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How do you balance the points cost of a Guardsman who is vastly more effective in a soup than in a mono-list?

IMO, points cost is not the way to go, since upping their costs makes IG/AM unplayable as a mono-Faction, but clearly something needs to be done about CP batteries.

The answer, I would humbly suggest, is to modify how CPs work rather than upping points in a knee-jerk, scattergun fashion.

Soup lists get 'nerfed' in the competitive scene and fluff-mongers like me can keep calm and carry on.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
How do you balance the points cost of a Guardsman who is vastly more effective in a soup than in a mono-list?

IMO, points cost is not the way to go, since upping their costs makes IG/AM unplayable as a mono-Faction, but clearly something needs to be done about CP batteries.

The answer, I would humbly suggest, is to modify how CPs work rather than upping points in a knee-jerk, scattergun fashion.

Soup lists get 'nerfed' in the competitive scene and fluff-mongers like me can keep calm and carry on.

That would probably be the best way to go about it.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
How do you balance the points cost of a Guardsman who is vastly more effective in a soup than in a mono-list?

IMO, points cost is not the way to go, since upping their costs makes IG/AM unplayable as a mono-Faction, but clearly something needs to be done about CP batteries.

The answer, I would humbly suggest, is to modify how CPs work rather than upping points in a knee-jerk, scattergun fashion.

Soup lists get 'nerfed' in the competitive scene and fluff-mongers like me can keep calm and carry on.

That is a good idea. Maybe gain cp based on the point cost of the army as well as certain units adding more.
But guardsmen should cost a point more than conscripts, cultists or militia.

I would just make it so that CP can only be 'spent' by the Faction that generated them, so my Daemons wouldn't be able to use any of the 10CP my two R&H Battalions generate as an example.

People like me will still take R&H/AM Battalions because fluff über alles (with an umlaut, Not Online!!) but it utterly kills the soup problem in competitive play whereby a handful of Guardsmen make Custodes fight better, like they're trying to impress the Guard or something.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I would just make it so that CP can only be 'spent' by the Faction that generated them, so my Daemons wouldn't be able to use any of the 10CP my two R&H Battalions generate as an example.

People like me will still take R&H/AM Battalions because fluff über alles (with an umlaut, Not Online!!) but it utterly kills the soup problem in competitive play whereby a handful of Guardsmen make Custodes fight better, like they're trying to impress the Guard or something.

Ok that would be much better and less changes to the mechanic and have 3 universal cp and all cp generated by the battalion only usable by the faction that generated them. Everyone Email the rules team and get it done then Bye bye battery.
It would make R&H even more useless since we don't have any good stratagems and lots of cp.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It would also be harder to keep track of the cp. Could make a companion app that keeps track and/ or other stats like victory points, wounds, unit costs, turn Count and ect.
Would also help with campaigns.

For sure there'd be more bean-counting but I'm assuming most people/apps already have some sort of system in place to track CP so it wouldn't be a wildly oppressive burden, I don't think.

FWIW, it just took me a little over four minutes to separate CPs into Factions and edit how they're tracked in my army list spreadsheet.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

For sure there'd be more bean-counting but I'm assuming most people/apps already have some sort of system in place to track CP so it wouldn't be a wildly oppressive burden, I don't think.

FWIW, it just took me a little over four minutes to separate CPs into Factions and edit how they're tracked in my army list spreadsheet.

I Normally have a dice to keep track of the cp and will need to mark them out especially because i use chaos soup ( i love a pure r&h with deamon army but also use deathguard for more nurgle fun )

 ulfhednir86 wrote:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I would just make it so that CP can only be 'spent' by the Faction that generated them, so my Daemons wouldn't be able to use any of the 10CP my two R&H Battalions generate as an example.

People like me will still take R&H/AM Battalions because fluff über alles (with an umlaut, Not Online!!) but it utterly kills the soup problem in competitive play whereby a handful of Guardsmen make Custodes fight better, like they're trying to impress the Guard or something.

Ok that would be much better and less changes to the mechanic and have 3 universal cp and all cp generated by the battalion only usable by the faction that generated them. Everyone Email the rules team and get it done then Bye bye battery.
It would make R&H even more useless since we don't have any good stratagems and lots of cp.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It would also be harder to keep track of the cp. Could make a companion app that keeps track and/ or other stats like victory points, wounds, unit costs, turn Count and ect.
Would also help with campaigns.

Thanks to their FAQ we can use i belive the one to run them over with the tanks, aerial recon (probably a better one for us), field repair, we even could technically make a leman russ a command tank altough we don't have the AM keyword so it would be useless, prebattle bombardment, Cover!, the one to improve overwatch for tanks, the one for scout sentinels.

Basically all Tank stratagems, and stratagems that don't demand a officer or a specific regiment (R&H replace regiment with Renegades and heretics) are technically allowed, mind you the infantry ones require often that the infantry is a Astra Militarum infantry unit which we are not.

Just to clarify that, so actually we can profit from Wyverns and Basiliks and of course the Cover! stratagem (I kinda want to try that the next time someone shoots at my stalker marauders in cover to inform them that they now have a 2+ armor rating on a 6ppm model )

To use ASTRA MILITARUM strategems you need to have a Battle-Forged army with at least one ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment, which begs the question 'what is an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment?'

Do you just need one ASTRA MILITARUM unit in the Detachment, or must they all be ASTRA MILITARUM units?

Good spot though, I've never noticed that.

I suspect this is going to end up in YMDC.

Does this mean our Leman Russ get ObSec in a Battle-Forged army too?

 Excommunicatus wrote:
To use ASTRA MILITARUM strategems you need to have a Battle-Forged army with at least one ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment, which begs the question 'what is an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment?'

Do you just need one ASTRA MILITARUM unit in the Detachment, or must they all be ASTRA MILITARUM units?

Good spot though, I've never noticed that.

I suspect this is going to end up in YMDC.

Does this mean our Leman Russ get ObSec in a Battle-Forged army too?

I honestly have no idea anymore
To many FAQs and Ca 's

I'm going to post both in YMDC.

EDIT - There's an FAQ that removes <ASTRA MILITARUM> from Renegade & Heretics units.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
To use ASTRA MILITARUM strategems you need to have a Battle-Forged army with at least one ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment, which begs the question 'what is an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment?'

Do you just need one ASTRA MILITARUM unit in the Detachment, or must they all be ASTRA MILITARUM units?

Good spot though, I've never noticed that.

I suspect this is going to end up in YMDC.

Does this mean our Leman Russ get ObSec in a Battle-Forged army too?

For a battleforged detachment every unit needs to have the same keyword. Ie for an astra militrum detachment all units within it need to have the astra militrum keyword.
Renegades and heretics do not have the astra militrum keyword so cannot benefit from their stratagems.
Leman Russ tanks do get objective secured in a spearhead detachment per faq since they are a direct port from the AM codex but trades AM keyword for renegade and heretic and imperium for chaos

I don't believe they do.

The rule that gives them ObSec isn't part of their datasheet. We only get permission to use the datasheet, nothing else.

So it doesn't apply, sadly.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I don't believe they do.

The rule that gives them ObSec isn't part of their datasheet. We only get permission to use the datasheet, nothing else.

So it doesn't apply, sadly.

"Because of the wording of Defenders of Humanity in the IG codex, our Leman Russes also get ObSec when in a spearhead detachment."

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Renegades_And_Heretics(8E)

But it does say it may not work and you maybe right as its not on their datasheet.

That quote ulfhednir86 is immediately followed by "Not sure if this is applicable only for loyalist Imperial Guard, so it's quite possible Renegades and Heretics don't get Objective Secured for their Leman Russ tanks..."

So not exactly a solid source

Bulwark of Humanity's opening spiel, says that the following rules are applicable to

"Battle-Forged armies that include ASTRA MILITARUM Detachments - that is, any Detachment that includes only ASTRA MILITARUM units."

Post-FAQ, a (legal) R&H Spearhead Detachment does not contain any ASTRA MILITARUM units at all and even without the FAQ, it isn't possible for a R&H army to take an AM HQ, so the Spearhead could not be an ASTRA MILITARUM Detachment in any event.

if you read right under the link i did say that it might not be possible.

But in any case back to the tactics.
With deamonic summoning can you summon deamons outside of the deployment zone first turn? If so a Valkyrie grav chut team could also drop a bloodletter/plague bearer bomb very close.

I know and I didn't mean to come across as aggressive or snippy, so apologies for that.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I know and I didn't mean to come across as aggressive or snippy, so apologies for that.

Lol you're Canadian you did not come across that way and sorry if i sounded defencive.
Either way back to tactics

1. Valkrye alpha assault squad.
A cheap valkrye flies up and grav chut drops a squad of 3-4 renegade ogryns with the berserker and if their is space some hqs like malificent lords or commanders, grav chut is risky but it allows you to deploy, move as normal then charge in the same turn . Ive used this to take out critical units first turn like Bjorn (warp flux helped alot). The malificent lord has a 4++ save and can hold back an entire flank trying to kill him giving precious time to take the board . Dont expect these to survive but if they do they can summon a deamon bomb.

2. Maruder snipers.
A 35 point unit of stalker maruders with 2x sniper rifles and bolt gun is a great and cheap way to control enemy buff characters by forcing them to sit back or get picked off.

3. Inspiring presence commander.
Having a commander with the inspiring presence warlord trait next to some command squads with vox casters and militia with vox casters. The warlord buffs the ld of the command squads and all the milita that use their ld thanks to their own vox casters. Prviously i would say that msu cultists where better since msu does not have the same ld strains and cultists do have better ws bs but now with cultists going up to 5ppm militia will be an option.

4. Deamon cp battery.
Renegades and heretics can make the cheapest cp battery in the game (the only thing we are best at). This is helpful for deamonic allies or vise vera. Not only that but units like horticulius slimax can use the deaths of the militia to heal himself or other units. Nurgle deamon are great allies as they are good at holding units back while our big guns blast them and nurglings help hold them back while the rest of army moves up or fires.

5. Diciple and command squad big guns
They are ws and bs 3 and great for big guns like lascannons.

Covents
Khrone helpful for melee armies. Our troops can take melee weapons so its helpful.

Tzench fir gun lines. Overwatch as accurate as normal shooting troops.

Slannesh is good for anything. Kiting or getting close fast.

Nurgle very crappy only useful against power swords and death watch.

I hope tjis helps

I belive there should also be a guide on units, as in how to use them correctly with the right list setup, Militia are such a case:

Militia, surprise surprise, like all R&H units need morale managment tools but are the best at having access to these that are not Enforcers:
Basically 10-20 dudes which can take the Chaos Sigil and the Vox will make a fairly reliable unit if there are commad Squads around, preferably 2 or more, to profit from the higher morale.
Gear should be focusing on volume of fire above all else: Special Weapons can be taken but of these Greanade Launchers are with flamers the best choice since they significantly improve the ammount of dakka and therefore hits. Heavy Weapons should either be mortars or heavy stubbers. Both are a steal for what they over and in case of the mortar can allready be considered as an meatier HWT squad.

Mutant Rabble: 10-50 dudes, with a random d6 effect , which ranges from more movement (meh) to T4 (great) to a random ammount of losses (wellp). Can't take brutal melee weapons, however can take shotguns. Have no morale managment tools like Voxes or Chaos sigils ergo that means they will need an enforcer for support. Champion also doesn't get better BS unlike the militia champion. Makes for a decent beatstick squad though if supported by a Psyker coven which casts unnatural vigour. other then that give them Las-/Autoguns and a enforcer and tarpit the enemy. (Covenant of Khorne/Nurgle/Slaanesh can do the most if you are Proactive and don't mind some melee)

R&H Cultists. Basically the regular cultists but with no stratagems 10-30, can take a chaos sigil but no vox, making them again a candidate for either MSU with nothing or an enforcer to keep em in line.

Elites:
Marauders, basically your jack of all trades unit: Melee, Sniping, assult, One hit wonder, all in there: Get's "In it for the money" makes them basically invincible to morale of any kind since they don't make morale checks, just keep em away from enforcers, cuase they will shoot regardless. Only sniper unit.

Enforcer: 30pts therefore more expensive then the commander, will shoot squads (d3 auto losses) for an automatically passed morale check, logical conclusion you want to blob, these people can keep 1-2 squads in line. thankfully got the character keyword after 2 faq's....
Still solves morale issues forever, might make you issues, just keep em away from elites or covens.

Disciples: Come in two flavours 4-14 for command squads and 5-15 for regular disciples. Difference beeing some equipment (Command Vox, banners) uses is similar, basically a better IG veteran for 6 pts (ws and bs 3+) Command squads also have no leader therefore the 4-14 number.
Command squads can keep militia armies covered, since they tanks to fanatic roll 2d6+3 for their LD which they can spread with their command vox. Command disciples are also good for melee defence especially if they get the one banner that allows losses to fight back with one attack during the melee phase.
Disciple squads themselves naturally get through their higher bs often the heavy weapons. (lascannons) their squad size also makes them into a surprisngly sturdy mainline.

Ogryn berzerkes: ALWAYS UPGRADE FOR A BERSERKER CHAMPION WITH POWER DRILL. No seriously why didn't you? At 30 pts a steal, a purely melee unit but sturdy and with the right transport a huge danger for the enemy. Allready pointed out above, however you also can just fly 19.9 inches and don't play risk for the grav insertion.

Rogue Psyker coven: Basically Smite plus 1 psychic power that is cast by a unit of 5 dudes. can sacrifice some W in order to use 3d6 for psychich test. Most often used for Unnatural vigour ofcourse. No weapons and no save throw beyond 5++ makes them squishy.

Malefic lord 1 dude with posession, (if possesed he becomes a melee monster) got a nerf after the start of 8th but at 80 pts and one of the only other HQ choices there isn't really much to bypass him after you picked all 3 commanders.

Commander: 25 pts IG HQ, Fanatic, if warolrd grants covenant, which were allready specified above. Can take power weapons and has a decentish profile, making him actually not to bad for melee. No traits beyond the BRB ones. which the +1 ld aura is probably best for a army that actively has morale problems thanks to random leadership.

Chaos spawn: it's spawn nothing more nothing less, still a good unit and a cheap brigade filler.

Problem with moving the valk below 20 is that you will have to wait until next turn to deploy and the valk will lose alot of your valk buffs including the -1 to hit.

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Renegades_And_Heretics(8E)#Army_Building

Problem with moving the valk below 20 is that you will have to wait until next turn to deploy and the valk will lose alot of your valk buffs including the -1 to hit.

Actually, i reccomend you re-read the Grav insertion.
It states that at ANY moment of it's movement passanger can deploy out of it, ofcourse in the more then 9" away from enemies.
OVER 20" you need to roll a d6 for every model that jumps.

You lose absolutely nothing by just deploying the valk from the start and fly your 20" andthen deploy without the risk.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Problem with moving the valk below 20 is that you will have to wait until next turn to deploy and the valk will lose alot of your valk buffs including the -1 to hit.

Actually, i reccomend you re-read the Grav insertion.
It states that at ANY moment of it's movement passanger can deploy out of it, ofcourse in the more then 9" away from enemies.
OVER 20" you need to roll a d6 for every model that jumps.

You lose absolutely nothing by just deploying the valk from the start and fly your 20" andthen deploy without the risk.

Its movement is 20- 45" meaning it has to Move atleast 20" and up to 45".
The only way to move less than 20" is to use hover jets which means you lose supersonic, airborne and hard to hit.

For an first turn alpha strike you need to move up then grav chut at risk but with orgyns at most you need to Roll is 4d6 and cp re roll a 1

 ulfhednir86 wrote:
For an first turn alpha strike you need to move up then grav chut at risk but with orgyns at most you need to Roll is 4d6 and cp re roll a 1

Have people tried this out yet ? Always wanted a valkyrie...

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I would just make it so that CP can only be 'spent' by the Faction that generated them, so my Daemons wouldn't be able to use any of the 10CP my two R&H Battalions generate as an example.

People like me will still take R&H/AM Battalions because fluff über alles (with an umlaut, Not Online!!) but it utterly kills the soup problem in competitive play whereby a handful of Guardsmen make Custodes fight better, like they're trying to impress the Guard or something.

We are already there with Daemons FAQ forcing them to only use strats on their own faction. I could see this as a beta rule with the next chapter approved.

Sort of.

I'd go much further than the Daemon FAQ, though. For example, my usual R&H contingent is the famed dual-Battalion. I'd make it so that the 10CP my R&H generate can only be used on R&H Stratagems, the 6CP my Daemons generate can only be used on Daemon Stratagems and the 'free' 3CP can be used by anyone.

Captyn_Bob wrote:

 ulfhednir86 wrote:
For an first turn alpha strike you need to move up then grav chut at risk but with orgyns at most you need to Roll is 4d6 and cp re roll a 1

Have people tried this out yet ? Always wanted a valkyrie...

T1 throwing ogryns at faces is fairly reliable and quite good on the damage scale, however mind screens, so potentially holding the unit in reserve is a good idea until you broke the screens. It's however the only thing we have going for us beyond reasonably priced veterans (disciples) and marauders.

Always however upgrade one ogryn to a Berserker Champion since he gets the Drill which Hits home massively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Sort of.

I'd go much further than the Daemon FAQ, though. For example, my usual R&H contingent is the famed dual-Battalion. I'd make it so that the 10CP my R&H generate can only be used on R&H Stratagems, the 6CP my Daemons generate can only be used on Daemon Stratagems and the 'free' 3CP can be used by anyone.

Point in case if we ever going to get stratagems. So long we don't get them i don't think we should not be able to give over cp.

At this stage i have not high hopes for us getting stratagems, but if guardsmen and Cultists of csm go to 5ppm our militia suddenly got pricewise balanced, making us actually somewhat appealing?

Not Online!!! wrote:

Captyn_Bob wrote:

 ulfhednir86 wrote:
For an first turn alpha strike you need to move up then grav chut at risk but with orgyns at most you need to Roll is 4d6 and cp re roll a 1

Have people tried this out yet ? Always wanted a valkyrie...

T1 throwing ogryns at faces is fairly reliable and quite good on the damage scale, however mind screens, so potentially holding the unit in reserve is a good idea until you broke the screens. It's however the only thing we have going for us beyond reasonably priced veterans (disciples) and marauders.

Always however upgrade one ogryn to a Berserker Champion since he gets the Drill which Hits home massively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Sort of.

I'd go much further than the Daemon FAQ, though. For example, my usual R&H contingent is the famed dual-Battalion. I'd make it so that the 10CP my R&H generate can only be used on R&H Stratagems, the 6CP my Daemons generate can only be used on Daemon Stratagems and the 'free' 3CP can be used by anyone.

Point in case if we ever going to get stratagems. So long we don't get them i don't think we should not be able to give over cp.

At this stage i have not high hopes for us getting stratagems, but if guardsmen and Cultists of csm go to 5ppm our militia suddenly got pricewise balanced, making us actually somewhat appealing?

Yep. If they both go to 5ppm, I'm dragging back out my RnH army. Time to be relevant... if only our covenants were decent.

Yep. If they both go to 5ppm, I'm dragging back out my RnH army. Time to be relevant... if only our covenants were decent.

I got quite the mileage out of Khorne, s4 compensates quite well for ws 5+, not to mention that aswell as the one banner, ws is the other thing we can buff (Rogue Psyker covens can reliably cast Unnatural vigour) . Not to mention that disciples and especially marauders are good to great in melee too.

Other then khorne, tzeentch is the gunline option but noone is charging a r&h gunline anyways since, well mostly because you can fairly easily out shoot us.

Nurgle is to specific and Slaanesh might get charges off easier but in melee sucks soooooo. Yeah not really much in terms of usefull covenants.