies need to be cheaper, they don't have the ability to take on the infantry and the armour of guard. Having enough dakka to deal with the tide and also having enough AP dakka etc is an issue especially with high costed armies Winning a points game against them ass well as trying to table them are so hard.

The first step is restrictions on soup. When everyone is running the same Guard + Custodes or Guard + Knights lists you've got a clear and obvious problem.

 Marmatag wrote:
When everyone is running the same Guard + Custodes or Guard + Knights lists you've got a clear and obvious problem.

Yes. That Guard detachment, and the CP regen in particular.

Allies needs a lot of fixing. Regardless of what armies are involved, Chaos, Imperial, or Xenos, the top tables are *all* allies/soup lists.

CP should not be shared among different factions, and in fact I'd be ok with even more restrictions on that. Cherrypicking the best units from different armies that cover each others inherent and intended weaknesses also needs to be addressed. The whole concept needs to be reigned in, armies need to be armies again, not a handful of disparate units and characters from distinct forces.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Allies needs a lot of fixing. Regardless of what armies are involved, Chaos, Imperial, or Xenos, the top tables are *all* allies/soup lists.

CP should not be shared among different factions, and in fact I'd be ok with even more restrictions on that. Cherrypicking the best units from different armies that cover each others inherent and intended weaknesses also needs to be addressed. The whole concept needs to be reigned in, armies need to be armies again, not a handful of disparate units and characters from distinct forces.

Yeah that's always been an issue. If you are fighting with two battalions that's fair as the person is obviously fighting for lore sake, as we can't get rid of allies as its important for the universe, lore, game etc., but having a battalion of guard and a unit of dawneagle jetbikes should be heavily penalised.

 Marmatag wrote:
The first step is restrictions on soup. When everyone is running the same Guard + Custodes or Guard + Knights lists you've got a clear and obvious problem.

really it is currently imperial knight vallient plus slamguinius variant blood angels and Guard CP farm as the template strongest list. seriously at NOVA and several tournaments lately that is THE list. not many other lists can deal with it.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Cherrypicking the best units from different armies that cover each others inherent and intended weaknesses also needs to be addressed. The whole concept needs to be reigned in, armies need to be armies again, not a handful of disparate units and characters from distinct forces.

The cherrypicking complaint is pretty damn silly when some factions have only a handful units to choose from while others have way over hundred! How is that fair?

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Wouldnt it be better to just bring back the old platoon style organisation?

1 troop choice =

1 commander (have to bring jnr officers back)
2+ infantry squads

If you wanted to up the cost more you could add in a HWT as part of the requirement as well.

This right here would do the most to normalize IG, a "Platoon" = 1 troop choice = 1 Lt + 2-5 squads; though the hwt should still be seperate.

 greatbigtree wrote:
There’s plenty of design space... just drop the points per model method and replace with points per unit size.

10 Guardsmen = 47 points.

5 Tac Marines = 60 points, 10 Tac Marines = 105 points.

6 FW = 48 points, 12 FW = 84 points.

Tons of design space.

That's what Power Levels are.
But people apparently hate them.

 Crimson wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Cherrypicking the best units from different armies that cover each others inherent and intended weaknesses also needs to be addressed. The whole concept needs to be reigned in, armies need to be armies again, not a handful of disparate units and characters from distinct forces.

The cherrypicking complaint is pretty damn silly when some factions have only a handful units to choose from while others have way over hundred! How is that fair?

It's not at all silly, especially with the larger long established factions. Ultimately the core allies/detachment mechanics allow you to take the best bits of several factions without having to play them within any sort of context or balance paradigm they were originally intended for. That is a problem, and a glaringly obvious one.


Not every faction has a hundred units to choose from. I get that. However, thats not really what the allies system should be addressing.


A lot of those smaller factions arent really self contained forces and never should have been treated as such and should have been generic add-ins that take normal FoC slots for traditional factions (e.g. Inquisition), or should have been much better fleshed out to begin with. AdMech for instance, they're basically a half dozen units with a couple variations of weapons swap, they don't even have a faction transport.

 Vaktathi wrote:
It's not at all silly, especially with the larger long established factions. Ultimately the core allies/detachment mechanics allow you to take the best bits of several factions without having to play them within any sort of context or balance paradigm they were originally intended for.

Why you think the armies were 'originally designed' to be played mono? Rules were pretty extensively rewritten for this edition, and the writers knew allying was possible when they wrote the codices. Besides, you could already mix 'factions' back in the Rogue Trader! So this idea that the allying is somehow not 'intended' is a compete fabrication.

Not every faction has a hundred units to choose from. I get that. However, thats not really what the allies system should be addressing.

Why?

A lot of those smaller factions arent really self contained forces and never should have been treated as such and should have been generic add-ins that take normal FoC slots for traditional factions (e.g. Inquisition), or should have been much better fleshed out to begin with. AdMech for instance, they're basically a half dozen units with a couple variations of weapons swap, they don't even have a faction transport.

But such factions work just fine with the current ally system. Almost like that was intended!

 Crimson wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
It's not at all silly, especially with the larger long established factions. Ultimately the core allies/detachment mechanics allow you to take the best bits of several factions without having to play them within any sort of context or balance paradigm they were originally intended for.

Why you think the armies were 'originally designed' to be played mono? Rules were pretty extensively rewritten for this edition, and the writers knew allying was possible when they wrote the codices. Besides, you could already mix 'factions' back in the Rogue Trader! So this idea that the allying is somehow not 'intended' is a compete fabrication.

Not every faction has a hundred units to choose from. I get that. However, thats not really what the allies system should be addressing.

Why?

A lot of those smaller factions arent really self contained forces and never should have been treated as such and should have been generic add-ins that take normal FoC slots for traditional factions (e.g. Inquisition), or should have been much better fleshed out to begin with. AdMech for instance, they're basically a half dozen units with a couple variations of weapons swap, they don't even have a faction transport.

But such factions work just fine with the current ally system. Almost like that was intended!

Because allies as an option is a lore option, sisters of battle fight with guard or astartes, to not have that would be odd. it not made for you to have an advantage. But it shouldn't be allying to get the most powerful cheese from every army as armies themselves have a few OP units but are offset with more bread and butter. You are trying to justify your want to use cheesy soup lists. You can justify it from the current rules but not for balance or fairness, Any gak player can play a soup list and do far better than he should and if you like playing actual armies and have a sense of fairness it puts you at a disadvantage. In essence you are just showing that you need an edge to win.

No, my soup armies are unxompetive messes as they're based on my model preferences and not on what's OP. Cherrypicking OP units is a problem only because OP units exist! Fix them!

Oh this is easy.

Tighten up the guards ridiculous CP farm. Have it only happen on 6s and 1 per strat used since they can roll for opponents as well. That's it.

The rest? Tighten up allies. You shouldn't be able to use warlord traits or strats from a codex that isn't your main force. Your main force? The codex that takes up the most points in your list.

Please.

 Lord Clinto wrote:

This right here would do the most to normalize IG, a "Platoon" = 1 troop choice = 1 Lt + 2-5 squads; though the hwt should still be seperate.

Why do you people keep thinking this will fix anything?

It won't. It will just shift what soup is at the top.

 Crimson wrote:
No, my soup armies are unxompetive messes as they're based on my model preferences and not on what's OP. Cherrypicking OP units is a problem only because OP units exist! Fix them!

Its not a problem because OP units exist, its that people with character flaws, use all the OP units in soup lists. You can't not have OP units, an Imperial knight or revenant titan, have to be OP. If every unit was the same level it would be a boring game.

 Crimson wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
It's not at all silly, especially with the larger long established factions. Ultimately the core allies/detachment mechanics allow you to take the best bits of several factions without having to play them within any sort of context or balance paradigm they were originally intended for.

Why you think the armies were 'originally designed' to be played mono?

The ones that have been clearly defined factions with the same units, strengths, weaknesses, and setup for every previous edition, and that have fully fleshed out product lines that aren't missing critical capabilities and entire FoC slot options or basics like transports and that largely lack any rules relating to operating or interacting with units of other factions?

Not saying that GW didn't write rules intending to allow allies, they obviously did, but looking at the codex rules, these armies have all their traditional strengths and weaknesses, and extremely few unit abilities that work or can even be applied between factions. The only interactions with other forces is generally at the army detachment level, which all core rulebook stuff, not anything fundamentally built into an armies codex. Essentially they wrote the faction rules the same way they have been for the last 20 years, and added inter-faction cooperation in at a different level in a different book, and as such we get the superpals mix-n-match armies that dominate tables we see now.


Its a problem of execution. Basically the allies rules are in there to let people play with whatever toys they want or happen to have, not for balanced interaction of integrated fighting forces.

Rules were pretty extensively rewritten for this edition, and the writers knew allying was possible when they wrote the codices.

And the exact same statement could be made of 6E and 7E, and boy did that not end well.

Besides, you could already mix 'factions' back in the Rogue Trader!

Yeah, with a tiny fraction of the units, wargear, factions, unit types, etc that exist now, with no fixed army lists/codexes, and a recommended 3rd party GM and a universe very different from 8E's incarnation of the 41st millenium. Totally different game and universe. SM's could wield shuriken catapults and were T3 and only had a 5+ save against Lasguns back then too, and I'm not able to jave any force lead by a Khornate Jokaero wielding a Graviton Cannon and neither Zoats nor Squats exist anymore . Rogue Trader has very little connection to the modern 40k.

So this idea that the allying is somehow not 'intended' is a compete fabrication.

GW very obviously meant to include allies rules, as obviously they did include them. However, it's not hard to see that GW are not writing rules with allies abuse shenanigans in mind and are constructing codexes as self contained armies without thought as to how they interact with others or even with much direct interaction ability at all.

Not every faction has a hundred units to choose from. I get that. However, thats not really what the allies system should be addressing.

Why?

For the reasons I gave right below that statement...

But such factions work just fine with the current ally system. Almost like that was intended!

I mean, if you think Cap'n Smashface with a couple Knights and some guard Groupies is "working"...ok, but I don't.

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
No, my soup armies are unxompetive messes as they're based on my model preferences and not on what's OP. Cherrypicking OP units is a problem only because OP units exist! Fix them!

Its not a problem because OP units exist, its that people with character flaws, use all the OP units in soup lists.

Yes, how dare tournament people play to win! What awful folk.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Delvarus Centurion wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
No, my soup armies are unxompetive messes as they're based on my model preferences and not on what's OP. Cherrypicking OP units is a problem only because OP units exist! Fix them!

Its not a problem because OP units exist, its that people with character flaws, use all the OP units in soup lists.

Yes, how dare tournament people play to win! What awful folk.

We are obviously not talking about tournaments. And I'm not saying they are bad people. Having that level of competitiveness is a character flaw, especially in a 'game'.

 Crimson wrote:
No, my soup armies are unxompetive messes as they're based on my model preferences and not on what's OP. Cherrypicking OP units is a problem only because OP units exist! Fix them!

"Cherrypicking OP units" is a problem when you're able to take them with no consequence. There's no penalty for taking a Brigade or Battalion of Guard to flesh out a Custodes Captain Bike SC Detachment with CPs.

When we talk about "cherrypicking units", very rarely are people talking about Harlequin Troupes or other fluffy bits.

Imposing limitations or requirements on top of troops will not prevent people from running guard soup any more than banning ogryn or mandating they take a tank would. The only way to adjust the guard to prevent souping without hurting the guard directly is to explicitly attack the reasons people are souping them, for example:

1) Your warlord's detachment is the only detachment that can generate or spend CP for any reason.
2) Abilities and relics that generate CP can not be taken in mixed armies.
3) IG abilities and relics that generate CP can not be taken in mixed armies.

Something along the lines of one of these would do a lot more to address the CP battery builds that seem to drive people crazy...

Not that I have a problem with them... *cough*

Bharring wrote:
There are two tiers of troops, balance wise, as I see it currently:
IG/Fire Warriors/DE/AdMech

Marines/CWE/Necrons/Nids

There are also some outliers further along the way I'd consider trash tier, but they aren't balanced around eachother - Storm Guardians et al get to hang out there.

I'm genuinely curious about where battle sisters would rank on your list. At 9ppm with a space marine weapon and stat line (sans one WS, S, and T) and a 6++.

 Kanluwen wrote:

"Cherrypicking OP units" is a problem when you're able to take them with no consequence. There's no penalty for taking a Brigade or Battalion of Guard to flesh out a Custodes Captain Bike SC Detachment with CPs.

There is a penalty, a detachment slot and bunch of points. If that's not enough then the point cost is wrong.

When we talk about "cherrypicking units", vöery rarely are people talking about Harlequin Troupes or other fluffy bits.

Then when designing all these restrictions to the soup better make sure to not throw those people who want to ally a Harlequin Troupe under the buss!