Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

sossen wrote:

WingedCamel wrote:
A 5+ save is hardly resilient. Bolt rifles make them a 6+ and can shoot well out of conscript range.

So one of your suggestions is to sit 30'' away and shoot conscripts with intercessors?

Lets get some math on that: 1000 points of intercessors, that is to say 50 of them, firing at a squad of 50 conscripts from 30'' away. How many do they kill? 18.5 on average. 19.5 with morale casualties.

I don't think that's going to work out.

Wow, 5 squads of 10 Marines each with no special weapons can't wipe a whole squad in one round of shooting!

Game's over guys.

 Kanluwen wrote:

sossen wrote:

WingedCamel wrote:
A 5+ save is hardly resilient. Bolt rifles make them a 6+ and can shoot well out of conscript range.

So one of your suggestions is to sit 30'' away and shoot conscripts with intercessors?

Lets get some math on that: 1000 points of intercessors, that is to say 50 of them, firing at a squad of 50 conscripts from 30'' away. How many do they kill? 18.5 on average. 19.5 with morale casualties.

I don't think that's going to work out.

Wow, 5 squads of 10 Marines each with no special weapons can't wipe a whole squad in one round of shooting!

Game's over guys.

It was his suggestion, not mine. It's not just 50 marines, it's 1000 pts of marines killing 70 pts worth of conscripts (including support overhead).

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

sossen wrote:

WingedCamel wrote:
A 5+ save is hardly resilient. Bolt rifles make them a 6+ and can shoot well out of conscript range.

So one of your suggestions is to sit 30'' away and shoot conscripts with intercessors?

Lets get some math on that: 1000 points of intercessors, that is to say 50 of them, firing at a squad of 50 conscripts from 30'' away. How many do they kill? 18.5 on average. 19.5 with morale casualties.

I don't think that's going to work out.

Wow, 5 squads of 10 Marines each with no special weapons can't wipe a whole squad in one round of shooting!

Game's over guys.

It was his suggestion, not mine. It's not just 50 marines, it's 1000 pts of marines killing 70 pts worth of conscripts (including support overhead).

And yet you're the one who has attempted to turn it outrageous.

 Kanluwen wrote:
And yet you're the one who has attempted to turn it outrageous.

What's outrageous about my post? It provides some guidance to those who have not yet figured out why a T3 5+ model is so difficult to handle.

Technically those intercessors would eventually win if they stayed at 30" though. Because if nothing else, the Conscripts wouldn't be able to shoot back.

Plinking away at them from 30" is the safest way to kill them, but it's not necessarily the fastest.

sossen wrote:

It would be balanced if the defenders were even close to as durable, as is conscripts have at least 200% of their durability and 80% of their firepower.

By what metric? I would hope that between the heavy weapons platforms, farseer/warlock psychic powers, and the rending special rules on shuriken weapons that guardians would be somewhat on par.

And the guardians' ability to advance and shoot without penalty is a pretty massive advantage, and not really mathhammerable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sossen wrote:

WingedCamel wrote:
A 5+ save is hardly resilient. Bolt rifles make them a 6+ and can shoot well out of conscript range.

So one of your suggestions is to sit 30'' away and shoot conscripts with intercessors?

Lets get some math on that: 1000 points of intercessors, that is to say 50 of them, firing at a squad of 50 conscripts from 30'' away. How many do they kill? 18.5 on average. 19.5 with morale casualties.

I don't think that's going to work out.

What about their grenade launchers? They're going to make a huge difference at 30"

(I think I'm thinking of the correct unit here...)

 Arandmoor wrote:
What about their grenade launchers? They're going to make a huge difference at 30"

(I think I'm thinking of the correct unit here...)

Correct, they do get the option with the new codex but I have yet to see a pts cost for it. It definitely helps a bit, assuming that it is free it increases their damage output by 20% vs conscripts.

Not necessarily intercessors that was just an example. Inceptors with assault bolters will rip them apart on their arrival with even more effectiveness than a leman russ punisher.
There are plenty of options for killing conscripts.
Best of all, the conscripts won't even get to shoot back.

The playground has indeed changed. I think GW has made many dumb moves in 8th, including boltguns not getting any sort of rend. But as stated above, there are still plenty of ways to get rid of them.
I also believe artillery should be more devastating to infantry than it currently is.

Don't get me wrong- in certain aspects, hordes ARE hard to deal with unless planned for. But I don't think the answer is to nerf the units, but rather to buff other units to be more effective against hordes.
It is pretty silly that a single basilisk (or similar) will only ever be able to kill 6 infantry troops- and that is with a ton of luck as well.

My personal take for a solution? Units that fire dX shots, add X more for every 5 or 10 models in the unit being shot at.

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
And yet you're the one who has attempted to turn it outrageous.

What's outrageous about my post? It provides some guidance to those who have not yet figured out why a T3 5+ model is so difficult to handle.

Well, first off you didn't attempt to actually address his point.

Intercessors, at 30" away with a Rapid Fire weapon that can reduce their armor save by -1, can effectively kite or simply outrange Conscripts.

Are they going to wipe them in a turn? No. But that's not what he said. He said that Intercessors can kill them.

You, for all intents and purposes, then just chose to throw numbers out there and pretend that those Intercessors wouldn't have anything with them like the Conscripts will.

Are Conscripts cheap? Yup! But right now, fielding Conscripts means that you're going to have other points immediately tied up in Commissars and Platoon/Company Commanders.

 Kanluwen wrote:

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
And yet you're the one who has attempted to turn it outrageous.

What's outrageous about my post? It provides some guidance to those who have not yet figured out why a T3 5+ model is so difficult to handle.

Well, first off you didn't attempt to actually address his point.

Intercessors, at 30" away with a Rapid Fire weapon that can reduce their armor save by -1, can effectively kite or simply outrange Conscripts.

Are they going to wipe them in a turn? No. But that's not what he said. He said that Intercessors can kill them.

You, for all intents and purposes, then just chose to throw numbers out there and pretend that those Intercessors wouldn't have anything with them like the Conscripts will.

Are Conscripts cheap? Yup! But right now, fielding Conscripts means that you're going to have other points immediately tied up in Commissars and Platoon/Company Commanders.

Yeah that's a solid plan. bring 1000 points of Intercessors to "kite" 150 points of conscripts.

/thread

You either have the ranged firepower to ignore conscripts and kill the weapons behind them or you have the assault to wipe them in 2 turns at the most.

If you are taking intercessors to kill SOME conscripts per turn you are handicapping yourself. You dedicate yourself one way or another.

Furthermore you aren't paying for a ADL anymore which is coincidentally almost the same cost as a Commissar and PCC.

 Marmatag wrote:

Yeah that's a solid plan. bring 1000 points of Intercessors to "kite" 150 points of conscripts.

/thread

If you're bringing 50 Intercessors to begin with, you're doing it wrong.

A big thing for Marine players to remember is that they're paying for units that are strong in both shooting and assault.

So if you try to pretend that you're Tau and just shoot IG off the table? You're wasting half your points. Yes, I know this means Marine units spend a lot of time wasting their points.

Shoot AND assault. Be mobile, be aggressive, concentrate fire. Spending 3x a unit's value to remove it quickly IS worthwhile no matter what that unit is, because that means that unit can't fight back. Denying an enemy unit the ability to fight back at all is extremely valuable.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Intercessors, at 30" away with a Rapid Fire weapon that can reduce their armor save by -1, can effectively kite or simply outrange Conscripts.

Are they going to wipe them in a turn? No. But that's not what he said. He said that Intercessors can kill them.

I agree, an intercessor can on average kill 2 conscripts in 5 turns by kiting. That's not going to be efficient or convenient enough to win a game vs an AM player with 100 conscripts.

 Kanluwen wrote:
You, for all intents and purposes, then just chose to throw numbers out there and pretend that those Intercessors wouldn't have anything with them like the Conscripts will.

I'm not saying that intercessors won't have support in a regular army, but I assumed that his suggestion was supposed to be the unit which kills the conscripts efficiently.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Are Conscripts cheap? Yup! But right now, fielding Conscripts means that you're going to have other points immediately tied up in Commissars and Platoon/Company Commanders.

I included the cost of the support in the casualty cost, counted as though killing all the conscripts means killing their support characters as well. The overhead is roughly 20-30% per conscript, depending on how you build your list.

WingedCamel wrote:
I think GW has made many dumb moves in 8th, including boltguns not getting any sort of rend

No. That was definitely not a dumb move. If I were to list things that space marines definitely did NOT need, ap -1 on freaking bolters is right near the top of the list.

 Arandmoor wrote:


No. That was definitely not a dumb move. If I were to list things that space marines definitely did NOT need, ap -1 on freaking bolters is right near the top of the list.

From a fluff perspective, a rend on bolters made perfect sense. Though with the advent of bolt rifles and new vehicle rules I understand why they don't for balance sake.
I do however think they should be more effective than what they are against light infantry.

Perhaps every wound of 6 makes the enemy re-roll successful saves? Does 2 damage? Or generates an extra shot?

 ross-128 wrote:
Spending 3x a unit's value to remove it quickly IS worthwhile no matter what that unit is

That's only true if your enemy is spending 4x the cost of your unit to kill your stuff in the same time frame. That's not normally the case.


I keep popping into this thread now and again to scan it but so far every single "counter" to conscripts I've seen has involved spending more points than the conscripts spent or assuming silly things like these last few posts that say 30" is outside of Guard's range to retaliate (hint, they move 6" and shoot 24"), or people are skewing it because of arbitrary time frames being taken into account.

The counter to something should beat that thing at an equal points cost with infinite turns, at the very least. Right?

2x50 conscripts with Commissar, Commander, and two searchlights costs 401 points. Someone show me a combination, any combination, of Craftworld Eldar units (just because that's me!) that can beat that for 401 points over any number of turns, without resorting to silly things like assuming the guardsmen will never move. Let's also say a 4'x4' with standard 12" deployment zones, just to cut off that magical "infinite kite" scenario.

 Deathypoo wrote:

2x50 conscripts with Commissar, Commander, and two searchlights costs 401 points. Someone show me a combination, any combination, of Craftworld Eldar units (just because that's me!) that can beat that for 401 points over any number of turns, without resorting to silly things like assuming the guardsmen will never move. Let's also say a 4'x4' with standard 12" deployment zones, just to cut off that magical "infinite kite" scenario.

However much 10 rangers costs you then. Rangers are craftworld, right? If so, I suspect it's less than 401 points. You have a 60% chance of killing the commissar turn one. Bonus: You get to take a Wave Serpent because of them. Take 2x5 squads even, because then you can take two wave serpents.

Why are even even looking at intercessors, and why are we looking at 70 points of conscripts. You are aware that, considering a Commissar is 31 points and a CC is 20 points, the cheapest Conscripts and their support can be is 111 points. If we don't want orders, it's 91 points.

And that's for 20 conscripts. It takes about 3 boltgun shots from a unsupported Space Marine to kill a Conscript, which in turn means that it would take 60 space marines, running 780 points, at long range, to kill 20 conscripts in one turn. Of course, it's half that at rapid-fire range, which isn't particularly unfair. Remember, we're using a unit with generally poor firepower to try to kill a unit centered on being resilient.

It doesn't take long for Genestealers and the likes to kill them off. 20x Genestealers with upgrades and a Tyrannocyte to deliver them run 450 points. Between the thingy and the 'stealers, for experience, it's enough to clean out 50 support conscripts, so that's about 3 times the cost of the conscripts to kill them all in 1 turn, which is very fair.

Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:Why are even even looking at intercessors

Because they were suggested here:

WingedCamel wrote:A 5+ save is hardly resilient. Bolt rifles make them a 6+ and can shoot well out of conscript range.

So I replied to explain why that's not a good idea.

Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:and why are we looking at 70 points of conscripts. You are aware that, considering a Commissar is 31 points and a CC is 20 points, the cheapest Conscripts and their support can be is 111 points. If we don't want orders, it's 91 points.

I agree, but 70 pts is roughly what 19.5 killed conscripts out of a 100 conscripts+commander+commissar package represent in pts value. We could call it 78 pts if it were 50 conscripts+commissar+commander if you like.

 daedalus wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:

2x50 conscripts with Commissar, Commander, and two searchlights costs 401 points. Someone show me a combination, any combination, of Craftworld Eldar units (just because that's me!) that can beat that for 401 points over any number of turns, without resorting to silly things like assuming the guardsmen will never move. Let's also say a 4'x4' with standard 12" deployment zones, just to cut off that magical "infinite kite" scenario.

However much 10 rangers costs you then. Rangers are craftworld, right? If so, I suspect it's less than 401 points. You have a 60% chance of killing the commissar turn one. Bonus: You get to take a Wave Serpent because of them. Take 2x5 squads even, because then you can take two wave serpents.

I told myself I'd math-hammer out whatever I was given, but this is painful so I'll keep it short...

I'll assume the Eldar goes first, and I'll assume that they kill the commissar (lol at 60% chance for 200 points to kill 31 points in one turn as if it's a good thing).

Great, now the conscripts at 24" get 200 shots. I'll assume cover for the rangers. 66 shots hit (searchlights and cloak cancel out), 4+ to wound so 33 wounds, 11 of which make it through saves (3+ save due to cloak in cover). The rangers are dead with room to spare.

I would add the wave serpent's damage (you can only afford one, btw), but this is already over.

Edit: Ninja edit to fix skipped step in mathing it out

200 shots? At 24" you are looking 100 shots if all are in range to hit and can see, that and subtract for casualties taken now do to being shot up and losing more to morale.

Your math is flawed. FRFSRF only works at 12" range to get that Rapid Fire 2.

ITT: I can't put 50 wounds on this unit in one round of shooting so it should be nerfed and not reflect the fluff.

I will still maintain that weapons that used to be blasts should do more damage for every 10 models in a squad. (The demolisher does this, but it still sucks.)

Just as an example,
If it fires d6 shots, it should add d3 more shots for every 10 models in the unit. (resolve the d6 first, then the extra d3s)

Another thought, some armies perhaps need more crowd control options this edition, since blasts and templates are not at all what they used to be.

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
200 shots? At 24" you are looking 100 shots if all are in range to hit and can see, that and subtract for casualties taken now do to being shot up and losing more to morale.

Your math is flawed. FRFSRF only works at 12" range to get that Rapid Fire 2.

frfsrf doubles shots at range 24" as well. Also, He specified that he shot at the commissar with the rangers (else why have them), so the wave serpent would have to kill an entire unit of 50 with 2 of its cannons, then another 5 or so of the other unit with its other cannon, before it would allow a single Ranger to survive. That seemed unlikely enough that I didn't math it out.

 Deathypoo wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
200 shots? At 24" you are looking 100 shots if all are in range to hit and can see, that and subtract for casualties taken now do to being shot up and losing more to morale.

Your math is flawed. FRFSRF only works at 12" range to get that Rapid Fire 2.

frfsrf doubles shots at range 24" as well. Also, He specified that he shot at the commissar with the rangers (else why have them), so the wave serpent would have to kill an entire unit of 50 with 2 of its cannons, then another 5 or so of the other unit with its other cannon, before it would allow a single Ranger to survive. That seemed unlikely enough that I didn't math it out.

Rank fire will give a mob of 50 conscripts 100 shots at 24 inches.

If you allow yourself to be shot at by that many conscripts on turn 1 you have made a grave tactical error.

And even then- 100 shots from conscripts against infantry, averages 32 hits, 10-16 wounds, which typically results in 4 to 8 being unsaved.

Kill any of the conscripts leadership and you reduce that effectiveness even further. To the point of not even having to do that much damage to the conscripts at all.

Snipers/assassins/infiltrators/ anything that can deal damage to characters is absolutely essential this edition.

My lists bring 22 sniper rifles because I realize this.

All it says is Rapid Fire 2. It does not.

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
All it says is Rapid Fire 2. It does not.

Rapid fire 2= 2 shots at more than half range and 4 shots in half range.

WingedCamel wrote:
Rank fire will give a mob of 50 conscripts 100 shots at 24 inches.

If you allow yourself to be shot at by that many conscripts on turn 1 you have made a grave tactical error.

The example package has 100 conscripts.

It would be difficult to place rangers in range of the commissar at the back of the blob without risking reprisal from the blob itself.

sossen wrote:

WingedCamel wrote:
Rank fire will give a mob of 50 conscripts 100 shots at 24 inches.

If you allow yourself to be shot at by that many conscripts on turn 1 you have made a grave tactical error.

The example package has 100 conscripts.

It would be difficult to place rangers in range of the commissar at the back of the blob without risking reprisal from the blob itself.

That's two separate units of Conscripts.
Unless you have two separate Officers issuing FRSRF, only one of them can benefit from it at a time.


Additionally, don't Rangers have alternate deployment methods?

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
It doesn't take long for Genestealers and the likes to kill them off. 20x Genestealers with upgrades and a Tyrannocyte to deliver them run 450 points. Between the thingy and the 'stealers, for experience, it's enough to clean out 50 support conscripts, so that's about 3 times the cost of the conscripts to kill them all in 1 turn, which is very fair.

Wait in one turn? The average number of wounds they will deal is 35, including a barbed strangler Tyrannocyte. It's more likely for them to miss the charge from 9" and contribute nothing than it is for them to sweep the unit in a single turn..