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Only troops counting as scoring units certainly changes the entire dynamic of the game. I envision alot of ties if the missions don't stick to primarly VP based (even with objectives).

It gives a giant bonus to armies with fast troops. Eldar jetbikes are already good, but now they'll be a definite no brainer choice.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

skyth wrote:Having only Troops choices be scoring will be interesting, and only if they're not vehicles or swarms.

It's the closest match to reality.

Not if it's restricted to Troops choices. Special forces can and indeed DO hold objectives. However, they would be an 'elite' unit rather than a 'Troops' unit.

Dark Angels will still lose to Troop-heavy C:Sm drop pod armies I think, but the new rules do give them quite a boost.

Wow. That's crazy. Space Marine Scouts score, but Dark Angels Scouts don't.

Dark Angels Terminators don't score unless you take Belial. What happens if Belial dies midway through the game? Do the Terminators stop counting as scoring units?

Assault Marines only score for Blood Angels (who, presumably, have a long history of using them to hold ground)?

I have a hard time believing this as written. It doesn't fit with the recent trend in 4th edition Codexes.

I think the idea is to force armies to use their Troops rather than seeing everyone and their mother taking the 2 units and then making an army out of the rest of the FOC.

It doesn't quite make sense, but this is GW and 40k, when does ANYTHING ever make sense?

Oh, c'mon, Voodoo, the game makes perfect sense. I mean, if I shoot a lascannon at you, and hit (and it's as difficult to hit you at 200 yards as it is to hit a barn 5 feet away), it's quite obvious that there's a 1 in 6 chance you only get a minor flesh wound. Even better odds if you're behind a shrubbery, since that deflects laser shots that can bore through an inch of steel plate.

Sorry, couldn't resist the sarcasm.

I question whether only troops are scoring, or if it's all infantry, or all infantry, bikes, and jump troops, etc. So, if I take Wazdakka (I know that spelled that wrong), I can take one bike unit as scoring, but the others aren't?

If they want people to take more troop choices, they need to change the FOC to require more in larger game sizes.

It's a good thing I still have some firewarrior+devilfish models, but I do hope when they mean "troops" they mean infantry since I still want my funky crisis suits to be around.

Does anyone knows how the rule will be written in 5th edition?

It's a rumor with a ambiguous wording, so what are you people expecting.

If only infantry can hold objectives, the better I say! Last turn objective grabbing is neither cool nor realistic.
But elite, HQ and Heavy infantry choices should also be able to do that. Fast attack would be arguable.

Like the changes posted by Vodoo (thanks!), especially the ram option!

Greets
Schepp himself

"If only infantry can hold objectives, the better I say! Last turn objective grabbing is neither cool nor realistic.
But elite, HQ and Heavy infantry choices should also be able to do that. Fast attack would be arguable."

I can see Assault Marines and Grey Knight Power Armour Squads holding ground. I think FA would be included too.


Mind you, there's another example. By the rumour, Grey Knights can hold objectives, but they lose the ability to hold objectives if they teleport in.

Right now, Chaos Land Raiders can hold objectives, but they lose the ability if they are assigned to a squad *shrugs*

Schepp himself wrote:If only infantry can hold objectives, the better I say! Last turn objective grabbing is neither cool nor realistic.
But elite, HQ and Heavy infantry choices should also be able to do that. Fast attack would be arguable.

Arguable? When you're letting HQ units take objectives? 6 assault marines v. 1 librarian? If you let HQ take objectives in an army like Marines, you have to let fast attack do it too. Or a single farseer vs. a squad of swooping hawsk? Now, sure, in armies like Nids, your Tyrant might better hold an objective than some Raveners, but too many absurd exceptions should prevent a rules change like that from occurring. I feel like it should be obvious that fast attack units should be able to swoop an objective on the bottom of turn 6. They're fast attack, for God's sake. Maybe the heavy support can hold an objective longer--maybe (see Leman Russ v. Assault Marines)--but battles don't continue ad infinitum. Perhaps once the particular objective is lost, as the battle winds to a close, it's too late to make a play for it.

Only troops counting as scoring units certainly changes the entire dynamic of the game

To me it sounds like a translation error, or that the actual rumour has changed a couple times when it's been passed on. To me it sounds like 'vehicles and swarms won't count as scoring units' but who knows. It would be slowed. Anyone who hasn't maxed his troops section is going to lose. His troops choices will be blown to bits and then he has lost all chance of victory.

I'm not excited about the rumours. Most of them are so ludicrous they don't make any sense whatsoever, like giving fleet for free to armies that don't need it and only compensating it by allowing actual fleet (fragile) units to ASSAULT when they make the extra move. This is a mistake on such a monumental scale that it even dwarfs the change to the "everyone moves 6 inches" kiddie system. Looking quickly and assuming all of the rumours are true (which all of them likely aren't) 5th edition will result in incredibly bland armies consisting mostly of infantry and maxed troop choices. The games will be less dynamic than ever.

Wasn't it a while ago when the Dakka community mostly agreed that they play 40K because of the vehicles, and that the vehicles need a serious buff? What does GW do? Remove vehicles from the game. I should've seen that coming. Voodoo Boyz, you can stop painting those Lootas, you won't need them. Get 180 Shoota Boyz. It will be fun to paint them, and then you can push them against another guy's 100 Marines or Necron Warriors.

My statement about GW seemingly making rules in order to completely invalidate existing armies and make people purchase entirely new ones seems completely vindicated.

If only infantry can hold objectives, the better I say!

So when your squad of tactical marines picks up bikes, they can't hold objectives anymore? Mobility has to be encouraged. The idea of fast and fragile (either low numbers or low protection) units or entire armies is that although they can't always destroy all of the enemy models they play the mission well. What could possibly be the point of changing that?

New here and i guess i dont have not much say, but I for one cant wait to see the New Ork 'Dex. I used to enjoy reading the Battle reports back back in the 80's when the Orks were unpredictable & Fun to use. Weapons blowing up and such.

Kind'a wierd how all the other Armys had their codex's before us. and Chaos Space Marines had 2 before we got one. :S

mauleed wrote:Only troops counting as scoring units certainly changes the entire dynamic of the game. I envision alot of ties if the missions don't stick to primarly VP based (even with objectives).

Funny, I just said this to a buddy of mine. How hard is it to reduce six units to below scoring status? And we did hear rumors that the game was going more objective-based.

Like Therion, I'm hoping this was a translation/communication error. Having only Troops count as scoring has a ton of implications for the game, and I just don't have faith that GW's thought through them all.

Asmodai wrote:Wow. That's crazy. Space Marine Scouts score, but Dark Angels Scouts don't.

Dark Angels Terminators don't score unless you take Belial. What happens if Belial dies midway through the game? Do the Terminators stop counting as scoring units?

Assault Marines only score for Blood Angels (who, presumably, have a long history of using them to hold ground)?

I have a hard time believing this as written. It doesn't fit with the recent trend in 4th edition Codexes.

In the next SM Codex, we should expect to see SM Scouts will move to Elites, like DA & BA Scouts, so they won't be Scoring units.

I don't have a problem with Termies scoring for DA or Assault Marines scoring for BA - it's what makes their armies different and reflects their Chapter deviances from the Codex Astartes.

To me, this makes great sense and it fits perfectly with the new-style Codices. 40k4 introduced the concept of Scoring, and a Scoring vs VPs, along with Troops emphasis in Escalation. 40k5 refines this by refocusing on Troops, Scoring, and Objectives all at once.

In the current environment, Troops serve no strategic or tactical purpose, which makes no sense. If only Troops count as Scoring, and Objectives are the order of the day, that makes Troops extremely valuable. Combat Squads are really nice.

Therion wrote:

Only troops counting as scoring units certainly changes the entire dynamic of the game

To me it sounds like a translation error, or that the actual rumour has changed a couple times when it's been passed on. To me it sounds like 'vehicles and swarms won't count as scoring units' but who knows. It would be slowed. Anyone who hasn't maxed his troops section is going to lose. His troops choices will be blown to bits and then he has lost all chance of victory.

I'm not excited about the rumours. Most of them are so ludicrous they don't make any sense whatsoever, like giving fleet for free to armies that don't need it and only compensating it by allowing actual fleet (fragile) units to ASSAULT when they make the extra move. This is a mistake on such a monumental scale that it even dwarfs the change to the "everyone moves 6 inches" kiddie system. Looking quickly and assuming all of the rumours are true (which all of them likely aren't) 5th edition will result in incredibly bland armies consisting mostly of infantry and maxed troop choices. The games will be less dynamic than ever.

Wasn't it a while ago when the Dakka community mostly agreed that they play 40K because of the vehicles, and that the vehicles need a serious buff? What does GW do? Remove vehicles from the game. I should've seen that coming. Voodoo Boyz, you can stop painting those Lootas, you won't need them. Get 180 Shoota Boyz. It will be fun to paint them, and then you can push them against another guy's 100 Marines or Necron Warriors.

My statement about GW seemingly making rules in order to completely invalidate existing armies and make people purchase entirely new ones seems completely vindicated.

If only infantry can hold objectives, the better I say!

So when your squad of tactical marines picks up bikes, they can't hold objectives anymore? Mobility has to be encouraged. The idea of fast and fragile (either low numbers or low protection) units or entire armies is that although they can't always destroy all of the enemy models they play the mission well. What could possibly be the point of changing that?

I'm pretty much with you on this.

The rule sounds somewhat nice at first, nerfing skimmer lists and Nidzilla to a point.

But then the game becomes nothing but more and more hordes of infantry based armies. Just horde Marines, Horde Necrons, Horde Orks, and then the rest of the armies.

Having played Marines a ton, with almost no Vehicles except Speeders, it's a boring game. It's going to get worse. This doesn't fix the problem of Tanks sucking in 40k. It just makes skimmers about as useless as regular tanks, it's still going to be better to take infantry, and nothing but infantry and some jump troops/bikes, etc.

I'm just going to wait and see how this goes, what's true and what's not. If this is coming out in early summer (6 months from now!) or even in the fall, we should get clearer rumors soon.

The only problem here is that there has already been quite a few "shockingly stupid" changes to Codex's released that already that sounded unbelievable as a rumor but turned out to be true. From Eldar, to Dark Angels, to Chaos, to Orks, there's been changes that made me think "No way in hell are they doing that" and then it happened.

Only troops counting as scoring units could be one of those things.

Therion wrote:So when your squad of tactical marines picks up bikes, they can't hold objectives anymore?

Mobility has to be encouraged.

Correct - they won't be Tacticals - they'll be Bikers.

Mobility is why GW is going to sell tons of low-point, high dollar plastic Rhinos, Razorbacks, Chimeras, and so forth.

But the concern about nuking 6 Troops to non-scoring seems a bit odd. If you're going for kills, then you won't have a lot of Troops yourself, so then you're playing for draw, rather than VP win. All good.

As for the game reducing to pure infantry mobs, I don't see it. I think 6 units of Jetbikes / Dire Avengers in Wave Serpent would be pretty tough. I think 6 Fish is pretty tough. I think that 12 *Scoring* Combat Squads with Rhinos & Razorbacks is pretty tough (seriously, max-Troops SM with Combat Squads is going to be brutal in Objectives missions).

Tho for pure infantry, I think it would be impossible to stop 6 full Platoons of IG - that's 6 Command Squads, 6 Remnant Squads, and 30 Infantry squads - a whopping 42 Scoring units. And 6 full mobs of Boyz would be awesome as well - killing 180 Boyz is no small job.

No, the best build will be 4 to 6 Troops picks with full Transport and well-balanced support of HS firepower, FA response, and Elite / HQ punch. Trying to play old-style min-Troops is auto-loss.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Having played Marines a ton, with almost no Vehicles except Speeders, it's a boring game. It's going to get worse.

LOL. I also said that to my buddy. It's the vehicles, elite units, etc. that give 40K its color. Considering how many Elites units in the game are already overpriced, they'll really be on the endangered list if they can't hold objectives either.

And ultimately, you don't fix army comps with the victory conditions rules, you fix it with a better org chart. But old codices have tied their hands there. Yay backwards-compatibility.

gorgon wrote:

Voodoo Boyz wrote:Having played Marines a ton, with almost no Vehicles except Speeders, it's a boring game. It's going to get worse.

LOL. I also said that to my buddy. It's the vehicles, elite units, etc. that give 40K its color. Considering how many Elites units in the game are already overpriced, they'll really be on the endangered list if they can't hold objectives either.

And ultimately, you don't fix army comps with the victory conditions rules, you fix it with a better org chart. But old codices have tied their hands there. Yay backwards-compatibility.

The rule could be so much better if it were changed just ever so slightly.

Only Infantry and Jump/Jetpack Infantry count as scoring units. Or just don't let things like Jetbikes or Vehicles that turbo boost claim objectives. Give IG Tanks a Special Rule that lets them capture objectives with their tanks, and maybe Land Raiders too, just not the other tanks.

It seems like the problem they're trying to fix is people skimping on Troops and maxing on the rest of the "good parts of the list". They also probably want to stop the last turn zoom onto the objectives with cheap vehicles that win games.

They can do backwards compatible rules and balance a ton of things, it just takes some smart design work.

Hopefully the rule isn't as dumb as it sounds, or "Scoring Units" work differently with Objectives/Table Quarters somehow.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Therion wrote:So when your squad of tactical marines picks up bikes, they can't hold objectives anymore?

Mobility has to be encouraged.

Correct - they won't be Tacticals - they'll be Bikers.
....
No, the best build will be 4 to 6 Troops picks with full Transport and well-balanced support of HS firepower, FA response, and Elite / HQ punch. Trying to play old-style min-Troops is auto-loss.

More to the point though, if you give those tac. marines 3 heavy bolters and they become devastators (or whatever marines call them) they suddenly can't hold?
And just how much variety is one going to be able to shoehorn into a list that has 6 troops slots filled? Six units of marines runs from 450-900 points or so, before weapons and upgrades. Heck, 6 squads of min Sisters is 660 points+.
Even beyond the logic that having some extra heavy weapons makes you no longer able to hold a point, I just don't see this working. Unless it is "only infantry/jump infantry/bikers and maybe walkers" that can hold positions. I could see that working.

Oh no. Wizards is a professional organization whose mission is to produce rules first, then pretty pictures, then little blurbs of background. GW is a miniatures company that writes decent stories with marginal rules support. Note that even Wizards isn't perfect - recall Mirrodin?

That was pretty much exactly my point. GW can focus on miniatures all they want. I am glad they do. They need someone, either themselves or someone else, to focus on the rules though. M:TG demonstrates that tight rules are possible, and (with exception) balance is pretty possible too. Specifically though, the RULES need to work well, as everyone benefits from that, from casuals to serious players.

By the by, I usually play 2000 point games with my Sisters, but in Apoc. I can drop 4000+ in Sisters and about 1800 now in Marines (~2500 if they don't have to be painted). So there is at least one player who is serious about rules, plays casually, and drops more money than he likes to admit

I'm just shooting from the cuff here, but I don't see how changing the force org is going to solve any problem. If the problem is min\maxing then the problem will always be min\maxing. You have to take 2 units of warriors for extra Carnifex's? OK, then here's two more min units of warriors and I'll sacrifice somewhere else so that I can still fulfill my ridiculous quota of Carnifex's on the field.

I kind of like the fact that the victory conditions dictate the importance of units. That way GW can make vehicles stupidly powerful. Leave skimmers how they are. Bump other vehicles so they can engage multiple units. Introduce actual ballistic skill to ordnance. Whatever. The unit is now extremely powerful but maxing out on it will hurt if it means skimping on less powerful scoring units.

Meh, that's just my initial thought. Plus, I'm a guard player so only troops scoring doesn't panic me as much. Yeah, just ignore me.

Another option would be to make scoring units have a size of X (say 5). An ork mob that was 30 boyz, and loses 16 of them, is still fearless, and still outnumbers a full tac squad, but is non-scoring. Does that seem reasonable? Vehicles could count as scoring if they have a total armor value of more than Y (F+S+R) - say 34, which would mean that predators, battlewagons, land raiders and russes are in, but rhinos and trukks are out. I think Falcons would be in as well.

Sounds like they're making a change, which is a good thing, but hopefully it's not a ridiculous change.

Well, one possible problem with that will be the Tau living in a Fish. Their transport is invulnerable, then dumps the troopers out last turn.

I don't know, it might work out. I just don't see the limiting of scoring units to troops as terribly beneficial.

Meh, I play 40k because of the infantry. Most means I didn't pipe up in that thread.

Depending on how things are changed it still looks quite good. If vehicles can split fire, a lot of them will still be good, and your troop choices with fewer and more costly heavy weapons won't be able to do much as I rumble through your position tank shocking and blasting everyone in sight.

A fish isn't invulnerable, especially if they make some of the changes they proposed.

Wehrkind wrote:Well, one possible problem with that will be the Tau living in a Fish. Their transport is invulnerable, then dumps the troopers out last turn.

I don't know, it might work out. I just don't see the limiting of scoring units to troops as terribly beneficial.

Yep. 5-6 man Dire Avenger Squads in Falcons will probably be equally ubiquitous. If this rumour holds true, I'll need to pick up a 3rd Falcon as Eldar don't have the same quality in their troops as Marines and Necrons.

Glaive Company CO wrote:I'm just shooting from the cuff here, but I don't see how changing the force org is going to solve any problem. If the problem is min\maxing then the problem will always be min\maxing. You have to take 2 units of warriors for extra Carnifex's? OK, then here's two more min units of warriors and I'll sacrifice somewhere else so that I can still fulfill my ridiculous quota of Carnifex's on the field.

But then you're just giving another example of an ineffective org structure if the Warriors don't constitute a significant requirement. They need to make the minimums significant where appropriate and make the maximums effective caps if army comp is an issue. If I want to run a cav-heavy Macedonian WAB army, I can't. I have a hard cap expressed as a percentage of my total points. That keeps a Macedonian army looking like a Macedonian army. Going back to a percentage system may not be right for 40K, but surely the system could be more effective, especially at varying points levels.

IMO, they should rethink their army comp/org chart system and then carry it through the codices. Obviously, that can't happen. Ironically, the existing org chart WORKED with the Tyranid codex. It was the Shock Troops rule that didn't.

oops...double post.

A simple "For every Troops choice after the first you may take a non-troops unit" would probably work fine, especially given the way the Ork book works now where different HQs let you take different units as a Troops choice.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:The rule could be so much better if it were changed just ever so slightly.

Only Infantry and Jump/Jetpack Infantry count as scoring units. Or just don't let things like Jetbikes or Vehicles that turbo boost claim objectives. Give IG Tanks a Special Rule that lets them capture objectives with their tanks, and maybe Land Raiders too, just not the other tanks.

I'm fine with anything in the Troops category. I see no need to make Elite / Fast / Heavy Infantry / Jump Infantry Scoring. They have enough advantages already with their extra options / mobility / weapons.

I think it's good that Bikes / Jetbikes can Turbo-boost to claim or contest - it's why they're valuable. Same with Infantry in Transports.

IG don't need any Special Rule for Scoring Tanks. With their Platoons, IG can field more Scoring Units as Troops than any other army. That is already a huge advantage. At worst, IG would be playing for Draw.

Wehrkin wrote:More to the point though, if you give those tac. marines 3 heavy bolters and they become devastators (or whatever marines call them) they suddenly can't hold?

I hope so. Devastators are more specialized.

And just how much variety is one going to be able to shoehorn into a list that has 6 troops slots filled?

Plenty enough. A standard game of 40k is 1500 to 2000 pts, so fielding 6 Troops is only 1/3 of the points. More like 1/4 of the points, given that you had to take at least 2 picks before. And it's not like anybody forces you to take 6 Troops. You're still allowed to take minimum 2 Troops moving forward. Just like you had the option to take no Heavies before.

They need someone, either themselves or someone else, to focus on the rules though.

Only if they start seeing major drops in sales that are clearly rules-related. Otherwise, it'll stay on course.

So there is at least one player who is serious about rules, plays casually, and drops more money than he likes to admit

Oh, I understand rules, but I don't see the need for complex lists. I would prefer that we went back to the simplicity and clarity of the 40k3 Rulebook lists, and thankfully, that's pretty much what GW is doing.

Wehrkind wrote:Well, one possible problem with that will be the Tau living in a Fish. Their transport is invulnerable, then dumps the troopers out last turn.

That's fair - it's not like the Tau player didn't pay the points for the privilege, nor use the necessary tactics to protect and position the Fish to allow a last-turn grab.

JohnHwangDD wrote:IG don't need any Special Rule for Scoring Tanks. With their Platoons, IG can field more Scoring Units as Troops than any other army. That is already a huge advantage. At worst, IG would be playing for Draw.

The problem here is that the basic IG infantry is not terribly mobile. In objective based missions I find that it is usually my tanks that are doing the hard work of claiming objectives/getting into deployment zones in the late game. If IG were cheap enough to justify taking some with special weapons only or if Chimeras were changed to make Fist squads more viable, it might even out. But until that happens, Guard will still struggle to put a lot of mobile scoring infantry units on the table. This gets even worse when faster/infiltrating/deep striking (assuming you aren't playing a pure drop troops army) units like Rough Riders, Storm Troopers, and Veterans are no longer scoring as well.

But everyone being able to "March" or perform a tactical move could make basic infantry a lot more mobile.

It's not just one rule, it looks like a lot of little changes that could dramatically change the game.