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I think Imperial Guard are going to get a massive buff from what has been confirmed while MEQ armies will be less powerful.

Lasguns can hurt anything, possibly even Land Raiders. Heavy bolters and autocannons will likely be greatly buffed with the new armor save modifier system. Even if they are rend -1 they will mow down marines compared to now.

Sweeping advance is gone and replaced by battle shock. So small squads of dudes is definitely viable without the need for characters such as commisars and are amazing speed bumps and tarpits.

Templates are gone. They only hit D3 or D6 whatever guys. No more entire squads getting destroyed by a flamer. You can march up massed infantry and don't need to space them out. Might even get a decent save against flamers if they don't have much rend.

He who charges first attacks first regardless of initiative. Conscripts with massive numbers of attacks buffed by a priest running over squads of marines or even Daemon Princes without them striking back.

Armor save modifiers are likely to hurt power armor more. MEQ be rolling 4+ and 5+ saves more often. 5+ and 4+ armor more likely to actually get a save even it is only like a 6+ instead the nothing now. For example guardsmen gets a 6+ save against a bolter if it is only rend -1, while they get nothing now. Veterans get 5+ save against bolter, lol. It will be interesting to see how this is implemented, but power armor was not worth it last time in 2nd edition from what I have heard.

Overpowered formation swept away and everyone starting on an equal playing foot. Overcosted units potentially repointed. Hunting lances on rough riders killing terminators. AP3 Basilisks killing terminators and all enemy targets instead of just bouncing off 2+ saves.

Deathstars created by multiple allies gone.

They might only be movement 4" though which could be really bad, but makes run and shoot type orders or whatever much more important.

I hope power armor doesn't end up weaker, MEQ wasn't all that powerful once you removed the bs factor that not every army got an d not everyone used

BrianDavion wrote:
I hope power armor doesn't end up weaker, MEQ wasn't all that powerful once you removed the bs factor that not every army got an d not everyone used

I have a feeling that marines will have 2 wounds each to compensate somewhat for being easier to hurt.

And I don't think the Imperial Guard will be OP.
They'll just actually be able to go toe-to-toe with the current "OP" armies instead of getting massacred easily

There is a difference between can hurt and will hurt. If it takes 40 las gun shots on average to get a wound thru on a land raider, and a land raider has 20 wounds, you can hurt it, but you probably won't bother. That's not a number I pulled out of thin air if it's like getting a 7 in SW: A, you'd need to roll a six, then roll a 4+ it would take about 12 hits to get a wound, then if it has 3+ save and las guns have a 0 rend value, it's 1 in 36 hits takes a wound off of a land raider, so 72 shots if guardsmen continue to have the equivalent of BS 3.

Compare that to a las cannon, which probably wounds a land raider on a three, has a -3 rend, and does a d6 wounds per hit, and you can see that even though you can use any weapon, using the correct weapon makes all the difference in the world.

This is all highly speculative and without the details of the mechanics in front of us we really have no idea.

I'd wager that, even if lasguns can hurt a tank, itll probably be much like MC's now, where lasguns can, in theory, kill them, but in practice are largely worthless and just add pointless dice rolling 99% of the time.

Templates and blast being removed in favor of (imo) what seems to be an awfully low amount of hit is not a good thing for the Guard, either. Same with rend values, I get the feeling they'll be on the low side, so most things will now have a save agaisnt Earthshakers, Lemans Russes, Hotshots, etc etc etc.

I honestly don't think they will be OP, if anything can wound anything, than your standard Guardsman is even more just a meat tube waiting to be shot.

I don't see why so many are talking about how nuts it is that anything can wound everything. Warmachine has been like that for a while, just because you CAN wound something doesn't mean anything will really come of it. I think it will be good for those of us who want to make a balanced or thematic army, and actually be able to do something to pure Knight armies. A reason I haven't had very much to do with 7th and sold my Guard. It will make it so that everybody has a chance of having a good time with their army and not just pulling off buckets of models from the table with little they can do in return.

If there has been as much thought and playtesting as they have implied, and everybody is starting from a fresh slate, I don't think the humble lasgun will be the world ender people are thinking it could be.

If they did as much play testing as they implied in the Q&A video, I doubt anything will be extremely overpowered. Of course some things will probably be marginally better or worse, and some broken combos will probably slip through unnoticed, but I'm guessing that most common units from each faction will be relatively balanced against each other.

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
If they did as much play testing as they implied in the Q&A video, I doubt anything will be extremely overpowered. Of course some things will probably be marginally better or worse, and some broken combos will probably slip through unnoticed, but I'm guessing that most common units from each faction will be relatively balanced against each other.

>Implying GW ever playtest

Seriously though, given what I have heard I am in two mind about this new edition. However I cannot see them letting IG compete with SM's on any level.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
If they did as much play testing as they implied in the Q&A video, I doubt anything will be extremely overpowered. Of course some things will probably be marginally better or worse, and some broken combos will probably slip through unnoticed, but I'm guessing that most common units from each faction will be relatively balanced against each other.

>Implying GW ever playtest

Seriously though, given what I have heard I am in two mind about this new edition. However I cannot see them letting IG compete with SM's on any level.

why? IG aren't going to compete on an individual level, but they should be compeitive on a per point basis.

It sounds like they are focusing on balancing everything, and even if things are going to be unbalanced it is way too early to tell in which factions this will lie.

Nobody can predict the outcome now.
Killing templates is pretty stupid, though. A titan or superheavy will be either near useless or too anoying to use(tons of dice....)

Also: What will happen with stuff without a option in the kit? Vendetta and AC-Chimera....

 Ankhalagon wrote:
Nobody can predict the outcome now.
Killing templates is pretty stupid, though. A titan or superheavy will be either near useless or too anoying to use(tons of dice....)

Also: What will happen with stuff without a option in the kit? Vendetta and AC-Chimera....

It only seems so stupid because we are so used to them. At the end of the day, it is still a 2D method of determining targets in a 3D battleground.

I'm hoping I still get to use my massed infantry and armor. As absurd as it may be, I love my masses of troops charging Russian-style at alien hordes.

Also, with a re-balance in effect, maybe Ogryns will see the light of day again? As they stand right now they are a cool unit, but royally expensive for what they do.

Last but not least, the Deathstrike has to be equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon. It will be hilarious.

Well, cheap units are already the bane of melee.
Being able to shoot up parking lots and GMCs would make them a force to be reckoned with, still, Powerful is not Over Powered.

Jbz` wrote:

I have a feeling that marines will have 2 wounds each to compensate somewhat for being easier to hurt.

I'd be happy with this. I don't play SM but I'd be glad to see their superhuman endurance more accurately represented on the tabletop by more than a mere +1 Toughness.

I am cautiously optimistic. My biggest fear is they dumb down the mechanics too much. And although lazguns hurting tanks sound problematic, it depends on how they handle it. If a Leman Russ has 20 wounds than throwing 40 laz guns at it and them chipping off 2 wounds is not exactly worrying.

 Tsol wrote:
I am cautiously optimistic. My biggest fear is they dumb down the mechanics too much. And although lazguns hurting tanks sound problematic, it depends on how they handle it. If a Leman Russ has 20 wounds than throwing 40 laz guns at it and them chipping off 2 wounds is not exactly worrying.

Well, the game is still going to have a shooting phase with weapon ranges and you'll declare your target and measure range. Then roll to hit, roll to wound, check any special rules for the weapon you are using, possibly roll a die to see if a given wound or hit causes extra damage and then the target will make a save and you'll possibly have a save modifier and then they'll take wounds and/or remove models.

I don't know where dumbing down fits in there. It actually looks like they may have added to the process rather than dumbed it down.

And if we look at Age of Sigmar as an example of the studio's design work on a recent new edition, there's actually quite a bit of weapon and defense special rules in there. So I imagine there won't be a simple point lasguns at everything and they die solution. The new sky ships in Age of Sigmar might be a good example of how they might handle vehicles in new40k.

Given that shooting was part of the rock paper scissors that grew out of the issues with current 40k, I'm guessing they're going to make sure 40k doesn't have the negative play experience of large portions of your army being shot off the table before you ever move a model. I'm not sure they can do that if they also make rules that make guard OP.

So I too am cautiously optimistic. I plan on doing hand to hand combat focuses stuff and I'm hoping we don't see gun lines vs death stars vs whatever like current 40k has degenerated into in many places.

Look at Freeguilds from AoS. They'll be that.

Basically cheap infantry with weak yet competent and buffable shooting, heroes that focus on mitigating the effects of battleshock, and artillery and tanks that are hella scary.

Lasguns being able to hurt tanks and monstrous creatures might sound worrisome to those who haven't played AoS, but there's no need to worry about the flashlight force getting too carried away. It takes about 8 shots for your average Freeguilder gunman to wound your average monster, which itself will tend to have in excess of 10 wounds. Needless to say, that's a lot of dakka, and not at all economical. Whether it be through artillery or a concentration of buffs, taking down behemoths is still a task that justifies the cost.

You are making way too many assumptions before the rules are even released, wait for them to come out and then we will go from there

Nah, I'm pretty confident in my assumptions. Watch a game where a Freeguild army is being played. It's IG in not-space. All they need are transports and stormtroopers, and they're right on the money.

I have always disliked the fluff idea that a lasgun should be doing anything to a land raider or leman russ, much like a dislike the average guardsman could swarm and beat a bloodthirster in close combat.

Posts on Warhammer 40000 facebook might put things in perspective.

keep in mind when they say might they proably mean "50/50 chance" so to RELIABLY kill a land raider with lasgun guard? you're proably looking at 1000 guardsmen.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:
If they did as much play testing as they implied in the Q&A video, I doubt anything will be extremely overpowered. Of course some things will probably be marginally better or worse, and some broken combos will probably slip through unnoticed, but I'm guessing that most common units from each faction will be relatively balanced against each other.

>Implying GW ever playtest

Seriously though, given what I have heard I am in two mind about this new edition. However I cannot see them letting IG compete with SM's on any level.

I think this time they have actually tested. They mentioned specific tournament organizers that were involved in the testing, and the Frontline Gaming guys have confirmed that they were involved.

That said I think it is difficult to assume how armies will work as they will be wildly different than they are now so comparing armies given the current stats with rumored rules isn't really going to work.

 frozenwastes wrote:


Posts on Warhammer 40000 facebook might put things in perspective.

500 Lasguns, Hit on 4+ so 250 hits, wounding on 6's = 42 wounds, If land raider has a 2+ save = 7 wounds, 3+ save is 13 wounds. Land raider probably has 15-20 wounds. Also the chances for a las gun to hurt a land raider is about this unlikely but its cool and random stuff like this does happen in the fluff as well as real life. Tanks have firing ports who not to say a las shot went in and hit a crew man or hit a weak link in a tread.

Consider the numbers for some things that already exist, and then I'm gonna go wild with some speculation.

In 7e, it takes:
600 lasgun shots at BS3 to, statistically, inflict a little over 5 wounds on a T6/2+/FNP unit (like a Riptide or a Tyrannofex with Catalyst).
200 lasgun shots at BS3 to, statistically, inflict a little over 5 wounds on a T6/3+ unit (like a Carnifex).

So, as we can see, defensive stats matter, a lot. Add rerolls to the armor save, force-rerolls of successful wounds, rerolls to FNP or forced snap-shots, and those numbers inflate to an even more bananas degree. Lasguns can kill Riptides. No, really, they can. I've had it happen. But how likely are you to bother, if your Guardsmen have better targets? Shooting at a Riptide with full health is a waste of energy, even with Prescience and FRFSRF. Trying to pling the last wound off when you have an objective for killing an MC, maybe not.

That's how it's likely to play out. Now for the wild speculation -

Assume that Guardsmen still have BS3 (or otherwise still hit on a 4+), our hypothetical tank has T9, a 3+ save, and 14 wounds, and that, for S3 to wound T9, you need a 6+, rerolling successes, needing another 6+. (And that lasguns are still S3, and the squad has no plasma, etc).

150 shots will get 75 hits. Of those, you'll get 2.08 wounds, and you'll get 0.75 wounds after the save. A blob of 50, in rapid-fire range, with FRFSRF, gets you 150. Chew on those numbers! Your T9 tank is not scared of some measly lasguns, unless it's already just about beat to death.

What about a heavy weapon squad? Well, let's say they hit on a 4+, wound on a 4+, rend -4 and deal 3 damage (which seems right-ish for something like a lascannon, say).

4 shots gets you 2 hits, 1 wound, and no save, for 3 damage total. Not tea bag, and this is just four BS3 "lascannons". Let's improve the odds - Imperial Fist Devs with Prescience (assuming they still re-roll damage on tanks): 4 shots gets you 3.5 hits, 2.6 wounds, for 6, maybe 9 damage to the tank. It's not dead - 14 wounds is still a tough tank - but five Devs scare it, while 50 Guardsmen just tickle a little.

Yep, lasguns can kill tanks, but just like 7e MC hunting, bring the right tool for the job.

Even if lasguns can kill land raiders, can they get any worse than they are right now?

Martel732 wrote:
Even if lasguns can kill land raiders, can they get any worse than they are right now?

Not realy.

I mean they die to shrubs right now. At least guardsmen cost points.