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What if they had EW, but the swarm rule (or something similar), as well, that way they would die to flamers and templates, but single high strenght attack would only ''kill'' one of the member of the team.

On what grounds would the HWT have this special rule?

There's two guys in the team, it doesn't make sense that a plasma shot would kill both, but something like a flamer or an explosion? Sure.

Just make them two models again, it's ridiculous to have a whole different profile and rules just for heavy weapon teams, it complicates wound allocation, combat, and everything else.

"One soldier gets a heavy weapon, another must act as his ammo carrier and may never fire his lasgun. Killing the ammo carrier has no effect on the heavy weapon's operation."

 TheSilo wrote:
Just make them two models again, it's ridiculous to have a whole different profile and rules just for heavy weapon teams, it complicates wound allocation, combat, and everything else.

"One soldier gets a heavy weapon, another must act as his ammo carrier and may never fire his lasgun. Killing the ammo carrier has no effect on the heavy weapon's operation."

Probably the simplest solution.

What's ridiculous is that you pay 50% more for what is effectively 6 guardsmen before you add the heavy weapons, with the following disadvantages:
- 2 can be killed at once with st6 or higher
- 3 less attacks on the charge for the squad (if you ever would)
- 3 less lasgun shots
- Easier to cause 25% casualties for moral check.

The only advantage you gain is that you concentrate your heavy weaponsin one place, which anyone who has played or played against HWSs knows this is usually actually a disadvantage.
I really really struggle to comprehend why they are 45pts and not 30pts base!

This would fix HWT's so much it's stupid, as they are, why would I ever take the squads? Str6 just breathes in their direction and blammo, there goes a team.

I don't have my book on me, but don't their rules state they're considered to be two models for a specific action like charging or something?

 Frankenberry wrote:
This would fix HWT's so much it's stupid, as they are, why would I ever take the squads? Str6 just breathes in their direction and blammo, there goes a team.

I don't have my book on me, but don't their rules state they're considered to be two models for a specific action like charging or something?

May have in the past, but not now. They do bugger all save die worse than sentinels.

IG Codex wrote:
"For all game purposes, each Heavy Weapons Team or Veteran Weapons Team is
treated as a single model with the Bulky special rule – it may only fire one weapon in
the Shooting phase, only gains one additional Attack for charging, and only counts as
one model for Morale checks, for example."

Yeah, I don't get that, the rules for it basically treat it at two guys except for the 1-model/bulky part, which is stupid.

It gets even more silly when a tl assault cannon can reliably wipe out a whole 105pt lascannon team in one round of shooting, 'just because'.

Actually now that I think about it, a single round of semi-decent Multi-laser fire will kill a 3 team squad, that has to be wrong.

Perhaps what the HWT would benefit from would be to have T: 4 instead (therefore, Instant Death only at S: 8+). It's simple yet vastly improves on the unit's survivability (since each HWT has 2 wounds). Yet, it doesn't change things too much for the normal Guardsman squads who have a HWT incorporated.

This would also help validate the extra cost for HWTs.

Personally, I'd vote for making them two separate models again. ><

Poly Ranger wrote:
What's ridiculous is that you pay 50% more for what is effectively 6 guardsmen before you add the heavy weapons, with the following disadvantages:
- 2 can be killed at once with st6 or higher
- 3 less attacks on the charge for the squad (if you ever would)
- 3 less lasgun shots
- Easier to cause 25% casualties for moral check.

The only advantage you gain is that you concentrate your heavy weaponsin one place, which anyone who has played or played against HWSs knows this is usually actually a disadvantage.
I really really struggle to comprehend why they are 45pts and not 30pts base!

Making HWS 30 points base is probably the easiest solution. They're too expensive to field ATM. SWS are fun to mess around with, because they're so cheap, but HWS is just an easy way to watch 100 points blown off the table on turn 1.

Mortar squads are irrelevant since the Wyvern is better in every conceivable way. For 70 points I can get a chimera with laser, heavy bolter, and stubber to do the job of a heavy bolter team. Sentinels are better than autocannon teams, missile launchers, or lascannons, because they might actually survive if they're armored, or at least outflank if they scout.

I am looking at Krieg HWS right now, its 75 pts base for 3 teams with mortars, those get completely overshadowed by the Thudd guns, but for 5 points you can give them TL Hvy stubbers or heavy bolters or autcannons, now they're 30 pts each for those weapon and they don't have chimeras or sentinels finally, their lascannons are a 10 pts upgrade.

And the whole squad is semi fearless agaisn't shooting, so killing one won't send them packing.

Make them artillery operated by 2 guyz. And they get a 3+ gun in front. Awesome?

Though, you'll have to disallow them for blobs. T7 blobz are a bit too much

They really should just be two models.

So much of 40K is an abstraction, I really don't understand why HWT and seemingly HWT alone have to be a 2-man base for "reelzism"

I only put one man on each base. Just a gunner. I then assume that either the squad size has become 9, or that the extra guy is running around after the gunner, picking up extra ammo and sandbags, and spotting. He either gets shot first, or the insta-gib of the gunner scares him off.

 koooaei wrote:
Make them artillery operated by 2 guyz. And they get a 3+ gun in front. Awesome?

Though, you'll have to disallow them for blobs. T7 blobz are a bit too much

Artillery should not be T7 W2 3+ to begin with. Big guns are supposed to be fragile, at least if you compare them with actual armoured tanks. Currently they are not.

If I hit your Lobba with a damn Demolisher shell, it should break apart.

Poly Ranger wrote:
What's ridiculous is that you pay 50% more for what is effectively 6 guardsmen before you add the heavy weapons, with the following disadvantages:
- 2 can be killed at once with st6 or higher
- 3 less attacks on the charge for the squad (if you ever would)
- 3 less lasgun shots
- Easier to cause 25% casualties for moral check.

The only advantage you gain is that you concentrate your heavy weaponsin one place, which anyone who has played or played against HWSs knows this is usually actually a disadvantage.
I really really struggle to comprehend why they are 45pts and not 30pts base!

The 50% (15pt) premium is pretty steep, but what I think you are paying for is the ability to focus your heavy weapons at their own target. For example, 3 infantry squads with 3 HWT that choose to fire at some vehicle, the remaining 21 Guardsmen and 3 Sergeant weapons are completely thrown away. Keeping them in their own squad allows them to attack an entirely different unit from other infantry squads.

Heavy Weapons Squad Advantages:
- Able to target units without having to "waste" shots of other infantry.
- Can remain stationary without having to "waste" movement of other infantry.
- All 3 HWT receive benefit of successful order or psychic power.
- Can put all 3 into a Chimera (allowing 2 to use fire ports), a Taurox (all 3 may use fire ports), or building.

Heavy Weapons Squad Disadvantages:
- Each HWT in a squad has a 5pt "premium" over his cost in an infantry platoon. His cost in an infantry squad is (weapon cost + 10pt for 2 guardsmen he replaces). In a Heavy Weapons Squad his cost is (weapon cost + 15pt).
- May not benefit from Vox.
- No protective wounds in the form of surrounding infantry.

The cost might be more worth-it the more of them you have. The more heavy weapons you can alpha strike with, the less the enemy can counter attack with. High fire-power per turn can rapidly turn a small lead into an avalanche as the game advances.

The split fire order puts a dent in the wasted lasgun shots argument. And putting HWS in a chimera wastes one turn embarking them, and wastes one squad with the fire points. It's like throwing away 30 points.

ATM armored sentinels just seem like a better choice: much tougher and can move on objectives while firing. Honestly, with HWS I think they forgot to reduce the price when they removed mortars as a base weapon. At 30 or 35 points HWS would make sense. Right now their only advantage is that you can cheat the force org chart with five per platoon, except that with unbound you can take whatever you want and just call it a separate unbound detachment.

Not so bothered by it, no.

The point of a loader/spotter is that he loads/spots, instead of shooting an extra lasgun.

Also, these aren't heavy stubbers or ork big shootas, they are vehicle-grade guns. If they don't have two men to operate them, I don't want them moving six inches a turn, firing every turn to full effect, or getting the 360 degree fire arc that infantry models have.

Taking one wound means one or both of them is hurt enough that you would remove him if he were a las-trooper, but he can still help drag and operate the gun.

Getting instant death means that one of them was vaporized by plasma and the other one can't operate it by himself, especially since they have to be so snug up with the gun that he probably is filled with shrapnel/bone shrapnel himself.

So yeah, they should get killed by Instant Death.

I think every time a team shoots you should roll a 5+. If the team has two wounds and you pass, you double your shots. If the team has one wound and you fail, you don't get to shoot at all that turn.

They still die pretty fast. I guess they can get stealth from the gun + gun shield.



*360

pelicaniforce wrote:
Not so bothered by it, no.

The point of a loader/spotter is that he loads/spots, instead of shooting an extra lasgun.

Also, these aren't heavy stubbers or ork big shootas, they are vehicle-grade guns. If they don't have two men to operate them, I don't want them moving six inches a turn, firing every turn to full effect, or getting the 360 degree fire arc that infantry models have.

Taking one wound means one or both of them is hurt enough that you would remove him if he were a las-trooper, but he can still help drag and operate the gun.

Getting instant death means that one of them was vaporized by plasma and the other one can't operate it by himself, especially since they have to be so snug up with the gun that he probably is filled with shrapnel/bone shrapnel himself.

So yeah, they should get killed by Instant Death.

I think every time a team shoots you should roll a 5+. If the team has two wounds and you pass, you double your shots. If the team has one wound and you fail, you don't get to shoot at all that turn.

They still die pretty fast. I guess they can get stealth from the gun + gun shield.



*360

Giving them more special rules and complication is not what is needed.

Well that is what I thought, but here we are. I've got one, you've got one that is not good for any reason, and people are running around saying that the heavy weapons team should not actually be a team.

HWT are a single model with two wounds. The guardsmen can't operate a tank-size heavy weapon without two people to do it. If you don't have two people who are both at least able to limp/use one hand to work it, you have to remove the model.

I like the idea of them being 2 seperate models.I hate the big honking base that is impossible to place in many areas because the guys are carry around all that empty dirt ground with them.

Reasonable fluff based argument there, I respect that, you've thought hard about how it would apply. However you are still forgetting to consider the points based argument. They can be mutually exclusive. They can still keep the same rules yet be priced lower.
I personally would say they should actually be priced even lower than 6 guardsmen (say 25 rather than 30pts) due to the massive disadvantages they suffer for teaming up.

I reckon the best way to make not just HWS but also IG more effective is to allow them to buy an appropriatly expensive rule, called, say 'platoon support', which allows them to join the platoon blob. Call it a 30-50pt upgrade and can only be bought for 1 HWS per platoon.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Reasonable fluff based argument there, I respect that, you've thought hard about how it would apply. However you are still forgetting to consider the points based argument. They can be mutually exclusive. They can still keep the same rules yet be priced lower.
I personally would say they should actually be priced even lower than 6 guardsmen (say 25 rather than 30pts) due to the massive disadvantages they suffer for teaming up.

I reckon the best way to make not just HWS but also IG more effective is to allow them to buy an appropriatly expensive rule, called, say 'platoon support', which allows them to join the platoon blob. Call it a 30-50pt upgrade and can only be bought for 1 HWS per platoon.

Alternate idea, platoon command squads can take two heavy weapons teams. They'd be perfect for chimeras, fit in well with fluff and existing model systems, reasonable points cost for PCS+heavy weapons. The trade off is that it's only two heavy weapons for orders purposes, and it's way harder to spam them.

Good idea!

I am very receptive to that. As models go, they are too many points.

(to cheaper teams)

Giving them more special rules and complication is not what is needed.

I think that if you are already making houseruled army lists and you are bothered by complication, there are plenty of things you are going to gut from Imperial Guard before you even address what heavy weapons teams are like.


The most basic principle of simplifying army lists is that you have a model, which has a profile, and the model has a gun, which has a profile.

You get rid of the rules that violate this spirit. You never look at a death wing terminator and say gosh, I bet that fellow has rerolls to his shooting on the turn he arrives from deep strike.

You never look at a dark eldar and say gosh, I bet he accumulates invisible tokens every time he kills a unit.

You never look at two space marines and say that since they are different colors, one of them must have bolter drill and the other one must have outflank.

Those are the rules that "are not needed."

You do look at a ranger or scout and say gosh, that fellow is probably sneaky. Luckily, infiltrate is such a widespread and simple USR that it is fairly comprehensible and had might as well be part of the basic rules.

You also look at a HWT and say gosh, I bet they get a little bit of protection from being snuggled into that gun nest like that.

 TheSilo wrote:
The split fire order puts a dent in the wasted lasgun shots argument.

It does until you get to a combined squad. For example, if you have 3 HWT in a Heavy Weapons Squad as compared to 3 combined Infantry Squads, each with a HWT. The "Smite at Will!" order only allows a single HWT to fire at a different target. Personally, I think the USR "Split Fire" should be modified to allow a single weapon group fire at a different target, rather than just a single model. For example, flamethrowers at one target and lasguns at another.