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Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





So I've come up with some ideas that could potentially make grots better, but without really changing their profile.
The first is to make them like 3 points again, but only in large squads (like in AOS), as to prevent small little objective bots.
Second is going all in with them being weedy runts, keeping the 5 ppm but they just get like, transhuman physiology but for hits, you can't hit grots except for on a 5+ (idk if that would be overpowered though).

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
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Crazed Spirit of the Defiler





Only hit on 5+ is crazy for a unit that can be taken in massive numbers. Suddenly grots would be incredibly durable. 3pt grots means almost 2x the amount of grot shields available.

Turning them into swarms might work better since necron scarabs, rippers, and nurglings are all popular choices.

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 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Only hit on 5+ is crazy for a unit that can be taken in massive numbers. Suddenly grots would be incredibly durable. 3pt grots means almost 2x the amount of grot shields available.

Turning them into swarms might work better since necron scarabs, rippers, and nurglings are all popular choices.

Ye i was just asking for input on the only hit on a 5+. Plus in this edition grot shields doesn’t do much, due to the lack of gun lining and the fact that orks have way less cp. maybe you can bring a 10 man squad for 50 points, or 30 for 90. Makes them more bodies like they’re supposed to be, not action bots.

"Us Blood Axes hav lernt' a lot from da humies. How best ta kill 'em, fer example."
— Korporal Snagbrat of the Dreadblade Kommandos 
   
Made in us
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Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:So I've come up with some ideas that could potentially make grots better, but without really changing their profile.
The first is to make them like 3 points again, but only in large squads (like in AOS), as to prevent small little objective bots.

The thing about making them so cheap is that you risk creating cheesy stat check armies. If I'm fielding 2,000 points of grots (minus the points for the mandatory HQs), I can basically flood objectives with a mass of obsec bodies every turn. Did you load up your army with hurricane bolters and lasblasters? No? Then you might lose this match by virtue of being unable to roll enough dice. Theoretically the way to avoid that is to give the absolute weakest model in the game (probably a grot) a points value that is high enough to make this sort of spam managable. However, the current cost of conscripts/guardsmen/cultists suggests GW did not do this, so you'd have to revise the points costs of basically everything in the game to make this approach work.


Second is going all in with them being weedy runts, keeping the 5 ppm but they just get like, transhuman physiology but for hits, you can't hit grots except for on a 5+ (idk if that would be overpowered though).

I keep seeing people pitch the, "Only hit on X+" mechanic, and I'm not sure why. The problem with this mechanic is that it impacts elite/mediocre/cheap units counter-intuitive ways. You're trying to represent the small statue of grots making them more difficult to hit, right? So who do you think would be more impacted by shooting at a small target? The conscript who worked in a bakery last week, the average joe guardsman, or the samurai space elf with superhuman reflexes and dexterity? The more skilled guys should probably be impacted less, right? Wrong. Only hitting on a 5+ means that the samurai space elf hits 50% less than normal, the guardsman hits 33% less than normal, and the Gary from the bakery is hitting just as often as ever.

Plus, a cheap unit that doesn't get hit by 2/3rds of your attacks risks creating a variation on the stat check problem I mentioned above.

maybe you can bring a 10 man squad for 50 points, or 30 for 90. Makes them more bodies like they’re supposed to be, not action bots.

So if I decide to create a stat check army as described above, this is functionally identical to just pricing them at 3 points regardless of unit size. All my grot units would be sufficiently large to receive the discounted price.

Let me ask you this: what is the problem you are trying to solve? It sounds like you take umbrage with grots being used to perform actions and grab objectives. Is that not what they're used for in the lore? The boyz are off having a proper scrap while the grots are sent to do some looting. Or else they're simply numerous enough to choke the battlefield with additional orky presence (holding objectives and screening out deepstrikers). Let's identify what your objective is, why that's your objective, and how we might solve that issue specifically.


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Made in us
Stabbin' Skarboy





Wyldhunt wrote:
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:So I've come up with some ideas that could potentially make grots better, but without really changing their profile.
The first is to make them like 3 points again, but only in large squads (like in AOS), as to prevent small little objective bots.

The thing about making them so cheap is that you risk creating cheesy stat check armies. If I'm fielding 2,000 points of grots (minus the points for the mandatory HQs), I can basically flood objectives with a mass of obsec bodies every turn. Did you load up your army with hurricane bolters and lasblasters? No? Then you might lose this match by virtue of being unable to roll enough dice. Theoretically the way to avoid that is to give the absolute weakest model in the game (probably a grot) a points value that is high enough to make this sort of spam managable. However, the current cost of conscripts/guardsmen/cultists suggests GW did not do this, so you'd have to revise the points costs of basically everything in the game to make this approach work.


Second is going all in with them being weedy runts, keeping the 5 ppm but they just get like, transhuman physiology but for hits, you can't hit grots except for on a 5+ (idk if that would be overpowered though).

I keep seeing people pitch the, "Only hit on X+" mechanic, and I'm not sure why. The problem with this mechanic is that it impacts elite/mediocre/cheap units counter-intuitive ways. You're trying to represent the small statue of grots making them more difficult to hit, right? So who do you think would be more impacted by shooting at a small target? The conscript who worked in a bakery last week, the average joe guardsman, or the samurai space elf with superhuman reflexes and dexterity? The more skilled guys should probably be impacted less, right? Wrong. Only hitting on a 5+ means that the samurai space elf hits 50% less than normal, the guardsman hits 33% less than normal, and the Gary from the bakery is hitting just as often as ever.

Plus, a cheap unit that doesn't get hit by 2/3rds of your attacks risks creating a variation on the stat check problem I mentioned above.

maybe you can bring a 10 man squad for 50 points, or 30 for 90. Makes them more bodies like they’re supposed to be, not action bots.

So if I decide to create a stat check army as described above, this is functionally identical to just pricing them at 3 points regardless of unit size. All my grot units would be sufficiently large to receive the discounted price.

Let me ask you this: what is the problem you are trying to solve? It sounds like you take umbrage with grots being used to perform actions and grab objectives. Is that not what they're used for in the lore? The boyz are off having a proper scrap while the grots are sent to do some looting. Or else they're simply numerous enough to choke the battlefield with additional orky presence (holding objectives and screening out deepstrikers). Let's identify what your objective is, why that's your objective, and how we might solve that issue specifically.

I think grots should be Uber cheap, super weak, and pretty much be there to maybe soak up some wounds for the other things. They should really be inferior to a cultist or guardsman in anyway, but have it reflected in the points. Plus if someone brings a stat check thing of grots, unless you’ve really gone all out on taking just meltas, you’ll be able to clear em. Grots move at best 11 inches (with 6 inch advance). Just beat em to the point and you’ll be able to fend em off, I’ve seen t’au decimate grot armies with the melee phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plus Stat checks already exist in a lot of armies. There’s even worse stat checks that exist I feel. If I bring ghaz against my guard friend in a 500 point game (even before medisquig) there’s not much they can do.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/26 21:28:29


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 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:

I think grots should be Uber cheap, super weak, and pretty much be there to maybe soak up some wounds for the other things. They should really be inferior to a cultist or guardsman in anyway, but have it reflected in the points.

Well, all of those are currently true except the bolded part. So is it possible your only issue with grots is that they aren't cheaper than guardsmen? If so, I feel like the "best" fix would probably be to add X% to the cost of everything in the game and then fiddle with the cheaper models to differentiate them more. Let grots stay at 5 points, and up conscripts to 7 points and 9 points respectively, for instance. That would avoid increasing the number of grots you can field in a given game, but it would be a lot of work and also risks creeping towards grot spam problems by reducing the amount of small arms fire in a given list, so meh.


Plus if someone brings a stat check thing of grots, unless you’ve really gone all out on taking just meltas, you’ll be able to clear em. Grots move at best 11 inches (with 6 inch advance). Just beat em to the point and you’ll be able to fend em off, I’ve seen t’au decimate grot armies with the melee phase.

Currently, two batallions with 4 cheap HQs leaves you about 1750 points to field about 350 grots broken up into 11 squads of 30 and 1 squad of ~20. One of those hqs is potentially packing a snakebite warlord trait that makes all grot squads within 12" immune to morale. Lowering the the cost of grots from 5 to 3 means you could get about 583 grots instead of 350 (although I'm pretty sure you'd need to turn some of those points into new HQs for a new detachment. Alternatively, you just spend some of your points on something more killy (you have grot shields for days) so you can focus down some of your opponent's anti-grot units.

I haven't crunched the numbers to see how many grot deaths my most recent 2k list kills in a given turn, but my guess is that I can't kill through enough fearless grots to keep them off the objectives for the majority of the game. But I could absolutely be wrong.

(Off the top of my head, I feel like my list has about 90 shots before anything dies. 90 at BS 3+ = ~60 hits, wounding on 2+ = ~50 wounds = ~50 dead grots (assuming no KFF). So before your proposed price decrease, I'd have the raw firepower to kill about 1/7th of a dedicated grot horde army each turn assuming you don't kill any of my models at any point in the game. )


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Plus Stat checks already exist in a lot of armies. There’s even worse stat checks that exist I feel. If I bring ghaz against my guard friend in a 500 point game (even before medisquig) there’s not much they can do.

Sounds like you've found an excellent example of a flaw in the game that should be fixed rather than emulated. The existence of skew problems doesn't mean the game would be improved by adding additional skew problems.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/05/27 01:54:12



ATTENTION
. Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
 
   
Made in us
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thing is that you just have to get on the objective first. plus i can think of quite a few armies that could clear those grots.

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Newcastle

 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
maybe you can bring a 10 man squad for 50 points, or 30 for 90. Makes them more bodies like they’re supposed to be, not action bots.


I think this is the answer

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I always thought it strange that they ha obsec. Take that away and no one is going to complain about a points reduction. 4 points seems about right.

Also it would be nice to be able to vary their armament (2 man special weapons teams or club an shield would be cool) but thats just wishful thinking. Maybe some we can hope for some different Runtherd buffs.

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i think 3ppm and no obsec is good (maybe you get obsec in a gretchin only list)

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Orks need a bit more random.

Unruly: Grots have a 50/50 chance of squabbling over who gets to do the objective instead of actually doing it. Whenever a Grot unit is within range of an objective, roll a D6; on a 1-3, they squabble over the objective and don't count. On a 4-6, they count as normal. A runtherder with squighound allows D6 grots to die in order to instead succeed.

Reluctant: Grots can only advance up to 3" if they end this move closer to the enemy than they started, even if they roll a 4 or more. This is dealt with for each model, and a Runtherd with a whip removes this restriction.

Backstabbers: A unit of gretchin is only considered to charge (for the purposes of deciding who fights first) if at least one unit they are engaged with are also engaged with another unit of non-gretchin.

Grot Shields - make this a rule, not a stratagem, but make it on a 4+ not a 2+.


This would make them cheaper, less reliable, more fun, better at screening, but worse at actually running at the enemy.

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I agree that grots should be cheaper and weaker but the ability to just stand somewhere and take a hit to be killed is so useful that if you make it too cheap people will spam it.

A couple of options to fix it whilst making grots cheaper.

Reduce their unit coherency to 1" or 1/2" if more than 10, makes them less able to hold ground and occupy board space.

Make it so multi damage hits done to them roll over onto other models in the unit, so a 2 dam weapon will kill two grot and a lascannon will kill D6. This makes it far less likely that the opponent will just not have enough shots to kill all the grots.

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This could be done by having the Grot Shields rule confer mortal wounds to the grot unit for each damage dealt, so if 2 lascannons hit a unit of meganobs, grot shields will lose 2D6 grots to take that hit, which will in turn keep those lascannons feeling like they are doing some decent damage even if it does go off.

This would let the grot shields be very cheap and also very easy to clear - actually easier to clear them if you target the units behind them than the grots themselves.

I don't think they should have coherency rules, and whilst it makes sense for grots to die in droves, a single-shot gun that does high damage shouldn't be killing a small horde each time!

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I also make designs for t-shirts and mugs and such on Redbubble! 
   
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I honestly think they shoulda been kept at t2, but just can't do actions/objectives. Grots are efficient to charge with t'au even, they don't need aos wound spillover.

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Just make grots can tank hits for a ork infantry unit within 3" on a 4+ as part of their baseline ability.

Baked in grot shields which could justify 5ppm and on a 4+ they'll "help" but not be oppressive.
   
 
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