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Hi All,
Just a pure imagination-hammer discussion point for us today. I've been thinking about all of the cantankerousness surrounding the current state of the game, and enjoying all of the recent threads regarding how it could be fixed. Having started the hobby in the heady days of 6th ed WHFB, one of the ways to curtail list optimisation that involved taking as many of X units as possible was to give different elements of the army a % minimum (Troops) and a % maximum (everything else) proportion of whatever points level you were playing. For example, in a 2000 point game, you have a 25% minimum requirement for troops, ≥ 500pts of troops.

Given the changes to detachments, troops have again become an increasingly rare species. In both of my armies (DG and SoB) troops are an increasingly rare sight. Most DG tournament lists take minimum squads of Poxwalkers, perhaps making up 150-200pts of a list, with SoB lists often taking only 1-2 squads of Sisters (55-110pts)!

It got me thinking regarding the effect on the game if we had a 25% minimum on troops for list-building. Keeping Ob-Sec to spice it up, it got me thinking:
1) Which factions have the best troops?
2) Which armies would be the big winners and losers (and break-even-ers) if there was such a requirement?

Pure Imagination-hammer, but I thought I'd engage you in this fascinating flight of fancy, particularly given if speaks to the perennial issue of what troops should do in 40k!

To kick us off, I think a big winner would be Daemons, who have fantastic troops that really get to the heart of each god, usually doing that job better than the Elite, FA, and HS choices. A big loser would be SoB. Sisters have one troop choice that really doesn't do much, and 80% (yes, hyperbole) of every list is dedicated to packing in as many Elites choices as possible. Custodes, I imagine, would break even, mainly because I don't know what Custodes do, but whatever they do they seem to do it quietly.

What do you guys think?

 TonyH122 wrote:
Hi All,
Having started the hobby in the heady days of 6th ed WHFB, one of the ways to curtail list optimisation that involved taking as many of X units as possible was to give different elements of the army a % minimum (Troops) and a % maximum (everything else) proportion of whatever points level you were playing. For example, in a 2000 point game, you have a 25% minimum requirement for troops, ≥ 500pts of troops.

You know that doesn't curtail the optimization, right? All it does is set different parameters for what's optimal.

You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

It's a thing we discuss every now and again in the Proposed Rules section. I don't like it because:

A.) It favors armies with better troops.
B.) It neuters a lot of thematic lists (ex: Death Wing, Saim-Hann, Iybraesil)
C.) What is and isn't a troop in 40k is really arbitrary. See: marine terminators being elites but GK termies are troops.

Troops should be desirable on their own merits. Not because you're forced to take them.

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

I wish someone would tell that to the dolt in charge of CSM/Cultist balance.

The lack of troops in the game is something I dislike too, but forcing troops into lists isn't the way to go.

You are forcing certain purchases in an hobby which is based around making the list YOU want. Remember that this is hobby first, game later.

What you can and should do though is to make them desiderable.
Troops though should never be better than elite units, or try to be better. If you do that you will always have one being the best and the other forgotten on the shelf.

Troops should be weaker and less efficient, but play more into the core elements of the faction.
Rubrics are the perfect examples of this. They are not very good, but tie very well with the psy/cabal theme of the army and provide powers and points on the cheap. You see lists taking a lot more rubrics than just the minimum tax.
Admech also made very good use of troops, because they are faction with lots of targeted buffs and troops have a high model count. This also works.

These are the things that works.
For example, I think that marines will never use troops like this. Troops in marines are just more boring versions of the elite ones for a few points less. There is nothing special about them.What I would like to see is having all marine troops being always under all doctrines. Now you gave them a role. All the other marine units have a turn in which they shine, while the troops do their work regularly every turn.

Plague Marines should interact better with the contagion mechanic.

Boyz should get more durable when WHAAAGH is called.

These are the kind of interactions that make troops look like troops. They are not very special per se, but are the ones most integrated in the army structure and so interact better with its theme.

Additionally, I think that they should be encouraged on mission level.
Objective secured is a good first step, but I would also add the following secondary:

High value targets: At the end of the game, score 1 point for every non-troop enemy units that were destroyed during the game. Score instead 2 points if the unit destroyed had a power level of 10 or more.

This way if you play very few troops you open yourself to this secondary.

I agree with what people are saying, it's attacking the symptoms rather than the cause. I do think Troops should be really common, but I feel like they are common enough already, I don't necessarily want them to be the backbone in most armies, just present in most armies. In WHFB I think it was fitting that Troops were the backbone of every army and not just present, 40k also has balance updates that can fix issues, where as WHFB sometimes needed to force people to take bad units because there weren't a lot of opportunities to make bad units viable.

 TonyH122 wrote:
1) Which factions have the best troops?
2) Which armies would be the big winners and losers (and break-even-ers) if there was such a requirement?

1) Grey Knight Strike Squads, Necron Warriors, Thousand Sons Rubric Marines, Space Marine Infiltrators and Intercessors, Adeptus Mechanicus Rangers and Vanguard.

2) Adeptus Mechanicus, Genestealer Cults, Tyranids, Necrons and Harlequins are winners. Drukhari, Thousand Sons and Grey Knights break-even. Astra Militarum, Craftworlds, Knights, Tau Empire, Orks, CSM and SM are losers.

 TonyH122 wrote:


What do you guys think?

I don't like it. Some armies have 6+ troops, including heavy hitters and elite style units, others have one or two, mostly crap units.

I'd certainly prefer % infantry requirement instead, if we really have to go down that route. Based on points, not number of units. But overall I prefer leaving things as they are, in order to convince people to field more troops a bonus for scoring objectives could simply do it.

Agree with all the others, don't like it either.

Armies are not created equally, some rely more on elites, other more on fast attack and some have decent choices in every slot. In recent years the distribution of new units to slots also has been quite random.
When your army isn't taking troops, it's because your troops choices are bad.
There are still plenty of armies out there that aren't trying to dodge their way around troops at any cost, so it's not a game-wide issue. Which also means that it shouldn't be resolved by a game-wide rule.

If DG aren't running plague marines because pox walkers are better for defending and terminators are better at attacking, maybe plague marines need some help.

 Eldarain wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You don't make things desirable by forcing people to take undesirable things.

You need to make them desirable.

I wish someone would tell that to the dolt in charge of CSM/Cultist balance.

In before gw nerfs cultists to death by non obsec and 1:1 ratio..

OK, just to clarify, I was not suggesting this at all. The point of the thread was more to brainstorm who has the best troops, what makes these troops the best, to come to greater clarity concerning what design troops should strive towards in their planning. Never did I suggest that this was a good idea. It just was something GW did, and it just got me thinking about the function troops should fill.

A healthy game, to my mind, is one where you would want to take the units we are all but forced to take.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
It's a thing we discuss every now and again in the Proposed Rules section. I don't like it because:

A.) It favors armies with better troops.
B.) It neuters a lot of thematic lists (ex: Death Wing, Saim-Hann, Iybraesil)
C.) What is and isn't a troop in 40k is really arbitrary. See: marine terminators being elites but GK termies are troops.

Troops should be desirable on their own merits. Not because you're forced to take them.

Hmm, given that the point of the thread has been misinterpreted, I'll note that I was generally interested in what underlies A: what makes a troop good in the context of an army.

Daemons, for example, place a huge emphasis on troops, just insofar as they generally do broadly the same thing that the units in other detachment slots do, but better. That's not good design. So this, like many other examples, begs the question: What role should troops fill?.

See, I don't think "troops" should really fill one specific role at all. Some troops should be cost-effective damage dealers. Some should provide support for other units. Some should just be cheap objective campers.

What ends up in the "troop" battlefield role is pretty arbitrary, and trying to paint all such units with the same brush seems kind of moot.

I feel like armies that actually *like* taking their troops tend to either have really cheap troops or else don't have a lot of units that beat the troops at their own game. So for instance, harlequins are good because they're one of the most effective damage-dealing non-characters in their small codex. Rubrics are good because they don't have a lot of competition for the same job, and they add psychic powers and cabal points to your army. Plague marines don't have a ton of of competition in their role in the DG 'dex (the closest thing is probably terminators which are pricey), and pox walkers have a pretty unique statline and niche as well. And then you have things like rippers and guardsmen that are dirt cheap.

In contrast, my craftworlders don't love spending points on troops. Our troops aren't durable enough to hold objectives, and they're generally less killy than our non-troop options. Same with loyalist marines; intercessors and first born aren't bad, but their non-troops generally put out more damage point-for-point.

Survivability is also a big factor. Not just in the sense that the unit can sit on an objective and take a punch, but in the sense that the troop can do its job if you take more than one of them. My drukhari and harlequin troops can hide inside of transports (while still shooting out of them) until they're ready to hop out. Marines and hordes are generally durable enough to not evaporate if you have them walk up the table. But my craftworld troops can't really contribute while they hide inside a transport, and they can't survive outside the transport unless I'm pumping stratagems and/or psychic powers into them.

Plague marines aren't considered a good troops option though, precisely because terminators do the exact same thing, up to having the same weapons, but are much harder to kill.

It's difficult to say what exactly they are lacking, most likely they are just too expensive for how quickly they when shot at with the right weapons.

As for orks, there already is a whole thread about it, but the short summary is that neither gretchin nor boyz are worth their points by a long shot. Since almost all ork stratagems are useless, spending CP to not bring troops is just the better option. You also can't make them cheaper, because otherwise orks will revert to codex:tide of boyz.

What really REALLY REALLY REALLY needs to happen is GW just needs to have army types broadly defined, and you pick one at the beginning of list creation.

Want to run a Speed Freaks/Mechdar/Mechtau/Ghost Ark/whatever army? Have something like "Mechanized: Transports count as troops if bought alongside any INFANTRY unit."

Want to run a Monster Mash list for Tyranids or Daemons? "Monstrous Horrors: 0-3 units of Monsters count as Troops in addition to (or maybe instead of) their original slot."

Want to run a tank company/fast attack company/whathaveyou? "Rolling Thunder: 0-3 Vehicle units count as troops in addition to (or maybe instead of) their original slot."

etc. etc.

Right now, the game is trying to come up with standard "detachments" and a standard way of building an army, whilst simultaneously fitting in everything from valkyrie air cavalry lists (rip) to tank companies to infantry hordes to cavalry units to gigantic monsters to tiny mutants to superheavy walkers....

But doesn't your suggestion have the same kind of "one size fits all" problem that detachments have?

It also takes away the one reason to bring troops at all, which is objective secured.

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

 Jidmah wrote:
But doesn't your suggestion have the same kind of "one size fits all" problem that detachments have?

It also takes away the one reason to bring troops at all, which is objective secured.

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

Yeah it probably does; GW would have to be pretty broad with the army types.

I don't think the AOS solution works either though, as some armies don't care what the most common type of unit on the field is for that faction. Iybraesil (for example) would probably count Howling Banshees as "the most common type of unit on the field" while Iyanden would count "wraithguard", Alaitoc rangers, Biel-Tan Dire Avengers, etc.

Even within just the eldar there's a huge amount of diversity in army type. We're in "pick your favorite unit, it's now a troop" land, essentially.

Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

I have mentioned this before.

Why not Rites of War from 30k?

You take certain leaders, you use certain faction keywords, you meet certain requirements, and it opens up options for changing units roles and restricting others.

Tyranid Skyblight Swarm, where Hive Tyrants have to have wings, Shrikes and sky slashers can be taken as troops in addition to FA. Raveners and the Red Terror, Trygons and Mawlocs cannot be taken in the detachment.

So on and so forth.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

why not? Its not like the rule of 3 is preventing them from spamming Russes anyway

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Just make some factions able to take thematic units as troops, EZPZ.

Don't just give obsec, make them full-on troops.

White scars/ravenwing bikers
deathwing terminators
Night lords Raptors
Blood angels Assault Squads
etc.

So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

why not? Its not like the rule of 3 is preventing them from spamming Russes anyway

Why not make Leman Russes troops?

Doesn't that sort of put the kabosh onto the entire idea of troops anyways? I mean, other factions have tank companies (e.g. Tau); should they get main battle tanks as troops? Should we just make everything a troop and THERE ARE NO RULES (imagine the ripped shirt! )?

The only things I can think of that are actually not "troops" to some faction or another in the galaxy are Lords of War.

A unit can still be the most common one in your army if you just run 3 of them. Beyond that it usually becomes a skew list that either is ridiculously strong or falls flat on its face anyways.

GW sent a rather clear message that people who spam units can go feth themselves and that they will continue to implement rules that screw over anyone who does.

 Jidmah wrote:
A unit can still be the most common one in your army if you just run 3 of them. Beyond that it usually becomes a skew list that either is ridiculously strong or falls flat on its face anyways.

GW sent a rather clear message that people who spam units can go feth themselves and that they will continue to implement rules that screw over anyone who does.

Well, we should distinguish here between "skew" and "lists that are thematic"

An Iyanden list with 2 spiritseers and a bazillion wrathguard/wraithblades/Wraithlords/Wraithknights/wraithwraiths isn't really skew, nor is an Imperial Guard list focusing on veterans-as-troops rather than infantry squads.

It's also possible to have a thematic list that's both skew and thematic - the aforementioned Armored Company comes to mind, as does the Ork Buggy list. Skew is a rules term, whilst "theme" is not.

Should the "troops" of an army be defined by its theme/the commonality of units in the lore, or should it be a rules effort to prevent skew?

If it's the latter, then you're by definition going to be forcing people to take things they simply may not want to take - and you always will be, even if those units are the best units in the faction hands down.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

40K used to have this, where if you took a bike captain then bikes would become troops. In this case, if you take a TC then the 1 squadron of LRs would become troops (then take them in a Spearhead and they'd all have ObSec )

In theory (not practically) the current Force Org and Rule of 3 is designed to limit going overboard on one kind of unit. The problem is preventing skew lists, like the ork flyer/buggy spam. For example Assuming IG LRBTs were somewhat balanced (ya, I know...), can you imagine taking on 12 of them? (3 TCs, 3x3 LR Squadrons), most army lists would just crumble under them, now we add another 3 in a Troop slot. Most armies wouldn't be prepared to take on 15 T8 2+ Sv. vehicles.

brainpsyk wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


So for Imperial Guard, do Leman Russes or Infantry Squads get to be troops, or both? When is a Russ Heavy Support and when is it a Troop?

Or should Armored Company be its own faction?

40K used to have this, where if you took a bike captain then bikes would become troops. In this case, if you take a TC then the 1 squadron of LRs would become troops (then take them in a Spearhead and they'd all have ObSec )

In theory (not practically) the current Force Org and Rule of 3 is designed to limit going overboard on one kind of unit. The problem is preventing skew lists, like the ork flyer/buggy spam. For example Assuming IG LRBTs were somewhat balanced (ya, I know...), can you imagine taking on 12 of them? (3 TCs, 3x3 LR Squadrons), most army lists would just crumble under them, now we add another 3 in a Troop slot. Most armies wouldn't be prepared to take on 15 T8 2+ Sv. vehicles.

Which gets to my question before:
Are troops something we force (or strongly encourage) people to take for rules purposes? This gets into "forcing people to take what they don't want to" territory, which is fine, but earlier we were talking about why that's bad.

Or are they a theme thing where we reward theme forces by allowing them to take more of <theme unit>.

when you make troops good, people play them and enjoy playing them (cough cough, feth cultists, long live rubrics).

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
when you make troops good, people play them and enjoy playing them (cough cough, feth cultists, long live rubrics).

Well, not people with theme lists (the aforementioned Armored Company is the hardest example but: )

Should an Iyanden army be forced to take anything other than Wraith units and spiritseers because of skew?
Should an IG Veterans army be forced to use Infantry squads because of skew?
Should a Necron Destroyer Cult be forced to take Warriors because of skew?

If not, where do you draw skew vs not skew? Are 5-man units of 3 T6 wounds skew, but 5 man units of 3 T5 wounds not? If 15 T6 3+/4++ wounds are not skew, why is 12 T8 3+ wounds? The former is harder to kill.

etc. etc.

For the Iyanden "theme" specifically, it's strange to me that fans seem to think Iyanden only has wraith units when they're depicted like this


It seems to be the natural impulse of people that "this unit name/type is mentioned in the fluff of this faction/subfaction, so this is the ONLY unit they use". I've fallen prey to it myself, before.

Destroyer Cult has this fluff

Members of the Destroyer Cult can be found on every Tomb World and been seen among every social class in Necron society.

Which says to me that, yes, there are probably warriors (and immortals, and deathmarks, and tomb blades!) in a Destroyer Cult themed army.

IG veterans should probably be troops, but I'm biased from 5th edition I guess.

Rihgu wrote:
For the Iyanden "theme" specifically, it's strange to me that fans seem to think Iyanden only has wraith units when they're depicted like this


It seems to be the natural impulse of people that "this unit name/type is mentioned in the fluff of this faction/subfaction, so this is the ONLY unit they use". I've fallen prey to it myself, before.

Destroyer Cult has this fluff

Members of the Destroyer Cult can be found on every Tomb World and been seen among every social class in Necron society.

Which says to me that, yes, there are probably warriors (and immortals, and deathmarks, and tomb blades!) in a Destroyer Cult themed army.

IG veterans should probably be troops, but I'm biased from 5th edition I guess.

Oh, I don't deny they can bring troops; that it isn't off theme or whatever. The question is should they be forced to.

 Jidmah wrote:

If I understood the AoS system correctly, that's probably the way to go. No longer divide units by arbitrarily assigned battlefield roles, but divide them by how common they are on the battlefield, possibly with additional restrictions to "shape" armies like requiring DG to actually bring DG.

Ehhh...the AoS system is a little too loose for people that haven't been used to it.

There's 5 "roles", per the new Core Battalion setup's notations:
Commanders are Leaders.
Sub-Commanders are Leaders with Wounds characteristics of less than 10.
Troops are units that are not Leaders, Artillery, or Behemoths.
Artillery are Artillery.
Monsters are Behemoths that are not Leaders.

With that in mind, there's a keyword that isn't listed there:
Battleline. Battleline is, for all intents and purposes, the "Troops" of AoS.

Between specific subfactions granting "Battleline" to units, specific Leader types granting "Battleline" to units...it would be a lot to bring it over to 40k. And you might still have to add special Core Battalions for certain books to really let them function in the way people would want them to, because certain combinations just aren't there in the CBs.