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If you could make 1-4 army wide changes (meaning all these change apply army wide, to every unit) to armies with the weakest codices, what would you do?
Armies in question are taken from a BOLS ranking from a few months ago:

Nids
Dark Eldar
Grey Knights
AM / IG
AS / SOB
Orks
Chaos SM
Blood Angels
Space Wolves? - Debatable if they're lower tier - do they just need similar updates/wargear to vanilla marine dex?
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/09/handicapping-warhammer-40k-the-loser-codices.html

Here's my take on Nids - Not a nids player but play with Nid players and I hear about their short comings. - They get chewed up in shooting, movement sucks, no transports, poor armor saves mean they rely on cover - little cover available in tournaments and facing more enemies that ignore cover or reduce cover.
Nids
- Give all units the beast type on top of their current type.
- Increase toughness by 1 for all units.
- Decrease armor by 1 for all units.
- Increase point cost for all units army wide by 15% - Rounding up - so a 4pt gaunt now costs 4.6 pts rounding up to 5.

++Impact++
- Assault tactics for an army with numerous assault units now becomes viable as the whole army has 12" movement, fleet, and are not slowed by Difficult Terrain, but treat it as Dangerous Terrain (also in Assault).
- Most of their MC are now T7 or T6 with a 2+ saves
- Numerous units would start showing up on the table - primarily assault heavy units that had poor movement before. - Genestealers can now move 12", are T5, with a 4+ save.
- Units will cost more but will be more survivable - example - A fully loaded dakkafex would now cost 276 pts instead of 240 - Carnifex: Unit Type:Monstrous Creature + Beast |WS:3|BS:3|S:9|T:7|W:4|I:2|A:3|Ld:7|Save:2+|

++Outcomes++
- T7 means that space marines need 6 to wound in both shooting and assault with str4
- Nids are more susceptible to grav weapons
- Nids become more fluffy and survivable but become more expensive
- Managing synaps becomes harder as everyone is moving more



What sweeping change would you enact? What are the impacts and outcomes of these changes?

There is no change for ba. The entire concept of assaulting power armor fails in seventh. There is no amount of ba you can field that doesn't fall to eldar.

Martel732 wrote:
There is no change for ba. The entire concept of assaulting power armor fails in seventh. There is no amount of ba you can field that doesn't fall to eldar.

I refuse to accept that!

Lets get creative!

Can we burn the 7th ed rulebook and get rid of all mc models? If not, the ba are hopeless. Marines are not good assault units in the era of forcing 60+ saves a turn.

Martel732 wrote:
There is no change for ba. The entire concept of assaulting power armor fails in seventh. There is no amount of ba you can field that doesn't fall to eldar.

Similarly with GKs, there really isn't a good way of cleanly making most of their stuff good. Dreadknights and Draigo are right where they should be, Librarians are good, the rest of the HQs are mostly overpriced and lack a few important options (namely, powerful relics like the Hunters Eye or Shield Eternal that really gives you a reason to want to use them in certain capacities, but currently they'd be solid flexible force multipliers if they were a bit cheaper).

But all the power armor stuff simply disintegrates vs high firepower armies, and lacks decent firepower. Why pay a ton of points for crappy salvo psycannons, or a flamer, even a str 6 one, on a unit that will die in one round of shooting to broadsides or jetbikes or whatever? And they're too expensive for you to be able to afford to keep them hidden on an objective.

Terminators are significantly better, and they're useable, but they simply don't have the mobility to be truly effective. Even with relentless psycannons, they simply don't put out good firepower for their points. With the new psychic phase, you don't get enough warp charges to power them up to make them a truly powerful assault unit, not without sacrificing psychic powers on other units, and that's assuming you even reach assault. And with grav and D everywhere, or just massive firepower from tau, eldar, etc, no amount of 2/5+ will save you.

And the Nemesis Strike Force has some significant fundamental issues. For one, it limits the number of Dreadknights you can take, which on its own almost makes is a non starter. Then, while deepstriking and running T1 is great, you don't have reliable reserves (whith only a handful of units in your army, I've had more than a few games where I auto lost T1 on poor reserve rolls, or had the handful of units trickle in and get taken apart piecemeal). You also aren't protected from mishaps. Sure, you can buy a comms array and servo skulls, but then you're paying 100+points just to make your formation function reliably. To add insult to injury, you completely lose ObSec. The NSF is a great idea, but in light of the newer, far, far, far more powerful formations, or even in comparison to a CAD, it needs some tweaks.

Couldn't have said it better myself. GKs have more good stuff than BA, but they fundamentally have very similar problems.

Grey Knights Changes
- Decrease points cost by 10% for non-vehicles.
- Add 1 Wound to all models
- Choose when models arrive from reserves - can do so turn 1
- Can assault after coming in from reserve

Do these change fix the problems you've listed?
Draigo Goes down to 216pts - has 5 wounds
Dreadknight(loaded) goes to 202 pts with 5 wounds
Strike Squad with 2 swords, incinerator, halberd and justicar with hammer - 127 - is now 14pts with 2 wounds per model.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Disregard my calculations so far for unit point cost changes.

Any point reductions or increases should be on the base model without additional wargear or upgrades.

I think these changes are too crude and overpowering. Any assault from deepstrike mechanic needs to be carefully regulated.

Martel732 wrote:
I think these changes are too crude and overpowering. Any assault from deepstrike mechanic needs to be carefully regulated.

I posted a rule idea in another post about this. This thread is exploring how a few sweeping rules may just help the lower tier dexes compete.
-But- If assaulting after arriving from deepstrike is a mechanic, then there needs to be more rules around it or else the defending forces have no hope.

I would propose the following - I think anything that can assault after arriving from deepstrike should take an initiative penalty. The rule would be something like "Signifying the hard/risky landing or re-materializing from deep strike, these units are reduced to initiative 1 if they choose to assault after deep striking."
Also I think the defenders should suffer some sort of scatter effect when something deepstrikes near them. For example, if you deep strike within 3 inches of a unit, that unit gets a 3 inch movement in any direction away from your deep strikers. That regroup move happens after that unit has deep struck in.
- This way, you could systematically deep strike in units and heard the opposing force into a tactical location.
- Maybe fearless, ATSKNF, and stubborn units wouldn't have to move and could choose to suffer -1 initiative for that turn(can go no lower than 1)
- MC's, GMCs, Vehicles would be exempt from having to regroup

here the rule I posted for drop pods -
Drop Pods - Units can assault from Drop Pods.
++New drop pod rule: Furious Impact: - When drop pods land, units assaulting from that drop pod as well as all units within 6" of the drop pod are reduced to Initiative 1 regardless of unit rules or wargear, also assaulting forces receive a 5+ cover save in overwatch - cannot be improved. (signifies the dust and debris blasted out from a drop pod impact into the ground) - This lets drop pod armies assault but gives defenders some recourse.

1-4 changes huh? Okay I'll try it.

BA:

1. Jump infantry and fast vehicles from this codex may jink.
2. Chainswords gain rending
3. BA jump infantry may enter play from reserve/DS reserve on the turn of their choice, including 1st turn. These units don't roll for reserves.
4. "Lightning assault" added to all BA models that can assault as an extra "chapter tactic." Whenever a unit attempts a charge, if the closest model to the primary charge target has this rule, add 3 inches to the charge roll, and any enemy unit attempting to overwatch must beat you at an opposed initiative roll, or the overwatch attempt fails and that unit may not overwatch for the rest of the phase.

I think that would lift the codex a tier or two.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
1-4 changes huh? Okay I'll try it.

BA:

1. Jump infantry and fast vehicles from this codex may jink.
2. Chainswords gain rending
3. BA jump infantry may enter play from reserve/DS reserve on the turn of their choice, including 1st turn. These units don't roll for reserves.
4. "Lightning assault" added to all BA models that can assault as an extra "chapter tactic." Whenever a unit attempts a charge, if the closest model to the primary charge target has this rule, add 3 inches to the charge roll, and any enemy unit attempting to overwatch must beat you at an opposed initiative roll, or the overwatch attempt fails and that unit may not overwatch for the rest of the phase.

I think that would lift the codex a tier or two.

See this is what I am talking about!

I still think they'd be butchered by Tau/Eldar. Most of those changes involves getting into close combat, which simply doesn't happen if you try to avoid the assault from deep strike trope.

Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

 Cothonian wrote:
Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

That's not the trend of the game, though. Basic troops are SOL in general in this game.

 Cothonian wrote:
Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

I agree that pulling down the top would be easier than pushing up the massive bottom, but despite being less work on paper, it tends to meet EXTREME resistance from people for whatever reason.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

I agree that pulling down the top would be easier than pushing up the massive bottom, but despite being less work on paper, it tends to meet EXTREME resistance from people for whatever reason.

Because the people at the top want to be on the top.

Which to me is a shame. I got into all of my armies because I liked their basic troops. Tac Marines and Scouts for my Ultrmarines. Guardsmen for my Imperial Guard. Guardians for my Eldar. The shift to focus on super heavies and the like makes the very reason why I got into my armies worthless. It's a shame.

Here's a thought.

We're all children at heart and we want our action figures back. GamesWorkshop has figured it out and is pushing the bigger models on us.

'Cause the having 100 of the same 5 green army men is boring when you have a 12" transformer or GI Joe ruining your buddy's sh!t!

Or maybe it's video games. Anyone playing the game thats 35 and under has had video games in their lives and those games always had you playing as a bad ass one man army.

Perhaps that's imprinted on everyone and its more fun to have some super units than hordes of grunts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Since depowering top tier armies is not going to happen, it makes sense to power up the weaker armies.
GW is a model company after all so they'll power up crap to sell it.

Back to the thread topic...

Funny, in Starcraft games there is plenty of cannon fodder.

Adepta Sororitas

Change Canoness pts cost to 50pts and allow her to take multiple Relics and Artificer armour
Repentia have Feel no Pain
Immolator to Fast Attack
Penitent Engines gain It Will Not Die

Usual 7.5 edition Cheese Detachments/ Formations...............

For Orks.

Invulnerable save in close combat for at least the bosses.
Something to Boost LD by at least +1 to the Nobs and Bosses.
Let every unit buy evy' armour. (4+ save) Not for Grots.
Grots van buy a 5+ save/ flack jacket like guardsmen.
Add bolters for shoota boys to buy and Autto guns for grots.
I'd like to add an optional threat range and create an optional way to use these units.
Change rockits and big shootas from 1 in 10 orks( Ork mobs) to 2 in 10.
some way to add grots to Boys mobs, maybe a cap of 10 grots, these are just meant to stand in front to keep the boys from getting killed first. still count toward casualties.
A way to buy up to a 3+ save for Bosses and Nobs, Maybe not BossNobs in Boys mobs.
Up to 15 Nobs in a mob, up from 10.
Make pain boys, meks and wierdboys an aditional character up grade for every mob. some points changes and abilty changes. Not sure how the wierdboys would work yet.
A wierdboys mob. with minders. maybe it lets them reroll one dice for warp charges, like the here does for assault moves currently. Some way to balance that.
Add deff Dreds to Killa Kan mobs, just have to have more kans than Dreads.
Add Mek guns ad weapons types that can be added to a battle wagon. maybe it's a new wagon type more like a tank than transport.
Rules for a loted Kinight.
I think this gears Orks toward a shooting army and if I was to take it one further I'd up the Ork's BS to 3 across the board. with a slight points increase.

Ok, I'll bite for my main army, Nids.

1. Shadow in the Warp now forces a -1 to the roll when casting Psychic powers, and it's range is always the same as that model's Synapse range.
2. Onslaught becomes the Primaris Power, and allows the targetted unit to run and then shoot or assault.
3. New army special rule: Overwhelming numbers: If Tyranid models outnumber the number of enemy models in a Close combat, then they do not suffer any penalty for charging through terrain, and their opponent doesn't gain any benefit from the Counterattack special rule.
4. Synaptic control: Instead of granting the fearless rule, all units in Synapse range choose automatically whether to pass or fail all fear, morale, and pinning checks.

 Cothonian wrote:
Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

That makes much more sense. Only a handful of codex's are the problem, make their power levels more consistent with everyone else, rather than mess about trying to bring ridiculous OP nonsense to all the rest.

 r_squared wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
Edging on off topic... but seems a note worth adding: I always thought the focus should be more on balancing codex that are considered extremely powerful rather than making weaker codex more powerful. By bringing everything down a level basic troops suddenly become far more of a threat.

That makes much more sense. Only a handful of codex's are the problem, make their power levels more consistent with everyone else, rather than mess about trying to bring ridiculous OP nonsense to all the rest.

But this approach makes a lot more people happy, because no one takes nerfs. And we now have Eldar, Tau, DA, and C:SM to nerf down. OH, and Codex:Wolfstar, too.

Just because it makes people happy, doesn't necessarily follow that it's the right thing to do.
Power creep is a problem, and a well oiled sales tactic, so it's likely to stay, which just means more OP nonsense and an endless cycle of problems.
Culling back the problem codexs helps the game become more balanced without introducing resentment.

But if we're at it the way the OP suggests, I play orks, and I think that the buzzgob mek stompa should be legitimised at 400 points, and all other stompas be brought down to the same points cost.
Instant codex fix achieved, orks are now a top tier army, multi-stompa formation published, sales of stompas rocket, problem (for ork players) solved.

I think that it would be awful for the game.

Ya, I can agree to that. I'd like to see more use of ..lesser powered special rules given out to more units.
Burna Boys should cause fear.
And some time it would help them out.
Heck adding blind and Armour/Flesh bane to the bubble chukka and it becomes a bit more interesting.
A lot of people,f from what I have read, Jump straight to the super heavy as the answer to everything. Missing a lot of cook opportunities

Martel732 wrote:
I think these changes are too crude and overpowering. Any assault from deepstrike mechanic needs to be carefully regulated.

Not true there where a couple units that could assault from deepstrike, vangaurd with jump packs in 5th edition and it did no break the game at all, and that is with no overwatch at all. The only thing about them is that, yeahh they would demolish the unit they charged from deep strike, not always against decent melee units, but then be open to be shot at and counter charged the very next turn. I played tau during this edition, and was able to ruin these expensive units after they would destroy one of my units.

I think a fix that would help most codexs all around would be giving vehicals more survivability, either in getting rid of the hull point system or point reduction.

I think if you want to power up an army like BAs you should
- give an equipment to assault units that prevent Overwatch
- some sort of grenades that force opponent units shooting at the unit equipped with, to pass a BS test with -2 or lose the fire
- give Death Co. 3+ FNP
- pred Baal special No Cover ammo.

The Deer Hunter wrote:
I think if you want to power up an army like BAs you should
- give an equipment to assault units that prevent Overwatch
- some sort of grenades that force opponent units shooting at the unit equipped with, to pass a BS test with -2 or lose the fire
- give Death Co. 3+ FNP
- pred Baal special No Cover ammo.

With these upgrades, the BA would still be worthless. BA need to be able to survive scatbikes, WKs, Black knights, TWC and grav stars. BA with grenades don't live that long. Equipment that denies overwatch doensn't help because they don't live that long. DC with 3+ FNP will still die to shooting. Baals get glanced out on the side armor easily, and so are never taken.

 Mojo1jojo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think these changes are too crude and overpowering. Any assault from deepstrike mechanic needs to be carefully regulated.

Not true there where a couple units that could assault from deepstrike, vangaurd with jump packs in 5th edition and it did no break the game at all, and that is with no overwatch at all. The only thing about them is that, yeahh they would demolish the unit they charged from deep strike, not always against decent melee units, but then be open to be shot at and counter charged the very next turn. I played tau during this edition, and was able to ruin these expensive units after they would destroy one of my units.

I as a tau player disagree , assaulting form deepstrike , i might as well just pack my models up. It was totally crushing in 5th ed ( even more so form drop pod armies , which all marines can do and have a added benefit of almost never misshaping ) , I'm not sure how you did well , or did you waste 1/5 of your armies points on bubble-wrap ?

Its not even about demolishing the unit form deepstrike , its also the fact they can wipe a unit ( which is a terrible melee unit ) by losing combat by 1 w ( hello terrible leadership tau ) and be immune from shooting while they do it , oh and 50% of the time they are immune from getting shot even if they wipe the nit , cause they did it on your assault phase and not theirs.

The only real way to get deep strike from reserve back is to rework the entire close combat system