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Hi again,

this topic is meant more as kind of a discussion platform for a wild idea I had. Feel free to find it dumb, but it would help me if you stated why, in a sense of problems that would arise from it because lacking practice I try to understand the game better from these discussions.

First off: general idea: It is my impression, that there are Guard players that in general like the idea painted in the lore that the common guardsman at least often outnumbers their foes by far. There are examples of course like fighting against Tyranids, Orks and maybe tomb worlds with billions of warriors, but in general it seems to me (and I assume I'm not alone) that in the fluff there are "always more guardsmen to throw at the problem". Especially looking at Marines who in their entirety are outnumbered by a single tithe of a single hive world.

On tabletop this is already kind of established by guardsmen being 3-4 times cheaper than a Marine, yet obviously 3-4 Guardsmen ist still... not really fitting. One certainly can abstract each single guardsmen figure as a squad of like 10 dudes, but this seems a bit odd regarding how much space they occupy compared to a single marine for example.
Now I don't think anyone wants to build and paint 200-1000 Guardsmen (120 for a hoardy Guard list is already... ambitious) so I thought recently: what if Guardsmen were recycled upon dying to simulate the "there is always more" aspect described in the lore, kind of similar to how the Valhallan strat worked? Recycled because this way the total number on the board would never exceed the initial number.
My general idea would be to make them a bit more expensive per model to buy, but each round, killed squads can be brought back from a table edge for a slightly discounted cost, and then again for another discount. The discount would be applied because I think as you cannot count on your enemy doing you the favor of killing them often enough to really use up the reinforcement points you hold back it is a risk to really hold enough back to bring your whole force back to live >2 times or get into the turns were it gets really points efficient.


So bear with me: lets say a Guardsmen costs 7 points a piece. In the second turn you can bring back dead squads for 6 points a dude, in the third for 5 etc. to a minimum of 3 per dude in turn 5 (numbers based on gut feeling).
60 Guardsmen (which seems a reasonable number on the board at the beginning of the game) would come down to 420 points (70/squad). In the second turn you can bring back dead squads at 60 a piece, in the third at 50 a piece etc.) It's of course your decision if you want to hold back enough reinforcement points to be able to bring them back twice, or if you only hold back less or even enough to bring them back 3+ times. It would also add kind of an economic layer as you could consider: "do I use my 120 reinforcement points to bring back 20 dudes in turn 2 or do I wait until turn 4 to bring back 30?"

So far what I see from this that I personally would count as an advantage:
1. even if you want to go full hoardy, the number of actual models you need for this is relatively limited (60-100 should be enough)
2. It would become a realistic possibility to still have guardsmen left in turn 4-5
3. It would add another meaningful decision for the guard player in the form of "how much reinforcement points do I want to hold back and when do I want to spend them
4. It would add another meaningful decision for the oponent in the form of "do I really want to wipe this squad or would it be tactically wiser to let them live?"

Optional: especially regarding the obvious solution of just killing IG squads down to their last member you could say a squad can be recycled as soon as you have 10 dead models, regardless if those came from different squads.



Of course a similar mechanic could be fitting for Tyranids and maybe Orks. For now it's just an idea for which I would like to hear the flaws obvious to those with game practice, thanks.

I like the idea, and it's something that GW have toyed with in previous editions. Personally I think it would be most suitable for Tyranids, though if I understand correctly you want to discuss the concept itself, not necessarily applying it to Astra Militarum specifically.

I'd be hesitant to add it to the rules for every single game you play, as I think it could get old fast. Perhaps a last stand style scenario where a relatively small number of defenders are trying to hold out against waves of attackers.

Looking at Guard I could see it perhaps being implemented for some regiments, Valhallans springs to mind. Though if only Valhallans can do it the other regiments would need some pretty big advantages if they don't also benefit from this mechanic.

Perhaps when a unit is wiped out it comes back on the roll of a 4+. If they don't come back then that unit is lost for the rest of the game. That way you would get reinforcements but your forces would still dwindle.

El Torro wrote:
[...] though if I understand correctly you want to discuss the concept itself, not necessarily applying it to Astra Militarum specifically. [...]

exactly

El Torro wrote:
Looking at Guard I could see it perhaps being implemented for some regiments, Valhallans springs to mind. Though if only Valhallans can do it the other regiments would need some pretty big advantages if they don't also benefit from this mechanic.

My thought would be to make it a general mechanic for Guardsmen regardless of regiment, so that the price could be adjusted for all. As stated that 7 points and then -1 per round was just a gut feeling and would need to be tested out if it is too cheap.

El Torro wrote:
Perhaps when a unit is wiped out it comes back on the roll of a 4+. If they don't come back then that unit is lost for the rest of the game. That way you would get reinforcements but your forces would still dwindle.

That's a good idea. It would also be a good screw to add, IF you apply the rule to all regiments but still want to preserve Valhallans their style by exempting them from this roll. The Valhallan stratagem could allow to "buy" reinforcementpoints retroactively (maybe 1 CP/50 points or something) so that they would have an advantage and being able to adjust if they need more points than they originally reserved.



Also as note for the discussion: in my general idea special and heavy weapons would not get a discount and could only be recycled if they were already killed. So if you only had Autocannons at the start of the game and "only" 3 were killed so far you can also only bring back 3 Autocannons and they still cost you 10 points a piece, regardless of the round you bring them back.

Having this as a rule for Astra Militarum, Tyranid, and Ork units would be a good idea; basically any horde. That way when you buy a box of ten models it can be Space Marines or Imperial Guardsmen or Orks and it's a fair fight because the horde is (a) easily killed, and (b) can recycle models back onto the board to make up for it. It also moves board control back to the small, elite armies, instead of those that need to start 300 models on the board so that they can have 100 models after Turn 1.

They should just give horde armies a bonus

10 men in a squad = 7 points per model
15 in a squad 6 points per model
20 in squad is 5 points per model.

This offsets the penalty for blast weapons while keeping things kind of cinematic on the battlefield and not having things turn into MSU special weapon min/maxing.

Also an idea, but the number of models in the table if you go for a horde would still be very big. What I put up for discussion has (amongst others) the intention to limit the number of dir example guardsmen that have to be put on the table

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Hi again,

this topic is meant more as kind of a discussion platform for a wild idea I had. Feel free to find it dumb, but it would help me if you stated why, in a sense of problems that would arise from it because lacking practice I try to understand the game better from these discussions.

First off: general idea: It is my impression, that there are Guard players that in general like the idea painted in the lore that the common guardsman at least often outnumbers their foes by far.

Yeah, but there's also Guard players who think that the average Guardsman is an untrained lout. That they should be getting rules like "One rifle per two men" for some subfactions.

If a rule like this goes into play it should be for things like Conscripts, Ork Boyz+Gretchin, Tyranid Rippers plus the Hormagaunt and Termagant variants.

Just because a faction would be a horde faction doesn't mean that every element of it is a horde faction.

Kanluwen: I know that you have a different view on guard. Nonetheless: I don't see this proposed concept particularly effect you. Nobody would be forced to reserve reinforcement points and use them this way. No one would be forced to play hoardy and the drawback to those that don't want to would be marginal (in the form of a possible slight increase in base cost)

It would even be relatively easy to combine it with your ideas of more elite guardsmen if one just says the most basic form of them is the recycling type and the more elite (Karskin etc.) are not


To clarify: in a perfect world I would like to have rules allowing me to play a Guard horde without having more than 100 dudes on the table at any given turn (but a realistic Chance to still have some dozens around by turn 5) while simultaneously allowing other players to play non-hoardy Guard without being published for it

Conscripts. Only.

That's literally why they're there. That's the whole bloody reason why they kept pushing them as a concept. And even then, they went out of their way to try to emphasize that even the super expendable Conscripts aren't that expendable, that's why there are Penal Legionnaires.

And so that we're even more clear:
Guard "horde" is the result of a lack of imagination on the part of the designers and players both. A "horde army" is one that is supposed to overwhelm its opponent with targets. Infantry, Veteran, and Scion Squads having a Combat Squad rule, Heavy Weapons Teams being deployed independent of the squads they're bought from, Special Weapons Teams, etc would all give the same bloody visual cue of "Horde army" while actually emphasizing that "They're expendable to a degree but they're also not tides of untrained, faceless amateurs".

As I said: I have no problem with your ideas of Guard. You so you. I just don't agree that it is the only way and that wanting to have the option (!) to play guard as horde is "players lacking imagination".

This proposed rule takes nothing away from you, it just adds something for those not agreeing with you

My thought for Tyranids with this was that you got each Tyranid brood back in reserves on a 4+, with a -1 for being a Monstrous Creature and -1 for being having the Synapse keyword. Then Hydra would get a +1 as their super-special Hive Fleet rule.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
As I said: I have no problem with your ideas of Guard. You so you. I just don't agree that it is the only way and that wanting to have the option (!) to play guard as horde is "players lacking imagination".

YOU ALREADY HAVE THE OPTION TO PLAY GUARD AS HORDE.

Seriously. You have ALL of the bloody options for playing Guard as horde. From the "Consolidate Squads" stratagem(read: those massive oversized "hordes" you lot like to bang on about) to the Valhallans(the faction known for this) literally having a stratagem that does what you want.

This proposed rule takes nothing away from you, it just adds something for those not agreeing with you

It takes plenty away from me. It continues to perpetuate the nonsense that Guard are trash units, intended only to die in droves while standing in the open going "Fweem! Fweem!" with flashlights.

It continues to perpetuate the idea that every single Guard faction is in reality Valhallans.

 Kanluwen wrote:

YOU ALREADY HAVE THE OPTION TO PLAY GUARD AS HORDE.

Seriously. You have ALL of the bloody options for playing Guard as horde. From the "Consolidate Squads" stratagem(read: those massive oversized "hordes" you lot like to bang on about) to the Valhallans(the faction known for this) literally having a stratagem that does what you want.

I can't play guard as a horde without building, painting and moving 120+ guardsmen and still having very little chance to have some dozen still around turn 4 or 5

Consolidate squads is for getting bigger squads and does nothing to reduced the number of models on the board or ensure that some are still around on later turns. The Valhallan strat can only used on one squad per round.



I don't agree that me wanting to play that way negative influence your wish to play your way. I guess at that point we can only agree to disagree



Edit: @ Nurglitch:

 Nurglitch wrote:
My thought for Tyranids with this was that you got each Tyranid brood back in reserves on a 4+, with a -1 for being a Monstrous Creature and -1 for being having the Synapse keyword. Then Hydra would get a +1 as their super-special Hive Fleet rule.

Just to understand: would these broods/monsters still have to be paid for by reinforcementpoints or not? Because if not it seems quite strong on a glance.

Yes, it is strong on a glance. It's compensated for by the fact that Tyranids are a bunch of pillow-fisted, over-costed mooks. Your average Termagant is the same points cost as an Imperial Guardsman, but worse (no orders, weaker armour, worse weapon, no special/heavy weapons, etc), and the rest of the Tyranid units are weak too.

There's also a downside in where the units come in, positioning-wise. Andy Chamber's Starship Troopers allowed the Bugs to buy infrastructure like tunnels to allow them to make up for recycled units typically being out of position otherwise, especially late in the game. GW could use this as an opportunity to sell something like the AoS Endless Spells or army-specific terrain to represent (re)spawn points where reinforcements can enter the game.

Applied to Imperial Guard and Orks it seems like they would have their own thresholds for recycling, probably a 5+ as the basic, with -1 for being a character, -1 for being a vehicle, and +1 for being a Conscript or Grot unit.

Finally, reinforcement points are a stupid reaction to Daemon summoning from 7th edition, which was fun and characterful even if the daemons themselves were just rubber-monsters, and subverts the point of being able to recycle models onto the board.

I see. I lack knowledge about Nids but what you say sounds sensible. My thought behind the reinforcement points at least in the case of Guard was that I know there are players that don't like or even hate guard as a horde. If squads come back without reinforcement points this ability would have to be 100% factored in into the "initial" price of Guardsmen that would have to go up significantly. I think that would be mean against those type of players that don't want to play that way.

With reinforcement points the bigger part of the cost for this ability can be factored in into these points so that Guardsmen would only have to go up very little if at all. My hope was that thus the other players would not be affected (or effected, not sure with my english) by this proposed rule.



Apart from that: tunnels for Nids and GSC sound really cool

I would rather build said mechanics into scenario structures. One interesting way to do that would be to have the other side perhaps start with some extra points (say, a sizeable marine force smashing into a renegade PDF camp) while the horde side gets a 4+ recycle on all their losses. This way you can control the desired narrative better than wondering what to do when you're stuck with a desperate last stand, cut off and down to your last las-batteries yet keep getting reinforcements for your guys.

 Sherrypie wrote:
I would rather build said mechanics into scenario structures. One interesting way to do that would be to have the other side perhaps start with some extra points (say, a sizeable marine force smashing into a renegade PDF camp) while the horde side gets a 4+ recycle on all their losses. This way you can control the desired narrative better than wondering what to do when you're stuck with a desperate last stand, cut off and down to your last las-batteries yet keep getting reinforcements for your guys.

That's pretty much how it's done in the 4th edition rule book.

To slightly steer back into the direction of my main interest: regardless on the exact mechanic of how they are recycled, only based on "Guardsmen/Gaunts/Boyz come back from the table edge": Which obvious problems or unintended exploits do you see arising from such a mechanic?

Nurglitch wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
I would rather build said mechanics into scenario structures. One interesting way to do that would be to have the other side perhaps start with some extra points (say, a sizeable marine force smashing into a renegade PDF camp) while the horde side gets a 4+ recycle on all their losses. This way you can control the desired narrative better than wondering what to do when you're stuck with a desperate last stand, cut off and down to your last las-batteries yet keep getting reinforcements for your guys.

That's pretty much how it's done in the 4th edition rule book.

Yup, though it was often the attacker who had the ability to cycle their losses in while the desperate defenders had to do with what they had (like in the Meat Grinder mission of those days, where an overwhelmingly large force had to eradicate the defenders to the last model).

Pyroalchi wrote:To slightly steer back into the direction of my main interest: regardless on the exact mechanic of how they are recycled, only based on "Guardsmen/Gaunts/Boyz come back from the table edge": Which obvious problems or unintended exploits do you see arising from such a mechanic?

Problems are mostly in pacing and how it relates to the objectives in place. For example, if it's about area control near the deployment zones, it can lead to situations where you can shoot a unit down only to have it immediately come back and occupy the same game state of holding an objective or blocking access to some place next turn. This can be frustrating. With progressive objectives it is less of a problem, but can still feel unrewarding at times.

Bluntly, this kind of thing is the perfect example of where faction scenery can work.

Tyranid Spawning Pool as the 'respawn point', a Guard barracks or lander, and an Ork scrapheap.

I think it makes great sense. The guard may not all be fodder, but even the best trained "normal" human troops are just waves of chaff when they have to fight 3m tall green monsters in their thousands, or super soldiers wearing some of the best equipment humanity could make. But then if we're going on a "common sense" angle then tyranids win the galaxy no sweat

I'd be very interested to see a fun scenario for this, for any hoard army. Perhaps play it like (of all things) the triage station building in the RTS game Company of Heroes - as soon as you have enough dead to make an infantry squad then form it up and deploy from your reserves edge.

As a player whos basic troop units cost north of 150 points, I can see the arguments from both sides. Guard shouldn't cost as much as Orks, or Eldar, but they should cost more or at least as much as Tau or Nids cheapest troop unit. They are literally ablative wounds that have an extremely weak ranged attack. Let's not make them out to be DW Terminators.

It is an OK idea. One particular issue would be where you position your "respawn" terrain. If it is too close to objectives, that would be too strong against elites. It would be nice to return to the "design your own regiment/hivefleet" systems of years past but I think GW wants to sell models and wont like the idea of letting you use the same model twice in a game.

I don't think Guard Infantry Squads should get this ability. Maybe Conscripts, make it similar to 5th edition. Pay like a 10 point tax per 10 conscripts and then you can send in a fresh wave whenever they die.

I would like to see the standard human statline go to S2/T2 then let basic guardsmen respawn infinitely for free. In the command phase the controlling player can first remove any units at less than half strength (they count as slain) then respawn any slain units wholly within both their deployment zone and 3" of the board edge, but more than 3" from any enemy models. I have played in situations before with similar mechanics, I found them to be both extremely fun and not as powerful as they may seem.

Obviously there are a number of other units this could be applied to as well.

I would also love to see more 'swarm friendly' rules for 40k in general; for example an effect which doubles the number of shots could instead make each hit count as two.