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 JNAProductions wrote:
I did forgot the grenade. That's my bad.

How are you getting the Marines that close to Guardsmen at full strength?

Questions like this are silly, because the answer is not mathematically provable and so the counter is inevitably "NUH UH!".

I can't mathematically prove that my opponent would rather shoot my Contemptor Dreadnought than my rhino full of "useless" tacts, nor can I mathematically prove that that Rhino does things other than transport the Marines and therefore shouldn't be taken into account when computing comparative points costs.

That depends on the player in question. Personally, I recommend a rhino per two tactical squads-- 36 points per squad for transport as durable as a rhino (pop smoke first turn to maximize defense) is a fairly good deal, and the Rhino itself can add its four shots from the storm bolter (or two of htem if you wish) to the shooting phase, plus make its own charge in order to absorb overwatch and have a hail mary at causing a single casualty.

 Melissia wrote:
That depends on the player in question. Personally, I recommend a rhino per two tactical squads-- 36 points per squad for transport as durable as a rhino (pop smoke first turn to maximize defense) is a fairly good deal, and the Rhino itself can add its four shots from the storm bolter (or two of htem if you wish) to the shooting phase, plus make its own charge in order to absorb overwatch and have a hail mary at causing a single casualty.

Don't forget it's also still an enemy unit in the midst of their (now 20-guardsmen-less) screen, meaning that unless the enemy devotes firepower to killing it (a lot of firepower, considering it takes 3x the Rhino's cost in lascannons to kill it on average), it's going to stunlock LRBTs/artillery/<insert scary shooting unit here>.

Rhinos are amazing. People that say otherwise don't know what they are talking about.

I would kill for having transports as durable and cheap as Rhinos for my Tau's.

And Rhinos can actually carry elite and valuable stuff, Devilfish only can carry firewarriors. (Not complaining about my devilfish+breachers, just saying that Rhinos are very good)

(I'll add that I play dark angels and I regularly use Rhinos to transport from tactical squads to company veterans and company champions)

Vroom Vroom of Delayed Doom!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My Aspect Warriors and Fire Warriors would kill for a Rhino.

Of course, my Marines would kill for a Serpent, too.

A lot of Ork players would gladly trade their expensive and far less durable Trukks for some Rhinos.

 Melissia wrote:
A lot of Ork players would gladly trade their expensive and far less durable Trukks for some Rhinos.

Honestly, I'd trade Chimeras for Rhinos, as the Chimera is way too expensive for what it carries. The Rhino may not be much better, but it's cheapness helps.

 Galas wrote:
Rhinos are amazing. People that say otherwise don't know what they are talking about.

I would kill for having transports as durable and cheap as Rhinos for my Tau's.

And Rhinos can actually carry elite and valuable stuff, Devilfish only can carry firewarriors. (Not complaining about my devilfish+breachers, just saying that Rhinos are very good)

(I'll add that I play dark angels and I regularly use Rhinos to transport from tactical squads to company veterans and company champions)

Seems like the common solution is to use neither. Especially as they are a CP drain.

Martel, the best solution is to not use marines and just play Imperial Guard, if you put it like that. Especially as marines are a CP drain

 Galas wrote:
Martel, the best solution is to not use marines and just play Imperial Guard, if you put it like that. Especially as marines are a CP drain

That's why I'm gonna soup this summer if the march faq doesn't do much meta-wise. And yes, marines are terrible at generating CP.

Let's be clear about terms here.

Good at clearing hordes:
Needs to happen turn 1, turn 2 at the latest (if it takes to turn 3 you are not good at clearing them because their whole goal is to protect the units behind the chaff and if they have done it for 3 turns that seems to be a reasonable return on investment)

Needs to be point efficient (1.5-1.75 points spent per 1 point killed seems to be the upper level cut-off. Anything worse than that just doesn't work as you are investing too many points relative to what other armies are spending to kill your guys)

Given these rather common sense parameters good horde clearing is not marines with flamers. Scouts with a storm bolter sarge are a much better option.

Start @ 9-15. Move 6, shoot rapid fire bolters + rapid fire storm bolter, charge @ a 35% discount.

This is what I mean by some people are happy to take what works for them vs some people are worried about the most efficient unit. Also reinforces my point about some people playing in different metas. I would never dream of footslogging a marine unit up the board to try to kill some guardsmen. Just plain wouldn't work in my meta, if it works in yours awesome. Dudes like Marmatag would laugh at my marines walking up the board, cap objectives and out point me so badly by the time my marines got close enough to flame anything that the game would be effectively over.

And here we have it-- if you can't wipe out their entire army in one turn, they're overpowered.

Yeah, I think we're about done here.

 Melissia wrote:
And here we have it-- if you can't wipe out their entire army in one turn, they're overpowered.

Yeah, I think we're about done here.

Literally nobody asked for that. That's how we know YOU are done here, not everyone else.

Needing to kill units in one round without spending at least double their points shouldn't be (not to say isn't) a thing. Even more so when the unit you need to one-round is balanced around being very, very hard to one-round.

And that's what Guardsmen do best. Cost so little that they can't be removed points-efficiently.

If it could be done, Guard would be worthless.

Bharring wrote:
Needing to kill units in one round without spending at least double their points shouldn't be (not to say isn't) a thing. Even more so when the unit you need to one-round is balanced around being very, very hard to one-round.

And that's what Guardsmen do best. Cost so little that they can't be removed points-efficiently.

If it could be done, Guard would be worthless.

I completely disagree. There should we weapon that can efficiently remove them. It should just suck vs elite infantry. So there are decisions to be made.

But isn't taking points-efficient screens of Guardsmen over well-equipped Vets also a decision to be made?

There certainly seems to be not enough efficient-enough options to pick from.

But if you had anti-small weapons that could kill 2x their points of small stuff but less of big stuff, and anti-big weapons that could kill 2x their points of big stuff but less small stuff, don't the choices become irrelevant, and wouldn't everyone take about 50/50 of each? You'd still be 1-rounding whole armies at the 2x ratio.

On the other hand, if the ratio is too small, you get things like the screen-hammer view of the game Martel's been complaining about for years, where quantity beats quality every time.

It's a balancing act. And it's not balanced correctly. But a full reverse won't fix anything, it'll just change the nature of the gripes.

"But isn't taking points-efficient screens of Guardsmen over well-equipped Vets also a decision to be made? "

It's a trivial one at this point. It's all mostly naked guardsmen taking up real estate and the well-equipped scions safely in orbit.

@ martel

I really have to say I am wondering why you don't play the IG? You constantly praise them and hold IG as the standard to compare all other armies. I just don't ever see you ever having any fun playing good ole SM - so why don't you do yourself a favor?

But is the problem really that you can't kill the screens in 1 turn, or is it that it seems that you lose the game if you fail to?

Bharring wrote:
But is the problem really that you can't kill the screens in 1 turn, or is it that it seems that you lose the game if you fail to?

It's a combination, really. My typical IG foe has 80-160 infantry. The 160 list has 240 pts less firepower, but there is no way to get BA through that in a reasonable amount of time. If the guardsmen weren't protecting units that were in turn undercosted, it wouldn't be so bad. Plus scions.

So couldn't the problem be more that there are units that, if you can't get to them in CC, can wipe you out too fast?

And if that's the problem, wouldn't upping the firepower in the game just make the problem worse? Like, going from auto-lose if you don't clear screens T1 to auto-lose if you go 2nd (if we're not already there)?

bananathug wrote:
Let's be clear about terms here.

Good at clearing hordes:
Needs to happen turn 1, turn 2 at the latest (if it takes to turn 3 you are not good at clearing them because their whole goal is to protect the units behind the chaff and if they have done it for 3 turns that seems to be a reasonable return on investment)

Needs to be point efficient (1.5-1.75 points spent per 1 point killed seems to be the upper level cut-off. Anything worse than that just doesn't work as you are investing too many points relative to what other armies are spending to kill your guys)

Given these rather common sense parameters good horde clearing is not marines with flamers. Scouts with a storm bolter sarge are a much better option.

Start @ 9-15. Move 6, shoot rapid fire bolters + rapid fire storm bolter, charge @ a 35% discount.

This is what I mean by some people are happy to take what works for them vs some people are worried about the most efficient unit. Also reinforces my point about some people playing in different metas. I would never dream of footslogging a marine unit up the board to try to kill some guardsmen. Just plain wouldn't work in my meta, if it works in yours awesome. Dudes like Marmatag would laugh at my marines walking up the board, cap objectives and out point me so badly by the time my marines got close enough to flame anything that the game would be effectively over.

Right, so my first contention is the requirement for clearing the horde in 1-2 turns. If I can kill the tanks/artillery without clearing the horde, I don't have that time limit.

The second contention is objective capping. Non ITC usually doesn't have progressive objective scoring. So as long as I can manage to control objectives in turns 4-5 or whatever, I'm gravy.

Imo, once the tanks are gone, it's an infantry maneuvering/cqb type of game, and at that point I'm usually out-pointing the opponent because so many points are tied up in tanks. Like if I'm looking at 60ish marines left, vs 120 guardsmen, those are playable odds for me.


Important to note this is at odds with Martels BA, who are (I think) trying to get through the horde to get at the tanks.

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
But is the problem really that you can't kill the screens in 1 turn, or is it that it seems that you lose the game if you fail to?

It's a combination, really. My typical IG foe has 80-160 infantry. The 160 list has 240 pts less firepower, but there is no way to get BA through that in a reasonable amount of time. If the guardsmen weren't protecting units that were in turn undercosted, it wouldn't be so bad. Plus scions.

Wait..

Scions. Seriously you never mentioned this before. I don't see them as being all that big a deal and somewhat overkill versus tactical Marines.

No, Scions are genuinely obnoxious.

Thanks for the response Insect and it cuts to the heart of what I'm talking about.

I only play ITC missions, my requirements for a unit are different than yours. I feel like this is part of the disconnected between posters and I could be convinced it is a problem of my own making (ITC rules are not 40k rules and choosing to play by them I'm setting myself up for these problems, it just sucks that most tournaments I see use them and thus have bleed into my tournament focused meta)

In my experience it is never as simple as just "shoot past the screens." They either need to be dealt with to get them off of objectives or they are exercising so much board control that I need them out of the way to deal with LOS or range.

If I'm looking for a unit to remove screens it's because I need them gone, not for the pure joy in making my opponent remove models from the board. I need to clear a space to get my deepstrikers within range or clear a lane for some aggressive troops to get in the face of my enemy.

Even the ability to remove them by turn 4 while being shot at would mean meaningful engagement with them by turn 3. In the 85 point marine squad going after 80 points of guard, the marines are dead by the time they reach the guard for a charge (the math for this is all over this thread) meaning that the proposed solution (marines with flamers) is not a solution.

20 shots at 24" - 10 hits - 3 wounds, 1 dead marine
2 shots @ 18" - 2 hits, 1 wound 1 dead guard

19 shots @ 18", 9 hits, 3 wounds, 1 dead marine
2 shots @ 12", 2 hits, 1 wound, 1 dead guard

36 shots @ 12, 18 hits, 6 wounds, 2 dead marines
1 bolter + 1 flamer @ 6", 4.5 hits 3 wound 2 dead guard (sarge is only one left at this point)
He charges, 3 attacks, 2 hits, 1 wound, 1 more dead guard.
5 guard left, 3 hits, 1 wound, save.

Fall back, 20 shots - 10 hits, 3 wounds, last marine is dead.

3 turns to kill 5 guard while losing an entire tac unit. Guard still hold objective and that's without orders (which vastly improve the guard vs marginal improvement a captian/lt would add for twice the additional point. Feel free to run 3xinfantry + commander vs above tac squad + captain)

Or in the case of orcs/fire-warriors I gotta get rid of those hordes before they kill me. A protracted fire-fight against something that out-guns me is not in my best interest.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
But your math relies on the assumption that the cost of the characters is limited only to buffing the Razors, when the 4 Razors cost only 1/4th ish of the army. If you assume the cost of the character buffs is spread out among the whole force, the cost for their buff to the Razors becomes 40 points, adjusting your ppw considerably.

I find that reasoning disingenuous. The characters only have a 6" buff bubble, and Razorbacks are not insubstantial models. You might be able to cram one or two more units into the aura, but not a whole army.

Remember that it doesn't have to be wholly within, so you can have exactly 1 square millimetre of a Razorback's total area in the 6" bubble and get the bonus. It actually should be fairly trivial to get the whole army in the bubble, if one has options for controlling one's deployment (e.g. drop pods).

Deep strike is 100% precise now, so with careful measuring it should be easy.

The problem with that plan is if you have your entire army clustered around a pair of buffing characters, they're not out there doing anything else useful, like holding objectives, or maneuvering into advantageous positions against your opponent, or screening your forces against something coming in and wreaking havoc. Expecting to be able to cluster your whole force into a 6" bubble all the time is not anything like realistic.

Also, adding a drop pod to the equation to deep strike the characters into place is adding more total points into the package, which further downgrades the damage output-per-point ratio.

A good SM army typically has a castle but other units that engage the opponent directly if needed. It should be obvious the whole army cannot be the castle and do well.

Bharring wrote:
So couldn't the problem be more that there are units that, if you can't get to them in CC, can wipe you out too fast?

And if that's the problem, wouldn't upping the firepower in the game just make the problem worse? Like, going from auto-lose if you don't clear screens T1 to auto-lose if you go 2nd (if we're not already there)?

Inceasing the price of chaff reduces firepower.

bananathug wrote:
Thanks for the response Insect and it cuts to the heart of what I'm talking about.

I only play ITC missions, my requirements for a unit are different than yours. I feel like this is part of the disconnected between posters and I could be convinced it is a problem of my own making (ITC rules are not 40k rules and choosing to play by them I'm setting myself up for these problems, it just sucks that most tournaments I see use them and thus have bleed into my tournament focused meta)

In my experience it is never as simple as just "shoot past the screens." They either need to be dealt with to get them off of objectives or they are exercising so much board control that I need them out of the way to deal with LOS or range.

If I'm looking for a unit to remove screens it's because I need them gone, not for the pure joy in making my opponent remove models from the board. I need to clear a space to get my deepstrikers within range or clear a lane for some aggressive troops to get in the face of my enemy.

Even the ability to remove them by turn 4 while being shot at would mean meaningful engagement with them by turn 3. In the 85 point marine squad going after 80 points of guard, the marines are dead by the time they reach the guard for a charge (the math for this is all over this thread) meaning that the proposed solution (marines with flamers) is not a solution.

20 shots at 24" - 10 hits - 3 wounds, 1 dead marine
2 shots @ 18" - 2 hits, 1 wound 1 dead guard

19 shots @ 18", 9 hits, 3 wounds, 1 dead marine
2 shots @ 12", 2 hits, 1 wound, 1 dead guard

36 shots @ 12, 18 hits, 6 wounds, 2 dead marines
1 bolter + 1 flamer @ 6", 4.5 hits 3 wound 2 dead guard (sarge is only one left at this point)
He charges, 3 attacks, 2 hits, 1 wound, 1 more dead guard.
5 guard left, 3 hits, 1 wound, save.

Fall back, 20 shots - 10 hits, 3 wounds, last marine is dead.

3 turns to kill 5 guard while losing an entire tac unit. Guard still hold objective and that's without orders (which vastly improve the guard vs marginal improvement a captian/lt would add for twice the additional point. Feel free to run 3xinfantry + commander vs above tac squad + captain)

Or in the case of orcs/fire-warriors I gotta get rid of those hordes before they kill me. A protracted fire-fight against something that out-guns me is not in my best interest.

Well, to be fair, I'd basically never advocate flamers atm. Imo the special slot is better used for more versatile weapons. Flamers might have a spot in an army built around a different engagement plan, but that's not my space.

So lets work the guard-be-gone 1-2 turns plan. My all Warriors w/ Deathspitters army melts them off the table nice and quick. Much harder with marines.

The most potentially effective units that come to mind for this are the Sternguard with Storm Bolters, (buffed they get about 18 kills per 10-man unit) and Storm Ravens, which can manage about 15 unbuffed. Razors are prety solid if you can buff em. If we're going to leverage morale, I feel like it aiming for 7ish casualties per guard squad gives us good results. So, two such Sternguard units gets us 36 casualties if you drop them within 12" of potential targets. If you can support them a bit (pod Storm Bolters, Razors in the rear, Rhinos nearby, Character Storm Bolters who drop along side them, whayever) you can push the damage to 42 casialties, giving you 7 casualties each, across 6 squads. This seems like a good start, as you have the potential there to clear 60 GEQ in a turn, punch a giant hole in their lines, and hopefully freak your opponent out a bit.

Dropping can get tricky with sentinels, you may have to keep clear an LZ with scouts and hope for 1st turn. Or you could go with Storm Ravens and bypass the sentinel screens, though I feel Storm Ravens to be a bit of a liability if you're also expecting this list to face Dark Reapers.

If the rest of your army can weather a Guard firing round and clear out the sentinels, a turn two Sternguard drop ought to be much easier.

You want to be taking Command Squads with Storm Bolters rather than Sternguard because the Command Squad gets to take chainswords for no additional cost as well, giving you 3 attacks as opposed to two. If you've got spare Elite slots you can also run the Command Squads in squads of two to increase the amount of Sergeants, and thus attacks, you get, as well as filling slots for CP.