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 Kanluwen wrote:

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.

They have a single company commander issuing two orders per turn.

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

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.

They have a single company commander issuing two orders per turn.

So they've used up an HQ choice and placed him within 6"(Conscripts can't take Vox-Casters) of 100 models armed with Lasguns.

Additionally, once those 100 models have received FRSRF, they cannot get any more Orders issued to them.

Remind me again of the problem here?

 Kanluwen wrote:
So they've used up an HQ choice and placed him within 6"(Conscripts can't take Vox-Casters) of 100 models armed with Lasguns.

Additionally, once those 100 models have received FRSRF, they cannot get any more Orders issued to them.

Remind me again of the problem here?

The fact that the 30 point commander just double the damage of two 150 point units. A 30 point upgrade spread between two units that double their firepower is a steal.

Kanluwen wrote:
So they've used up an HQ choice and placed him within 6"(Conscripts can't take Vox-Casters) of 100 models armed with Lasguns.

Additionally, once those 100 models have received FRSRF, they cannot get any more Orders issued to them.

Remind me again of the problem here?

The officer doesn't have to be within 6'' of every model in the conscript units to issue an order to them, only one model from said unit needs to be within 6'' of the commander. The conscripts will receive an order each turn based on what is most beneficial to them.

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

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.

They have a single company commander issuing two orders per turn.

Ranger sniper rifles have 36 inch range, and a commisar has a 6 inch bubble. It is impossible to move 100 conscripts to get within firing range for shots back first turn even on a perfectly terrainless table. 100 dudes take up a huge amount of area and are hard to position on a small squad rangers. You would be lucky to get more than half your conscripts into extreme range by turn 2 unless you spent a turn and orders to move into position. The conscripts are going to be bleeding casualties the whole time and likely lose their commander or commisar before getting into effective range. They probably end up killing the rangers but unlikely to do anything to the vehicle.

WingedCamel wrote:

 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?

No. They just don't. Marines are fine where they are from a balance perspective. They don't need any of that, fluff or no.

Hell, I'm not too thrilled that they're getting all these new primaris units in the first place, because they're the absolutely last faction that actually needs anything new. They've already got 2-5 times as many options as some other codicies. This is just more of the "Marines are popular because they get stuff, and they get stuff because they're popular" degeneration cycle the game's been stuck in for the past fifteen goddamn years!

-1 AP bolters can get stuffed. Everything space marine that's "not perfect" can get stuffed. Other armies need the attention more. Including IG.

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.

1000 points of Intercessors can kill 36 conscripts in rapid fire range, then charge and murder murder murder the rest of the squad. Yay!

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.

Thank you. All the conscript defenders in this thread are insistent that their 24" range may as well be a 2" range. Apparently the rangers in this example found cover, at a height sufficient to see over the ranks of conscripts, in a straight line long enough to hold 10 of them, within 36" of the commissar behind the conscripts but over 30" away from conscripts themselves.

Seeing as the IG knew their opponent had rangers, he must have been very generous in lining himself up the exact distance from the obvious sniper perch to make sure he doesn't give himself a turn 1 shot after getting sniped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

frodoz wrote:


Ranger sniper rifles have 36 inch range, and a commisar has a 6 inch bubble. It is impossible to move 100 conscripts to get within firing range for shots back first turn even on a perfectly terrainless table. 100 dudes take up a huge amount of area and are hard to position on a small squad rangers. You would be lucky to get more than half your conscripts into extreme range by turn 2 unless you spent a turn and orders to move into position. The conscripts are going to be bleeding casualties the whole time and likely lose their commander or commisar before getting into effective range. They probably end up killing the rangers but unlikely to do anything to the vehicle.

Sorry I didn't notice another page had started... but are you even looking at your own numbers? The commissar can be 6" behind the BACK of the conscript blob. That means the BACK of the conscript blob is 30" away from the rangers, which means after a 6" move the BACK of the conscript blob is in range on turn 1. Literally every single guardsman can shoot on turn 1 every time.


Honestly I can't believe we're spending this much time discussing the obviously-awful counter list. I thought I was posting a win-win because either I would show objectively that conscripts are OP with math, or I'd finally learn what units I should take to beat them. But instead we're looking at a list that can't possibly win and the numbers that say it can't win are just being ignored :(

*EDIT: Because I called it a "commissar blob" for some reason.

 Deathypoo wrote:

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.

Thank you. All the conscript defenders in this thread are insistent that their 24" range may as well be a 2" range. Apparently the rangers in this example found cover, at a height sufficient to see over the ranks of conscripts, in a straight line long enough to hold 10 of them, within 36" of the commissar behind the conscripts but over 30" away from conscripts themselves.

Seeing as the IG knew their opponent had rangers, he must have been very generous in lining himself up the exact distance from the obvious sniper perch to make sure he doesn't give himself a turn 1 shot after getting sniped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

frodoz wrote:


Ranger sniper rifles have 36 inch range, and a commisar has a 6 inch bubble. It is impossible to move 100 conscripts to get within firing range for shots back first turn even on a perfectly terrainless table. 100 dudes take up a huge amount of area and are hard to position on a small squad rangers. You would be lucky to get more than half your conscripts into extreme range by turn 2 unless you spent a turn and orders to move into position. The conscripts are going to be bleeding casualties the whole time and likely lose their commander or commisar before getting into effective range. They probably end up killing the rangers but unlikely to do anything to the vehicle.

Sorry I didn't notice another page had started... but are you even looking at your own numbers? The commissar can be 6" behind the BACK of the commissar blob. That means the BACK of the commissar blob is 30" away from the rangers, which means after a 6" move the BACK of the commissar blob is in range on turn 1. Literally every single guardsman can shoot on turn 1 every time.


Honestly I can't believe we're spending this much time discussing the obviously-awful counter list. I thought I was posting a win-win because either I would show objectively that conscripts are OP with math, or I'd finally learn what units I should take to beat them. But instead we're looking at a list that can't possibly win and the numbers that say it can't win are just being ignored :(

The 100 conscripts don't all snap into range together when the lead rank gets to 24 inches, it's an excellent illustraition on the failings of math hammer. The poor manueverability of conscripts is a very real limitaion on the tabletop. You can't abstract away those limitations and assume full strength optimal conditions for the calculations. Small units and vehicles are vastly less impacted by this effect because they act in a more binary fashion, either fully in range or not.

frodoz wrote:

sossen wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

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.

They have a single company commander issuing two orders per turn.

Ranger sniper rifles have 36 inch range, and a commisar has a 6 inch bubble. It is impossible to move 100 conscripts to get within firing range for shots back first turn even on a perfectly terrainless table. 100 dudes take up a huge amount of area and are hard to position on a small squad rangers. You would be lucky to get more than half your conscripts into extreme range by turn 2 unless you spent a turn and orders to move into position. The conscripts are going to be bleeding casualties the whole time and likely lose their commander or commisar before getting into effective range. They probably end up killing the rangers but unlikely to do anything to the vehicle.

The officers can be set up quite far back with a conga line from each squad, forcing the rangers into range of most of the conscripts. You don't need to kill more than 8 rangers to be sure that the other two to flee. Which would represent ~75 conscripts with FRFSRF. As for the wave serpent I'm not sure since it depends on loadout and positioning. It kills ~5-7 conscripts (depending on range) per turn including morale casualties assuming that it doesn't move and brings a twin scatterlaser. 50 conscripts would deal 2-3 wounds to it at 24'' assuming that the searchlight is gone.

frodoz wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:

Sorry I didn't notice another page had started... but are you even looking at your own numbers? The commissar can be 6" behind the BACK of the conscript blob. That means the BACK of the conscript blob is 30" away from the rangers, which means after a 6" move the BACK of the conscript blob is in range on turn 1. Literally every single guardsman can shoot on turn 1 every time.


Honestly I can't believe we're spending this much time discussing the obviously-awful counter list. I thought I was posting a win-win because either I would show objectively that conscripts are OP with math, or I'd finally learn what units I should take to beat them. But instead we're looking at a list that can't possibly win and the numbers that say it can't win are just being ignored :(

The 100 conscripts don't all snap into range together when the lead rank gets to 24 inches, it's an excellent illustraition on the failings of math hammer. The poor manueverability of conscripts is a very real limitaion on the tabletop. You can't abstract away those limitations and assume full strength optimal conditions for the calculations. Small units and vehicles are vastly less impacted by this effect because they act in a more binary fashion, either fully in range or not.

I thought the all caps was enough but I guess not, so I went back and bolded it this time too. To be fair I maybe confused you by calling it a commissar blob instead of a conscript blob lol. Fixed that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sossen wrote:

The officers can be set up quite far back with a conga line from each squad, forcing the rangers into range of most of the conscripts. You don't need to kill more than 8 rangers to be sure that the other two to flee. Which would represent ~75 conscripts with FRFSRF. As for the wave serpent I'm not sure since it depends on loadout and positioning. It kills ~5-7 conscripts (depending on range) per turn including morale casualties assuming that it doesn't move and brings a twin scatterlaser. 50 conscripts would deal 2-3 wounds to it at 24'' assuming that the searchlight is gone.

lol after all this you made me realize I skipped a step with my math earlier. I'm surprised no one has actually called me on THAT part

It doesn't change that the Rangers will get one-shot even from long range and it doesn't change that the Serpent will lose horribly to the conscripts when it's all by itself, but still... oops.

I just sent you a PM deathypoo.
I am a guard player myself and I can tell you how to murder you some conscripts.

sossen wrote:

The officers can be set up quite far back with a conga line from each squad, forcing the rangers into range of most of the conscripts. You don't need to kill more than 8 rangers to be sure that the other two to flee. Which would represent ~75 conscripts with FRFSRF. As for the wave serpent I'm not sure since it depends on loadout and positioning. It kills ~5-7 conscripts (depending on range) per turn including morale casualties assuming that it doesn't move and brings a twin scatterlaser. 50 conscripts would deal 2-3 wounds to it at 24'' assuming that the searchlight is gone.

As has been repeatedly stated, if you're going to conga line your officers "quite far back" so they cannot be sniped, you're going to also be greatly reducing the firepower you have available to bring to bear against your opponents.

There are also certain units that can take advantage of said conga line through various kinds of deepstrike and outflanking moves to kill you anyway unless you both conga line AND bubble-wrap your officers. And good luck getting anything useful done with that level of baby sitting.

 Arandmoor wrote:
As has been repeatedly stated, if you're going to conga line your officers "quite far back" so they cannot be sniped, you're going to also be greatly reducing the firepower you have available to bring to bear against your opponents.

There are also certain units that can take advantage of said conga line through various kinds of deepstrike and outflanking moves to kill you anyway unless you both conga line AND bubble-wrap your officers. And good luck getting anything useful done with that level of baby sitting.

Three conscripts would put your commissar 12" behind the bulk of your forces. If you want to wrap the commissar , ignore his radius, assume the tail end of each line is slightly behind him, four conscripts for each fifty conscript unit is sevenish inches behind. Or run them in two ranks, with a single tail for each unit and the commissar sandwiched between, that's 16 inches apart which still ensures every point between them is safe from deepstrike (which is also why it's actually not hard to screen from deepstriking without spreading your units across the entire board but that's a different story).

It's not even a little hard to do, it's absurdly easy unless you try to send the two squads to different corners of the map or something. You can still easily get things done because again, you are guard. You shoot and table enemies while sitting still.

Also, if you say "no castling doesn't work" you realize the person whose actually been consistently winning with guard on these forums has reported multiple battles where she was sitting castled up and tabled her opponents? That's how guard wins.

at this point of the discussion (23 pages) you guys would have been better served by playing games on vassal to prove everyone's point.

 Arandmoor wrote:

sossen wrote:

The officers can be set up quite far back with a conga line from each squad, forcing the rangers into range of most of the conscripts. You don't need to kill more than 8 rangers to be sure that the other two to flee. Which would represent ~75 conscripts with FRFSRF. As for the wave serpent I'm not sure since it depends on loadout and positioning. It kills ~5-7 conscripts (depending on range) per turn including morale casualties assuming that it doesn't move and brings a twin scatterlaser. 50 conscripts would deal 2-3 wounds to it at 24'' assuming that the searchlight is gone.

As has been repeatedly stated, if you're going to conga line your officers "quite far back" so they cannot be sniped, you're going to also be greatly reducing the firepower you have available to bring to bear against your opponents.

There are also certain units that can take advantage of said conga line through various kinds of deepstrike and outflanking moves to kill you anyway unless you both conga line AND bubble-wrap your officers. And good luck getting anything useful done with that level of baby sitting.

1. It is ludicrously easy to have a model inside a character's aura without majorly impacting the unit when it is part of a 50 freakin-model unit. If you know the opponent doesn't have some flank/deep strike-surprises for you, you can easily accomplish this by sacrificing the firing range of a mere 2-4 conscripts. If I daisy-chain back to auras with 5 dudes, I'm sure you can do it with 50.

2. You get to know what your opponent has before deployment. If they do have some deep strikyness to them, 4-8 models to both chain back and also wrap the characters does the trick, and if it's the case of two units of scripts, you could just use 4 from each unit and have the last dude from each meet the other right behind the officers. Remember that you can't just pistol a light amount of dudes out of the way before charging. If one conscript is in the way, then all 50 might as well be, because they aren't going to take that guy out for wounds.

I really really do not understand the people who are trying to argue that it's not possible to use a 50 man unit to both shield a couple 1-inch base characters while still being in position to shoot 24".

Seriously 4 conscripts is 12 inches + bases.

SilverAlien wrote:

 Arandmoor wrote:
As has been repeatedly stated, if you're going to conga line your officers "quite far back" so they cannot be sniped, you're going to also be greatly reducing the firepower you have available to bring to bear against your opponents.

There are also certain units that can take advantage of said conga line through various kinds of deepstrike and outflanking moves to kill you anyway unless you both conga line AND bubble-wrap your officers. And good luck getting anything useful done with that level of baby sitting.

Three conscripts would put your commissar 12" behind the bulk of your forces. If you want to wrap the commissar , ignore his radius, assume the tail end of each line is slightly behind him, four conscripts for each fifty conscript unit is sevenish inches behind. Or run them in two ranks, with a single tail for each unit and the commissar sandwiched between, that's 16 inches apart which still ensures every point between them is safe from deepstrike (which is also why it's actually not hard to screen from deepstriking without spreading your units across the entire board but that's a different story).

It's not even a little hard to do, it's absurdly easy unless you try to send the two squads to different corners of the map or something. You can still easily get things done because again, you are guard. You shoot and table enemies while sitting still.

Also, if you say "no castling doesn't work" you realize the person whose actually been consistently winning with guard on these forums has reported multiple battles where she was sitting castled up and tabled her opponents? That's how guard wins.

I have only played a few games of 8th thus far, but I have won every game with guard I have played. I do not use conscripts and I do not use gun lines. Well, partially true. I have a few heavy weapons squads and snipers hang out in the back field.

I push the assault forward with vehicles shoot where possible turn 1 (punishers, hellhounds, valkyries, etc). Advance with bullgryn backed up by a command squad with medipack to draw some fire. I might even use some artillery to help do some clear cutting from the enemy deployment zone if I have the points.
Truth is though, everything I keep in the back is basically expendable.

Once the area is thinned out I will make use of grav chute insertion or any deep strikes I have with me. It sometimes makes me wait for my second turn. Oddly enough, I prefer to go second so that my opponent can move around and space things out a bit.

 Deathypoo wrote:

 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

I was brief in my response earlier because I didn't have the time to fully talk through it. This kind of exercise is going to always be doomed to fail, because we can't ever just look at a handful of units. We need to look at an entire list, because, in all honesty, you're probably going to have to smash most of your entire list into this to make it go away. That's really not a problem though.

Some things to talk about first though:
- Searchlights don't stack, so they're still 5+ at best with the searchlights, and they're not going to get even that.
- My estimate of 60% for the snipers was just straight up regular shooting with taking no special rules into consideration. Command point rerolls and the special rule that gives an extra mortal wound were not taken into account. You have a 69% chance of getting a non-zero number of mortal wounds and an 8% chance of killing the commissar outright through mortal wounds alone, so that actually boosts your odds up closer to 75% or so, and maybe a little higher especially when you consider command points.

Here's my proposed list @ 1500 points (because we need to pick a point limit also):
Autarch with Swooping Hawk Wings
- Lasblaster

10 x Rangers

10 x Swooping Hawks
- Exarch with sunrifle
10 x Swooping Hawks
- Exarch with sunrifle
10 x Swooping Hawks
- Exarch with sunrifle

Wave Serpent
- Twin BL
- Shuriken Cannon
- Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent
- Twin BL
- Shuriken Cannon
- Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent
- Twin BL
- Shuriken Cannon
- Spirit Stones

Wave Serpent
- Twin BL
- Shuriken Cannon
- Spirit Stones

9 drops. Eldar probably going first.

Rangers deploy to where they can hit the commissar. Both SH squads deep strike as close as they can get, and I'm going to assume at least one of them can get into cover. Maybe two. Autarch moves with the SH, or with the WS if you are more worried about vehicles (which sounds like it doesn't happen). Wave Serpents should be pretty close to in range to shoot with bright lances during deployment, but move if they must.

Rangers pop Commissar (75% or higher), Swooping hawks squads each have a 67% chance to kill 9-18 or so conscripts. More if the Autarch is with them. Sunrifle makes conscripts BS 6+ for the return fire, and you hit each squad with at least one sunrifle. Wave serpents focus fire as needed. If they moved up, you can split fire the Shuriken cannons into the conscripts for more damage, while the bright lances put some hurt on the tanks. Focus fired, they have a good chance of getting at least 12 wounds on a non-LR. I'd have to crunch the exact numbers again to give more specific odds. The ideal I suppose would be to get EVERYTHING into the Autarch bubble, though I don't know how viable that would be in reality, which is what I try to concern myself with as much as I can, which may be more or less than other people.

By my estimate, and if you balance the damage between the two conscript squads, they're probably at half strength after morale, give or take. There's probably other prioritization of targets and optimizations you can make, but without knowing the other list, I can't suggest anything better at this point.

Guard turn: some number of nebulous IG points (you should build an IG list, it's fun!) does something, and then conscripts shoot back. We have about 50 conscripts with FRFSRF total between the two squads, so that's the classic 200 shots everyone keeps talking about. They're probably going to shoot at our SH, so lets see how they do: They have a 66% chance of killing 2-6 SH in cover and a 67% of killing 6-12 SH out of cover, and remember, they have three squads to shoot at, and they don't know how that split is going to pan out, so even if they try to optimise all the squads dead, odds are it's not going to happen that way and they're going to leave a handful. I don't know what the rest of the army is, so I can't really say what they do.

Turn 1 end: You've killed about 180-240 points (of the conscripts and commissar alone) + whatever your bright lances did, and they've killed likely about 230-270 points of your swooping hawks (of conscripts alone) + whatever their other stuff did. Yeah, they've likely removed more points, which looks bad on paper, but I really think Eldar are in a better position at this point. I'd have to see the other list to know for sure though.

Turn 2: Rangers put damage on the company commander. They might not kill him outright, because he has an additional wound, but they can try. Remaining swooping hawks drop grenades on conscripts, and then fire into them further if necessary, with the Autarch trying to ruin BS for tanks (admittedly unlikely). They then assault priority targets that Eldar can't afford to be firing next turn, and the commander if possible. Remaining portions of army continues shooting tanks as needed. Ideally, Autarch hangs out with WS for the reroll 1 bubble.

Again, any attempts at extrapolating outcome at this point fall flat because I don't know what the other 1000 points on the table looks like, which could make a HUGE difference either way. As a few notes:

- All my probabilities came from my mathhammer script. I added up the odds of each outcome and tried to get to the point of likelihood closest to 65-67 or so percent. Since conscripts are more dice rolls than stats, they have a wide spread of outcomes that are all 4-6% each, so there's a pretty wide range of unpredictability (which I think is the REAL source of a lot of people's issue with them even if they don't realize it)

- I was also pretty generous to the conscripts in that I assume the return fire would be exactly 200 shots, when, after casualties and the consideration that they were probably spread out across the entire board edge to keep you from getting too close to the rest of the army, they'd probably have a hard time getting every single one of them in rapid fire range.

This was actually kind of fun. Please do come up with that list. I look forward to playing them against each other.

So now that we've done the math on it 4 or 5 times and I think everyone can agree Conscripts are OP with orders...

... can we start turning our energy to find out if conscripts would be less OP without orders?

The last couple of pages has been about 'conscripts with orders kill everything and are too efficient' which I think Katherine proved like... pages ago.

 daedalus wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:

 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

I was brief in my response earlier because I didn't have the time to fully talk through it. This kind of exercise is going to always be doomed to fail, because we can't ever just look at a handful of units. We need to look at an entire list, because, in all honesty, you're probably going to have to smash most of your entire list into this to make it go away. That's really not a problem though.

Some things to talk about first though:
- Searchlights don't stack, so they're still 5+ at best with the searchlights, and they're not going to get even that.

My math didn't include the searchlights stacking. It includes one searchlight for each squad, which would just cancel out the Ranger's -1 to hit.

As for the rest of that 1500 point list, my entire goal was to avoid coming up with entire incredibly difficult to math out huge battles. I wanted to keep it simple. For any number of points, if you build a list as a direct counter, you should be able to win against the same number of points. I literally cannot think of a list at 401 points with any chance of beating that 401 points of guard.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So now that we've done the math on it 4 or 5 times and I think everyone can agree Conscripts are OP with orders...

... can we start turning our energy to find out if conscripts would be less OP without orders?

The last couple of pages has been about 'conscripts with orders kill everything and are too efficient' which I think Katherine proved like... pages ago.

Basically that boils down to: how good should conscripts be at screening, what level of overall staying power should such a unit have. Which involves a lot of back and forth with little progress.

I'm almost at the point of agreeing conscript's staying power is fine mysel. I do think some other armies need buffs for their chaff units and we need a few additional counter options spread across most armies. More ways to target characters, some weapons which scale up with unit size a bit better, and some more options for AP -2 anti infantry weapons. I think that's the more pressing issue.

 Neferhet wrote:
at this point of the discussion (23 pages) you guys would have been better served by playing games on vassal to prove everyone's point.

Well, I doubt anyone would actually be anymore convinced by this. I also doubt anyone person has spent more than the length of one game reading/responding to posts in this thread, and it was probably during a period they couldn't really play but could get online.

Arguing about 40k is basically what I do when I want to play 40k but, for whatever reason, can't.

 Deathypoo wrote:

As for the rest of that 1500 point list, my entire goal was to avoid coming up with entire incredibly difficult to math out huge battles. I wanted to keep it simple. For any number of points, if you build a list as a direct counter, you should be able to win against the same number of points. I literally cannot think of a list at 401 points with any chance of beating that 401 points of guard.

You're going to find instances where the game breaks at particular low level point values for just a handful of units though. Do the same thing at the minimum points needed to field a single IK. IK should always win. Or a Stormlord. Stormlord will definitely always win (and probably beats conscripts).

Hell, in 6th, I could run a list at 500 points of genestealer spam that I never once failed to table an opponent back when I was dipping my toes in Nids.

 daedalus wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:

As for the rest of that 1500 point list, my entire goal was to avoid coming up with entire incredibly difficult to math out huge battles. I wanted to keep it simple. For any number of points, if you build a list as a direct counter, you should be able to win against the same number of points. I literally cannot think of a list at 401 points with any chance of beating that 401 points of guard.

You're going to find instances where the game breaks at particular low level point values for just a handful of units though. Do the same thing at the minimum points needed to field a single IK. IK should always win. Or a Stormlord. Stormlord will definitely always win (and probably beats conscripts).

Hell, in 6th, I could run a list at 500 points of genestealer spam that I never once failed to table an opponent back when I was dipping my toes in Nids.

400-500 point games are a little different than 1500. A 400-500 point list is very rarely going to have the tools to deal with a spam army, because the resources are spread thin as is. You can't really build proper TAC lists at those point values, so it'll usually amount to whose gimmick works better in that matchup. At 1500 a TAC list is going to be a more reasonable option.

I can think of an army at 393 points that beats 401 points of conscripts - the Macharius Vulcan and a searchlight.

Conditions: The Macharius starts at its max range, firing from turn 1. The conscripts do not have cover. The conscripts advance every turn, to 24" to shoot, with an average of 20" of movement until the turn they are in range to account for the Move Move Move! order.

Every turn it fires, if it doesn't move (which it won't), it does:
16.66 conscripts per turn of damage with its main gun
2.2 conscripts with its heavy bolters
1.7 with its twin stubber

That's 20.56 conscripts per turn - 21.56 after morale.

With 20" of movements, the conscripts will have to move twice to get in range, and will not be able to fire the second time, so we can assume that the Malcador gets 3 shots before the Conscripts can open fire, since it is fewer drops. This means that 64.68 conscripts will be dead before they can fire. The remaining squad will have 35.32 Conscripts left.

They FRFSRF at 20" (the range they are at now) - 1.96 wounds to the Macharius Vulcan.

The Vulcan kills 21.56 more conscripts. There are now 13.96 conscripts left. They move and advance into Rapid Fire, then get the Forward, For the Emperor order to shoot: They do 0.775 wounds.

The Macharius Vulcan eliminates the conscripts and is free to mop up the enemy characters and searchlights for the rest of the game, with 19.264 wounds left.


EDIT: And the army is a legal 393 point army too.

 daedalus wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:

As for the rest of that 1500 point list, my entire goal was to avoid coming up with entire incredibly difficult to math out huge battles. I wanted to keep it simple. For any number of points, if you build a list as a direct counter, you should be able to win against the same number of points. I literally cannot think of a list at 401 points with any chance of beating that 401 points of guard.

You're going to find instances where the game breaks at particular low level point values for just a handful of units though. Do the same thing at the minimum points needed to field a single IK. IK should always win. Or a Stormlord. Stormlord will definitely always win (and probably beats conscripts).

Hell, in 6th, I could run a list at 500 points of genestealer spam that I never once failed to table an opponent back when I was dipping my toes in Nids.

I don't know what an IK costs off the top of my head, but my WK is easily destroyed by 502 points worth of lascannon teams. Because everything should fall to an army built directly to counter it, at really any points value.

Did your opponents build specifically to beat your genestealers or were you up against TAC lists?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverAlien wrote:

400-500 point games are a little different than 1500. A 400-500 point list is very rarely going to have the tools to deal with a spam army, because the resources are spread thin as is. You can't really build proper TAC lists at those point values, so it'll usually amount to whose gimmick works better in that matchup. At 1500 a TAC list is going to be a more reasonable option.

But I'm not asking for a 500 point TAC list that can also handle conscripts. I'm saying to build a list as a direct counter to conscripts and who cares if it beats anything else. If that's impossible for certain armies to do, conscripts are objectively OP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I can think of an army at 393 points that beats 401 points of conscripts - the Macharius Vulcan and a searchlight. .

My original request was for an Eldar Craftworld army. I don't even know what a Macharius Vulcan is, tbh, so it doesn't help me with my problem. Call me selfish, but I'm not surprised that SOMETHING in all of GW's line-up can beat a conscript blob - I just want something I can use.

Also, just reading what you wrote, it appears you're also counting on conscripts being unreasonably far away. In a standard deployment, the furthest away you can hope to get (you have single deployment remember so conscripts can just place searchlights first and wait to see where you are) is 36" (48" board minus 12" deployment). Presumably your model has width as well, so it's actually a few inches short of 36". Turn 1 conscripts move 6" and advance (I don't know what "move move move" order is but they don't even need it). They are now 30" minus advance move minus width of model away from you. Turn 2 they can move 6" and shoot with at least the front rank, plus how ever many ranks of men the advance move and your model width got them. If they rolled well on the advance move, they'll be in rapid fire range on turn 3.

Sure, if you're playing a <500 point game on a 6x4 table, and you're doing hammer+anvil set up, and you both deploy as far away as possible from each other, a lot of artillery choices are probably doable. I'm looking for realistic conditions though.

Sadly, searchlights don't work on vehicles anymore. Pretty much any T6+ vehicle with a sufficient amount of anti-infantry shots can chew through conscripts unsupported though, while taking negligible damage in return.

 Deathypoo wrote:

I don't know what an IK costs off the top of my head, but my WK is easily destroyed by 502 points worth of lascannon teams. Because everything should fall to an army built directly to counter it, at really any points value.

It does, just maybe not in your army. The things already mentioned would work. I've not done the math, but genestealers sound like they'd do the job. And there could be things the Eldar codex I'm honestly unaware of that might work. I don't know it nearly well enough to know for sure. Comparatively, I'm not sure how 502 points of most other non-guard armies would deal with a WK. And back on page 2 or 3 of this, I showed how even 1000 points of pure melta in a SM army (including transport to get it there) wasn't enough to guarantee a kill on a IK in a turn, so even points for even points when the game is scaled to be the size of the nastiest thing on the table isn't really appropriate.

Did your opponents build specifically to beat your genestealers or were you up against TAC lists?

I don't remember their lists, but I know they were basically all marine players (and one SoB I think) so their basic unit was built specifically to shoot genestealers to death. I recall them having flamers. And they all knew what I was doing after the first time, and I was upfront about not altering the list, and they knew when they were playing me, so I'd assume they were building for me, though I don't think I ever asked.

I think the game just genuinely doesn't scale properly below maybe 1000 points, and that's the bare minimum. More realistically, I'd guess maybe 1500 is when it starts getting closer to evening out, hypercompetitive spam armies notwithstanding.

This is going to sound weird, but I trust GW to find a fix for Imperial Guard.

The Raven Spam / Flyer Spam fix was well done. They did it without invalidating any formations, and they did it without nerfing the stats on the fliers themselves, so for those of us who aren't cheesing, they're still useful.

I hope they use a relatively light touch, and bring IG back in line with everyone else.

 Marmatag wrote:
This is going to sound weird, but I trust GW to find a fix for Imperial Guard.

The Raven Spam / Flyer Spam fix was well done. They did it without invalidating any formations, and they did it without nerfing the stats on the fliers themselves, so for those of us who aren't cheesing, they're still useful.

I hope they use a relatively light touch, and bring IG back in line with everyone else.

Yea, under them.