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Tyel wrote:
To be honest I think they have just screwed up the numbers.

You can say its meaningless but ultimately damage/point figures don't lie. They are why you try to shoot anti-vehicle guns into vehicles/MC and why you shoot anti infantry guns into infantry. You kill more stuff with what you have on the table and as a result you go on to win the game.

People are saying things like "oh well marines kill hordes".
Well - they don't. The damage output per point is very poor - far weaker than what that horde will do to basic marines.

At the end of the day things like lascannons are very efficient against vehicles. Plasma is very efficient against 2 wound or expensive elite infantry. I can't see anything that is pushing 30-50% points return vs cheap infantry. Mass flamers, mass heavy bolters, mass guns which were previously small blast were meant to qualify and they don't.

Which is why the meta is going to be towards hordes which carry amongst their number sufficient heavy guns to take out vehicles and more elite infantry (not that they do too badly against such infantry anyway).

This isn't just mathhammer either. We are seeing it across games of 8th. Killing cheap infantry should not be this difficult.

Is that bad on a macro level though? I can only speak for myself of course but I love having big Infantry games. Now that individual models die quicker now, on average, it's not as cumbersome as it could have been in the past which was a huge knock against big list on big list. Now for purposes of this discussion there are some issues with things like Conscripts, like Gaunts, being maybe a point too cheap in some situations.

Now at a game level this can be an issue, for example Marines seem like they can do fine against Hordes....if you take 100+ Marines and their necessary support. That I can see being a problem because I'll admit, the typical 2k lists I see from more elite armies can't do anything to my Green Tide list. I'm not sure what can be done about that, the anti-Morale tools and lack of specialized guns paints a bad picture. And even if you sell out against hordes....people are going to play mech and then you'll get stomped. That COULD lead to P/R/S but it's not clear yet.

It's funny that a bunch of people who don't play horde armies are saying hordes will be wildly overpowered, and a bunch of people who do play horde armies are saying that practical concerns with getting your models in position, range, etc. make them worse than one might expect.

Yes, losing blast templates is a buff to massed units - I used to play two Thunderfire Cannons to destroy hordes, and they're not even close to efficient now - but there are a lot of other things that hit them hard. When I played most frequently, in 5th edition, 4+ cover was more or less guaranteed under normal circumstances. Now, that's gone. Many horde units have in practice become significantly less resilient as a result. Tesla weapons still work, people are building Razorbacks and Taurox Primes with huge numbers of basic shots, etc.

We'll see how it goes, but I think that hordes - while strong - won't be as all-consuming as people seem to think. The guys over at Frontline Gaming seem to think that all-vehicle armies may be prevalent, which certainly put a bit of a damper on horde attacks.

On the points efficiency of hordes vs marines.

A 10-man space marine squad in cover will have an average points removed per turn to points spent ratio of about 0.14 versus guardsmen in rapid fire range.

A 50 man conscript squad will have an average points removed per turn to points spent ratio against the marines of 0.16 assuming no buffs and all in rapid fire range, or 0.12 assuming no buffs and half in rapid fire range (more likely). When buffed (assuming commissar and company commander are servicing two units, so only including half their cost in the calculations) they have a points removed per turn to points spent ratio of 0.27 assuming all in rapid fire range, or 0.20 assuming half in rapid fire range (more likely).

So unbuffed conscripts are basically terrible in terms of damage output, being less points efficient than marines unless you can get most of them into rapid fire range. Buffed conscripts are where it gets scary, which is why I think modifying how conscripts interact with buffs is where adjustments should be made for balance.

I put the marines in cover, as they can reliably get cover saves while the conscripts will find it nearly impossible to do so. Keep in mind, however, that if instead of doing the infantry rush, the conscripts are just playing roadblock, the marines may have to go to them, in which case the conscripts basically double in points efficiency.

Bumping conscripts to 4ppm boosts the marines' ratio to 0.18 points removed per turn for each point spent.

You know, I know this is a crazy idea, but since models don't block LoS, the marines can just shoot whatever the conscripts are protecting.

 Melissia wrote:
You know, I know this is a crazy idea, but since models don't block LoS, the marines can just shoot whatever the conscripts are protecting.

Models do, but only the enemy models. You can ignore your own models to drawn LOS. But I agree that is very very difficult to block units behind other units if they are all infantry.


EDIT: Or maybe I'm completely wrong because something like this would allow you to shoot enemies behind your vehicles without they shooting you. So probably I'm wrong here, I don't remember why I think I have read that rule for 8th.

If I remember correctly-- and I may very well not-- they don't block LoS at all in 8th?

 Galas wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
You know, I know this is a crazy idea, but since models don't block LoS, the marines can just shoot whatever the conscripts are protecting.

Models do, but only the enemy models. You can ignore your own models to drawn LOS. But I agree that is very very difficult to block units behind other units if they are all infantry.


EDIT: Or maybe I'm completely wrong because something like this would allow you to shoot enemies behind your vehicles without they shooting you. So probably I'm wrong here, I don't remember why I think I have read that rule for 8th.

Close - you can ignore models in your own unit for shooting, but not models from other units in your army.

Ok, Thanks! That was what I read!

But other than that, they do nothing - there's no cover for shooting through a unit, so unless you bunch things up super-close, it's unlikely that infantry models will deny LOS to other infantry at all.

With massive hordes of conscripts you dont need to block LoS when you can just straight up block range of meltas, rokkets and the like or at the very least keep things like plasma out of rapid fire range. With big hordes you can block off entire parts of the map so the enemy cant deep strike behind your lines to get to the things that actually hurt.

And a personal favorite of mine is that you could just also use their mass of bodies to screen your baneblades in melee. A baneblade in melee can fire its flamers and bolters into the mass while firing its nice things outside of melee all the while being not too bad in said melee but also being immune to return fire.

Tyel wrote:

At the end of the day things like lascannons are very efficient against vehicles.

They're not as efficient as one might think. It takes roughly 8 Lascannons at BS 3+ to knock out a Rhino.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Tyel wrote:

At the end of the day things like lascannons are very efficient against vehicles.

They're not as efficient as one might think. It takes roughly 8 Lascannons at BS 3+ to knock out a Rhino.

It means a lascannon marine gets close to 25% of his points back a shot. This isnt bad. More over its low because the rhino is cheap. Shoot say a predator and you double your effectiveness. (Perhaps more practically - its 50% more efficient to shoot a razorback)
By contrast a marine outside rapid fire range gets about 7% back shooting conscripts. You will be there all day.
A heavy bolter gets just 15% - so its essentially the same as having the points invested in regular marines at rapid fire range.
Things are a bit better vs 4 point guardsmen but its the same issue. There do not seem to be dedicated anti infantry weapons. Flamers are only about 21%.

Why does this matter? Well it matters because it means you won't shoot hordes off the table. Which means they will be able to clump up on objectives.
Meanwhile they have a chance to shoot you off the table or fight you on objectives. So the meta will tend to go their way.

I can see vehicle spam being a possible counter skew - but at the same time it rewards your opponent for taking anti-armour guns. I would suspect the risk vs reward factor to tell against it in a tournament.

I don't think this "percentage of points back per shot" style of analysis is much good - when you get right down to it, games aren't won or lost in a spreadsheet, but on the table.

Movement, range, cover, and other complexities tend to get abstracted away with these calculations, and almost all of these factors tend to favor smaller armies rather than hordes. Similarly, hordes rely on buff characters that can potentially be sniped and they need support elements to deal with some targets - it takes 108 Conscript lasgun shots on average to put one wound on a Stormtalon, for instance, and Ork Boyz can't charge one at all!

I'm not saying hordes are garbage - they clearly have some strengths, and in fact I expect them to do quite well - but I think people vastly overstate the extent to which hordes will be able to bring all their power to bear in the course of a normal game.

 Kingsley wrote:
It's funny that a bunch of people who don't play horde armies are saying hordes will be wildly overpowered, and a bunch of people who do play horde armies are saying that practical concerns with getting your models in position, range, etc. make them worse than one might expect...

We'll see how it goes, but I think that hordes - while strong - won't be as all-consuming as people seem to think. The guys over at Frontline Gaming seem to think that all-vehicle armies may be prevalent, which certainly put a bit of a damper on horde attacks.

Totally agree. Everyone seems to be overestimating / underestimating their effectiveness by a big margin.

Played against Orks with CSMs, bringing 4 squads of Noise Marines with full sonics against a force with 4 squads of 30 boys each. My opponent's mobs had a hard time moving, I was able to just focus on a couple mobs at a time. The fall back mechanics worked against him, I was able to charge 2 mobs with Rhinos to tie them up until I was ready to shoot at them.

While I am sure the tactics will improve over time, my initial impression was that there are a lot of ways to make hordes ineffective. Faced with sufficient firepower, horde armies can be very vulnerable.

 SuspiciousSucculent wrote:
I put the marines in cover, as they can reliably get cover saves while the conscripts will find it nearly impossible to do so. Keep in mind, however, that if instead of doing the infantry rush, the conscripts are just playing roadblock, the marines may have to go to them, in which case the conscripts basically double in points efficiency.

How many conscripts does it take to block off a noticeable section of the map?

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
It's funny that a bunch of people who don't play horde armies are saying hordes will be wildly overpowered, and a bunch of people who do play horde armies are saying that practical concerns with getting your models in position, range, etc. make them worse than one might expect...

We'll see how it goes, but I think that hordes - while strong - won't be as all-consuming as people seem to think. The guys over at Frontline Gaming seem to think that all-vehicle armies may be prevalent, which certainly put a bit of a damper on horde attacks.

Totally agree. Everyone seems to be overestimating / underestimating their effectiveness by a big margin.

Played against Orks with CSMs, bringing 4 squads of Noise Marines with full sonics against a force with 4 squads of 30 boys each. My opponent's mobs had a hard time moving, I was able to just focus on a couple mobs at a time. The fall back mechanics worked against him, I was able to charge 2 mobs with Rhinos to tie them up until I was ready to shoot at them.

While I am sure the tactics will improve over time, my initial impression was that there are a lot of ways to make hordes ineffective. Faced with sufficient firepower, horde armies can be very vulnerable.

Yeah, the stronger vehicles of this edition coupled with the new fall back rules = just charge them with a vehicle; they probably can't kill it - in which case they're tied up; even if they fall back, theyve wasted the turn. And if they can kill it, it's not likely it'll be in two rounds of combat - in which case you can then fall back and continue to shoot them.

Hordes will be countered by the new and improved vehicles; 100 points of Rhino/Razorback can tie up over 180 points of Boyz, and continue to block charge lanes/LoS until they're dealt with.

My personal experience has been that vehicles are TOO strong now; their durability wouldn't be a problem if you could move out of combat with them and continue towards the enemy at no cost - but getting tied up in combat with a vehicle, that's too much.

On the other hand; this means you can tie down a vehicle with a throwaway unit/model; but for horde players, too much of the board is tied up between your mobs and the opponents vehicles for everything to just not get in the way. There's no room to maneuver for a horde anymore.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Totally agree. Everyone seems to be overestimating / underestimating their effectiveness by a big margin.

Played against Orks with CSMs, bringing 4 squads of Noise Marines with full sonics against a force with 4 squads of 30 boys each. My opponent's mobs had a hard time moving, I was able to just focus on a couple mobs at a time. The fall back mechanics worked against him, I was able to charge 2 mobs with Rhinos to tie them up until I was ready to shoot at them.

While I am sure the tactics will improve over time, my initial impression was that there are a lot of ways to make hordes ineffective. Faced with sufficient firepower, horde armies can be very vulnerable.

Wait till your friend realizes what he should do then you will be gaking your pants.

He will drop a 30 man blob on your army turn 1 and will have another 30 man blob moving up the board to engage, 10 man and 20 man squads will cap objectives as they move up as well. That initial blob can get up to 5 attacks per model, and can make that 9" charge about 70% of the time. He will trash half your units in the first turn with his 150 attacks. In fact he will eat 430 points of CSM in a single turn with this 215 Point unit.

How did your Rhinos survive longer then a turn? 30 man Squads can get 100 attacks EASY not including 5 Power Klaw attacks from a Nob which can half kill the Rhino by itself.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
It's funny that a bunch of people who don't play horde armies are saying hordes will be wildly overpowered, and a bunch of people who do play horde armies are saying that practical concerns with getting your models in position, range, etc. make them worse than one might expect...

We'll see how it goes, but I think that hordes - while strong - won't be as all-consuming as people seem to think. The guys over at Frontline Gaming seem to think that all-vehicle armies may be prevalent, which certainly put a bit of a damper on horde attacks.

Totally agree. Everyone seems to be overestimating / underestimating their effectiveness by a big margin.

Played against Orks with CSMs, bringing 4 squads of Noise Marines with full sonics against a force with 4 squads of 30 boys each. My opponent's mobs had a hard time moving, I was able to just focus on a couple mobs at a time. The fall back mechanics worked against him, I was able to charge 2 mobs with Rhinos to tie them up until I was ready to shoot at them.

While I am sure the tactics will improve over time, my initial impression was that there are a lot of ways to make hordes ineffective. Faced with sufficient firepower, horde armies can be very vulnerable.

Wait till your friend realizes what he should do then you will be gaking your pants.

He will drop a 30 man blob on your army turn 1 and will have another 30 man blob moving up the board to engage, 10 man and 20 man squads will cap objectives as they move up as well. That initial blob can get up to 5 attacks per model, and can make that 9" charge about 70% of the time. He will trash half your units in the first turn with his 150 attacks. In fact he will eat 430 points of CSM in a single turn with this 215 Point unit.

IT will cost more to have 150 attacks, and to jump. So in reality that is 340 points minimum. And if the CSM player wraps with cultists, that 30 man blob will murder 100 points worth of Cultists. Every tactic has a counter tactic.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 SuspiciousSucculent wrote:
I put the marines in cover, as they can reliably get cover saves while the conscripts will find it nearly impossible to do so. Keep in mind, however, that if instead of doing the infantry rush, the conscripts are just playing roadblock, the marines may have to go to them, in which case the conscripts basically double in points efficiency.

How many conscripts does it take to block off a noticeable section of the map?

Depends on how they are deployed. If deployed in close order to try to get most of the lasguns in range, so they actually do anything, not that much. If you space them out to maximum to cover more of the table, your shooting basically becomes worthless. At max spacing with two rows, you can just about cover the front of your deployment zone if you deploy on short table edges with a 50 man squad. They will have next to no damage output, and if you start taking casualties, you will open up your flanks. And you have to remove models from the ends of the line and open up your flanks, or you will lose coherency, and given how fragile they are on a per model basis, it's fairly easy to lose enough that you cannot move to get back into coherency, at which point you lose the ability to move them at all, according to the FAQ.

Breng77 wrote:


IT will cost more to have 150 attacks, and to jump. So in reality that is 340 points minimum. And if the CSM player wraps with cultists, that 30 man blob will murder 100 points worth of Cultists. Every tactic has a counter tactic.

Okay the 340 Point unit will kill 430 points of SM, but the other thing how are you going to wrap 30 CSM with 20 Cultists? Not to mention The Orks get to shoot and will probably kill some of the cultists before. Finally they would kill 260 points of Cultists, so they could kill 53 Cultists in a turn.

Alternatively just charge the Ork blob with equal points in Khorne Bezerkers + lord + sorcerer and wipe the unit in a turn.

How dare you suggest both a fluffy and effective method!

 SuspiciousSucculent wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 SuspiciousSucculent wrote:
I put the marines in cover, as they can reliably get cover saves while the conscripts will find it nearly impossible to do so. Keep in mind, however, that if instead of doing the infantry rush, the conscripts are just playing roadblock, the marines may have to go to them, in which case the conscripts basically double in points efficiency.

How many conscripts does it take to block off a noticeable section of the map?

Depends on how they are deployed. If deployed in close order to try to get most of the lasguns in range, so they actually do anything, not that much. If you space them out to maximum to cover more of the table, your shooting basically becomes worthless. At max spacing with two rows, you can just about cover the front of your deployment zone if you deploy on short table edges with a 50 man squad. They will have next to no damage output, and if you start taking casualties, you will open up your flanks. And you have to remove models from the ends of the line and open up your flanks, or you will lose coherency, and given how fragile they are on a per model basis, it's fairly easy to lose enough that you cannot move to get back into coherency, at which point you lose the ability to move them at all, according to the FAQ.

24 models will get you a 9" x 24" strip that you can put down. With 2 of those you can cut the board into two sections. I'm not sure why your taking from the flanks when you can just pick across the front line.

I don't care about damage output, there are much more efficient ways to do that.

So I got a game in last night against horde Nids with some monster support. Horde armies certainly got stronger in the new edition, but things like weapon range are definitely a concern for them. Sure that big unit of Boyz is scary looking, but getting them all into shooting range and/or choppy range is going to be an issue for them.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


IT will cost more to have 150 attacks, and to jump. So in reality that is 340 points minimum. And if the CSM player wraps with cultists, that 30 man blob will murder 100 points worth of Cultists. Every tactic has a counter tactic.

Okay the 340 Point unit will kill 430 points of SM, but the other thing how are you going to wrap 30 CSM with 20 Cultists? Not to mention The Orks get to shoot and will probably kill some of the cultists before. Finally they would kill 260 points of Cultists, so they could kill 53 Cultists in a turn.

Easy spread the cultists out with 2" coherency. You can only jump 9" away, so they leave a 2" gap to their better units. So even if you shoot them you now need a 12" charge at best. You kill 20 cultists (120 points) they shoot and counter charge.

If you have multiple units, one charges the thinly spread out horde, doesn't the horde have to try to pile in if you don't wipe them out in one turn?

 Melissia wrote:
If you have multiple units, one charges the thinly spread out horde, doesn't the horde have to try to pile in if you don't wipe them out in one turn?

No pile in is optional. But even then now it isn't 1 x 30 boyz and 2 weirdboyz it is 2x 30
Or more. If the first squad gets killed after they charge it starts to look less promising for the orks

More thinking of cultists and conscripts. What does the rest of the squad do then when they're not in melee, can they fire?

Did you guys read the designer notes? You know that if you have 20 orks in a squad, one is exposed, and 19 are in cover, if you wake damage, you only need to remove the one guy out in the open to make the rest concealed. That way, they get the cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Q: When determining whether a model benefits from
cover, does the model’s entire unit need to be fully on
or within terrain, or just the model making a particular
saving throw?

A: All of the models in a unit need to be at least partially
on or within terrain if any of the models are to receive
the +1 bonus to their saving throw.

Note, however, that it is possible for a unit to gain the benefit
of cover as it suffers casualties during the Shooting phase by
removing those models that are not on, or within terrain. As
soon as the last model that was not on or within terrain is
slain, the res

Slave wrote:
Did you guys read the designer notes? You know that if you have 20 orks in a squad, one is exposed, and 19 are in cover, if you wake damage, you only need to remove the one guy out in the open to make the rest concealed. That way, they get the cover.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Q: When determining whether a model benefits from
cover, does the model’s entire unit need to be fully on
or within terrain, or just the model making a particular
saving throw?

A: All of the models in a unit need to be at least partially
on or within terrain if any of the models are to receive
the +1 bonus to their saving throw.

Note, however, that it is possible for a unit to gain the benefit
of cover as it suffers casualties during the Shooting phase by
removing those models that are not on, or within terrain. As
soon as the last model that was not on or within terrain is
slain, the res

Small problem: cover doesn't work the way it used to. It only really provides a good bonus if you already have a good save, and the whole unit has to be in cover for it to count.

If you have a horde of bodies with a 5+ save or worse, don't even bother with cover. Most anything with a decent AP value will punch through it anyway, your screen won't be as effective, and it will only slow down your movement.

The strength of the blob is that you have a lot of bodies to chew through. The downside is that the units you want to use in large blobs are either too expensive or lose a lot of their capabilities to casualties.