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I've noticed that most guns are specialized at killing medium toughness infantry. 4+-3+ models seem to be right in the Goldilocks zone for most weapon's points efficient targets. Most medium infantry as units are defined as viable based off their ability to deliver damage quickly with the expectation of them being wiped off the moment something looks at them, essentially making their role not dependent on their save. With this in mind, are we in an edition where medium infantry are mostly weaker to counterparts at either end of the scale, or the a problem created simply by the fact most anti-hoard counters became anti-marine counters?

I'm going to assume by medium infantry you mean marines and terminators, and their equivalents. And yes i think you are right. They cost too much for how easy they are to kill.

There are 2 issues as far as i can tell: AP1 high rate of fire weapons like assault cannons absolutely shred marines, and D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models. It's even worthwhile most of the time to shoot auto cannons at terminators and bikes and you'll probably kill some.

3 wounds seems to be point where is enough to stick around for a little bit (paladins, twc, etc).

For marines, it's not the end of the world. Ravenguard tactics help, imperial fist warlord trait helps, and transports in general work okay too. But terminators and bikes seem like they are in kind of a bad spot, paying for durability they don't actually seem to have.

jcd386 wrote:
I'm going to assume by medium infantry you mean marines and terminators, and their equivalents. And yes i think you are right. They cost too much for how easy they are to kill.

There are 2 issues as far as i can tell: AP1 high rate of fire weapons like assault cannons absolutely shred marines, and D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models. It's even worthwhile most of the time to shoot auto cannons at terminators and bikes and you'll probably kill some.

3 wounds seems to be point where is enough to stick around for a little bit (paladins, twc, etc).

For marines, it's not the end of the world. Ravenguard tactics help, imperial fist warlord trait helps, and transports in general work okay too. But terminators and bikes seem like they are in kind of a bad spot, paying for durability they don't actually seem to have.

The problem here applies to all T3-5 w1-2 sv4-2+ models. Right now you need to be cheap enough to justify 1-2 wounds.

 Jaxler wrote:


For marines, it's not the end of the world. Ravenguard tactics help, imperial fist warlord trait helps, and transports in general work okay too. But terminators and bikes seem like they are in kind of a bad spot, paying for durability they don't actually seem to have.

The problem here applies to all T3-5 w1-2 sv4-2+ models. Right now you need to be cheap enough to justify 1-2 wounds.

Pretty much, yeah.

Single-wound MEQs get torn apart by what are supposed to be anti-horde guns like heavy bolters, and are actually more vulnerable than Guardsmen to bolters, per point.

Multi-wound infantry without great invulnerable saves are just walking targets for multi-damage weaponry. These guns are good against vehicles which are paying 10 points per T7 3+ wound; they absolutely shred Terminators who pay 20 points per T4 2+ wound.

jcd386 wrote:
I'm going to assume by medium infantry you mean marines and terminators, and their equivalents. And yes i think you are right. They cost too much for how easy they are to kill.

There are 2 issues as far as i can tell: AP1 high rate of fire weapons like assault cannons absolutely shred marines, and D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models. It's even worthwhile most of the time to shoot auto cannons at terminators and bikes and you'll probably kill some.

3 wounds seems to be point where is enough to stick around for a little bit (paladins, twc, etc).

For marines, it's not the end of the world. Ravenguard tactics help, imperial fist warlord trait helps, and transports in general work okay too. But terminators and bikes seem like they are in kind of a bad spot, paying for durability they don't actually seem to have.

Hmm. Does the math actually check out on all that?
"...weapons like assault cannons absolutley shred marines..."
So assuming we're talking about a twin assault cannon, you're looking at 12 shots, 8 hits (if you're BS3+), ~5.36 wounds (we'll be generous and round up to 6 for the sake of easy math), and a marine ignores either half of those or two thirds of those if he's in cover. So you're looking at about 2 or 3 dead marines off a pair of assault cannons. If we're talking about a normal assault cannon, that drops down to 1 or 1.5 marines. So it only "shreds" marines if we define "shreds" as "kills more than one or two."

"...D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models..."
I can think of a lot of 3 wound models and a lot of 1 wound models, but most two wound models that come to mind are things like bikes and terminators. So looking at those with a BS3+ model...

Against marine bikes, an overcharging plasma gun (for the 2 Damage) in rapid fire range will fire 2 shots, means ~1.34 hits means ~0.8978 wounds, and it will reduce their save to a 6+. So you're probably looking at one dead bike. Not terrible!

Against terminators, that math is the same until we look at the to-wound roll giving you 1.072 dead termies, but a 5+ invul save makes your chances of killing a single guy closer to ~0.72, so pretty good odds of killing one terminator. If he's standing in cover, he'll have a 4+ save dropping your chances of killing him to ~0.536. So about 50% odds of killing a single guy. Not awful, but not great.

Of course, for every 6 shots you fire (so about 3 dead bikes or ~2.1 dead terminators or 1.5 dead terminators that were in cover), your overcharging gun will explode and kill one of your plasma gunners. So make of that what you will.

Edit: It's worth noting that models that would be reduced to a 6+ save by plasma, like those bikes or a regular marine, are more likely than not to make a single 6+ save if you put 4 wounds on them and have about 50/50 odds of making a 6+ save for every 3 wounds you put on them. So in the example above using bikers, shooting 3 plasma guns at a squad of bikes has ~50/50 odds of resulting in 2 dead bikes and one dead plasma gunner. Or is my math way off?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:
Pretty much, yeah.

Single-wound MEQs get torn apart by what are supposed to be anti-horde guns like heavy bolters, and are actually more vulnerable than Guardsmen to bolters, per point.

Multi-wound infantry without great invulnerable saves are just walking targets for multi-damage weaponry. These guns are good against vehicles which are paying 10 points per T7 3+ wound; they absolutely shred Terminators who pay 20 points per T4 2+ wound.

Counterpoint: Such guns usually come on relatively expensive platforms such as vehicles or 10-strong marine squads. Due to the cheapness of hordes, these weapons aren't great choices for dealing with, for instance, gaunts or boyz. Due to the durability of most vehicles, doing 2 damage per attack usually isn't ideal. As a result, stocking up on weapons like autocannons or plasma can be considered inefficient versus...

*Horde armies
*Highly mechanized armies
*Well-rounded armies that have a variety of unit types.

So while High-ish strength 2 damage weapons might be pretty okay against their ideal targets, I propose that lists that spam them might struggle against lists that don't have an abundance of ideal targets for them.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Hmm. Does the math actually check out on all that?
"...weapons like assault cannons absolutley shred marines..."
So assuming we're talking about a twin assault cannon, you're looking at 12 shots, 8 hits (if you're BS3+), ~5.36 wounds (we'll be generous and round up to 6 for the sake of easy math), and a marine ignores either half of those or two thirds of those if he's in cover. So you're looking at about 2 or 3 dead marines off a pair of assault cannons. If we're talking about a normal assault cannon, that drops down to 1 or 1.5 marines. So it only "shreds" marines if we define "shreds" as "kills more than one or two."

"...D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models..."
I can think of a lot of 3 wound models and a lot of 1 wound models, but most two wound models that come to mind are things like bikes and terminators. So looking at those with a BS3+ model...

Against marine bikes, an overcharging plasma gun (for the 2 Damage) in rapid fire range will fire 2 shots, means ~1.34 hits means ~0.8978 wounds, and it will reduce their save to a 6+. So you're probably looking at one dead bike. Not terrible!

Against terminators, that math is the same until we look at the to-wound roll giving you 1.072 dead termies, but a 5+ invul save makes your chances of killing a single guy closer to ~0.72, so pretty good odds of killing one terminator. If he's standing in cover, he'll have a 4+ save dropping your chances of killing him to ~0.536. So about 50% odds of killing a single guy. Not awful, but not great.

Of course, for every 6 shots you fire (so about 3 dead bikes or ~2.1 dead terminators or 1.5 dead terminators that were in cover), your overcharging gun will explode and kill one of your plasma gunners. So make of that what you will.

Edit: It's worth noting that models that would be reduced to a 6+ save by plasma, like those bikes or a regular marine, are more likely than not to make a single 6+ save if you put 4 wounds on them and have about 50/50 odds of making a 6+ save for every 3 wounds you put on them. So in the example above using bikers, shooting 3 plasma guns at a squad of bikes has ~50/50 odds of resulting in 2 dead bikes and one dead plasma gunner. Or is my math way off?

Your math seems basically right, as far as it goes, but this is a very misguided approach to thinking through how good different weapons are against these targets. At no point did you even mention point costs. Like, a krak missile expects to do just about the same amount of damage to a Land Raider as to a Guardsman, but it's clearly way better against Land Raiders than Guardsmen. Damage on a Land Raider is simply much more valuable. A twin assault cannon expects to kill about 35 points of naked Marines. It only expects to kill 22 points of naked Guardsmen. It is clearly a highly-specialized MEQ-killing weapon. Heavy bolters are even more specialized, since they don't even get a bonus to wound T3 relative to T4. Overcharged plasma is ridiculously efficient against things like bikes and Terminators -- Scion squads can literally kill their points' worth of Terminators in a single volley.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:

Counterpoint: Such guns usually come on relatively expensive platforms such as vehicles or 10-strong marine squads. Due to the cheapness of hordes, these weapons aren't great choices for dealing with, for instance, gaunts or boyz. Due to the durability of most vehicles, doing 2 damage per attack usually isn't ideal. As a result, stocking up on weapons like autocannons or plasma can be considered inefficient versus...

*Horde armies
*Highly mechanized armies
*Well-rounded armies that have a variety of unit types.

So while High-ish strength 2 damage weapons might be pretty okay against their ideal targets, I propose that lists that spam them might struggle against lists that don't have an abundance of ideal targets for them.

These guns are perfectly fine against most vehicles. Guard can do pretty well relying on plasma for anti-tank. Eldar can rely on d3-damage blasters and 2-damage Hemlock D-scythes. Autocannons are often very solid choices for shooting vehicles and flyers. The newly-buffed Obliterators that Chaos has are also excellent anti-tank and do at most 3 damage per wound.

"Well-rounded armies" are basically always at a disadvantage compared to armies that focus on presenting only one kind of defensive profile. If you have tanks and light infantry then I'm shooting my anti-tank guns at your tanks and my anti- light infantry guns at your light infantry.

Of course hordes are resistant to plasma fire. I don't think anyone's arguing otherwise. The argument has been that "medium" (I would call Terminators "heavy", myself) infantry are incredibly vulnerable to such a variety of weapons, relative to other targets, that they're often very hard to justify bringing. Nobody's saying that it's not worth it to bring Conscripts because there's too much plasma out there.

If you don't consider 2+ save 2-3 wound infantry to be heavy infantry, then what is? Are only characters heavy infantry at that point?

The problem is that the system makes it near impossible to design a regular weapon that is more pts-efficient vs GEQ than it is vs MEQ, unless you assume that there is cover. You would have to go for an S2 weapon.

Wyldhunt wrote:

jcd386 wrote:
I'm going to assume by medium infantry you mean marines and terminators, and their equivalents. And yes i think you are right. They cost too much for how easy they are to kill.

There are 2 issues as far as i can tell: AP1 high rate of fire weapons like assault cannons absolutely shred marines, and D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models. It's even worthwhile most of the time to shoot auto cannons at terminators and bikes and you'll probably kill some.

3 wounds seems to be point where is enough to stick around for a little bit (paladins, twc, etc).

For marines, it's not the end of the world. Ravenguard tactics help, imperial fist warlord trait helps, and transports in general work okay too. But terminators and bikes seem like they are in kind of a bad spot, paying for durability they don't actually seem to have.

Hmm. Does the math actually check out on all that?
"...weapons like assault cannons absolutley shred marines..."
So assuming we're talking about a twin assault cannon, you're looking at 12 shots, 8 hits (if you're BS3+), ~5.36 wounds (we'll be generous and round up to 6 for the sake of easy math), and a marine ignores either half of those or two thirds of those if he's in cover. So you're looking at about 2 or 3 dead marines off a pair of assault cannons. If we're talking about a normal assault cannon, that drops down to 1 or 1.5 marines. So it only "shreds" marines if we define "shreds" as "kills more than one or two."

"...D2 weapons like plasma destroy 2W models..."
I can think of a lot of 3 wound models and a lot of 1 wound models, but most two wound models that come to mind are things like bikes and terminators. So looking at those with a BS3+ model...

Against marine bikes, an overcharging plasma gun (for the 2 Damage) in rapid fire range will fire 2 shots, means ~1.34 hits means ~0.8978 wounds, and it will reduce their save to a 6+. So you're probably looking at one dead bike. Not terrible!

Against terminators, that math is the same until we look at the to-wound roll giving you 1.072 dead termies, but a 5+ invul save makes your chances of killing a single guy closer to ~0.72, so pretty good odds of killing one terminator. If he's standing in cover, he'll have a 4+ save dropping your chances of killing him to ~0.536. So about 50% odds of killing a single guy. Not awful, but not great.

Of course, for every 6 shots you fire (so about 3 dead bikes or ~2.1 dead terminators or 1.5 dead terminators that were in cover), your overcharging gun will explode and kill one of your plasma gunners. So make of that what you will.

Edit: It's worth noting that models that would be reduced to a 6+ save by plasma, like those bikes or a regular marine, are more likely than not to make a single 6+ save if you put 4 wounds on them and have about 50/50 odds of making a 6+ save for every 3 wounds you put on them. So in the example above using bikers, shooting 3 plasma guns at a squad of bikes has ~50/50 odds of resulting in 2 dead bikes and one dead plasma gunner. Or is my math way off?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:
Pretty much, yeah.

Single-wound MEQs get torn apart by what are supposed to be anti-horde guns like heavy bolters, and are actually more vulnerable than Guardsmen to bolters, per point.

Multi-wound infantry without great invulnerable saves are just walking targets for multi-damage weaponry. These guns are good against vehicles which are paying 10 points per T7 3+ wound; they absolutely shred Terminators who pay 20 points per T4 2+ wound.

Counterpoint: Such guns usually come on relatively expensive platforms such as vehicles or 10-strong marine squads. Due to the cheapness of hordes, these weapons aren't great choices for dealing with, for instance, gaunts or boyz. Due to the durability of most vehicles, doing 2 damage per attack usually isn't ideal. As a result, stocking up on weapons like autocannons or plasma can be considered inefficient versus...

*Horde armies
*Highly mechanized armies
*Well-rounded armies that have a variety of unit types.

So while High-ish strength 2 damage weapons might be pretty okay against their ideal targets, I propose that lists that spam them might struggle against lists that don't have an abundance of ideal targets for them.

I've found that losing 2-3 marines from one gun can be fairly devastating to that squad. If you have two of those guns, the whole squad is likely to get wiped. If you have rerolls to hit and/or wound, they die even faster. This just isn't very durable for the price you are paying.

Anyone spamming plasma is likely going to have a way to reroll ones, so it's really more like 1 in every 36 shots. I've had it happen about twice in 15 or so games. So it's definitely a risk worth taking.

For bikes, it's very hard to get cover, so a stationary twin autocannon dread will cause 1.7 unsaved wounds with 8 autocannon shots and no rerolls. If 2 bikes in a bike squad die, i consider it pretty devastated. If i have rerolls to hit from a chapter master, and rerolls of 1 to wound from an Lt, and i usually do, I'll do 2.7 wounds and likely wipe the bike squad with a single 136 point model.

Vs plasma, if i do 4 wounds, yes you might save one, but the other 3 kill the whole bike squad.

Terminators are more durable, but are still likely to lose 1-2 models to the AC dread depending on cover, which is still a considerable loss considering their cost. 6 plasma guns with rerolls of 1 to hit should kill 5 tac terminators in cover or not, since cover doesn't buff the invul saves. I just don't see this durability being worth the price you pay for them.

I've had a lot of success with bringing a varied selection of guns that overlap somewhat in target effectiveness in my TAC lists. Las / missiles for anti tank, but also okay at killing terminators etc, plasma to kill everything, assault cannons for infantry, and autocannons for tanks / heavy infantry, and plenty of reroll auras. So far it's worked pretty well vs all army types.

Even when they are just being used as a delivery system for special weapons (which is when they are the most useful), marines are typically not worth the points they cost for how durable they are, especially when compared to sisters, guardsmen, etc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jaxler wrote:
If you don't consider 2+ save 2-3 wound infantry to be heavy infantry, then what is? Are only characters heavy infantry at that point?

To me heavy infantry is 3+ plus wounds, like paladins, tau suits, etc, because they are actually hard to kill. If a plasma gun can one shot you, that doesn't seem that heavy to me.

sossen wrote:
The problem is that the system makes it near impossible to design a regular weapon that is more pts-efficient vs GEQ than it is vs MEQ, unless you assume that there is cover. You would have to go for an S2 weapon.

This is 8th edition we're talking about right? What cover? lol



Yeah this is one aspect of the new ap system and wound chart that shows its weakness. It's also absurd to be that the more armoured a unit is the more incentive they have to sit in cover, seems like an odd mechanic, one would think tactical dreadnought armour was designed to wade across the battlefield into thick enemy fire as opposed to "great, now we can cower in a ruin somewhere".

 Crablezworth wrote:

sossen wrote:
The problem is that the system makes it near impossible to design a regular weapon that is more pts-efficient vs GEQ than it is vs MEQ, unless you assume that there is cover. You would have to go for an S2 weapon.

This is 8th edition we're talking about right? What cover? lol



Yeah this is one aspect of the new ap system and wound chart that shows its weakness. It's also absurd to be that the more armoured a unit is the more incentive they have to sit in cover, seems like an odd mechanic, one would think tactical dreadnought armour was designed to wade across the battlefield into thick enemy fire as opposed to "great, now we can cower in a ruin somewhere".

I dont get it

the previous edition also saw people using anti horde weapons and massive amount of dakka to get through things like medium and heavy infantry anyway as well

i dont find it any different. (only now some heavy infantry is slightly harder to kill with those kinds of weapons)

 Desubot wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

sossen wrote:
The problem is that the system makes it near impossible to design a regular weapon that is more pts-efficient vs GEQ than it is vs MEQ, unless you assume that there is cover. You would have to go for an S2 weapon.

This is 8th edition we're talking about right? What cover? lol



Yeah this is one aspect of the new ap system and wound chart that shows its weakness. It's also absurd to be that the more armoured a unit is the more incentive they have to sit in cover, seems like an odd mechanic, one would think tactical dreadnought armour was designed to wade across the battlefield into thick enemy fire as opposed to "great, now we can cower in a ruin somewhere".

I dont get it

the previous edition also saw people using anti horde weapons and massive amount of dakka to get through things like medium and heavy infantry anyway as well

i dont find it any different. (only now some heavy infantry is slightly harder to kill with those kinds of weapons)

I'll explain it in three parts.

ap: 7th was all or nothing, not integer based, the gun took away a save or did not but no alteration was made. So a 2+ save was good, a 2+ save on a multiwound model was also good. Armour saves in general have gone down much in terms of efficacy because they're often modified.

wounding: in 7th models under t6 could be "instant killed" by weapons that were double their toughness. Other than that, it was incredibly rare to see multiwounding weapons outside of late codex's like admech. So unless you had high strength you generall had to take every wound short of a unit running off the board. In 8th, many many weapons do more than one damage/wound so the value of having a lot of wounds changed and now 2-3 is pretty low when so many weapons can one shot them. Add to that the reduction in likelyhood of these medium to heavy infantry units getting their expensive saves, you see a marked drop in reason to take them. Especially with so many vehicles having a tonnne of wounds, a good save and a handful of weapons and often a point incentive or the ability to fly or both.

multiple shots: while a lot of weapons have a random shot output, a lot don't and unlike past edition are far more effective at putting wounds on little dudes. Heavy bolters were fine last edition, but you'd rarely prioritize taking them over better weapons. This edition, so many baseline weapons have at least -1 ap, which has massive effect on power and terminator armour, an effect it didn't have in past editions without the addition of a rule like rending.

To summarize, all shooting got a boost, armour took a kick in the balls, the wound chart has a gulley which only increase the efficacy of low strength high output weaponry, even against absurd targets they couldn't hurt in past editions and as such you get what I call the necromunda effect: as a concept you're better off with more crappy cheap dudes than expensive elite kitted out dudes because life is cheap, ap is king and terrain is a forgotten memory of better times.

Or perhaps I'm mistaken and everyone is stepping over themselves to take dev centurions this edition :p

 Desubot wrote:

 Crablezworth wrote:

sossen wrote:
The problem is that the system makes it near impossible to design a regular weapon that is more pts-efficient vs GEQ than it is vs MEQ, unless you assume that there is cover. You would have to go for an S2 weapon.

This is 8th edition we're talking about right? What cover? lol



Yeah this is one aspect of the new ap system and wound chart that shows its weakness. It's also absurd to be that the more armoured a unit is the more incentive they have to sit in cover, seems like an odd mechanic, one would think tactical dreadnought armour was designed to wade across the battlefield into thick enemy fire as opposed to "great, now we can cower in a ruin somewhere".

I dont get it

the previous edition also saw people using anti horde weapons and massive amount of dakka to get through things like medium and heavy infantry anyway as well

i dont find it any different. (only now some heavy infantry is slightly harder to kill with those kinds of weapons)

Those weapons also are equally inept at killing hoards. Keep in mind this, anything that was ap 3 or less is now better at killing terminators, while still equally bad at killing hoards. Also, most antihoard weapons roll to hit twice and thus are half as effective now (battle and vanquisher cannons, etc) and as such anything with a pie plate fails at thinning hoards in this edition because it's now only 3 shots on average before rolling to hit.

Horde certainly is king, the removal of blast templates was incredibly poorly handled, especially with so few taking into context the size of the unit they're targeting. Blasts were a lot of things but I'd never call them random, 1-6 is a hell of a spread for something that in my experience was often all or nothing, especially against a horde of like 20-30 infantry. We went from being able to shoot fish in a barrel to trying to fart matches at an ant hill most of the time.

Man i must of really forgotten what 7th was like as all i remember is Scatter lasers deleting hordes elites and vehicles left and right only by virtue of wound saturation rather than denying saves.

at least the major thing about 7th

that and formation grav.

 Crablezworth wrote:
Horde certainly is king, the removal of blast templates was incredibly poorly handled, especially with so few taking into context the size of the unit they're targeting. Blasts were a lot of things but I'd never call them random, 1-6 is a hell of a spread for something that in my experience was often all or nothing, especially against a horde of like 20-30 infantry. We went from being able to shoot fish in a barrel to trying to fart matches at an ant hill most of the time.

I find that the rolling shots is more often than not simply you just rolling to hit twice and essentially halves the efficiency of anything using a "roll d3/6 for shots" type weapon

 Desubot wrote:
Man i must of really forgotten what 7th was like as all i remember is Scatter lasers deleting hordes elites and vehicles left and right only by virtue of wound saturation rather than denying saves.

at least the major thing about 7th

that and formation grav.

7th used the same hit and wound mechanics 40k has used since 3rd. The ability to truly drown your opponent under mass S6 was something Eldar could only truly do (and with difficulty) starting in 4th edition. Of course, back then, non-Aspect Eldar were only BS 3 and the most efficient way to cram shots in was on War Walkers, which are a hilarious glass cannon. Mind you, they didn't have the Invulnerable Save or Battle Focus back then either.

And of course, 6th added Hull Points but made them too low, while keeping vehicle explosion as a damage roulette. Then Eldar got Serpent Shields, and then they got Scatter Laser Jetbikes, while Marines got Power Armor Grav Cannons and I'm sure you know how that goes.

Innately, the 3e-7e system was more granular and did allow for appreciable differences between 3+ or 2+ saves (and was far less insane than Terminators making 3+ saves on 2d6). The issues were more the case of GW's "fixes" to vehicles being to continually shift the vehicle damage chart so a vehicle was destroyed on a 5+ in 5th, a 6 in 6th, and a 7 in 7th (before accounting for AP), while ignoring that most vehicles died from being HP-stripped too quickly for their cost. Why take a Russ, and why bother with that formation where you can make the enemy reroll damage results against it, when it just takes 3 Haywire Glances or rolling Boxcars on a Grav weapon to kill it in one go?

GW seems to have figured out half the issue for 8th, and while vehicles now get way more HP, other options haven't scaled as well; add the changes to Linked Weapons and things get funnier. Perhaps the most comical example of this would be to look at Chaos Space Marines: A Chaos Rhino costs 12 points more than 5 Chaos Space Marines, for +3 toughness and twice the number of wounds. For +2 points more, it now has 2 Storm Bolters, effectively shooting as though it were 4 Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Horde certainly is king, the removal of blast templates was incredibly poorly handled, especially with so few taking into context the size of the unit they're targeting. Blasts were a lot of things but I'd never call them random, 1-6 is a hell of a spread for something that in my experience was often all or nothing, especially against a horde of like 20-30 infantry. We went from being able to shoot fish in a barrel to trying to fart matches at an ant hill most of the time.

Even more, worst comes to worst a blast had a good chance of hitting *something*, even if not its intended target. There's a separate thread about how the Killkannon is even more useless for Orks due to it changing from a large blast to 2d6 shots, not accounting for ork BS.

The Killkannon is now a Rattler Kannon for all intents and purposes. Sad.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Man i must of really forgotten what 7th was like as all i remember is Scatter lasers deleting hordes elites and vehicles left and right only by virtue of wound saturation rather than denying saves.

at least the major thing about 7th

that and formation grav.

7th used the same hit and wound mechanics 40k has used since 3rd. The ability to truly drown your opponent under mass S6 was something Eldar could only truly do (and with difficulty) starting in 4th edition. Of course, back then, non-Aspect Eldar were only BS 3 and the most efficient way to cram shots in was on War Walkers, which are a hilarious glass cannon. Mind you, they didn't have the Invulnerable Save or Battle Focus back then either.

And of course, 6th added Hull Points but made them too low, while keeping vehicle explosion as a damage roulette. Then Eldar got Serpent Shields, and then they got Scatter Laser Jetbikes, while Marines got Power Armor Grav Cannons and I'm sure you know how that goes.

Innately, the 3e-7e system was more granular and did allow for appreciable differences between 3+ or 2+ saves (and was far less insane than Terminators making 3+ saves on 2d6). The issues were more the case of GW's "fixes" to vehicles being to continually shift the vehicle damage chart so a vehicle was destroyed on a 5+ in 5th, a 6 in 6th, and a 7 in 7th (before accounting for AP), while ignoring that most vehicles died from being HP-stripped too quickly for their cost. Why take a Russ, and why bother with that formation where you can make the enemy reroll damage results against it, when it just takes 3 Haywire Glances or rolling Boxcars on a Grav weapon to kill it in one go?

GW seems to have figured out half the issue for 8th, and while vehicles now get way more HP, other options haven't scaled as well; add the changes to Linked Weapons and things get funnier. Perhaps the most comical example of this would be to look at Chaos Space Marines: A Chaos Rhino costs 12 points more than 5 Chaos Space Marines, for +3 toughness and twice the number of wounds. For +2 points more, it now has 2 Storm Bolters, effectively shooting as though it were 4 Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Horde certainly is king, the removal of blast templates was incredibly poorly handled, especially with so few taking into context the size of the unit they're targeting. Blasts were a lot of things but I'd never call them random, 1-6 is a hell of a spread for something that in my experience was often all or nothing, especially against a horde of like 20-30 infantry. We went from being able to shoot fish in a barrel to trying to fart matches at an ant hill most of the time.

Even more, worst comes to worst a blast had a good chance of hitting *something*, even if not its intended target. There's a separate thread about how the Killkannon is even more useless for Orks due to it changing from a large blast to 2d6 shots, not accounting for ork BS.

The Killkannon is now a Rattler Kannon for all intents and purposes. Sad.

Excellent, excellent post IMHO.

I really haven't played much 8th edition yet - but going looking army lists being posted and following these discussions makes the direction of things pretty clear how the balance, particularly around vehicles, has ping-ponged all over the place with each edition. Now, I feel like vehicles are king across the board, and this is reflected in in the lists being posted. Things are very vehicle heavy, and with with so many force org options for avoiding the need to take basic troops - why would anyone take the vast majority of troop units?

Mezmorki wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Man i must of really forgotten what 7th was like as all i remember is Scatter lasers deleting hordes elites and vehicles left and right only by virtue of wound saturation rather than denying saves.

at least the major thing about 7th

that and formation grav.

7th used the same hit and wound mechanics 40k has used since 3rd. The ability to truly drown your opponent under mass S6 was something Eldar could only truly do (and with difficulty) starting in 4th edition. Of course, back then, non-Aspect Eldar were only BS 3 and the most efficient way to cram shots in was on War Walkers, which are a hilarious glass cannon. Mind you, they didn't have the Invulnerable Save or Battle Focus back then either.

And of course, 6th added Hull Points but made them too low, while keeping vehicle explosion as a damage roulette. Then Eldar got Serpent Shields, and then they got Scatter Laser Jetbikes, while Marines got Power Armor Grav Cannons and I'm sure you know how that goes.

Innately, the 3e-7e system was more granular and did allow for appreciable differences between 3+ or 2+ saves (and was far less insane than Terminators making 3+ saves on 2d6). The issues were more the case of GW's "fixes" to vehicles being to continually shift the vehicle damage chart so a vehicle was destroyed on a 5+ in 5th, a 6 in 6th, and a 7 in 7th (before accounting for AP), while ignoring that most vehicles died from being HP-stripped too quickly for their cost. Why take a Russ, and why bother with that formation where you can make the enemy reroll damage results against it, when it just takes 3 Haywire Glances or rolling Boxcars on a Grav weapon to kill it in one go?

GW seems to have figured out half the issue for 8th, and while vehicles now get way more HP, other options haven't scaled as well; add the changes to Linked Weapons and things get funnier. Perhaps the most comical example of this would be to look at Chaos Space Marines: A Chaos Rhino costs 12 points more than 5 Chaos Space Marines, for +3 toughness and twice the number of wounds. For +2 points more, it now has 2 Storm Bolters, effectively shooting as though it were 4 Marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:
Horde certainly is king, the removal of blast templates was incredibly poorly handled, especially with so few taking into context the size of the unit they're targeting. Blasts were a lot of things but I'd never call them random, 1-6 is a hell of a spread for something that in my experience was often all or nothing, especially against a horde of like 20-30 infantry. We went from being able to shoot fish in a barrel to trying to fart matches at an ant hill most of the time.

Even more, worst comes to worst a blast had a good chance of hitting *something*, even if not its intended target. There's a separate thread about how the Killkannon is even more useless for Orks due to it changing from a large blast to 2d6 shots, not accounting for ork BS.

The Killkannon is now a Rattler Kannon for all intents and purposes. Sad.

Excellent, excellent post IMHO.

I really haven't played much 8th edition yet - but going looking army lists being posted and following these discussions makes the direction of things pretty clear how the balance, particularly around vehicles, has ping-ponged all over the place with each edition. Now, I feel like vehicles are king across the board, and this is reflected in in the lists being posted. Things are very vehicle heavy, and with with so many force org options for avoiding the need to take basic troops - why would anyone take the vast majority of troop units?

Cheap troops are broken op, and troops can deep strike and alpha strike. Vehicles have the problem of not being able to hide as easily out of LOS and can and will be plinked to death by lascannons and melta when a squad of 3+ people worth the same points would be living on to strike again.