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I want you to imagine if I were to propose the following unit idea: Senior Sternguard. What is a senior sternguard? A senior sternguard squad is going to fill an elites slot in the SM codex. It's going to be EXACTLY like normal sternguard and have all of the same upgrade options, except everyone BS 2+ instead of BS 3+. And instead of costing 16 ppm prior to upgrades, they'll cost 17 ppm prior to upgrades.

Oh, and by the way, no, you don't even need to buy a new model for this. You can just whatever models you were already using for regular sternguard.

Here's another idea: Junior cultists. What is a junior cultist? A junior cultist is exactly the same as a regular chaos cultist, except it has no upgrades options, has WS and BS 5+ and has a point less of leadership. And it costs 3 ppm.

Again, no, you don't need to buy new models. Just use the old cultists models.

Oh, hey, how about this idea?

Know how we have SM devastator squads? Let's have scout devastator squads too! Same thing as devastator squads, except using the scout stat line and points costs.

What do you think about these ideas?

I imagine you'll bring forward two objections:

1. These are all utterly redundant ideas. A junior cultist is not a qualitatively different option from a cultist. It's exactly the same thing, just with worse numbers and cheaper.

A senior sternguard is no different from a normal sternguard squad. It's exactly the same thing, just slightly more expensive and with slightly better stats.

A scout devastator squad doesn't really give you anything over and beyond what the SM devastator squad gives you; it's just cheaper and with slightly worse stats.

2. In addition to being completely redundant, it just allows you to game the points costs. You now get everything you were getting before, except now you can min-max even better than you could before. So not only is it redundant, but it potentially gives you an unfair advantage.

If you raise these objections, I'll say: "Yeah. You're right."

And that's why conscripts and veteran squads need to be deleted from the IG codex and forgotten forever.

Because a conscript squad is just a cheaper, slightly worse regular infantry squad, except with no upgrades options. And a veterans squad is just a slightly more expensive, slightly better special weapons team.

And if both of these squads were deleted today, not a single IG player would be left with models that they could no longer use, just so long as GW made a single rules change: "IG infantry squad sergeants come with a lasgun and laspistol; however, they may exchange their lasgun..."

Wow.

My friend, please stop. We are drowning in all this salt.

Azreal and SS:

Can you give me a single argument for the continued existence of IG vets and conscripts that wouldn't equally force you to admit that the ideas I proposed in the OP are good ones?

And if you think that the ideas I proposed in the OP are stupid ideas, why are IG conscripts and veterans anything but redundant and potentially game-imbalancing?

No, because I'm not going to engage.

This is just another attention seeking trash thread from someone whose scrub mentality is always going to mean they're pissing and moaning about something that isn't "fair."

How about I try a different tactic: Why shouldn't we squat all variations of space marine factions in to one astartes army and all variations of Chaos legions into one heretics army? Blood Angels could just be a regular space marine army that takes more assault squads. Dark Angels just one that takes more bikes speeders and terminators. Space Wolves just regular marines with more fur. TS just chaos space marines with funny hats and fancy terminators. Death guard are just regular chaos space marines with mark of nurgle on everything. And Why should sternguard be a different unit than tactical marines? Or Vanguard different from assault marines? Heck, why should devastators be their own unit? They are just tactical marines with a few extra heavy weapons slots?

The fact of the matter is upwards of half the models in 40k are just minor variations of similar models. And I don't think getting rid of half the models in 40k is good for game design, balance, or fun.

So please. Enough salt has been spilled. Let it end. Please.

 Azreal13 wrote:
No, because I'm not going to engage.

So then you are admitting to breaking rule 2.

Got it.

But I'll answer the question for you:

No, there is no argument that you can give me against the units I proposed in the OP that don't equally apply to special weapons teams and conscripts.

And there's a reason why veterans were considered competitive in 6th and 7th, and special weapons teams were not. And there's a reason why conscripts are competitive now, and infantry squads are not.

The sole reason, it seems to me, why an IG player would be in favor of their continued existence is because they give him an in-game advantage relative to the other (almost identical) selections.

It all comes down to a numbers game.

Get over yourself

 SuspiciousSucculent wrote:
How about I try a different tactic: Why shouldn't we squat all variations of space marine factions in to one astartes army and all variations of Chaos legions into one heretics army?

That essentially just happened with the new indices, isn't it? Obviously, there's the problem that different legions and chapters have access to different units and wargear, but no, I don't think that justifies having completely separate codices.

And really, this is a terrible argument, simply because of the fact that non-SM players, and even some SM players, HAVE IN FACT raised this very point: having multiple codices for different flavors of space marines is just redundant.

And Why should sternguard be a different unit than tactical marines? Or Vanguard different from assault marines? Heck, why should devastators be their own unit? They are just tactical marines with a few extra heavy weapons slots?

I don't think that this is accurate. Sternguard squads are not just "slightly better" tactical squads, pace Peregrine. A tactical squad is ultimately a special or heavy weapons platform, whereas sternguard squads are a platform to take special ammunition (or special issue boltguns in the current edition). It would be like saying that CSM squads and Rubricae are basically the same unit.

Likewise, I don't think that devastator squads and tactical squads are either conceptually or functionally the same, any more than IG infantry squads are conceptually and functionally the same as HWTs.

Even in the case of assault squads and vanguard veterans, I can point to a substantial difference in their stat lines, wargear options and points costs.

Special weapons teams and veterans, however, are not qualitatively different. They're conceptually and functionally exactly the same thing as their counterparts. The sole difference is that one is strictly better at the expensive of a slight points increase.

Ditto for conscripts and guardsmen, except in the opposite conceptual direction.

 Traditio wrote:

But I'll answer the question for you:

No, there is no argument that you can give me against the units I proposed in the OP that don't equally apply to special weapons teams and conscripts.

Because sternguard are already these vets you're talking about? Sternguard aren't your basic tac marines, fresh into power armor. They're the equivalent of IG vets, the few that live long enough to be consider veteran warriors (in an army where soldiers fight for hundreds of years), while cultist are basically conscripts. Little to no training beyond "this is your weapon, point this end at the enemy. This is your melee weapon, pointy end goes into the other guy."

Now, if you're talking guard who have fallen to chaos, those aren't all classified as cultists, but as renegades and heretics (weird, it's like there was a few books MADE for them or something!)

1. These are all utterly redundant ideas. A junior cultist is not a qualitatively different option from a cultist. It's exactly the same thing, just with worse numbers and cheaper.

A senior sternguard is no different from a normal sternguard squad. It's exactly the same thing, just slightly more expensive and with slightly better stats.

A scout devastator squad doesn't really give you anything over and beyond what the SM devastator squad gives you; it's just cheaper and with slightly worse stats.

I agree with SuspiciousSucculent, we should just squat all marines into one army then if that's the logic we're using. After all, death company are just more expensive assault squads with better stats right?

I have one word for you Tradio, Tyranid War Vets.

Wolfblade wrote:Because sternguard are already these vets you're talking about? Sternguard aren't your basic tac marines, fresh into power armor. They're the equivalent of IG vets, the few that live long enough to be consider veteran warriors (in an army where soldiers fight for hundreds of years), while cultist are basically conscripts. Little to no training beyond "this is your weapon, point this end at the enemy. This is your melee weapon, pointy end goes into the other guy.

As I said above, I don't think that this comparison really holds. Sternguard and Tactical marines, in addition to having different stat lines, also have different wargear options. They also have a more substantial difference in points costs (13 ppm vs. 19 ppm, if you include the special issue boltgun).

What's the substantial difference between a SWT and a veteran squad? Why would you ever want to take one over the other except for reasons that boil down to gaming the numbers?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

BrianDavion wrote:
I have one word for you Tradio, Tyranid War Vets.

In prior incarnations, I would have disagreed with you.

Tyrranid War vets used to be qualitatively different from sternguard. Tyrranid war vets were UM only, could only take hellfire rounds and were good specifically against tyrranids, whereas sternguard were more of a generalist unit.

In their current incarnation, there's really not much reason to have two different codex options.

 Traditio wrote:
Because a conscript squad is just a cheaper, slightly worse regular infantry squad, except with no upgrades options. And a veterans squad is just a slightly more expensive, slightly better special weapons team.

That's right. Having the three options for basic infantry allow a Guard player to really taylor the theme of their Regiment. If these were condensed into a single option then a lot of the flavour of the Guard is lost. I guess you could condense them but only if you brought back some sort of doctrine system. A strong narrative theme with the Guard is the fact that there are thousands of different types of regiments, all with unique flavours and combat styles. I would say that the Guard are by far the most diverse army in the fluff. If you got rid of conscripts and veterans, how could you have an army that represents both the endless waves of the Valhallans and the elite Catatchan Devils? Forces where one man may have been handed a lasgun and shown which end to point at things, whilst the other has spent their entire life in combat on a death-world?

Conscripts, Guardsmen, and Vets do all have different wargear options in addition to different stat lines though. So they quite easily meet the same criteria as Sternguard. They have different quantities of special and heavy weapon slots, and veterans up until just now have had additional special wargear, some of which might come back when we get the codex proper (camo cloaks, GW please).

It's a sliding scale of putting more bodies on the table vs having better BS and more equipment options.

And what ever gave you the idea infantry squads were uncompetitive? They're still a nice, safe home for expensive heavy weapons, especially with the return of 5th ed wound allocation. They could perform that role a little better if they still had combined squads, but I guess having to go through 40 guardsmen before you could finally touch a heavy weapon would be a bit excessive. Maybe a nerfed version of combined squads that lets you combine 2-3 of them, like a reverse combat squad, would be a nice compromise that puts them squarely in-between conscripts and veterans.

Veterans, of course, are there for when you also want those heavy weapons to hit on 3+ and they perform that job admirably. Though it'd be nice if they'd be put back in the troops section where they belong.

They're also thematically appropriate for the Imperial Guard's conventional-army style, where you've got the grizzled old veterans, the GI Joes, and the FNGs fresh from boot camp.

Wasn't Traditio the one arguing to be able to defeat a Titan with missile launchers and flamers?

The amount of salt here is drying the land to a dead husk from several miles.

The chaos god salininous is being born as we type.

 Traditio wrote:

Wolfblade wrote:Because sternguard are already these vets you're talking about? Sternguard aren't your basic tac marines, fresh into power armor. They're the equivalent of IG vets, the few that live long enough to be consider veteran warriors (in an army where soldiers fight for hundreds of years), while cultist are basically conscripts. Little to no training beyond "this is your weapon, point this end at the enemy. This is your melee weapon, pointy end goes into the other guy.

As I said above, I don't think that this comparison really holds. Sternguard and Tactical marines, in addition to having different stat lines, also have different wargear options. They also have a more substantial difference in points costs (13 ppm vs. 19 ppm, if you include the special issue boltgun).

What's the substantial difference between a SWT and a veteran squad? Why would you ever want to take one over the other except for reasons that boil down to gaming the numbers?

Again, each represent something different from the fluff. The vets are the ones who survive for a logn time, and are basically as elite as a normal guardsman will ever get to be. A SWT on the other hand is a normal guardsman who got lucky (or unlucky depending on the weapon and edition) and got something besides a lasgun.


Beyond that, SWT are cheaper at the expense of slightly worse stats. A vet squad w/ 3 meltaguns is 96pt. A SWT is 58. That means a vet squad will stick around longer, and each casualty means less. Not to mention, we don't even know if the codex will bring back real platoons.

On the other hand, lets continue this. lets get rid of genestealers because hormagaunts are basically the same thing with more numbers and worse stats! Who needs a carnifex when the HT is the same thing with better stats! Who needs warriors when we have immortals with both a better gun/stats and more expensive? Who needs guardians (storm or defender) when we have banshees and dire avengers? Why have dark eldar wyches or warriors when we have bloodbrides and trueborn? Ork boyz when we have nobs? Nurglings when we have plaguebearers? Any death company/dreadnought variation (venerable, libby, etc) because we have non DC/regular dreads?

See the point? By your logic we'd end up removing probably half the units in the game because they happen to be similar. It's weird you're not arguing to squat them.

 Traditio wrote:
That essentially just happened with the new indices, isn't it? Obviously, there's the problem that different legions and chapters have access to different units and wargear, but no, I don't think that justifies having completely separate codices.

And really, this is a terrible argument, simply because of the fact that non-SM players, and even some SM players, HAVE IN FACT raised this very point: having multiple codices for different flavors of space marines is just redundant.

I think you are missing my point. Each of these factions gets unique units that are slight variations of standard SM units. Why do they get these units instead of just the standard ones?

I don't think that this is accurate. Sternguard squads are not just "slightly better" tactical squads, pace Peregrine. A tactical squad is ultimately a special or heavy weapons platform, whereas sternguard squads are a platform to take special ammunition (or special issue boltguns in the current edition).

Sternguard also get special weapons, have essentially the same profile as tactical squads, but have slightly better standard guns. Sounds exactly like slightly better stats for slightly more points to me, which you say means they should be folded into one unit.

It would be like saying that CSM squads and Rubricae are basically the same unit.

Aren't they? They are slightly more expensive for slightly better stats (better gun and invulnerable save), which you say means they should be folded into one unit.

Likewise, I don't think that devastator squads and tactical squads are either conceptually or functionally the same, any more than IG infantry squads are conceptually and functionally the same as HWTs.

They are no more conceptually or functionally different than IG veterans and special weapons squads, though. Tacticals and devastators only difference in in the proportion of heavy weapons to regular guys. Veterans and SWS differ in both proportion of weapons to regular guys, ballistics skill, leadership, and basic infantry options (shotguns).

Even in the case of assault squads and vanguard veterans, I can point to a substantial difference in their stat lines, wargear options and points costs.

I'd hardly say that one point of leadership and an extra attack is a substantial difference, if one point of ballistics skill, one point of weapons skill, and three points of leadership is not a significant difference between regular IG and Conscripts. And you can hardly say that their wargear options justify their existence as separate units, while simultaneously ignoring wargear differences between standard infantry and conscripts in arguing for their removal.

Even better, lets combine Captains and Chapter Masters, combine Devestators with Assault and Sternguard and Tactical Marines? While we are at it, Land Speeders with Typhoons and Storms; Predators with Vindicators, Whirlwinds, Razorbacks, and Rhinos?

Maybe Traditio is meaning to sow so much salt that the land becomes a desert so he can declare peace in his time?

This is a new level of terrible posting, even for you Traditio.

Its not even gak posting, because at least gak posting is generally funny.

0/10, would not read again, would not recommend to a friend.

I really want a lot more options for Guard infantry, although I did play with the old doctrine system. Things you used to be able to do:

-Give everyone camo cloaks
-Give everyone carapace
-Make everyone deepstrike
-Make everyone infiltrate
-Give everyone pistol and ccw instead of lasguns (kanak skull takers!)
-Force all units to take transports, even if they couldn't
-Make jungle fighters, which gave loadss of forest-related buffs
-Give your entire force chem-inhalers
-Make everyone cyborgs

I think most people want more diversity in Guard lists, not less. The ability to represent the wide spectrum of Guard, from savage cavemen to elite shock troops, would be lovely.

Conscripts and veterans have their place for theme. That said, i dont see why veteran cant just be an Xppm upgrade for regular guard. Conscripts can remain as they are but i reckon you could have them not benefit from orders to reflect their being rushed through training to be meat in the grinder. Thats just a couple thoughts that come to me. No need to squat something that gives an army its various flavours.

What has happened! I liked the new Traditio of 8th edition, full of hope!

Please Traditio, go back to the light! Avoid the dark side! Just have fun, 8th is much more balance even if theres somet things more powerfull than others! GW will surely fix them! Just have fun until them!


But now in the thread, I'm gonna say that you have a point in the fact that in other armies that variety is pretty redundant. But I think the existence of conscripts and veterans is one of the nice things about Guard, the flexibility they give you. I'll be sad if that goes away.

Giantwalkingchair wrote:
Conscripts and veterans have their place for theme. That said, i dont see why veteran cant just be an Xppm upgrade for regular guard. Conscripts can remain as they are but i reckon you could have them not benefit from orders to reflect their being rushed through training to be meat in the grinder. Thats just a couple thoughts that come to me. No need to squat something that gives an army its various flavours.

The reason they're not an upgrade is that you used to be able to take 30+ of them in one platoon, which isn't realistic for guard considering the average lifespan in the battlefield is around 9hrs or something.

 Traditio wrote:
What's the substantial difference between a SWT and a veteran squad? Why would you ever want to take one over the other except for reasons that boil down to gaming the numbers?

Veterans are BS3+.
Veterans can buy a Vox Caster.
Veterans can buy a Heavy Flamer.
Veterans can bring a Veteran Weapons Team with them.
Veterans have a Sergeant that can buy melee weapons, have an extra attack and higher Leadership.
Veterans let you bring additional bodies to protect your special and heavy weapons.

Veterans sadly lost a bunch of options, but I'm pretty sure I can still run them without crippling myself in any way.
I'm unhappy that they removed so many options, but why the feth would I want them to reduce my options even more?

That being said, some of you guys should really back off of personal attacks on Traditio.

 Trickstick wrote:
I really want a lot more options for Guard infantry, although I did play with the old doctrine system. Things you used to be able to do:

-Give everyone camo cloaks
-Give everyone carapace
-Make everyone deepstrike
-Make everyone infiltrate
-Give everyone pistol and ccw instead of lasguns (kanak skull takers!)
-Force all units to take transports, even if they couldn't
-Make jungle fighters, which gave loadss of forest-related buffs
-Give your entire force chem-inhalers
-Make everyone cyborgs

I think most people want more diversity in Guard lists, not less. The ability to represent the wide spectrum of Guard, from savage cavemen to elite shock troops, would be lovely.

I think you're giving Traditio a little more credit than he deserves. Just about anyone with an iota of common sense and reason understands the advantage and purpose of Guard having access to multiple types of basic Guardsmen. Traditio dislikes just about anything that isn't marines and is a little bitter when his specific vision of what marines should be are found to be underwhelming on the table compared to lowly peasants like the Guard.

And I'd love for them to bring back or add in every one of the options you listed. Vic Minis has some awesome carapace female torsos (hoping for male soon too) for Grenadier/Elite squads that would aesthetically match my not-Mordians.

 Traditio wrote:
I want you to imagine if I were to propose the following unit idea: Senior Sternguard. What is a senior sternguard? A senior sternguard squad is going to fill an elites slot in the SM codex. It's going to be EXACTLY like normal sternguard and have all of the same upgrade options, except everyone BS 2+ instead of BS 3+. And instead of costing 16 ppm prior to upgrades, they'll cost 17 ppm prior to upgrades.

Oh, and by the way, no, you don't even need to buy a new model for this. You can just whatever models you were already using for regular sternguard.

Here's another idea: Junior cultists. What is a junior cultist? A junior cultist is exactly the same as a regular chaos cultist, except it has no upgrades options, has WS and BS 5+ and has a point less of leadership. And it costs 3 ppm.

Again, no, you don't need to buy new models. Just use the old cultists models.

Oh, hey, how about this idea?

Know how we have SM devastator squads? Let's have scout devastator squads too! Same thing as devastator squads, except using the scout stat line and points costs.

What do you think about these ideas?

I imagine you'll bring forward two objections:

1. These are all utterly redundant ideas. A junior cultist is not a qualitatively different option from a cultist. It's exactly the same thing, just with worse numbers and cheaper.

A senior sternguard is no different from a normal sternguard squad. It's exactly the same thing, just slightly more expensive and with slightly better stats.

A scout devastator squad doesn't really give you anything over and beyond what the SM devastator squad gives you; it's just cheaper and with slightly worse stats.

2. In addition to being completely redundant, it just allows you to game the points costs. You now get everything you were getting before, except now you can min-max even better than you could before. So not only is it redundant, but it potentially gives you an unfair advantage.

If you raise these objections, I'll say: "Yeah. You're right."

And that's why conscripts and veteran squads need to be deleted from the IG codex and forgotten forever.

Because a conscript squad is just a cheaper, slightly worse regular infantry squad, except with no upgrades options. And a veterans squad is just a slightly more expensive, slightly better special weapons team.

And if both of these squads were deleted today, not a single IG player would be left with models that they could no longer use, just so long as GW made a single rules change: "IG infantry squad sergeants come with a lasgun and laspistol; however, they may exchange their lasgun..."

It's always nice to see someone win an argument with themselves.

What needs to be squatted is this terrible thread. But if we can't have that let's squat most of the marine codex, since why do we need all these redundant power armor units?

 Blacksails wrote:
I think you're giving Traditio a little more credit than he deserves.

Maybe. I try to come to every new thread without preconceptions about people. You never know when your assumptions can be wrong and don't want that to cloud a good conversation. Debate the points, not the person and all that.

Ah, another Traditio poll. I guess it's about that time of the month. I'm just waiting till he somehow interprets the poll in his favour with a "strong minority" wanting to squat vets and conscripts and thus validating his extremist views.