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Leman Russ are overpriced as it is now!

Anung Un Rama wrote:And in case you missed it, here's something interesting about Kill Points:

from the kiddie pool:
Platoons are rumoured to be able to merge into one big unit (sort of the opposite of Space Marine combat squads). The IG player chooses at the beginning of the game to deploy either as a singe unit or as separate squads. If deployed as a unit, they will probably have to stay within coherency, but will count as 1 Kill Point. If deployed separately they yield individual KPs.

Interesting indeed.

If it works like I think it will then your maxed out unit will be pretty tough to take down (and yielding only a single KP) yet can only fire at a single target (which should by all rights be severely disabled by that amount of attrition thrown at it).

I can see more people using the platoon as a single squad for the most part.

I fought against a ig army in ard boyz that was completely infantry based. It was ridiculous how I couldnt dislodge them with all the cover. and those squads didnt each yield 1 KP each, only the platoons did. This may very well turn out to be quite a headache to approach. time will tell.

i don't really see any real benefit having all the different squads in a platoon fighting as one. you'll almost never be able to concentrate all those guns on one target (probably half your guys will only fire once due to rapid fire and that's only IF you didn't move). also, as stated earlier, you'll now have 5x the points sucked up in a lucky assault that makes it to your lines or cowering due to a single unlucky pinning role; that's alot of squads that won't be shooting the next turn compared to the one currently. all bumping up the # of models in a guard "unit" does is delay the inevitable: losing an assault. rarely will the extra guardsmen actually win the CC; instead, they'll just be a big block of guys that aren't shooting and are blocking your firing lanes due to CC for the units that can. i hope this isn't GW's solution as all it does is trade one glaring deficiency for another.

I'd rather have them say that you have to deploy the platoon as one unit and that someone from each squad has to be within a certain distance of the command squad if not equiped with a vox. depending on if the junior officer (or whatever they'll be called) is independent, the command squad can give up one or two KP and the rest of the platoon another. that would actually help the KP situation and still maintain an IG flavor to the solution. will it happen? doubt it. all we can do for now is wait until may and just insist that opponents actually roll for mission types instead of just saying "lets do KP!". (it happens at my FLGS)

Rated G wrote:Wasted shots? They're lasguns.

I meant heavy wepons. Say you have five lascanons in your platoon, you would have to fire all five where one might do the job.

I find myself strangely tempted to make a Catachan force with a Vietnam-era theme. I've never wanted to do that before but now....I can't help it.

Why would this fabled 50-man merged unit even be good? A 35 point Rhino could then tank shock, get lucky, and rout 200+ points worth of enemy. A single sniper could tie up your unit for a turn with a failed pinning check. Ordnance weapons, especially ordnance barrages, would have a field day.

When it comes to the variable unit size and kill points of the platoons I think its going to be a matter of balancing what suits your tactics. A platoon of 50 might be a bit much as a single unit, but two 25 man platoons acting each as single units might be easily maneuvered. I could see many players maxing out on 6 smaller function as single unit platoons.

Some of you gents are missing the point about the possibility of a huge squad of IG. I don't know how many of you play Guard, but right now, KP's absolutely hobbles the boys. When you roll in with 4 to 5o times the kill points of your opponant, you are just screwed, screwed, screwed. I lost a game where there was ONE bezerker left on the table and I had over half my army left because I gave up more kill points. That disadvantage FAR outweighs any of the circumstantial things that have been brought up. I would instantly group the boys up into big squads as to get a kill point out of them you would have to wipe them out. That is not easy to do! You leave them in cover and shoot like the dickens, then run like hell if a nasty assault squad comes at you. But a mediocre assault squad will have a tough go of it against 50 IG.

I think that would be a brilliant solution to the problem and push guard way up in competetiveness as in objective missions, we are good to go at the moment.

Man, I seriously can not wait to get the new codex! I may even have to change my avatar to my IG captain.

And I am also glad that I just ordered a battleforce of Catachans. I could care less if they huge mondo arms, if I was a Guardsmen in the grim dark future, I would be doing roids like a maniac too!

Most importantly the variable unit size and kill points allow flexibility. You can choose to use it (to varying degrees) or to play as is. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

All they gotta do is make it 1 platoon = 1 KP. problem solved.

Reecius wrote:Some of you gents are missing the point about the possibility of a huge squad of IG. I don't know how many of you play Guard, but right now, KP's absolutely hobbles the boys. *snip* I think that would be a brilliant solution to the problem and push guard way up in competetiveness as in objective missions, we are good to go at the moment.

no one is suggesting (least of all me) that guard aren't at a huge disadvantage in KP missions. what those of us that don't like this "solution" are saying is that there are better alternatives than the conscript-sized squads. simply stating that a guard platoon is worth 1 or 2 KP for the command and 1 for the rest of the platoon takes very little space in the book, solves the underlying problem, and still lets us maintain a proportional response to threats (see below).

aka_mythos wrote:Most importantly the variable unit size and kill points allow flexibility. You can choose to use it (to varying degrees) or to play as is. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

yes, but you lose the flexibility of fire proportional to the threat. right now, if a squad of 2 marines (whittled down from 10 by heavy weapons/ordnance) is within move + charge range of you, you can choose how much fire you direct on them based on what is likely to kill them. if you combine the squads, you effectively waste the additional firepower. in the end, the guard army is no better because we just exchanged one problem for another instead of actually solving that first problem.


either way, none of the proposed or wishlisted solutions to KP has been even remotely confirmed. to our knowledge, GW may not consider KP a problem for the guard. we'll just have to wait until a credible rumor/leak comes out.

GW clearly doesn't want there to be such a clear advantage. If 1 platoon = 1 kp, there are fewer reasons to have multiple platoons. With all the advantages the basic IG platoon is getting, they want us to make some sort of tactical decision in how we organize our forces. If 1 platoon = 1 kp, why would anyone use smaller units, despite some basis in reality pointing to increased effectiveness of smaller autonomous units.

warboss wrote:

aka_mythos wrote:Most importantly the variable unit size and kill points allow flexibility. You can choose to use it (to varying degrees) or to play as is. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

yes, but you lose the flexibility of fire proportional to the threat. right now, if a squad of 2 marines (whittled down from 10 by heavy weapons/ordnance) is within move + charge range of you, you can choose how much fire you direct on them based on what is likely to kill them. if you combine the squads, you effectively waste the additional firepower. in the end, the guard army is no better because we just exchanged one problem for another instead of actually solving that first problem.

As I had previously said it all comes down to how you use this ability. I think its stupid for any unit other than a stripped down speed bump platoon to be a single 50 man unit. The advantage of this ability however is in combining small platoons into single units. A 25 man platoon as a unit for example.

If you have the choice (a la Combat Squads) then this is not a bad way to do it. Combine into uber-squads for KP Missions (where flexibility isn't as much an issue) and then separate out for non-KP missions. Would be easy, workable, and not as gameable as making the whole platoon one KP (where you can hide a squad and deny your opponent the KP).

Necros wrote:All they gotta do is make it 1 platoon = 1 KP. problem solved.

If they still got to deploy separately, that would break the army. It'd be just as bad as it is currently, but in the opposite direction.

Seems to me the uber-squads would pretty much make an attached Sister with the Book of Fearlessness mandatory.

Anyone who faced Imperial Guard playing under the 'Ard Boyz rules in a KP mission can tell you just how broken 1 KP per platoon is. A single placeholder squad sitting on the opposite side of the board from the main force of 3 squads means that you will rarely be able to pick up a KP from a guard player. Unless of course you can threaten the opponent's entire backfield in 5 turns. I fought against such an army in the preliminaries and only killing tanks allowed me to get any KP at all.

wow... i dont know about you guys but im blown away by the 10 man boxes...66 bucks w/o tax just to get enough troopers to feild a single basic troop choice...tsk tsk sad day.

Fetterkey wrote:

Necros wrote:All they gotta do is make it 1 platoon = 1 KP. problem solved.

If they still got to deploy separately, that would break the army. It'd be just as bad as it is currently, but in the opposite direction.

Exactly. IG would go from being rejects in the special Olympiads to uber powerful in KP. Its not as simple as some may think it is.

Here is one scenario that is incredibly likely to be faced.

Lots of IG infantry behind cover. Each unit does not give up KP but only the platoon, so if there is one man left in the platoon, it gives up no KP. Yeah, whether they are "merely IG" or not, 4+ cover saves make IG incredibly hard to ferret out.

It wasn't balanced at all in ard boyz and it wouldn't be balanced now.

As far as people saying that taking platoons as a single unit is silly, you obviously aren't thinking about it very closely. You don't have to take a full platoon to be effective. I am not saying lay out 65 dudes in a platoon, but even that is a nasty possibility when that stupid platoon is sitting on a objective laughing their asses off.
I am saying that 3-4 platoons of varying sizes kitted out to specific roles taken as a single unit has the great potential to be quite powerful.

Mark my words, you will see this develop to happen quite often.

That's exactly what I've been trying to say. Thanks Hellfury.
This ability is an added level of flexibility but it is a different flexibility than what we previously had.

Necros wrote:All they gotta do is make it 1 platoon = 1 KP. problem solved.

As the others say, this too far of a correction.

But 1 KP for each squishy little Command squad and 1 KP for the rest of the platoon wouldn't be a bad split.

BrookM wrote:Maybe that Lukas Bastogne chap will be the drop trooper guy you need to take for all your Valkyrie fetishism.

Considering the 101st Airborne Division's association with the town of Bastogne, it sounds more than likely that he's the special character that gives deep strike to the army.

ok maybe not 1 pt per platoon, but 1 pt per squad is also just stupid. I've been lucky I guess, I haven't gotten any KP missions yet but it's only a matter of time till luck runs out. I've mostly just been playing Apocalypse and only a handful of normal games with my CSMs a few months back.

If it's 1 pt per squad I will just end up using as few men with as few options as possible to get my obligatory 2 troops 1 hq, and then fill up on tanks. Maybe since we get 817 different tanks now, that's what GW wants us to do.

In fact, I would go so far as too say that the only army that could take care of such numbers with any sort of ease is ironically enough, necrons.

Why? Two words:

Nightmare Shroud

I am sure all you IG players recall 4th ed SM and their annoying "fear of the darkness" psychic power. Well this is the same thing except it isn't quite as nasty as FotD modifying your leadership.
At least with the SM power IG had a chance to defy the psychic power with a GK using a hood. But since this is a necron ability, you simply take your morale test regardless if you are locked in assault or not.

If this rumour about being able to combines squads in a single platoon to equal a single unit is true, I can pretty much guarantee that the incredibly underrated Nightmare Shroud power will be removed from the revised necron codex.

If I read it right, you choose it when you deploy the unit, which means at this point you already know what kind of mission you will play. Sounds to me like a pretty good compromise, especially if you can use some of those new über-platoon drills in a 30-50 man unit.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Necros wrote:All they gotta do is make it 1 platoon = 1 KP. problem solved.

As the others say, this too far of a correction.

But 1 KP for each squishy little Command squad and 1 KP for the rest of the platoon wouldn't be a bad split.

Of course it would be bad.

Lets see. A normal platoon is rumoured to consist of:
Imperial Guard Platoons
Platoons will supposedly be structured as follows:
1 command squad
Plus up to 5 of the following taking into account specific limitations -
2 - 5 infantry squads
0 - 5 heavy weapons squads (this is suspected to be a typo)
0 - 2 special weapons squads
0 - 1 conscript squad
The entire platoon with all these squads will only take one Troops selection in the FOC.

so potentially 8-13 squads giving up a single KP, which doesn't even include the possibility of taking other rumoured units that might possibly be attached to a platoon like sentinels and such.

Sorry, but that idea is made up of just as much pure fail as is '1 platoon = 1KP' idea.

@Hellfury: I believe that the Platoon structure was clarified to be 1 command + up to 5 (6?) non-command squads. So it'd be a cap of 5 or 6 squads total for 2 KP.

As I understand it:

1 Command
2 infantry
0-3 of any of the following:
- infantry (no limit)
- Vet (1 max)
- HWS (2 max)
- SWS (2 max)
- conscript (1 max)

Not 8 to 13.

BoxANT wrote:Argh, the KP issue would be so easy to fix!

Just make it so normal guard infantry squads (non platoon command squads) do not give up KPs!

That would bring IG forces more in line with the average KPs in most armies...

So I could have 30 scoring units in my army that don't give up a single kp? As a guard player it sounds good. From a game design perspective, it sounds like a MASSIVE over-correction, and quite abusive. Rememeber that KPs serve to counter-balance the other missions.

Fetterkey wrote:50-man squads would be horrible, but not thanks to "wasted lasguns." One failed pinning check would lock up five times the amount it usually does.

Sounds like you are planning to overbuild your platoons. At 40 points per 10, 4 squads would be 160 sans weapons, lets spend about 90 points on weapons and we have a 250 point unit. Not all that large at all. You didn't build your guard army to win with platoons did you? They are troops choices, and GW has decided what troops are for. And its not killing enemy units.

warboss wrote:i don't really see any real benefit having all the different squads in a platoon fighting as one. you'll almost never be able to concentrate all those guns on one target (probably half your guys will only fire once due to rapid fire and that's only IF you didn't move). also, as stated earlier, you'll now have 5x the points sucked up in a lucky assault that makes it to your lines or cowering due to a single unlucky pinning role; that's alot of squads that won't be shooting the next turn compared to the one currently. all bumping up the # of models in a guard "unit" does is delay the inevitable: losing an assault. rarely will the extra guardsmen actually win the CC; instead, they'll just be a big block of guys that aren't shooting and are blocking your firing lanes due to CC for the units that can. i hope this isn't GW's solution as all it does is trade one glaring deficiency for another.

I'd rather have them say that you have to deploy the platoon as one unit and that someone from each squad has to be within a certain distance of the command squad if not equiped with a vox. depending on if the junior officer (or whatever they'll be called) is independent, the command squad can give up one or two KP and the rest of the platoon another. that would actually help the KP situation and still maintain an IG flavor to the solution. will it happen? doubt it. all we can do for now is wait until may and just insist that opponents actually roll for mission types instead of just saying "lets do KP!". (it happens at my FLGS)

Like I said before. You didn't take 55 guys in the platoon did you? If so, that platoon probably shouldn't form up. If orders are limited to the number of command squads you have, then 25-35 man platoons will be far more common. I'm guessing that competitive guard armies will be relying on mass armor or 3x10 ogryn walls to win. Forming your 3 mid sized platoons into single units and then losing one to assault will probably be a yawn inducing moment, considering that it would only happen in annihilation where scoring is meaningless. It's likely the platoons will be protected very well in annihilation missions just based on what low priority targets they'll be.

Fetterkey wrote:Why would this fabled 50-man merged unit even be good? A 35 point Rhino could then tank shock, get lucky, and rout 200+ points worth of enemy. A single sniper could tie up your unit for a turn with a failed pinning check. Ordnance weapons, especially ordnance barrages, would have a field day.

How is that different than tank shocking a power fist equipped space marine unit. Your big platoon will have a commissar right? Probably will be good leadership at that point. If your list was built with an emphasis on elites and heavy support, then any ordnance blast that hits your large troop unit in a game of annihilation would make you smile. Being pinned does not equal a kill point, and said ordnance will need to kill 12 models to trigger what will likely be a leadership 9 commissar test, probably with a flag re-roll. And then your 5 heavy support tanks/stormtroopers/ogryns unload, unscathed by the barrage mercilessly hitting your unimportant unit.


If officers were not independent characters, and platoons had an option to form as one (either in deployment or from a special order from an officer) that solves the problem. guard will have a higher than average toll of KP, but will benefit greatly from a mission that does not require ANY maneuvering, and once the guard player has eliminated any serious anti-armor threats, then you can scratch any armor 14 vehicle off the list of 'scoreable' kill points. This solution also keeps the balance of more scoring units equals more disadvantage in annihilation.

Also, I'm sure I am going to catch flak from the infantry-centric guard crowd. A crowd I'm in, and a crowd that is very cool. I'm not saying I'm happy to see this, but I'm predicting an end to just spending 1750 on infantry/command/heavy platoons. GWs pattern of late has been to marginalize troops to an extent, while adding superior elites and heavy support. I am quite sure that guard is getting more elite, and that the salt of the earth common foot soldier will for the most part retire from the field. It will speed up guard games at tourneys, and it will be fun for people that want a more narrative friendly, fast paced, game with their guard. And I'm also sure that casual gaming with maxed platoons will still be available for non-competitive gaming. Which is especially great for story-line campaigns and longer gaming periods. I'll certainly be glad I own 200 painted vostroyans. I'm just predicting I won't ever use more than 100 of them in a tourney army.

I have to admit that the sound of merging a unit is pretty scary to me. In my experience it would be pretty easy for a small unit of assault marines to wipe out any size unit of guard with the sweeping Initiative roll at the end. and now that the FAQ has our commissars making us count as fearless the units that contain them may not run but will lose twice as many models per assault phase.

I still wrack my brain trying to imagine a good way to fix KP's for guard and I just don't know. I do believe that there should be a punishment for our attrition playstyle. Like Zap Branigan sending wave after wave of guardsmen to their deaths just to win the day against a smaller more elite force. But, that would only make sense in more of a campaign setting. in a one-off game it just doesn't make sense for it to matter how much materiel is consumed to win.

I think the problem lies in the KP rules themselves.

There is a unit of soft, squishy mongoloids wielding weapons slightly less deadly than easy bake ovens

Opposing them is the greatest warmachine in the universe that is more proficient at driving and using it's weapons when the crew is unconscious than any Imperial Guard unit attempting to match it.

GW has already decided that these units are not of equal value which is why one of them is 60 points and the other is 250 points. Why in the hell are these two units worth an equal amount of KP's!?

Thanks Shep and Hellfury, you guys said everything I was going to add for me.

...more important than any of that though is the fact that we will need a FAQ after our codex is released and since it seems to take quite a while before we get FAQ's I propose we start working on it now.

Page 24 section "Orders"

When a unit uses the 'cover fire' order and the unit hit must take a pinning test or suffer twice the wounds does that mean that units that always pass pinning tests always take the extra wounds or do they still take the test and just ignore the fact that that order was used?