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 Dakka Wolf wrote:


How cute, so, what Space Marines can take bikers as 'troops'?

Not DA. It is ravenwing vs white scars (with Khan). Ravenwing have better bikes but not obj.secured. How important obj. secured is to you?

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Space Marines Tacticals are better than most troops in the game.
Space Marine Bikers are a solid choice.
Necron Warriors always see use.
Tyranids if you go swarm you got to love your guants, gants, and Tervigon
Tyranids going for big bugs break out Mulcloids and Spore Mines
Chaos Demons love their Pink Horrors for the Psychic goodness
Imperial Guardsmen are cheap and plentiful.
Chaos Cultists are cheap and plentiful.
Eldar Jetbikes, so good they make people weep

If you are not using your troops, you're not doing it right.

How cute, so, what Space Marines can take bikers as 'troops'?

Any vanilla marine army with a biker HQ? I'm more interested in how he figures tacs, guardsmen, gaunts or cultists are worth a damn? Cultists are only taken because they're the cheapest thing in the dex. If there was an option to take a single marine for 13 points, that's what you'd see since virtually every option for troops is utter trash, might as well spend the minimum amount required to fill the CAD and then get the other, less bad stuff.

But at the end of that day, if you make troops on par with heavy support or fast attack, then why bother with HS or fast attack choices since your troops will have ObSec as well?
If you make your troops worse than FA or HS, then why take more of a worse unit? Spend the min required on troops and tkae better/more efficient FA or HS choices.

Ironically, we had a tournament yesterday and you basically could only bring troops choices plus one Elite or Fast Attck choice up to 200 points if you chose. It was a 1000 point thing someone thought up. Pretty unusual. Had to be INFANTRY Troops choices (no jumpers or bikers) etc...as your main force (but your elite or fast attack could be, again, one or the other)

Anyways, what was cool about it and my two cents on this discussion was that it was VERY interesting to see which units given you were forced to use them, were doing good work. I finished my games early in most cases and so I got to see a bit of other games inbetween.

My Scions (I brought 6 units, tooled up) were a lot better against my opponents forces dropping in and wailing on them with the Hot shot Volleyguns and Hot shot lasguns. Range wasn't an issue because Deep Striking, hitting power wasn't an issue because i was hitting infantry and the guy who took Terminators as his elite against me found out what everyone already knows: volume of fire is the answer. I was pretty pleasantly surprised and won my games. On one board, they called the "Killing Field", there was just ONE piece of terrain on the whole thing... and my opponent was IG with about a billion guns with far better range trained across the table. I won under even that kind of hardship.

The ultimate winner was a Skitarii player who killed all but 14 points of the 3000 arrayed against him...literally. He used a combination of Skitarii units to get it done but his superstar seemed to be the 30 inch high AP guns which is just silly against infantry forces to march across or dodge into cover against. I kinda wanted to face that guys list since he's a friend of mine and hes been out of town for quite a bit, but I didn't get paired with him in the final round.

I also got taught a couple lessons on the receiving end.

One of the startling STARS of the show which was not a Troops choice but was plain infantry was a unit of Ratlings (his elite choice). I was kind of surprised he took them. But both in my game against him and in his other two games, those dang ratlings did WORK. The BS 4 and Rending plus Scarper rule were GREAT performers in his games. They definitely could stay out of my way and shoot round after glorious round into me with basically impugnity so that was pretty cool to see.

Another Troops Choice that dominated were Genestealers with their big boy upgrade to get the Psyker power. He almost won but the winnr had such a huge slaughterfest that any score was going to look poor comparatively. The Tyranid destroyed his opponents with them and Mucolids running around the table (plus a Malanthrope if I recall). I frankly have no idea how he did as well as he did with that, but it definitely made me stand up and take notice when i saw how many points he killed, I've got his number now so hopefully we will throw down soon one hopes..

It was just an interesting microscope to view troops choices with.

 Drasius wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

 adamsouza wrote:
Space Marines Tacticals are better than most troops in the game.
Space Marine Bikers are a solid choice.
Necron Warriors always see use.
Tyranids if you go swarm you got to love your guants, gants, and Tervigon
Tyranids going for big bugs break out Mulcloids and Spore Mines
Chaos Demons love their Pink Horrors for the Psychic goodness
Imperial Guardsmen are cheap and plentiful.
Chaos Cultists are cheap and plentiful.
Eldar Jetbikes, so good they make people weep

If you are not using your troops, you're not doing it right.

How cute, so, what Space Marines can take bikers as 'troops'?

Any vanilla marine army with a biker HQ? I'm more interested in how he figures tacs, guardsmen, gaunts or cultists are worth a damn? Cultists are only taken because they're the cheapest thing in the dex. If there was an option to take a single marine for 13 points, that's what you'd see since virtually every option for troops is utter trash, might as well spend the minimum amount required to fill the CAD and then get the other, less bad stuff.

But at the end of that day, if you make troops on par with heavy support or fast attack, then why bother with HS or fast attack choices since your troops will have ObSec as well?
If you make your troops worse than FA or HS, then why take more of a worse unit? Spend the min required on troops and tkae better/more efficient FA or HS choices.

I stand corrected, codex ignorant Space Wolf player.
As for Guard and Cultists (Tyranids are rubbish across the board so their troops being rubbish comes as no real surprise) - Against shootie armies you're right, they're just kinda there but so is anything else that can't dive out of line of sight after shooting. Against assault armies without access to t6 and above they're a nightmare, cheap units mean tar pit tactics or just a volume of dice that will result in failed throws and dead models, just gotta remember, when the unit is cheap they're also expendable. Units don't run because something is scary they actually have to be removed, unless you're on an open board cheap units just get used to block pathways with something long-range covering them. In the case of Guard minimise the unit and give it transport, drive your cheap unit up, close off pathways and wait to shoot the hell out of whatever kills them. Guard's biggest problems at the moment aren't crappy troops, their biggest problems are that against shootie armies vehicles are suicide vessels and ignores cover is as common as the colour green in an orc army.

Isn't the problem, that Troops choices don't do anything special which other units don't do?

If you either have to take Objectives or reduce enemy actions then aren't this done by having the Scoring or Objective secured special rules or having the ability to kill enemy units?

Since it makes sense that units other than Troops choices are good at killing units in their own way, I guess that Troops choices at least should have the role of taking objectives. I think this has been mentioned many times, so it's not a radical train of thoughts... Would it be terrible to remove Objective Secured and only have Scoring for Troops choices?

Would you agree, that with so many different units, it would suit the game to have more aspects than the two classics: to take objectives and kill units?

Well Troops choices are seen as a tax most of the time, but Objective Secured plays big. I can tell you at least three tournaments in recent history hinged on me having it at the end. I tend to go last by choice whenever possible so it is often the case that it matters.

One of those games involved a deathstar which essentially couldnt stop a 23 point Crisis Suit from stealing the game from them. I am sure that was frustrating for them. But they forsook the Troops and minimized the investment in them and I did not.

I'm fully aware that killing things is a thing. But its not hte only thing. and gamers often say it is. It wasn't in those three games and it mattered.

It wont always but then...what matters ALWAYS? Not much. Everything is relative and this is no exception. I'd rather have it than not though and it shows in my bullds. I have a couple of armies that minimize this because the codex doesnt match up well against Eldar and i need the extra help but most of them are 4 troop minimums.

Orc Troops get bikes. Orc Stompas have fearless bubbles and Orc players struggle to find enough deployment space on most tables to field their tides.
Shouldn't you be asking for things they don't already have...?

No, Orks don't get bikes as troops. One Speial Character from an out of print Imperial Armour book can take bikes as troops.
That's not the same thing at all.
Are you suggesting it's practical to put a stompa in a 1000 point game. I don't use a stompa under 3000 points.
Struggle? Well, just last night we played 4500 points on a 4X6 table. My army had 360+ models in it. so ya I had 150 orks in reserve so ya, I was struggling to deploy them. I also had 4 ruined buildings eating up my deployment space. I would gladly have given up 3 of those to put my mobs on the board. I didn't even think to ask about doing that and just played it as was.

I would have been very happy to have had more boys too.
thudd guns are way too nasty to use anything expensive in large mobs. My poor Storm boys got zorched way too quickly. I think it would have been a much different game (drastically different) if instead of using Ghaz I had tried for ad got Master of Ambush. But I also would have had a third of my army destroyed to loosing combats and failing to flee!
I don't like Special Characters but I paid the fearless tax so I could at least stand a chance.

If anyone's wondering what all that screaming was last night, it was Corax being clubbed to death by two mobs of boys.
And a good time was had by all.

"If you are not using your troops, you're not doing it right."

BA beg to differ. Tactical marines have been victims for a long, long time now. Boltguns have never been less relevant and the best they can do is special/combi for shooting. Awful.

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


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

Indeed,

I actually took troops in a 2500pts 10-man Apocalypse game last night:
2 Vanguard squads with Arc Pistols and Rifles, they basically didn't get noticed, and ended up doing 11 hull points in over 4 turns.
Probably would've got shot to pieces if they killed something.

And a 20-man AdSec covenant, which tarpitted a Knight Crusader for 2 turns. That was definitely a good idea.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:

How cute, so, what Space Marines can take bikers as 'troops'?

Any of them using Codex: Space Marines

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


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

RIght - this is the issue in a nutshell. There is a huge disparity in the utility of Troops choices between armies. The problem has never been summed up by scoring vs. contesting (5th ed.) but rather by the utility of the Troops choices themselves.

One could argue that the situation was better when Troops were required as scoring units. I only see this shifting the disparity in the wrong direction - Jetbikes are amazing. Tactical Marines are lackluster in comparison. Forcing the SM player to take more Tactical Marines isn't balancing the issue - it's forcing him to use an inferior unit and reducing his ability to take units that function well in the current rule set.

 warhead01 wrote:

Orc Troops get bikes. Orc Stompas have fearless bubbles and Orc players struggle to find enough deployment space on most tables to field their tides.
Shouldn't you be asking for things they don't already have...?

No, Orks don't get bikes as troops. One Speial Character from an out of print Imperial Armour book can take bikes as troops.
That's not the same thing at all.
Are you suggesting it's practical to put a stompa in a 1000 point game. I don't use a stompa under 3000 points.
Struggle? Well, just last night we played 4500 points on a 4X6 table. My army had 360+ models in it. so ya I had 150 orks in reserve so ya, I was struggling to deploy them. I also had 4 ruined buildings eating up my deployment space. I would gladly have given up 3 of those to put my mobs on the board. I didn't even think to ask about doing that and just played it as was.

I would have been very happy to have had more boys too.
thudd guns are way too nasty to use anything expensive in large mobs. My poor Storm boys got zorched way too quickly. I think it would have been a much different game (drastically different) if instead of using Ghaz I had tried for ad got Master of Ambush. But I also would have had a third of my army destroyed to loosing combats and failing to flee!
I don't like Special Characters but I paid the fearless tax so I could at least stand a chance.

If anyone's wondering what all that screaming was last night, it was Corax being clubbed to death by two mobs of boys.
And a good time was had by all.

That out of print book still qualifies in tournaments so it is a valid point.
I've gone up against Stompas in 1000 point games, one day tournaments mostly. Risk and Reward mate, in a tournament most people run wide coverage armies, but with a Stompa and a bit of luck in the draw you can wind up facing armies that simply have no real answer to them. It's how one the last tournament wound up with three Orc armies in the top four 1st, 2nd and 4th. People just did't think they'd be facing a super heavy, something about them being 'impractical'.
Green Tide can manage to force models to reserves at 2000 points on a 6x4.

That out of print book still qualifies in tournaments so it is a valid point.
I've gone up against Stompas in 1000 point games, one day tournaments mostly. Risk and Reward mate, in a tournament most people run wide coverage armies, but with a Stompa and a bit of luck in the draw you can wind up facing armies that simply have no real answer to them. It's how one the last tournament wound up with three Orc armies in the top four 1st, 2nd and 4th. People just did't think they'd be facing a super heavy, something about them being 'impractical'.
Green Tide can manage to force models to reserves at 2000 points on a 6x4.

Maybe I didn't make my position on that biker boss from Forge World clear. If it's one named HQ choice not in the codex then saying Orks have bikers as troops isn't being truthful at all. It's not an option in any way shape of directly from codex Orks. My first point was, Slugga boys and Shoota boys are in the codex and I'd like them to be more meaningful in every game at any size. with out being ridicules and without going up in points if possible.
I'm not telling you you can't use a stompa at whatever points I just don't agree that it's a practical answer to "?how do I make my orks fearless or at the very least how could I keep my Orks from murdering each other."
Sadly the last time I used a stompa it was kerploded by two knight titans in a single assault. ... ( this is the only time I have ever had a stompa destroyed, it just doesn't happen)
When it comes to how I play my 40K I tend to adjust my armies power level to be an even match for the people I play with and we. they bring an army I bring a horror movie.
For me it's all about the fight no the finish.
I'd be thrilled for Orks to return to the place of power they held during the third edition codex some 10 glorious years.

I hope this didn't come off as too snappy or rude.

 warhead01 wrote:

That out of print book still qualifies in tournaments so it is a valid point.
I've gone up against Stompas in 1000 point games, one day tournaments mostly. Risk and Reward mate, in a tournament most people run wide coverage armies, but with a Stompa and a bit of luck in the draw you can wind up facing armies that simply have no real answer to them. It's how one the last tournament wound up with three Orc armies in the top four 1st, 2nd and 4th. People just did't think they'd be facing a super heavy, something about them being 'impractical'.
Green Tide can manage to force models to reserves at 2000 points on a 6x4.

Maybe I didn't make my position on that biker boss from Forge World clear. If it's one named HQ choice not in the codex then saying Orks have bikers as troops isn't being truthful at all. It's not an option in any way shape of directly from codex Orks. My first point was, Slugga boys and Shoota boys are in the codex and I'd like them to be more meaningful in every game at any size. with out being ridicules and without going up in points if possible.
I'm not telling you you can't use a stompa at whatever points I just don't agree that it's a practical answer to "?how do I make my orks fearless or at the very least how could I keep my Orks from murdering each other."
Sadly the last time I used a stompa it was kerploded by two knight titans in a single assault. ... ( this is the only time I have ever had a stompa destroyed, it just doesn't happen)
When it comes to how I play my 40K I tend to adjust my armies power level to be an even match for the people I play with and we. they bring an army I bring a horror movie.
For me it's all about the fight no the finish.
I'd be thrilled for Orks to return to the place of power they held during the third edition codex some 10 glorious years.

I hope this didn't come off as too snappy or rude.

I wouldn't be overly worried if it did come off that way, frustrates the hell out of me that Vanilla Space Marines have nice things that aren't available to the Wolves, frustrates me more when people think the Wolves get them because they're marines, I can only imagine Orc players have similar vents.

I know this is about Troops, but if Troops were the only units with the Scoring special rule and Fast Attack and Heavy Support choices were just good at killing units in their own ways, what could be unique for Elite choices? Having the ability to do both but not as good as dedicated units?

Elite units, should (in my opinion) be just that. Elite, and therefore limited by comparison to the basic troops.

I could go on a long diatribe about how reasonably forces should be arranged in 40K but it all flies in the face of...(drum roll pleassssseee!)...selling models.

GW will never bring much common sense back to the organization of forces in 40K because it hurts their bottom line: sales.

Yes, troops should be the only scoring units.
Yes, troops should be required in all force-orgs.
Yes, support and elite choices could be limited to one each per 2 troop units, etc.

But none of that helps sell models.

What does to say about 40K, a tabletop wargame, that its troops have become largely irrelevant?

Myself, I rarely take more than three or four Veteran units these days, they are just not worth it. And they are our best troops choice

Not to belabor the point, but 40K, whilst fun with a very cool universe has never been a particularly good game, and I say that as a huge fan of 2nd (which still wasn't a great game by many measures). Warhammer 40K has always been aesthetically pleasing, filled with interesting fluff and a constantly evolving product line - and that's why it's popular (it's own popularity also feeds on its success as it's damn easy to find opponents etc.) but its rules have never been its strong point.

Chaospling wrote:Isn't the problem, that Troops choices don't do anything special which other units don't do?

If you either have to take Objectives or reduce enemy actions then aren't this done by having the Scoring or Objective secured special rules or having the ability to kill enemy units?

Since it makes sense that units other than Troops choices are good at killing units in their own way, I guess that Troops choices at least should have the role of taking objectives. I think this has been mentioned many times, so it's not a radical train of thoughts... Would it be terrible to remove Objective Secured and only have Scoring for Troops choices?

Would you agree, that with so many different units, it would suit the game to have more aspects than the two classics: to take objectives and kill units?

Troops don't have problems - of they are bike troops or anything other than infantry. The problem is that infantry don't do anything special that other units don't do. Even if drop pod tactical squads are good it's because they are a drop pod that deploys grav or melta, just indirectly through infantry models. You also have lots of elite infantry that are awful because they are infantry: chaos chosen, terminators, storm troops, dark reapers, nid warriors. Troops are fine though, if they are bikes.

So if you say "troops should be scoring," you should just say what about infantry would make them good for taking objectives? Don't give them a magic fiat rule for them as the only thing scoring, give them stuff that makes them better at scoring than titans are. Infantry can belly down in cover and get really good shots. If they are in cover or near an objective, give them bonus shooting or better cover against war machines.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

RIght - this is the issue in a nutshell. There is a huge disparity in the utility of Troops choices between armies. The problem has never been summed up by scoring vs. contesting (5th ed.) but rather by the utility of the Troops choices themselves.

One could argue that the situation was better when Troops were required as scoring units. I only see this shifting the disparity in the wrong direction - Jetbikes are amazing. Tactical Marines are lackluster in comparison. Forcing the SM player to take more Tactical Marines isn't balancing the issue - it's forcing him to use an inferior unit and reducing his ability to take units that function well in the current rule set.

If you've got good troops and everyone else is forced to take their less useful troops, you have an advantage. I don't think that's good at all.

 Elbows wrote:

I could go on a long diatribe about how reasonably forces should be arranged in 40K but it all flies in the face of...(drum roll pleassssseee!)...selling models.

GW will never bring much common sense back to the organization of forces in 40K because it hurts their bottom line: sales.

Yes, troops should be the only scoring units.
Yes, troops should be required in all force-orgs.
Yes, support and elite choices could be limited to one each per 2 troop units, etc.

But none of that helps sell models.

You know I played in third edition when this was required, and it was garbage. Yeah there is no point in watching two teams based around the same core of 2x samey squads of samey 28m models move six inches a turn toward each other. I'm going to need some all-flyer and all-monster lists to go up against.

Sorry you feel that way...but 3rd was crap anyway.

That's cause bikers have +1 T, can roll through cover like no big deal and effectively fight in melee for some reason. I mean just go back to "dead on a failed dt test" instead of taking armor saves for bikes and this alone would make troops and jumppackers relevant again.

 koooaei wrote:
That's cause bikers have +1 T, can roll through cover like no big deal and effectively fight in melee for some reason. I mean just go back to "dead on a failed dt test" instead of taking armor saves for bikes and this alone would make troops and jumppackers relevant again.

Marine Bikers don't exactly fight in melee well. They've got one attack unless you're doing specific Chapter Tactics (Templars, Carcharodons, White Scars w/ Hit And Run).

 koooaei wrote:
That's cause bikers have +1 T, can roll through cover like no big deal and effectively fight in melee for some reason. I mean just go back to "dead on a failed dt test" instead of taking armor saves for bikes and this alone would make troops and jumppackers relevant again.

I've been thinking for ages the bike rules are completely daft. They get a bunch of advantages over regular infantry, and no real drawbacks.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Marine Bikers don't exactly fight in melee well

Than why do we see every smashfether riding a bike and fencing with a thunder hammer?

 koooaei wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Marine Bikers don't exactly fight in melee well

Than why do we see every smashfether riding a bike and fencing with a thunder hammer?

Smashfether and bike command squad are not troops. But you could get obj.sec. bike command squad in part of Battle Demi-Company.

Battle Demi-Company gives obj.sec. to all of it members, example for command squad and for dreads.

Sisters troops are pretty good.
KDK troops are pretty good.
CSM troops are garbage.
Guard troops are pretty good.
Chaos troops are pretty good.

So 4 outta 5 aint bad for my armies

Hummm...Necron warriors are amongs the best units in the game. Obviously windriders, guardians are actually great too if you know how to use them. SM bikes. IG blobs. IG Vets triple plas or melta at bs 4. Fire warriors - 18 inch rapid fire str5 for 10 points? These are all great units that I use frequently.

The point is there are plenty of bad HS, Fast attack, and elite units too. It doesn't make their unit types irrelevant. The correct way of looking at it is that troops are not a requirement when making a list anymore - they can be completely excluded and you can still win games. You can build a list around troops if you want.

If you really want to spam troops play Necron or Eldar. They even give you options about what awesome troops to spam.

Haven't played in a long time, but my Raven Guard always consisted of a backbone of MSU's of Scout squads (as many as five 5 man squads), with an occasional single Tactical Squad in a drop pod, Assault Marines, Veterans (Vanguard and Sternguard), Devestators, a Storm Talon and a couple of Dreadnoughts.

The Scouts were always the starting point.

 Nazrak wrote:

 koooaei wrote:
That's cause bikers have +1 T, can roll through cover like no big deal and effectively fight in melee for some reason. I mean just go back to "dead on a failed dt test" instead of taking armor saves for bikes and this alone would make troops and jumppackers relevant again.

I've been thinking for ages the bike rules are completely daft. They get a bunch of advantages over regular infantry, and no real drawbacks.

The draw back is suppose to be their points cost. But regular infantry are not adequately priced

And dangerous terrain, i suppose.