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Dangerous terrain? Marine Bikers laugh at that, hell all Marines do. I cannot remember the last time I saw a none vehicle Marine model take a wound due to dangerous terrain.

 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?

Because that's a shedload of points put into building a deathstar.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Dangerous terrain? Marine Bikers laugh at that, hell all Marines do. I cannot remember the last time I saw a none vehicle Marine model take a wound due to dangerous terrain.

Statistically speaking, there's a 1/18 chance of any given marine model suffering one.

 Traditio wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Dangerous terrain? Marine Bikers laugh at that, hell all Marines do. I cannot remember the last time I saw a none vehicle Marine model take a wound due to dangerous terrain.

Statistically speaking, there's a 1/18 chance of any given marine model suffering one.

I don't think I've seen Bikes take that many tests since 7th started....

pm713 wrote:I don't think I've seen Bikes take that many tests since 7th started....

Well, in all fairness, white scars bikes have a null chance of failing such tests. They auto-pass. Right off hand, I don't recall the "why."

 Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:I don't think I've seen Bikes take that many tests since 7th started....

Well, in all fairness, white scars bikes have a null chance of failing such tests. They auto-pass. Right off hand, I don't recall the "why."

Because DA having the special all Bike company was unfair so the Favoured Ones get better Bikes.

I wasn't even including White Scars when I said that.

The thing i'm trying to point out is that you're not supposed to fight in melee or roll through difficult terrain when you're riding a bike. Jumppacks are for that. Bikes are for fast movement across flat terrain and for some firepower cause you can more easilly transport larger guns. Yet the rules favor bikes in melee cause of +1T, constant HoW and armor/invul + fnp helps you ignore dt.
Bikes are representing some sort of cavalry. And cavalry DID NOT fight in melee. They utilised crushing charges + H&R. The moment a horseman gets stuck in melee, he looses his main advantage - speed - and becomes very vulnerable vs foot soldiers.
Yet the rules suggest that he can be as good and even better as a foot soldier cause...magic bikes.

Cavalry in the age of effective firepower often would use the mount for positioning, then dismount before engaging.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with Troops that can't be solved by requiring all lists to actually have a significant amount of Troops. To use the codex I know best as an example, Codex: Dark Angels, if I'm using a CAD, I can fill out my mandatory Troops requirement with two Scout Squads costing barely over 100pts for the pair. That's a pittance - less than 10% of the points of most commonly played lists. Now, if someone else was playing a Troops heavy list, and I took minimal Troops and filled out the rest of my points with Ravenwing they could barely touch, then that player would conclude that Troops suck. However, it's not so much that Troops suck, it's that they're less powerful for the points than, say, Ravenwing Knights, or Riptides, or Wraithknights, or Flyrants, or whatever else people use in abundance in tournament-competitive lists. The rules incentivise taking minimal Troops to have more points to spend on those more powerful units.

This flies in the face of what GW would have us believe about army comp. In the main rules, the first line in the description of the Troops category is, "These represent the most commonly available soldiers in an army." The following line is in that same paragraph: " Typically, these are the warriors that make up the bulk of an army. " However, GW doesn't back up the fluff with corresponding rules. Instead, they seem to expect everyone to just make their army lists in accordance with their descriptions. That, of course, doesn't reliably happen even in pickup games, and the only time it's going to happen in a competitive environment is going to be when someone is playing something like a double Gladius, which incentivises massed Troops with a lot of extra benefits.

I say up the Troops requirement. My gaming group has been playing with a 40% Troops minimum house rule, and we've had fantastic results, resulting in a much more balanced gaming environment, and generally speaking very tight games. Very rarely do we get a blowout, and even in the rare cases someone gets tabled, they usually at least have the satisfaction of doing some damage.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with Troops that can't be solved by requiring all lists to actually have a significant amount of Troops. To use the codex I know best as an example, Codex: Dark Angels, if I'm using a CAD, I can fill out my mandatory Troops requirement with two Scout Squads costing barely over 100pts for the pair. That's a pittance - less than 10% of the points of most commonly played lists. Now, if someone else was playing a Troops heavy list, and I took minimal Troops and filled out the rest of my points with Ravenwing they could barely touch, then that player would conclude that Troops suck. However, it's not so much that Troops suck, it's that they're less powerful for the points than, say, Ravenwing Knights, or Riptides, or Wraithknights, or Flyrants, or whatever else people use in abundance in tournament-competitive lists. The rules incentivise taking minimal Troops to have more points to spend on those more powerful units.

This flies in the face of what GW would have us believe about army comp. In the main rules, the first line in the description of the Troops category is, "These represent the most commonly available soldiers in an army." The following line is in that same paragraph: " Typically, these are the warriors that make up the bulk of an army. " However, GW doesn't back up the fluff with corresponding rules. Instead, they seem to expect everyone to just make their army lists in accordance with their descriptions. That, of course, doesn't reliably happen even in pickup games, and the only time it's going to happen in a competitive environment is going to be when someone is playing something like a double Gladius, which incentivises massed Troops with a lot of extra benefits.

I say up the Troops requirement. My gaming group has been playing with a 40% Troops minimum house rule, and we've had fantastic results, resulting in a much more balanced gaming environment, and generally speaking very tight games. Very rarely do we get a blowout, and even in the rare cases someone gets tabled, they usually at least have the satisfaction of doing some damage.

Then scatterbikes just kill everything.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with Troops that can't be solved by requiring all lists to actually have a significant amount of Troops. To use the codex I know best as an example, Codex: Dark Angels, if I'm using a CAD, I can fill out my mandatory Troops requirement with two Scout Squads costing barely over 100pts for the pair. That's a pittance - less than 10% of the points of most commonly played lists. Now, if someone else was playing a Troops heavy list, and I took minimal Troops and filled out the rest of my points with Ravenwing they could barely touch, then that player would conclude that Troops suck. However, it's not so much that Troops suck, it's that they're less powerful for the points than, say, Ravenwing Knights, or Riptides, or Wraithknights, or Flyrants, or whatever else people use in abundance in tournament-competitive lists. The rules incentivise taking minimal Troops to have more points to spend on those more powerful units.

Which is why you can look at Horus Heresy (30k) games and see a fair amount of troops, because they stuck with the previous edition's version of "only troops can take & hold objectives). Well....not exclusively, but the non-troops who can are limited in the extreme and tend to be 'alternate subsets' of things which are troops anyway (like the Veteran Tactical Squad).

Then scatterbikes just kill everything.

That's a fundamental problem with a specific unit, rather than the game itself (Admittedly it gives the game a fundamental problem as a result).

If currently ineffective units were priced lower and highly effective units were more expensive, you wouldn't have a troop shortage.

Everything snowballs. Fire warriors are objectively better than tac marines because the tac marines won't live to use their assault stats in 7th ed. Might as well go all in on shooting. And they wound T6 at twice the rate, which is a critical breakpoint.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with Troops that can't be solved by requiring all lists to actually have a significant amount of Troops. To use the codex I know best as an example, Codex: Dark Angels, if I'm using a CAD, I can fill out my mandatory Troops requirement with two Scout Squads costing barely over 100pts for the pair. That's a pittance - less than 10% of the points of most commonly played lists. Now, if someone else was playing a Troops heavy list, and I took minimal Troops and filled out the rest of my points with Ravenwing they could barely touch, then that player would conclude that Troops suck. However, it's not so much that Troops suck, it's that they're less powerful for the points than, say, Ravenwing Knights, or Riptides, or Wraithknights, or Flyrants, or whatever else people use in abundance in tournament-competitive lists. The rules incentivise taking minimal Troops to have more points to spend on those more powerful units.

This flies in the face of what GW would have us believe about army comp. In the main rules, the first line in the description of the Troops category is, "These represent the most commonly available soldiers in an army." The following line is in that same paragraph: " Typically, these are the warriors that make up the bulk of an army. " However, GW doesn't back up the fluff with corresponding rules. Instead, they seem to expect everyone to just make their army lists in accordance with their descriptions. That, of course, doesn't reliably happen even in pickup games, and the only time it's going to happen in a competitive environment is going to be when someone is playing something like a double Gladius, which incentivises massed Troops with a lot of extra benefits.

I say up the Troops requirement. My gaming group has been playing with a 40% Troops minimum house rule, and we've had fantastic results, resulting in a much more balanced gaming environment, and generally speaking very tight games. Very rarely do we get a blowout, and even in the rare cases someone gets tabled, they usually at least have the satisfaction of doing some damage.

That's bandaiding the problem rather than solving it. Yes if you up the requirements you see more but you still don't see more than what's minimum required. And doesn't help the lousier troop choices compared to the better ones(scatbikes). Indeed that problem is only negated by having LESS required troops as then those with crappy troops don't have to take them making more powerful troop advantage less.

It's same reason why in warmachine simply doubling up free jack points doesn't really help with boosting warjacks. Yes you see more jacks but still they are only taken in minimum(yes I know they added other benefits too. But that's the point. You fix the issue by making them rule wise good. Not by forcing to take crappy unit or giving extra points to take crappy unit. Which is sort of a minimum requirement by another method anyway)

I dunno, scouts in storms aren't too bad. Blinding Stormsurges and Necrons is always fun.

Even the guard dosen't need to rely on troops, what with the "Steel Host" formation and whatnot. Guardsmen were always the weakest troops, but now they're even more useless. Just go with more tanks. It works for me.

Martel732 wrote:
Then scatterbikes just kill everything.

Scatbikes are a problem. In my group, our Eldar players don't abuse with Scatbikes, but there's definately TFGs out there who would. Short term solution - don't play them. "Oh, your list is 40% Scatbikes? Go pound sand." If you have a regular group, you could try and push a group consensus that Windriders be considered Fast Attack, or at the very least that they don't count towards the 40% Troops minimum. Eventually, I'd like to think GW will address the problem, probably by shifting Windriders to Fast Attack.

tneva82 wrote:
That's bandaiding the problem rather than solving it. Yes if you up the requirements you see more but you still don't see more than what's minimum required. And doesn't help the lousier troop choices compared to the better ones(scatbikes). Indeed that problem is only negated by having LESS required troops as then those with crappy troops don't have to take them making more powerful troop advantage less.

It depends on what you consider a problem. I don't necessarily think it's bad that Troops are less powerful than other units. That's like considering it a problem pawns are weaker than queens in chess. Granted, there are a few outliers, Scatbikes being the most obvious (see above on those), but generally speaking, I find Troops to be pretty well balanced against each other. Decreasing the overall power level of armies means players armies stay on the table longer, letting them actually use their armies more, letting them have more fun overall. Isn't that the point of any game?

Xathrodox86 wrote:Even the guard dosen't need to rely on troops, what with the "Steel Host" formation and whatnot. Guardsmen were always the weakest troops, but now they're even more useless. Just go with more tanks. It works for me.

I disagree that Guard Troops are useless. I think they're pretty good. Every time my IG playing friend has a unit go to ground behind an ADL, and then has an officer order them right back up again on his turn, I get jealous.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:
It depends on what you consider a problem. I don't necessarily think it's bad that Troops are less powerful than other units. That's like considering it a problem pawns are weaker than queens in chess. Granted, there are a few outliers, Scatbikes being the most obvious (see above on those), but generally speaking, I find Troops to be pretty well balanced against each other. Decreasing the overall power level of armies means players armies stay on the table longer, letting them actually use their armies more, letting them have more fun overall. Isn't that the point of any game?

They can be worse than others but then they _need to be cheaper_.

It's no good if something is only taken because you HAVE to take them. There needs to be reason why you WANT to take them even when not required. Otherwise you just take minimum and then hope your troops just don't suck vs other peoples troops.

conversely what if Scat bikes are how GW wants to make ALL troops choices? If you could arm every space Marine tac with a heavy bolter for 5pts wouldn't you? It would be fun to pump out 30 S5 shots from a Tac squad

Im kidding of course, Horde armies are basically dead as it currently stands, adding in another layer of HOLY CRAP wouldn't help.

If Guardsmen, Dire Avengers, Kalabites, Ork Boyz, and Necron Warriors were more common, Tacs would be amazing.

Bharring wrote:
If Guardsmen, Dire Avengers, Kalabites, Ork Boyz, and Necron Warriors were more common, Tacs would be amazing.

Necron Warriors are already awesome and fielded regularly. So beyond that what your saying is that if a bunch of garbage troops options were taken more regularly, SM's would have a good choice in Tacs.....well, not really. Their are fundamental flaws in the game design right now, troops used to be necessary, now they are a tax.

I have over 100 boyz easily and the most competitive lists I can build require none of them.

IF the rules are written focusing on game play, and every unit in each force is created with a specific tactical role , to generate over archng tactical diversity and flexibility in each faction/force.The common units in the force are the foundation the force is built on.

However, in a tactically shallow game like 40k, where the driving force is selling cool looking minatures, Irrespective of game play function and theme.
The lack of tactical depth means the cool looking minatures have to have special snowflake rules, special snow flake equipment to help sell them.

So they are actively better at the only basic function 40k focused on, than the troops selection.

if 40k had rules written focusing on game play not short term minature sales , ALL units would be viable alternatives.As they could shine at different roles the current 40k rules do not cover.

Perhaps not Decurion Necron Warriors. I was thinking sans Formation bonuses.

The problem with Tacs being good is that the things they beat aren't good, so aren't seen often. They are one of the better troops in the game, but even they aren't competitive.

If Kalabites and Guardians were as common as Scatter bikes and Gladius, the lowly Tac marine would do well.

You won't see many Kalabites and Guardians because (1) other things do it better (so we need to fix that), and (2) too much, especially of the commonly seen variety, beats them too readily.

You'd need to do a lot of rebalancing to make most Troops common. But once some other troops become common, the troops that perform best against them become much more viable.

So nerf or bump the cost of the non-troops that mulch troops. That's the first step. Then fix stupidity like Scatterbikes. Then, without touching most troops, you'll suddenly see more of them.

Bharring wrote:
If Guardsmen, Dire Avengers, Kalabites, Ork Boyz, and Necron Warriors were more common, Tacs would be amazing.

Tacticals would still be garbage because Bikers and Scouts exist.

That's like saying the Shuriken Catapault Windrider is garbage because scatbikes?

If most armies were things like Kalabites and Dire Avengers, Tacs would be very worthwhile. Options that were strictly better would be inherently OP.

Bharring wrote:
That's like saying the Shuriken Catapault Windrider is garbage because scatbikes?

If most armies were things like Kalabites and Dire Avengers, Tacs would be very worthwhile. Options that were strictly better would be inherently OP.

Tactical marines have been bad in 5 out of 7 editions. I don't know why you are focusing on them.

Because we're talking about making troops good.

And Marines beat most Troops in the game, head to head.

So if other Troops became viable as-is, Tacs would become viable as-is.

Stock windriders in comparison to a tactical marine is an absolute joke. +3 points for TL pusedo rending and 3x the mobility - jink - and hammer of wrath. Notice the scatter laser isn't even part of this discussion.

Nobody is arguing that Scatter Bikes aren't broken.

The specific debate is if Kalabites and Ork Boyz and GuardIans and such became more common via fixing the units that kick their assess so hard currently, Marines as-is would be effective.

Scatterbikes is one of the things that would need to be fixed. They hose most other troops even more than Tacs.

Plus half range so unless you have incredible luck you're going to be charged. Guess how good Windriders are in combat.

pm713 wrote:
Plus half range so unless you have incredible luck you're going to be charged. Guess how good Windriders are in combat.

Yeah, except either A) there's nothing left to assault you because you killed it or B) you use your Assault move and jump away.