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All they have to do to nerf Conscripts is give them a rule along the lines of:

"Undisciplined Rabble: [Fluff Blurb], this unit cannot receive the benefits from Orders."

Guardsmen are professional soldiers, and it would be drilled into them how to react when they receive orders. A bunch of guys given a lasgun and a flak vest and sent out to die isn't going to be disciplined enough to react like well trained soldiers.

Eldenfirefly wrote:

 Garrlor wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:

No.

The reason why we can't nice things is GW failed to balance for them. A list full of flyers could be balanced so it works with the game, if the rules and point costs for such units were correct. GW did not write rules that allowed for this, and then decided the best fix was to make all flyer lists literally unplayable. That is still GW's fault. The blame always and forever rests with them.

But if we were being even semi realistic, why would you want to take a list of all flyers? You want flyers to gain aerial superiority over your enemy, so that you may strike at them un-opposed from the air. An all flyer list can do this, but is vulnerable to AA from the ground without ground forces moving in to occupy and distract that ground based AA. The problem with something like this in 40k is the lack of AA to most ground units, whereas in a modern military things like man-pads are common. Aircraft have the same problems that tanks do, in that they will struggle to dislodge entrenched infantry and to hold ground. Hence why no one runs an all Pred list, as you know that there is a lot of anti tank out there and its pointless.

That is an issue with the balance of the game in of itself, as the lack of reliable AA in a unit is a pain, but I can also see the reasoning in keeping the options down as much as possible for a skirmish game like 40k. Air support should be just that, support, not the whole thrust of an army.

+1 to this.

I think they should have introduce a new type of AA weapon that can be taken by troops and havocs. Like anti aircraft missile. Make it have a +2 to hit fliers, str8, and does d6 damage (like a missile) but on fliers, it does 2d6 damage.

I have also always wondered at the resilience of fliers this edition. Hard to hit is one thing already, but most fliers irl are so afraid of damage that any kind of hit on them has them running back to base for repairs, or emergency landing and such. Yet fliers in 40k seem to be able to shrug off metal melting lascannon blasts like nothing and just keep on going. Fliers are simply a lot more vulnerable compared to a tank because a tank is surrounded by steel while a flier has vulnerable exhaust points, rotors and such.

Actually, while I appreciate that people may think twice about spamming fliers now, but how does this stop hiding a special hard to kill character with a 4++ save behind a bunch of fliers? You can't target a special character unless its the closest so you still have to wade through all the fliers to get at that cowering single character anyway. Close assault can do it, but yeah, lets try to close assault to the edge corner of a board with 5 SR flying around blasting you to bits...

Anyway, world eaters are fluffy and viable now. Sure, have fun fielding an all flyer list. Then let's see your few infantry models and that one character hold off 2000 points of berserkers on the ground all by himself. lol

I'm a fan of "trigger on attack" Overwatch instead of "trigger on movement" Overwatch, as a way to intentionally prevent the game from going too alpha-strike but not becoming a Mexican standoff.

I imagine a more pressing issue will be that solo character hiding while immune to non-sniper targeting, then the Stormravens dropping off solo Acolytes to spread a larger "no Deep Strike" cordon around the table. It still weirds me out how GW FAQed flyers near the end of 7th to effectively be on a different "plane" (ha!) from ground units, only for them to reverse it for 8th. The change works both ways, as while you can crash an aircraft by flooding the board with so many infantry that it has nowhere to move (a giant "Tron" wall of death), it also means that you cannot move *past* or around said aircraft unless you also Fly. Damn repulsor-fields!

Which of course leads to the hilarity of a Trygon and tunneling Hormagaunts not being able to tunnel close because the aircraft are lurking in the sky, not being able to move past said Stormravens and not being able to charge them...while the 15-point Astropath goes "sure, you can take Deathleaper just to kill me...but what happens when I'm only one model out of several?"

For a Conscript Nerf I rather see Comissars instead say

During morale, any number of times per unit, you may slain a model to reduce the morale test by d6

Wow this discussion went nowhere fast.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talamare wrote:
For a Conscript Nerf I rather see Comissars instead say

During morale, any number of times per unit, you may slain a model to reduce the morale test by d6

No.

If you nerf commissars to the point that it makes them unusable on any unit EXCEPT conscripts, you're going to make conscripts used even more and guardsmen used even less.

Or as I keep repeating (and no one has apparently gotten in to their thick skulls yet) when you're trying to turn a screw, you don't grab the damn jackhammer, you grab the screwdriver.

What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

Because it let you snipe individual models and made flamers useless.

 DoomMouse wrote:
This FAQ is beautiful. Particularly making razor wings more reasonably pointed. I think I would have preferred a points increase on the flyers rather than the strange tabling rule, but it'll stop 100 percent flyer spam at least. Top lists will have to include half an army of something else to back up their 3-4 storm ravens.

Instead of [5 x Ravens and Pappa G], I expect to see [4 x Ravens, Pappa G and 1 x Ravens points worth of Conscripts and Comissars].

1 x less Raven and a couple of large blobs of (conscripts + commisar).

You've basically got to wipe the conscripts (and a Primarch) from the board before his Storm ravens delete you.

Some of the more minor changes are excited about are broadsides going back to taking 2 drones per suit instead of per squad and jokaeros being able to ride in vehicles.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I think the biggest change no-ones talking about is the change to understrength units.

It's great they reacted to our comments on FB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

It overnerfed hordes.

Absolutely brilliant move by GW. The reponse time was top notch as well. Flyer lists are not fun to play against, and if you're salty about it I'm sorry but I'm glad that mess is fixed.

Now onto the other issues of a million conscripts.

Only people not happy about GW nerfing FOTM lists are the guys running FOTM lists. The salt is real.

Have to say I'm guilty as well. I jumped the gun and bought me some Wolf guard bikers and they got hampered in the equipment department and quite significantly so. It's probably the last time I'm buying anything that is strong at the moment.

I'm not salty though, a more balanced game means a more enjoyable game for everyone involved.

I didn't pay much attention to the puppies before-- what were you trying to take advantage of?

 Melissia wrote:
I didn't pay much attention to the puppies before-- what were you trying to take advantage of?

They could take a chainsword (or any melee weapon), a storm bolter and a storm shield. Now they have to replace the chainsword for the SS. Essentially if you want to go full ham on SS/SB you cannot take any melee weapons, making them somewhat less potent overall. The dakka is still impressive though and I'm not super salty, they were a bit too much with melee weapons added to that. Now you have to make a compromise between melee prowess, survivability, or dakka.

Only sad thing about this FaQ is still no palanquin for my herold.

Kind of interesting that they did something about razorwing, but not about conscripts and horrors yet.
This edition is getting better and better, I thought we'd have to wait until decembre before they do sth. about the balance.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

Alot of things was wrong with removing closest model first.

It made flamers near-useless, since they'd always end up closest to the enemy, and then get killed instantly in the following phase.
It nerfed horde armies (and close-combat in general) since an shooting could easily "push" a unit back several inches and an overwatch likewise could increase a chargerange by afew inches, usually leading to a failed charge.
It looked dumb seeing all those sergeants and champions leading their units from the back...
I can probably think of several other reasons once I've had my morning-coffee.

As for removing AoE:s - I've yet to meet a single person (irl) who doesn't love the removal of Blasts and Templates.
The new system speeds up the game and all arguments about "no it scattered like this" are gone.

Not to mention the removal of blasts and templates makes unit spacing a non-issue. Whereas before you had to make sure to space everyone out to avoid blasts, now you can just place them asap without worrying. If anything the change to a D6 for small blasts actually improved them. When was the last time you even had the POSSIBILITY of getting 6 hits with a frag launcher?

I will concede the way they changed the large blast weapons to be inconsistent at best. Why a Demolisher canon became D3(D6 vs 5+) when a Battle Cannon became a flat D6 is baffling.

Also, while I don't know how it worked in 7th specifically, using multiple templates from open-topped transports was just silly. A unit of Burnaz could get 70+ Hits.

I am really happy with GW for putting out these FAQ's so fast. It shows that they do care about peoples opinions.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Not to mention the removal of blasts and templates makes unit spacing a non-issue. Whereas before you had to make sure to space everyone out to avoid blasts, now you can just place them asap without worrying. If anything the change to a D6 for small blasts actually improved them. When was the last time you even had the POSSIBILITY of getting 6 hits with a frag launcher?

I will concede the way they changed the large blast weapons to be inconsistent at best. Why a Demolisher canon became D3(D6 vs 5+) when a Battle Cannon became a flat D6 is baffling.

It also reduced time, as soon as people saw flamers or blast weapons that time for games increased as each people spread out all their models to 2" exactly.. Worse if they have horde units.

I will concede as well that some blast weapons have some oddly inconsistent issues like that... You'd think they'd have gone 2d3 in some cases.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

Closest model allowed for unit tanks. That, in turn, caused a lot of problems.

 Talamare wrote:
For a Conscript Nerf I rather see Comissars instead say

During morale, any number of times per unit, you may slain a model to reduce the morale test by d6

That would have to only apply to Conscripts for that to work. It would make Commissars pretty useless with everybody else. I think it makes perfect sense for them not to be able to take orders.

I hope they do something to conscripts soon. I've been slowly getting my new force together for over a year with the plan to use a fair number of conscripts. They weren't good for much in 7th, but now...

I don't want to be "that guy."

Are conscripts honestly that bad?

Or is 8th edition too new and 99% of the playerbase haven't realized that if you snipe commissars the conscripts fold like origami.

I don't think I've seen a single person use snipers yet.

everyone here is discussing the new flyer rules and I'm just happy that the infiltrators got un-nerfed

ThePorcupine wrote:
Are conscripts honestly that bad?

Or is 8th edition too new and 99% of the playerbase haven't realized that if you snipe commissars the conscripts fold like origami.

I don't think I've seen a single person use snipers yet.

Not every army *has* Snipers, and "Take Snipers" isn't good game design, for it's a solution to a relatively narrow yet deadly problem, that is of relatively less use the moment you come across a build that doesn't rely on fragile buff-characters. The game should be more about "generalship" and less about "matchup."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
What exactly was wrong with AOEs, or "closest model first" casualties again? Or mandatory pile-in for that matter?

Closest model allowed for unit tanks. That, in turn, caused a lot of problems.

However, with 8th removing Independent Characters and Monster Squadrons, two of the more notable ways to create "tanks" have been removed from the game in turn. Alternately, removing "LOS" or making it a 3" area (instead of 6") and removing the ability to pawn hits onto *other* characters, and you have two hotfixes there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Not to mention the removal of blasts and templates makes unit spacing a non-issue. Whereas before you had to make sure to space everyone out to avoid blasts, now you can just place them asap without worrying. If anything the change to a D6 for small blasts actually improved them. When was the last time you even had the POSSIBILITY of getting 6 hits with a frag launcher?

I will concede the way they changed the large blast weapons to be inconsistent at best. Why a Demolisher canon became D3(D6 vs 5+) when a Battle Cannon became a flat D6 is baffling.

Also, while I don't know how it worked in 7th specifically, using multiple templates from open-topped transports was just silly. A unit of Burnaz could get 70+ Hits.

In 7e, since you could only remove models in range and line of sight, what happened was models within 8" of the wagon would be deleted, but everything else would be fine. I think GW actually forgot this rule when writing Ynnari in 7e, because in typical Eldar fanboy fashion, they created a Witchfire for Eldar that was Assault X, where X was the number of models in the target unit. Rather than deleting a Green Tide, it would instead overkill the few models in range in hilarious form and fashion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MinscS2 wrote:
Alot of things was wrong with removing closest model first.

It made flamers near-useless, since they'd always end up closest to the enemy, and then get killed instantly in the following phase.
It nerfed horde armies (and close-combat in general) since an shooting could easily "push" a unit back several inches and an overwatch likewise could increase a chargerange by afew inches, usually leading to a failed charge.
It looked dumb seeing all those sergeants and champions leading their units from the back...
I can probably think of several other reasons once I've had my morning-coffee.

As for removing AoE:s - I've yet to meet a single person (irl) who doesn't love the removal of Blasts and Templates.
The new system speeds up the game and all arguments about "no it scattered like this" are gone.

I respect the "speed" argument to a point. I do agree that too many scatters ruins the game (making small blasts scatter in 5e was arguably messier than rolling for "partials" in 4e), and it was definitely wonky that Barrage weapons were better for sniping than actual sniper weapons! Little things like these could have been patched and the system would still be fine.

Of course, slow play will happen regardless of AOEs, so I'm more iffy on that. I do have to willfully stifle my sense of disbelief and go "no, I'm not playing Napoleon: Total War, yes those Conscripts are in a musket line" so ynmv. It's more a "visual" thing I suppose but I like the idea that "bunched up" troops are innately more likely to be hit with AOE weapons, rather than every Battlecannon being a pseudo-Exorcist launcher.

I guess what I'm saying is that Conscripts as they currently stand require "extreme" solutions to handle, wheras while hordes were that much weaker in 7th compared to Bikes and move-12 Monsters, you didn't have to take specific "anti-horde" units to handle them, and you could soft-counter them by merit of the core rules. "Hard counters" don't make for a balanced game.

So, overall, I am pretty happy with how things are progressing with the faq’s, however, there are still a lot of un-answered questions that need a response. For example, I sent a 2-and-a-half-page document of questions to GW prior to this latest faq, and 2/3rds of the questions are still unanswered. (For example, there are still no rules on how things like "SWARMS", "BEASTS" and "DRONES" interact with terrain. You'd have thought that a scarab or ripper swarm base would benefit from a crater in the same way an infantry model would, but, apparently not.) It might be the case that some of the requests for clarification are actual changes within the new game, but, they still need clarifying at the end of the day to put the questions to rest.

Unfortunately, this does raise the questions of consistency and whether an adequate review has taken place. Yes, there will be mistakes here and there, but there have been a lot of major oversights and countless minor ones within the index’s themselves, and I fully expect more questions to be raised when the SM codex is in people’s hands soon. (I.E The next big thing is going to be around units that are in the Imperium 1 index but not the space marine codex - hq’s on bikes, and does the codex override the index in all instances, or a “pick and choose”.) While expected, this is somewhat disappointing and frustrating for a lot of players and indicates a failure somewhere between game design to publishing. Hell, I even offered free services to provide an extra level of proof reading (which I feel is very, very much required at the current stage) to help resolve the issue, but, sadly the offer hasn’t been responded to.

As for the flyer change in particular – I think it is somewhat ok for now, but I’m not sure it will be enough, especially in the case of “imperium” armies. My first thoughts were “this is way too much”, but the more I look at it, the more I feel that it does not overly prevent Stormraven spam – which was the main culprit. For example, in 2000 points you can still get 5 Stormravens, along with 144 conscripts, 1 commander and 1 lord commissar. Sure, the conscripts will get ripped apart pretty quickly, but, if you are forced to focus them for 2 or 3 turns, the Raven’s will just rip your army in the same way they were previously.

Overall, I am happy that things are getting looked at, and fixed, quickly, but I am frustrated at the fact that it is having to happen to this extent. This was, after all, the most play tested and reviewed set of rules for 40k ever.

"If you are playing a matched play game, you can
only include an understrength unit in an Auxiliary
Support Detachment."

What is meant by under strength unit?

 MinscS2 wrote:
As for removing AoE:s - I've yet to meet a single person (irl) who doesn't love the removal of Blasts and Templates.
The new system speeds up the game and all arguments about "no it scattered like this" are gone.

Agreed. The only thing I don't like about the new flamer rules is that they can't overwatch if the charge begins outside of 8" range which seems dumb. But if that's the penalty I have to take to eliminate the old template shenanigans then I will live with it.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
I will concede the way they changed the large blast weapons to be inconsistent at best. Why a Demolisher canon became D3(D6 vs 5+) when a Battle Cannon became a flat D6 is baffling.

Absolutely agreed, should defently be D6 or D3+3 or something, its a freakin seigeshell with very short range and very big boom. At the moment it feels like an unreliable overclocked lascannon.

ThePorcupine wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Can someone point me to a GT in which conscript spam was the winning list?

*Crickets* Nothing....

So far, Scions have been real bread winners, conscripts in the realm of vacuums and math hammer.

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2017/07/17/40k-team-sport-atc-list-meta/
'ere you go. Unless I'm misunderstanding these lists, the Tony Grippando list (1st place) has 4 units of conscripts and Tony Kopach list (2nd place) has 3 larger units of conscripts. Spam? Not exactly. But both lists have conscripts and scions in common.

20 Man units of conscripts because you can no longer merge squads in Tony G's list. It is using them for meatshields so all that other shooty will destroy everything. Mind you this list is not designed for a non team tournament, its designed for the team format.

Conscript Math Freak outs are AMAZING and I wish people would stop doing it :(

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
"If you are playing a matched play game, you can
only include an understrength unit in an Auxiliary
Support Detachment."

What is meant by under strength unit?

A unit with fewer models than the minimum size. So for example, you can take 9 Necron Warriors to fit them and an HQ into a Ghost Ark but have to use the Auxiliary Support Detachment to do so.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
"If you are playing a matched play game, you can
only include an understrength unit in an Auxiliary
Support Detachment."

What is meant by under strength unit?

Taking less than the minimum size. There was some potential for abuse with the prior version of the understrength rules, I forget specifically what it was, but this nips it in the bud by requiring you to pay 1 CP (as an Auxiliary Support Detachment is -1 CP) in order to take a squad less than the minimum size.