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For some time now, I've heard a lot people on these forums trash-talk the various troop choices for armies in favor of the specialized units (Fast attack, elites, heavies, hq, characters). I find that extremely disappointing myself, and would like to see 40K armies with a majority of basic troop units and only a smattering of special units.

Do you agree that your army's troops are "trash" (and for what army(s))? What could be done to fix this view in your mind so that more troops would be willingly fielded than the special units?

Its simply the fact that troops are not nearly as necessary as previous editions. as everything scores now.

most Troop dont do nearly the same kinda damage or have the kinda mobility other units in other slots have.

its simply that.

mind you there are exceptions and builds that use troops a lot though.

There was once a truism for orks of 'boyz before toyz', but I'm not so certain that's the case anymore. It seems more and more that boyz are there to just provide extra wounds for warbosses/nobz, and that boyz accomplish very, very little on their own.

And grots are even worse - they are basically only good to provide an intervening model cover save to troops behind them.

'ard boyz sound good on paper, but in my experience there's a lot of AP4 out there - especially ranged AP4, so I'm often removing them as quick as normal boyz for 67% more points.

In the end, I hesitate to call boyz 'trash', but they're not exactly good, either.

between formations that don't bother with troops, everyone scoring, and a marked increase in firepower makes line infantry much less useful. I miss the days of 5th edition when troops mattered a lot more.

Boyz before toyz got replaced by the new slogan troops are poop


Automatically Appended Next Post:
unless you are admech or eldar ; )

It depends on what codex you are using, what formations/detatchments you're using, what weapons loadouts you're using, etc.

SM tactical marines + gladius formation or skyhammer formation aren't so bad.

Tactical squads fielding missile launchers and plasma cannons have proven to be a decent complement to my devastator squads.

Skyhammer uses zero troops.

Troops really aren't that relevant anymore, except for specific armies (such as Eldar)

"Aren't so bad" meaning cheesy as all feth.

It depends a lot on your groups competitiveness. My group are mainly fairly casual in actual games so I can be fine using armies with a fair amount of troops but a super competitive group will be a different story.

Martel732 wrote:
Skyhammer uses zero troops.

My mistake. I was in error.

 Traditio wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Skyhammer uses zero troops.

My mistake. I was in error.

We get the idea, though.

pm713 wrote:
"Aren't so bad" meaning cheesy as all feth.

It depends a lot on your groups competitiveness. My group are mainly fairly casual in actual games so I can be fine using armies with a fair amount of troops but a super competitive group will be a different story.

Are you talking about the tactical marines with their free ultramarine chapter tactics, or the free rhinos/drop pods/razorbacks that accompany them?

Because it's really the free chapter tactics and fearless for my sternguard that motivate me to use the gladius. The 6 free rhinos I use are basically equivalent to my captain and chaplain, which I don't really miss much in a CAD.

I do, however, miss re-rolling everything.

It's a sad day when a wargame doesn't need troops...

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:
"Aren't so bad" meaning cheesy as all feth.

It depends a lot on your groups competitiveness. My group are mainly fairly casual in actual games so I can be fine using armies with a fair amount of troops but a super competitive group will be a different story.

Are you talking about the tactical marines with their free ultramarine chapter tactics, or the free rhinos/drop pods/razorbacks that accompany them?

Because it's really the free chapter tactics and fearless for my sternguard that motivate me to use the gladius. The 6 free rhinos I use are basically equivalent to my captain and chaplain, which I don't really miss much in a CAD.

I do, however, miss re-rolling everything.

The free stuff. With 6 free rhinos you can control every single objective at once which is way better than the captain and chaplain are.

 JamesY wrote:
It's a sad day when a wargame doesn't need troops...

Welcome to Age of Sigmar

pm713 wrote:The free stuff. With 6 free rhinos you can control every single objective at once which is way better than the captain and chaplain are.

I can have the 6 rhinos without the gladius.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:The free stuff. With 6 free rhinos you can control every single objective at once which is way better than the captain and chaplain are.

I can have the 6 rhinos without the gladius.

So can I, but it hurts them not being free.

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:The free stuff. With 6 free rhinos you can control every single objective at once which is way better than the captain and chaplain are.

I can have the 6 rhinos without the gladius.

Not for free you can't. Unless your group is very relaxed about point limits.

Martel732 wrote:
So can I, but it hurts them not being free.

Again, not really. 35 X 6 = 210.

Captain w/ power fist = 115
Chaplain = 90

The difference between me taking a battle company and me taking a CAD is that, in the latter, I'm leaving out the captain and chaplain, and my assault sergeants don't get meltabombs.

Literally nothing else changes as far as army composition goes.

Riflemen in general are pretty useless and is why I've switched to killteam.

The current game surely doesn't seem to necessitate them. I've always been of the opinion that basic troops should be paramount to any kind of wargame (short of special scenarios).

There are lots of ways to fix this for game rules - but the reality is that special formations/units/etc. are the reason GW creates rules like they do. The goal is not a well balanced wargame, but to sell figures.

Every edition, every codex etc. is an opportunity for them to propel sales of a handful of model kits (new or current/old). I think it was a strength of the old force org chart idea.

Ideally I'd like to see something like a single troop choice for every fast attack/heavy/elite etc. Even if you end up min-maxxing stuff to do so. Again, many ways to skin the cat - but those ways don't tempt people to go out and buy a half dozen boxes of X, Y or Z as the rules and codices change.

Troops are kinda limited in their use these days and only really help if you have way more than your opponent or yours are noticeably better, otherwise why bother taking something that will give your opponent a unit kill point the moment they put a long range s10 ap1 blast marker over it?

Troops usually wind up doing more damage to my stuff than the big hitters but I don't have t7 and t8 monsters to just laugh s3 and s4 shots off. I could take a Land Raider to block LOS but the only way to pull that stunt well is to take an elite choice rather than troops or that Raider cuts into heavy options.

Not all that relevant really. You can do without them for the most part, because they generally tend to be worse than other options and are killed extremely easily. The only reason you take troops is to bubblewrap more valuable stuff or because you need them to fulfill requirements of a formation or detachement.
Only a few troops are actually good and worth taking on their own.

That said, in friendly games, troops still tend to do well enough. Especially when no one takes superheavy or cheese units.

Unless you're playing Fire Warrior heavy Tau, Jetbike Eldar, or Skitarii Vanguard/Kataphron grav spam lists?

Not relevant.

If your troops dont move 18" or shoot 36" with s6 heavy 4 then they are no good.

On the other extreme, if they dont have a reanimation protocol 4++ re rollable then they also not durable enough.

Troops are now completely useless unless they fulfill an actual necessity in the army unfortunately.

Everyone scoring and formations have removed the necessity for troops completely.

On top of this, Eldar Jetbikes have no business being in the troops section. It's mind boggling how this unit was placed in the troops section, let alone allowed to have the kind of massive fire power, speed and durability for their cost. They completely remove any other troops section in the book as a viable candidate and even go so far as filling the rolls of other eldar units in the book. Why do you need war walkers or vipers now? You have jetbikes which are cheaper, are troops and put out the same amount of fire power.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you also see Mucolid spores which also have no business being troops. It's just a small tax you have to pay to unlock another Hive Tyrant. Stupid.

I've stopped using platoons/blobs altogether in my IG forces because they are useless. Yes, some people will sing the praises of 50 fearless guardsmen with 5 las cannons and hidden power weapons, but it's a tremendous point sink which usually does absolutely nothing other than miss 3/5 lascannon shots a turn. It can't move around the board to do anything important, it is surprisingly easy to remove, and it does almost no damage. Yes indeed, as impressive as 150 lasgun shots may seem they usually end up doing nothing of significance.

I can get 5 lascannons elsewhere with way better rules to support them (like Rapiers) for cheaper and without wasting any points on useless guardsmen. This is unfortunate because I really like the Platoon structure and I would love to run 5 individual guardsmen squads rather than a big blob, but experience has forced me to accept the fact that if I spend anything more than the bare minimum on Troops, I'm hurting my list.

Veterans are a bit of an exception because they can be pretty specialized and can operate more like an Elite choice rather than a troop choice.

Kabalite warriors in dual cannon venoms are still reasonably decent troops. not expensive, and has a bunch of poison shots from long range.

Kabalite Warriors in Venoms are only good because the rest of the codex is so terribly written. They are 2 out of 6 of the only useful units in the entire codex.

Still, I would take them over most other troops. 12 poison shots at 36 inches for 105 points isn't bad.