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.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
I'd prefer to make orders a LD test rather than remove them entirely.

They're not an LD test anymore, deal with it.

We've had Orders as a LD test for years. It was trash, and truthfully the Orders system is still abysmally bad. It needs to be reworked further to get to a point where it is on par with Canticles, Markerlights, Psyker abilities, or anything of that nature.

HA! Oh man, I really needed that laugh, thanks. I can't speak for Canticles, but how can you possibly think that Markerlights are better than Orders? How can you think that Orders are bad or need to be reworked? Orders let you fire twice as many shots, rerolls 1s to hit or to wound, move faster, immediately attack in CC out of sequence, and shoot after falling back or advancing. You just have to declare them and they happen, and the units that provide them are cheap as hell.

More on topic, remove the ability for Conscripts to get Orders. Its fluffy (they're a bunch of random joes who got yoked up by the Imperium, given a lasgun and flak armor, and tossed onto a battlefield with no training and told to go off and do great things) and it would solve the main problem with them, IMO. They're meant to be a bubble wrap unit who, when paired with a commissar, are annoying as hell to remove. That's fine, let them keep doing that. But don't let them be effective at anything else. They should not be doing anything but screening and taking up space on the table, not at their points cost. You want them to be able to receive orders? Then they need to shoot up in price, being only a point or two less than a regular guardsman.

Don't know if they need to be reduced to 30 max size from 50, but I can see the argument for it, especially since as far as I'm aware, 30 man units is the max unit size for the other horde armies (Orks, Nids, etc.).

 ross-128 wrote:
That doesn't change the fact that they're just doing their job. I'm sorry that you don't get to auto-win against any list that can't beat you in CC.

Because let's face it: the instant you reach cc with that list, you win. If nothing can stop you from reaching cc, then the outcome of the battle is predetermined. Your opponent might as well just concede the moment he sees your list. It'd save a lot of time, sure, but that doesn't sound particularly fun.

The conscripts are there to make sure a game actually happens and some dice get rolled.

Actually it's an auto-loss at the moment verus that Guard list. What would make for a fun, interesting game would be if it only required half as many troops to take out the conscripts, that way at least some of my units can make it into cc. As is, Punishers + Battle Cannons and SoB flamers mean I reach his gunline with 1-2 models (and not the big ones) and even if I did reach his gunline with my cc units he still has SoB/Inquisitorial units to counter charge me.

Conscripts are an extremely cheap barrier that means cc armies have to weather 2-3 rounds of shooting without really doing any damage which will leave most cc armies completely gutted and the gunline unscathed.

Flagged this, do we really need another fetching post about the same thing, no.

Personally, I think Conscripts are fine as-is. They do what the IG is supposed to do: hold their ground and whittle down the enemy with massed flashlight fire. They might be actually the only IG unit that does this to be honest.

 AtoMaki wrote:
Personally, I think Conscripts are fine as-is. They do what the IG is supposed to do: hold their ground and whittle down the enemy with massed flashlight fire. They might be actually the only IG unit that does this to be honest.

Pretty much. Many of the games Ive played in saw my regular and vet squads get chewed up turn 1 if not in a transport. Conscripts are the only thing that can have enough fire power left for me to shoot back and move around troop wise.

I would prefer that they don't. Instead, I would prefer better anti-infantry choices where necessary.

Brimstone horrors should not get a 4++, either.

If you're paying 1 point for a model you shouldn't get an invulnerable save that's better than a terminator. It makes no sense.

Just like you shouldn't get an 5+ save on a 3PPM model.

 mrhappyface wrote:

Conscripts are an extremely cheap barrier that means cc armies have to weather 2-3 rounds of shooting without really doing any damage which will leave most cc armies completely gutted and the gunline unscathed.

This is spot on.

There needs to be a better balance between melee and gunline. Right now, IG is far too strong.

 ross-128 wrote:


That doesn't change the fact that they're just doing their job. I'm sorry that you don't get to auto-win against any list that can't beat you in CC.

Because let's face it: the instant you reach cc with that list, you win. If nothing can stop you from reaching cc, then the outcome of the battle is predetermined. Your opponent might as well just concede the moment he sees your list. It'd save a lot of time, sure, but that doesn't sound particularly fun.

The conscripts are there to make sure a game actually happens and some dice get rolled.

This is basically the problem I have with the opposition to Conscripts.

I think it's just people upset that some of their soldier guys have to die for them to play the game. One guy once told me, straight up, last edition, that a Leman Russ Demolisher was OP because it ignored Terminator armorsaves, and Terminators aren't supposed to die. I've also been told anything with Ignores Cover is OP because it ignores the Tideline Shieldwall.

So, perhaps my experience is a bit colored, but considering I haven't seen 50 of them last more than one turn, except in a single game against a pile of Grey Knight Terminators. I'm willing to say "Okay, under Orders their offensive output is running drastically better than it should be point-for-point," and accept changes in that department, but not to their survivability, because the math shows that, without orders and with a commissar, their cumulative toughness and offensive power comes out to be fairly even compared to Space Marine Tactical Marines [less killy, slightly more resilient, per point]. Conscripts don't outperform Space Marines in every aspect until they're under the effect of Orders.

As an addendum, I rarely see the conscript's shooting have an effect, though the following process: Step 1, charge with Flyrant. Step 2, charge with Genestealers/Hormagaunts. The Flyrant eats the overwatch, and locks it off, then the melee unit obliterates the Conscripts and tries to consolidate as far as possible.



And, of course a melee army should have to brave 2-3 turns of shooting to win the game. Look at it this way: in order for a shooting army to have a chance against a melee army, the shooting army must kill X% of a melee army before the melee army makes CQC. X is less than 100%, but probably around 75%, depending on the power of the assault units. Even if only a few melee units make it, the shooting army basically has nothing left to do but wait for the game to end and hope their stuff is still around and in the right position, because once in combat, tanks and artillery don't do anything but wait to die [one of the reasons the Baneblades and other super-heavies are so powerful]. So there needs to be a decent chance to kill a big number of assault units before the assault units engage the tanks and artillery is close combat, yes?

Now, this presents a new problem. If the shooting army has a nonzero chance to kill off 75% of an attacking melee army in 1 turn, it can also do this to another shooting army. Now, she-who-goes-first-wins. Straightforward, yes?

Therefore, in order to make a better overall game, a shooting army should take a long time to cripple an opposing army, but should also be afforded most of the time it needs to do so. If it takes 4 turns to kill off enough of the enemy to have a chance of surviving the assault, but your average assault army only give 2 turns at most to reach combat, then a unit must exist to buy the extra 1-2 turns of shooting, without also increasing the number of turns it takes for the shooting army to take a big enough chunk out of the assault army to 5 or 6. Yes?

And, even more importantly, in 8e, first turn assault is a very real thing. It also doesn't take 4-5 turns to kill off 75% of the enemy army with optimal artillery distribution, it takes 2-3, but that's balance.



Anyway, let me go to a scenario to illustrate my point:
I played Tyranids yesterday, using a conscript gunline backed by artillery, tanks, and a shadowsword. My opponent used a pair of Mawlocs, a pair of Flyrants, a unit of hormagaunts, a unit of Genestealers, a unit of Hive Guard, and Tyrannocytes for unit delivery. The Mawlocs were inconsequential, and the points spent could have been spent on something good. Anyway, he got first go, and on turn 1, assaulted and wiped out all the conscripts with his tyrants, 'stealers, and 'gaunts, almost entirely with the 'stealers. I shot him then, killing a Mawloc and the Hormagaunts, and wounding a Tyrant. He charged again, wiping out all the second defensive infantry line, and killing one of my tanks. Overwatch saves my other one, since it kills the wounded Tyrant. On my turn 2, I kill a few genestealers, and blow up the second Mawloc. He charges the shadowsword, taking half it's wounds with the genestealers, and blows up my basilisk with the remaining tyrant. I retaliate for a third time with all 2 models I have remaining, a half-health Shadowsword and a half-health Leman Russ, both about 1-2 wounds from degrading, and put down the tyrant and most of the remaining genestealers. It goes on for a turn 4 and 5, in which I finish off the Tyrannocytes and Hive Guard.


Approximately 25% of his army killed 50% of my army, and nearly also got the other 50% of my army. He made a mistake charging the basilisk instead of the Shadowsword, which won me the game, because if the Tyrant had attacked the Shadowsword he would have blown it up and won. The other 75% of his army served either to transport the 25%, or provide redundancy and a distraction for the 25%.

Each rank of infantry bought me 1 round of shooting. Each turn of shooting killed a Mawloc, an infantry unit, and about 75% of a tyrant, that's about 33% of his army per round of shooting.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
I'd prefer to make orders a LD test rather than remove them entirely.

They're not an LD test anymore, deal with it.

We've had Orders as a LD test for years. It was trash, and truthfully the Orders system is still abysmally bad. It needs to be reworked further to get to a point where it is on par with Canticles, Markerlights, Psyker abilities, or anything of that nature.

HA! Oh man, I really needed that laugh, thanks. I can't speak for Canticles, but how can you possibly think that Markerlights are better than Orders? How can you think that Orders are bad or need to be reworked?

Easy.
Orders are bad and need to be reworked. They're an archaic system which only just got changed from being based off a LD test.
They affect a single unit at a time and units can never have more than one Order issued to them per turn. Add in that the models that can issue Orders can issue one(Platoon Commander and Tempestor Prime) or two(Company Commander and Tempestor Prime with a Command Rod) a turn as part of an army that might have a dozen units that can take Orders and it becomes a very real choice of "what unit is going to help me the most with these Orders".
That's also ignoring the fact that Tanks cannot receive Orders.

Markerlights, on the other hand, provide a flat bonus that the whole of a Tau Empire army can benefit from when firing at a unit that has Markerlight counters and the benefits are cumulative.

Try reading your own book sometime.

Orders let you fire twice as many shots

For one unit's Lasguns, Laspistols, or Hot-Shot Lasguns.

rerolls 1s to hit or to wound

Two separate Orders.

move faster

Which happens during your Shooting phase and prevents you from Shooting or Charging.

immediately attack in CC out of sequence

...It's one unit of GEQ attacking in CC out of sequence. It also requires you to be within 1" of an enemy unit.

and shoot after falling back or advancing

Once again, two separate Orders.

You just have to declare them and they happen,

You have to declare them via an Officer and be within 6" of the unit you want to have affected by them.
Alternatively, you have to have a unit with a Vox-Caster within 3" that can relay the Order--in that case, the Order range becomes 18".

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't actually read the Orders system?

and the units that provide them are cheap as hell.

And those units are focused in Elites and HQs and can't issue Orders to anyone that is not part of their Regiment(which means that for Scions to receive Orders, you have to take a Tempestor Prime--and Auxilia[Ogryn and Ratlings] cannot receive Orders).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, T'au Empire Markerlights can be put en masse in two separate units(Pathfinders and Drones) and can split fire off onto multiple targets to provide more coverage.

Try it sometime rather than complain about it being underpowered versus Orders. You might see how effective they are.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Spoiler:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
I'd prefer to make orders a LD test rather than remove them entirely.

They're not an LD test anymore, deal with it.

We've had Orders as a LD test for years. It was trash, and truthfully the Orders system is still abysmally bad. It needs to be reworked further to get to a point where it is on par with Canticles, Markerlights, Psyker abilities, or anything of that nature.

HA! Oh man, I really needed that laugh, thanks. I can't speak for Canticles, but how can you possibly think that Markerlights are better than Orders? How can you think that Orders are bad or need to be reworked?

Easy.
Orders are bad and need to be reworked. They're an archaic system which only just got changed from being based off a LD test.
They affect a single unit at a time and units can never have more than one Order issued to them per turn. Add in that the models that can issue Orders can issue one(Platoon Commander and Tempestor Prime) or two(Company Commander and Tempestor Prime with a Command Rod) a turn as part of an army that might have a dozen units that can take Orders and it becomes a very real choice of "what unit is going to help me the most with these Orders".
That's also ignoring the fact that Tanks cannot receive Orders.

Markerlights, on the other hand, provide a flat bonus that the whole of a Tau Empire army can benefit from when firing at a unit that has Markerlight counters and the benefits are cumulative.

Try reading your own book sometime.

Orders let you fire twice as many shots

For one unit's Lasguns, Laspistols, or Hot-Shot Lasguns.

rerolls 1s to hit or to wound

Two separate Orders.

move faster

Which happens during your Shooting phase and prevents you from Shooting or Charging.

immediately attack in CC out of sequence

...It's one unit of GEQ attacking in CC out of sequence. It also requires you to be within 1" of an enemy unit.

and shoot after falling back or advancing

Once again, two separate Orders.

You just have to declare them and they happen,

You have to declare them via an Officer and be within 6" of the unit you want to have affected by them.
Alternatively, you have to have a unit with a Vox-Caster within 3" that can relay the Order--in that case, the Order range becomes 18".

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't actually read the Orders system?

and the units that provide them are cheap as hell.

And those units are focused in Elites and HQs and can't issue Orders to anyone that is not part of their Regiment(which means that for Scions to receive Orders, you have to take a Tempestor Prime--and Auxilia[Ogryn and Ratlings] cannot receive Orders).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, T'au Empire Markerlights can be put en masse in two separate units(Pathfinders and Drones) and can split fire off onto multiple targets to provide more coverage.

Try it sometime rather than complain about it being underpowered versus Orders. You might see how effective they are.

First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire is really, really good.

It costs me 40 points to have a 50/50 shot of doubling the fire output of 1 squad. Compare 30 points for 2 guaranteed squads doubling their fire rate. In addition Orders happen in the shooting phase, not before the turn, so units can get into position to make the maximum use out of orders.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Spoiler:

 GI_Redshirt wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
I'd prefer to make orders a LD test rather than remove them entirely.

They're not an LD test anymore, deal with it.

We've had Orders as a LD test for years. It was trash, and truthfully the Orders system is still abysmally bad. It needs to be reworked further to get to a point where it is on par with Canticles, Markerlights, Psyker abilities, or anything of that nature.

HA! Oh man, I really needed that laugh, thanks. I can't speak for Canticles, but how can you possibly think that Markerlights are better than Orders? How can you think that Orders are bad or need to be reworked?

Easy.
Orders are bad and need to be reworked. They're an archaic system which only just got changed from being based off a LD test.
They affect a single unit at a time and units can never have more than one Order issued to them per turn. Add in that the models that can issue Orders can issue one(Platoon Commander and Tempestor Prime) or two(Company Commander and Tempestor Prime with a Command Rod) a turn as part of an army that might have a dozen units that can take Orders and it becomes a very real choice of "what unit is going to help me the most with these Orders".
That's also ignoring the fact that Tanks cannot receive Orders.

Markerlights, on the other hand, provide a flat bonus that the whole of a Tau Empire army can benefit from when firing at a unit that has Markerlight counters and the benefits are cumulative.

Try reading your own book sometime.

Orders let you fire twice as many shots

For one unit's Lasguns, Laspistols, or Hot-Shot Lasguns.

rerolls 1s to hit or to wound

Two separate Orders.

move faster

Which happens during your Shooting phase and prevents you from Shooting or Charging.

immediately attack in CC out of sequence

...It's one unit of GEQ attacking in CC out of sequence. It also requires you to be within 1" of an enemy unit.

and shoot after falling back or advancing

Once again, two separate Orders.

You just have to declare them and they happen,

You have to declare them via an Officer and be within 6" of the unit you want to have affected by them.
Alternatively, you have to have a unit with a Vox-Caster within 3" that can relay the Order--in that case, the Order range becomes 18".

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you haven't actually read the Orders system?

and the units that provide them are cheap as hell.

And those units are focused in Elites and HQs and can't issue Orders to anyone that is not part of their Regiment(which means that for Scions to receive Orders, you have to take a Tempestor Prime--and Auxilia[Ogryn and Ratlings] cannot receive Orders).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, T'au Empire Markerlights can be put en masse in two separate units(Pathfinders and Drones) and can split fire off onto multiple targets to provide more coverage.

Try it sometime rather than complain about it being underpowered versus Orders. You might see how effective they are.

First Rank Fire, Second Rank Fire is really, really good.

It costs me 40 points to have a 50/50 shot of doubling the fire output of 1 squad. Compare 30 points for 2 guaranteed squads doubling their fire rate. In addition Orders happen in the shooting phase, not before the turn, so units can get into position to make the maximum use out of orders.

FRSRF is really good for Lasguns and their Hot-Shot equivalents. It does nothing for the rest of a squad. I actually just noticed that they removed Laspistols from it, so that's an even bigger drop since they refuse to let our fething Sergeants have fething Lasguns like any other fething army with ranged units can retain the same weapons as the rest of a squad.

Markerlights happen during the Shooting Phase, so if you chose not to get your units into position to take advantage of them--that's on you.
Add in that some of the bonuses that Orders grant(additional shots, for example) can be granted via some units like Fireblades with no requirement beyond "don't move" and affect multiple units rather than a single unit--it's still a garbage argument to try to pretend that Orders are the end all, be all of unit buffs in this game.

Not to mention FRFSRF has to be in 12" range to do so.

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Not to mention FRFSRF has to be in 12" range to do so.

Yuup...

So you need to:
A) Have your unit within 6" of a model with Voice of Command(or 18" if the Voice of Command model is within 3" of a friendly unit with a Vox-Caster and the unit you're ordering has a Vox-Caster)
and
B) Have the unit within 12" of the enemy unit to get the most usage out of the Lasguns.

So you've just set up to match that, which for an Infantry Squad might be 6 models getting to double their output overall(Sergeants don't get Lasguns, Special Weapons Troopers aren't affected, and Heavy Weapons Teams essentially lose their Lasguns for a Heavy Weapon)...

And people wonder why Conscripts are the preferred choice for FRSRF?

Definitely now that it doesn't double shots anymore, just goes Rapid Fire 2.

 Kanluwen wrote:

FRSRF is really good for Lasguns and their Hot-Shot equivalents. It does nothing for the rest of a squad. I actually just noticed that they removed Laspistols from it, so that's an even bigger drop since they refuse to let our fething Sergeants have fething Lasguns like any other fething army with ranged units can retain the same weapons as the rest of a squad.

Markerlights happen during the Shooting Phase, so if you chose not to get your units into position to take advantage of them--that's on you.
Add in that some of the bonuses that Orders grant(additional shots, for example) can be granted via some units like Fireblades with no requirement beyond "don't move" and affect multiple units rather than a single unit--it's still a garbage argument to try to pretend that Orders are the end all, be all of unit buffs in this game.

The core difference between Markerlights and Orders is that...

Markerlights is Tau's primary, and arguably only advantage.

Imperial Guards also have... Psykers, Incredibly Low Costs, and Allies... and arguably Melee

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

I like this. One of GW's buzzwords for 8ed is scalability; that's exactly what this would achieve. It would also mean that Ld debuff abilities would not be wasted against Guard with Commissars...

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Definitely now that it doesn't double shots anymore, just goes Rapid Fire 2.

I think that you have misinterpreted the wording, the order essentially switches their lasguns to twin lasguns. So they double the amount of shots at a given range.

Says Rapid Fire 2, Rapid Fire is within half range, so 12"

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Says Rapid Fire 2, Rapid Fire is within half range, so 12"

It changes their weapon type from rapid fire 1 to rapid fire 2. The rapid fire weapon type fires X amount of shots at full range and 2X amount of shots at half range. So each guardsman or conscript with a lasgun fires 2 shots at 24'' and 4 shots at 12'' while under the effect of this order.

 Talamare wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

FRSRF is really good for Lasguns and their Hot-Shot equivalents. It does nothing for the rest of a squad. I actually just noticed that they removed Laspistols from it, so that's an even bigger drop since they refuse to let our fething Sergeants have fething Lasguns like any other fething army with ranged units can retain the same weapons as the rest of a squad.

Markerlights happen during the Shooting Phase, so if you chose not to get your units into position to take advantage of them--that's on you.
Add in that some of the bonuses that Orders grant(additional shots, for example) can be granted via some units like Fireblades with no requirement beyond "don't move" and affect multiple units rather than a single unit--it's still a garbage argument to try to pretend that Orders are the end all, be all of unit buffs in this game.

The core difference between Markerlights and Orders is that...

Markerlights is Tau's primary, and arguably only advantage.

Well, that and having an obscene number of units with "Fly" plus Drones that can take wounds for other units...
And Markerlights affecting an entire army if they choose to shoot at something that has been hit by Markerlights.

But yes, let's keep pretending that Markerlights are the Tau's primary and arguably only advantage.

Imperial Guards also have... Psykers, Incredibly Low Costs, and Allies... and arguably Melee

Guard don't have Psykers anymore actually.

Astra Telepathica has Psykers. They are their own faction now--which means if/when the Guard book drops, this potentially can have huge consequences for the army's benefits.

sossen wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Says Rapid Fire 2, Rapid Fire is within half range, so 12"

It changes their weapon type from rapid fire 1 to rapid fire 2. The rapid fire weapon type fires X amount of shots at full range and 2X amount of shots at half range. So each guardsman or conscript with a lasgun fires 2 shots at 24'' and 4 shots at 12'' while under the effect of this order.

Damn, looks like Ill have to kill some Fat Guy that said I didn't. Thank you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sossen wrote:

 NenkotaMoon wrote:
Says Rapid Fire 2, Rapid Fire is within half range, so 12"

It changes their weapon type from rapid fire 1 to rapid fire 2. The rapid fire weapon type fires X amount of shots at full range and 2X amount of shots at half range. So each guardsman or conscript with a lasgun fires 2 shots at 24'' and 4 shots at 12'' while under the effect of this order.

Damn, looks like Ill have to kill some Fat Guy that said I didn't. Thank you.

To be frank, I don't actually want them to change anything yet. Look at all info coming in about the new SM codex, and how much that will shake things up. That's going to happen 1-2 times a month for the next year or so. So while i think they are too powerful now, they may end up being balanced 3 months down the line particularly given the codices appear to be shifting the power level up a bit.

I'm honestly curious if some of the stronger armies were deliberately put there, as they may have to wait longer for a proper codex. Though the fact Tau aren't really on the horizon probably disproves that, it's an interesting thought.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

FRSRF is really good for Lasguns and their Hot-Shot equivalents. It does nothing for the rest of a squad. I actually just noticed that they removed Laspistols from it, so that's an even bigger drop since they refuse to let our fething Sergeants have fething Lasguns like any other fething army with ranged units can retain the same weapons as the rest of a squad.

Markerlights happen during the Shooting Phase, so if you chose not to get your units into position to take advantage of them--that's on you.
Add in that some of the bonuses that Orders grant(additional shots, for example) can be granted via some units like Fireblades with no requirement beyond "don't move" and affect multiple units rather than a single unit--it's still a garbage argument to try to pretend that Orders are the end all, be all of unit buffs in this game.

The core difference between Markerlights and Orders is that...

Markerlights is Tau's primary, and arguably only advantage.

Well, that and having an obscene number of units with "Fly" plus Drones that can take wounds for other units...
And Markerlights affecting an entire army if they choose to shoot at something that has been hit by Markerlights[.

But yes, let's keep pretending that Markerlights are the Tau's primary and arguably only advantage.

No one is pretending.
1 - "Entire Army" still falls under the effect of Markerlights. So it's still a Markerlight Advantage
2 - It may allow the army to shoot at 1 enemy unit that has been lit up.
3 - It requires significantly more points to light up each enemy unit than it does to bring an IG Commander
4 - It requires several successful 50/50 rolls to light up for the best benefit. IG Commanders are guaranteed to buff a unit.
5 - You can build your army to maximize orders, you can't build your opponent's army to maximize your Lights (I'm saying opponent's doing MSU is a counter to Markerlights)

I think that covers most of the issues with Markerlights

Now, let's see
Every army has bodyguards that can take wounds for other units.

Tau stuff has less wounds/toughness than other Army equivalents
Broadside = Dreadnought = Wraithlord
Except 2 of those are T7 with ~9 wounds... one of those is T5 with 6 wounds.
Oh, and the Broadside costs like 50 more points than those 2.

Tau has similar amount of Fly to Eldar
This is compensation for both armies have poor survivability stats, but Space Marine costs.

So yea, you can continue being but Orders are pretty fine.
They are 1 of many MANY powerful advantages Imperial Guard have. They aren't meant to carry Imperial Guard by itself.
Imperial Guard has a huge wealth of strong low cost options.

So yea, Markerlights have some advantageous quirks and advantages over Orders. That's by design.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Imperial Guards also have... Psykers, Incredibly Low Costs, and Allies... and arguably Melee

Guard don't have Psykers anymore actually.

Astra Telepathica has Psykers. They are their own faction now--which means if/when the Guard book drops, this potentially can have huge consequences for the army's benefits.

We will see how Chapter Tactics work with Detachments, but at any point you can choose not to have those benefits to bring Psykers from like 10 different 'Armies'.
Guard Book won't change that. Tau book won't give Tau Psykers. (at least it's like 99% unlikely that they will)

Who has actually faced conscripts and not been able to deal with them? This whole whiney thread is depressing.

 GI_Redshirt wrote:
You want them to be able to receive orders? Then they need to shoot up in price, being only a point or two less than a regular guardsman.

Why enter a discussion without first checking up on a few of the basics? Conscripts are already 1ppm less than guardsmen.

The argument that conscripts are newbies and therefore unable to be ordered is a pretty shakey one. Their inexperience is already reflected in their stat line. Any idiot can do what they're told.

I'd say drop the Conscript/Guardsman distinction all together. Delete "Conscripts" as a separate unit entry, then let regular Guard squads go up to 20-30 models so there's still a point to Commissars.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I'd say drop the Conscript/Guardsman distinction all together. Delete "Conscripts" as a separate unit entry, then let regular Guard squads go up to 20-30 models so there's still a point to Commissars.

Huh, now that's an interesting idea. It also made me realize I don't really know what conscripts are supposed to represent, fluff wise. Aren't most guardsman conscripts or otherwise forcefully drawn in? From what I understand, volunteer guard armies aren't really a thing, most worlds have some version of the draft from the fluff I've read. Are they representing penal legions, or something similar?

Even the drafted guardsmen receive training. Whenever they travel through the warp, they are training that entire time which is months or even years. Planets have imperial guard tithes. That's just how they fill regiments. Some are volunteers, but regardless, they receive the full amount of training required to become a guardsman.

The conscripts are basically emergency draftees. They only have the most basic of training and then are rushed off to the front.

As necrons I find it really, really hard to deal with conscripts. Chaff screens shouldn't be good enough that they're a near auto take in any list.

FRFSRF is absolutely brutal. 150 points for 50 dudes with 4 shots each? That's a ridiculous amount of shots vs 240 points worth of warriors with 40 shots, 50 scripts wins literally every single time in a firefight. Even overwatch is brutal enough for my units to seriously consider not charging them. And then what, we charge, kill a couple, they execute another then fall back and shoot again because of an order at full strenght, then let me soak another round of overwatch?

If big squads of zerkers and a knight are having problems clearing 1 blob.... there's not much hope for other armies. Now imagine seeing 150 conscripts on the board, for 450 points. Literally cheaper than 40 warriors, more firepower, more durable, and able to shoot after falling back?

Take away their orders, or make them lose 4-6 to morale. As is there is very little counterplay to them.

Drop them to 2 ppm and give them hotshot lasguns.