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Would halving the point cost of all ork and nids units and increasing unit sizes make them competitive?

Thoughts?

It helps, but doesn't deal with the core issue of the game. There are two levels which horde units/armies have issues with currently. Firstly, hordes are in a rough spot nowadays because of how maelstrom works and taking casualties from the front, meaning that they inherently are outmaneuvered by mechanized units or bikers. Secondly, the other issue has to do with how the game has essentially become Apocalypse Lite, with Super Heavies and GMC becoming more commonplace and accepted. The scale shift is the main problem, IMO, as that means small scale firearms/weapons carried by most hordes do little to no damage to these huge threats in the game, making their core worth in overwhelming the enemy largely moot. Lowering the points helps salve the issue a little but at the end of the day S3-4 spam from little guys does nothing against a Wraithknight or Imperial Knight. Stomps also make it hard to tarpit for long and again those units are fast enough to generally pick their own battles. Thus hordes are largely relegated to board control/objective grabbing, where they are again outdone, as mentioned previously, by said mechanized/biker troops.

Personally, I also feel that its a lazy way to fix it, and further unneeded points decrease because then units like grotz become completely invalidated (what, are they 1 point a pop then?). Better to buff or synergize the units rather than a flat cut down for pricing.

I've all but given up my hopes for a horde-centric army. My basic list comprises of around 70 boyz, and I can't find a good reason to take more than that. Like Grimskul said, hordes can't do much against the big scary things that are becoming more common. Generally I throw my hordes at lower threats, or something I want to stay tarpitted that I know I can tarpit. I leave objective grabbing up to my fast stuff, while I basically try to "amoeba" anything else.

If Boyz and Termagants went down to 2pts per model if their squad is 20+ via some sort of Formation or something, that would be a massive boost and allow games to be fluffy again. The entire point of a horde is to outnumber the bullets being shot at them, and current point values don't allow that. I'm not talking about including Obj Sec or respawns or anything ridiculous, but a massive host backed up by a smaller regular army should be able to be represented. My biggest complain with Nids, cause I haven't actually put my fledgling Waagh on the table yet, is that I can never go middle of the road. If I don't commit to Nizdilla, I lose. Spending points on 60 Termagants, 20 Hormagaunts, 5 Warriors, 30 Gargoyles and 15 Genestealers means I don't get even a quarter of the big bugs I need to actually win a game, and all those things die to friggin Bolters.

My plan for my own rewrite is to nerf problem units that are too efficient (EJBs are 4+ armor, 1 scat laser per 3 models, costs 20+ points etc.), buff units in the opposite corner (terminators are 35 ppm, have power weapons base, get 2 heavy weapons per 5 models, Possessed are copy pasta HH Gal Vorbak and so on) and raise the price of models that are "supposed" to be elite wholesale. Everything in the SM codex is 1-2 ppm more expensive than the 7th ed codex, others more so.

That's one angle of the problem, but I think horde style armies being weak is almost coincidental. All of the horde books released since 6th ed are either weak, lack synergy, are just plain weird or all three for reasons that mostly pertain to their own army list.

I have some down- the- road ideas for IG and I have no idea on earth what I want to do for Tyranids, but my plan for Orks this summer when I have chance to buy one (or maybe 4) of the Get Started Orks bundles is three fold:

They need more weapon options: this isn't a balance issue. I just think its crazy that orks are a melee army and have exactly three melee weapons that aren't relics. SM have...five (!?)

They need synergy (and rules that are actually buffs): Even in the days of the 4thh ed codex when they were relatively powerful as an army list, their whole schtick was that there were lots of them. That isn't an army; that's an army list archetype. I think there needs to be some system or structure in place that allows for actual decision making.

They need quirks: This will make or break orks for me. Random damage weapons, weapons that may or may not blow up are fine. But that's two mechanics that wouldn't even be unique. I took a stroll through some source material for 2nd ed from before I was a thought and think some of the stuff from there is at least the level of brevity I want to shoot for.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
If Boyz and Termagants went down to 2pts per model if their squad is 20+ via some sort of Formation or something, that would be a massive boost and allow games to be fluffy again. The entire point of a horde is to outnumber the bullets being shot at them, and current point values don't allow that. I'm not talking about including Obj Sec or respawns or anything ridiculous, but a massive host backed up by a smaller regular army should be able to be represented. My biggest complain with Nids, cause I haven't actually put my fledgling Waagh on the table yet, is that I can never go middle of the road. If I don't commit to Nizdilla, I lose. Spending points on 60 Termagants, 20 Hormagaunts, 5 Warriors, 30 Gargoyles and 15 Genestealers means I don't get even a quarter of the big bugs I need to actually win a game, and all those things die to friggin Bolters.

Skytide helped a bit if you happen to like Gargoyles. Didn't solve the issue, just alleviated it somewhat.

 Powerfisting wrote:
They need more weapon options: this isn't a balance issue. I just think its crazy that orks are a melee army and have exactly three melee weapons that aren't relics. SM have...five (!?)

They need synergy (and rules that are actually buffs): Even in the days of the 4thh ed codex when they were relatively powerful as an army list, their whole schtick was that there were lots of them. That isn't an army; that's an army list archetype. I think there needs to be some system or structure in place that allows for actual decision making.

They need quirks: This will make or break orks for me. Random damage weapons, weapons that may or may not blow up are fine. But that's two mechanics that wouldn't even be unique. I took a stroll through some source material for 2nd ed from before I was a thought and think some of the stuff from there is at least the level of brevity I want to shoot for.

I completely agree, its why i created the Shokk Hammer and am now thinking about making a Riot Shield type piece of Wargear (as inspired by Space Marine). Hell pay a few points to let the boyz dual wield chainswords and get Shred. We just want options!!

On the point of Orks and their lack of interesting Rules, ive started working on Clan specific rules, which should help to differentiate Orks a bit. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/681738.page

All these clan specific rules ideas are cool, but I'm most interested in rules pertaining to all ork units like Mob Rule, Waaaagh etc. and how to make them interesting and dynamic first but clan specific rules are also possible down the road.

Getting back on topic, point costs are one thing, but they are only one angle of the balance act. Poor Ork Boyz are werd to talk about because in a vacuum, one would almost think boyz are too good for their points. It is the rest of the codex and the rest of the game that puts them down. So in a backwards kind of way, guardsmen and ork boyz are balanced well and the rest of the game around them sucks. Grots on the other hand are a super horde unit that outnumber the stars. How to we represent that? How cheap can we make something? Magic Juggler's Ork army list lets you buy 2 grots for 3 points, so they are effectively 1.5 ppm which is crazy cheap, but fine for something that can't hurt anything else in the game.

Nid troops could actually be made a tad more expensive in exchange for more movement speed. Then, nids could be a fast overwhelming horde thats a little weaker, but orks are a slower, heavier but all around tougher horde.

If they imported over the rule from Fantasy where you can wound/glance something on a 6 regardless of strength, then Hordes might work. That might also make hordes overpowered since you can literally buy a tide of gaunts and have them run through just about everything in the game.

It's a delicate balancing act, and another one of those issues that needs a complete overhaul of the game to really fix.