Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's worth mentioning that Guard Infantry Squads are 4ppm, not 5, so he'd only have to free up 120 points, or less than the cost of a Basilisk.

Seems guard has the market cornered on cheap infantry then. How are cultists 5 points when guardsman are 4? I guess it is probably due to 10 man cap on squad size The basilisk is less than 120 points. So he would lose 1 basilisk and an astropath I guess. But he would lack enough commanders to order his units at that point.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's worth mentioning that Guard Infantry Squads are 4ppm, not 5, so he'd only have to free up 120 points, or less than the cost of a Basilisk.

Seems guard has the market cornered on cheap infantry then. How are cultists 5 points when guardsman are 4? I guess it is probably due to 10 man cap on squad size The basilisk is less than 120 points. So he would lose 1 basilisk and an astropath I guess. But he would lack enough commanders to order his units at that point.

Yes, but Orders aren't the problem, apparently.

If they were, then my suggestion of simply removing orders from conscripts should be just fine.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
It's worth mentioning that Guard Infantry Squads are 4ppm, not 5, so he'd only have to free up 120 points, or less than the cost of a Basilisk.

Seems guard has the market cornered on cheap infantry then. How are cultists 5 points when guardsman are 4? I guess it is probably due to 10 man cap on squad size The basilisk is less than 120 points. So he would lose 1 basilisk and an astropath I guess. But he would lack enough commanders to order his units at that point.

Yes, but Orders aren't the problem, apparently.

If they were, then my suggestion of simply removing orders from conscripts should be just fine.

right they aren't the main problem, they do make the units better though, so losing some still hurts a bit.

Breng77 wrote:

They are getting tabled because people are taking forever to chew through the wounds, if you leave commissars at home, multi- assaulting the infantry squads will chew through them, and yes 1 less tank makes a big deal.

 ross-128 wrote:

 Deathypoo wrote:


Go 2 more posts up, I responded to that suggestion of yours. It doesn't work :(

You still made the mistake of engaging both blobs at the same time when I went out of my way to point out how much you could get out of using positioning to isolate them. Getting one extra commissar blam is not worth letting the second blob shoot at you. The only thing that should be engaging both blobs at once is the wave serpent, because you want it to be a bullet magnet and it wants to physically cram a wave serpent sized wedge between the two squads.

An eldar army has a ton of control over positioning. You know whether you're going first or not before you deploy, and can deploy accordingly. You can rapidly relocate your troops (or delay deployment via deep strike) to react to the enemy deployment stance.

Also, the sunrifle should work in the shooting phase based on the wording. It doesn't say anything about being restricted to the assault phase, and it says "until the end of THE turn", not "until the end of YOUR turn", so it should include both player's turns because each game turn includes both your turn and the opponent's. It's also pretty much the reason why assaulting the conscripts probably is worth it: the conscripts effectively won't be able to hit back, and thanks to the two-rank rule only a fraction of them can even attempt it.

The next best thing I can suggest is cramming the wave serpent full of Howling Banshees, though you'll still only want to engage one blob at a time. If you try to engage the entire enemy army at once they will just Lanchester's Square Law you to death.

Eldar have always been a finesse army. They pay a ton of points for mobility, so if you go charging down the center to engage the entire enemy force at once like a Space Marine you will always be at a disadvantage. Yes, this means Eldar are inherently difficult to play because mobility can be a difficult trait to exploit on limited board space. Eldar are also difficult to balance because if you make them equal in every other way, their mobility edge suddenly becomes a deciding factor in their favor.

If you want an army that can just beat down the front door of an enemy army with brute force I suggest Orks, 'Nids, Guard, or Space Marines. Or, really, anyone does the brute force game better than Eldar. Eldar rarely pay less than 20 points a model and rarely fire more than 4 shots, not exactly a pattern suited for Shock and Awe.

When you have a disadvantage in raw power but an advantage in mobility (which is basically par for the course for Eldar, no matter who they are facing), "Defeat in detail" should be your motto.

 Xenomancers wrote:
the issue is their cost - plain and simple. a conscript should not cost less than a termagant - it's better than a termagant. There should also be no situation in the entire game where a melle unit like hormagaunts loses to equal points of shooty hordes - like hormagaunts do to conscripts. At 3 points here are the issues with a conscript. conscripts in their current form should cost 4 points and not be able to receive orders.

 Arkaine wrote:
Just want to throw this out there as food for thought...

D&D added a new classification of monster to one of their recent editions. The Minion comes in packs of several monsters, all with 1 wound each, but are about as hard to kill as a single monster of the same challenge rating. They die like flies and the horde aspect is their only defining trait.

Rather than treating Conscripts as individual models, maybe they should be treated as hordelings. Same with brimstones and other zerg types. Hordelings would have special rules that make them different from ordinary infantry that make them far easily to slaughter in masses. Starting with no saves... when a Space Marine is shown obliterating a guardsman's chest with a bolter pistol, don't tell me their armor somehow saved them.

I'd do something like give Rapid Fire weapons a bonus against Hordes. The idea is that they're just spraying bullets without quarter so horde mobs should be getting caught in the fire even if you miss the intended target.

 daedalus wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

They are getting tabled because people are taking forever to chew through the wounds, if you leave commissars at home, multi- assaulting the infantry squads will chew through them, and yes 1 less tank makes a big deal.

Yup. In addition to it being cheaper than you think, as was pointed out already, I can space my ranks out 4" or so. Probably don't need to even have that much space, but if you wanted to play it safe. Really, I only need the space between the first rank and the second rank spaced out that much. I leave barely less than a base's width between them, for whatever's assaulting me. That means they can still cover a minimum of 19" cover. I might have to double up to protect all my stuff. That still leaves me with five waves you have to go through if I have 100 infantry, the most of which you can only kill 20 of at a time unless you're shooting. You need to deal about 5 wounds each to the squads to force them to have a 50% chance to lose 1-3 conscripts. A tac squad could probably do that at 24" range. If you have a commissar, you're fine. If you don't, you lose 0-3 and the remaining 2-5 are still sitting there. Maybe a little easier to ignore, but I'm still going to put them in your way.

There's probably even more nasty ways you can organize this arrangement. At the end of the day though, you either have to overkill them or there's going to be a handful left, and it's still going to cost you several rounds of trying to get through them to do so.

 ross-128 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
the issue is their cost - plain and simple. a conscript should not cost less than a termagant - it's better than a termagant. There should also be no situation in the entire game where a melle unit like hormagaunts loses to equal points of shooty hordes - like hormagaunts do to conscripts. At 3 points here are the issues with a conscript. conscripts in their current form should cost 4 points and not be able to receive orders.

No situation at all? Not even if the shooty unit is somehow able to find ample time to shoot? I don't think I like that idea of "balance" one bit. If there is no situation at all where a shooty unit can beat a melee unit, then what's the point of playing a shooty army?

Breng77 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

They are getting tabled because people are taking forever to chew through the wounds, if you leave commissars at home, multi- assaulting the infantry squads will chew through them, and yes 1 less tank makes a big deal.

Yup. In addition to it being cheaper than you think, as was pointed out already, I can space my ranks out 4" or so. Probably don't need to even have that much space, but if you wanted to play it safe. Really, I only need the space between the first rank and the second rank spaced out that much. I leave barely less than a base's width between them, for whatever's assaulting me. That means they can still cover a minimum of 19" cover. I might have to double up to protect all my stuff. That still leaves me with five waves you have to go through if I have 100 infantry, the most of which you can only kill 20 of at a time unless you're shooting. You need to deal about 5 wounds each to the squads to force them to have a 50% chance to lose 1-3 conscripts. A tac squad could probably do that at 24" range. If you have a commissar, you're fine. If you don't, you lose 0-3 and the remaining 2-5 are still sitting there. Maybe a little easier to ignore, but I'm still going to put them in your way.

There's probably even more nasty ways you can organize this arrangement. At the end of the day though, you either have to overkill them or there's going to be a handful left, and it's still going to cost you several rounds of trying to get through them to do so.

The difference is with a commissar five 10 man units are significantly worse than a single 50 man unit as I can force 5 casualties in a turn instead of one. It is also less overwatch, likely little to no retaliatory attacks in close combat,

 ross-128 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
the issue is their cost - plain and simple. a conscript should not cost less than a termagant - it's better than a termagant. There should also be no situation in the entire game where a melle unit like hormagaunts loses to equal points of shooty hordes - like hormagaunts do to conscripts. At 3 points here are the issues with a conscript. conscripts in their current form should cost 4 points and not be able to receive orders.

No situation at all? Not even if the shooty unit is somehow able to find ample time to shoot? I don't think I like that idea of "balance" one bit. If there is no situation at all where a shooty unit can beat a melee unit, then what's the point of playing a shooty army?

Audustum wrote:

 Arkaine wrote:
Just want to throw this out there as food for thought...

D&D added a new classification of monster to one of their recent editions. The Minion comes in packs of several monsters, all with 1 wound each, but are about as hard to kill as a single monster of the same challenge rating. They die like flies and the horde aspect is their only defining trait.

Rather than treating Conscripts as individual models, maybe they should be treated as hordelings. Same with brimstones and other zerg types. Hordelings would have special rules that make them different from ordinary infantry that make them far easily to slaughter in masses. Starting with no saves... when a Space Marine is shown obliterating a guardsman's chest with a bolter pistol, don't tell me their armor somehow saved them.

I'd do something like give Rapid Fire weapons a bonus against Hordes. The idea is that they're just spraying bullets without quarter so horde mobs should be getting caught in the fire even if you miss the intended target.

I do not like these solutions because they are messy and require changing multiple rules, but it gave me an idea.

What if we just allowed close combat wounds to spillover for Conscripts? So if you hit them with a Force Sword for D3 and roll a 3, it'll kill 3 models? 6 damage from a hammer takes out 6 in one might swing.

This gives some counterplay to the horde and makes them easier for melee to break through, though still somewhat of a speed bump. I don't propose adding it to shooting though because then lascannons and the like suddenly become TAC weapons. Adding it to melee let's assaulters have a chance of breaking through the bubble wrap in a reasonable time and is justifiable with how close units are in close combat.

Plus, we can do it by just adding a special rule to Conscripts rather than changing multiple rules.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

They are getting tabled because people are taking forever to chew through the wounds, if you leave commissars at home, multi- assaulting the infantry squads will chew through them, and yes 1 less tank makes a big deal.

Yup. In addition to it being cheaper than you think, as was pointed out already, I can space my ranks out 4" or so. Probably don't need to even have that much space, but if you wanted to play it safe. Really, I only need the space between the first rank and the second rank spaced out that much. I leave barely less than a base's width between them, for whatever's assaulting me. That means they can still cover a minimum of 19" cover. I might have to double up to protect all my stuff. That still leaves me with five waves you have to go through if I have 100 infantry, the most of which you can only kill 20 of at a time unless you're shooting. You need to deal about 5 wounds each to the squads to force them to have a 50% chance to lose 1-3 conscripts. A tac squad could probably do that at 24" range. If you have a commissar, you're fine. If you don't, you lose 0-3 and the remaining 2-5 are still sitting there. Maybe a little easier to ignore, but I'm still going to put them in your way.

There's probably even more nasty ways you can organize this arrangement. At the end of the day though, you either have to overkill them or there's going to be a handful left, and it's still going to cost you several rounds of trying to get through them to do so.

The difference is with a commissar five 10 man units are significantly worse than a single 50 man unit as I can force 5 casualties in a turn instead of one. It is also less overwatch, likely little to no retaliatory attacks in close combat,

To be fair, you're not that likely to force 5 casualties a turn instead of 1 because to do that you'd have to kill ~5 guardsmen or so from each squad, precisely spread out between them. which is 25 guardsmen, which is what people are worried about having to do. Remember, before the Commissar hurts anyone they get a regular morale role, and Guardsmen have twice the leadership of Conscripts.

The overwatch and retaliatory attacks are a mixed blessing, because it also means that unless the Guard player deployed like a derp, you're only ever going to kill 10 guardsmen, max, in any given round of combat. So if you're, say, a unit of 'zerks, and you've charged Conscripts, you blenderize them in ~2 or so turns. If you charge well-deployed regular guardsmen, it'll take you 5 turns just to charge from unit to unit.

Breng77 wrote:

The difference is with a commissar five 10 man units are significantly worse than a single 50 man unit as I can force 5 casualties in a turn instead of one. It is also less overwatch, likely little to no retaliatory attacks in close combat

 Motsie wrote:
How good (or bad) would it be to provide modifiers to hit and/or wound based on how many models are in the unit (over 20)? It would reinforce the idea that if you're shooting into this giant cluster of infantry you're bound to hit and wound several targets...

Breng77 wrote:


I likely won't get 5, but I will likely get more than 1 and with a commissar their LD is the same. As for the mixed blessing it depends on how many units Incan charge with, can I hit or pile into more than 1 squad, can I shoot the rear squad and charge the front? For regular conscripts you will remove the front if I shoot resulting in a longer charge. All those squads also
Count as kill points now which could
Be a huge difference.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This isn't a hard problem to solve - increase their points cost and remove their ability to take orders.

a conscript should not cost less than a termagant - it's better than a termagant.

There should also be no situation in the entire game where a melle unit like hormagaunts loses to equal points of shooty hordes

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
This isn't a hard problem to solve - increase their points cost and remove their ability to take orders.

How about no? They are already only a point cheaper than regular Guardsmen and quite frankly increasing the points cost would nerf them too hard. Likewise, do not remove their ability to take orders.
How about this: Instead of whining, adapt. Stop expecting to remove a blob unit taken solely for its tankiness in a single turn or less without a significant commitment - and no, that does not mean "its own points cost or less", it means 2 to 3 times its points cost. Start thinking. You know, that thing that Guard players had to do back when we where being stomped all the time? Try it.
Or if we nerf Conscripts then how about nerfing the Rhino as well? After all the Rhino is even more survivable than the Conscripts and requires at least three times its points cost in dedicated AT gear to bring down and can transport units safely within its self and can completely negate overwatch by charging first. It is much better than the Conscripts.

a conscript should not cost less than a termagant - it's better than a termagant.

Then maybe the problem lies not with the Conscripts but with the Termagaunts?

There should also be no situation in the entire game where a melle unit like hormagaunts loses to equal points of shooty hordes

This is just plain stupid. Melee should be inherently a lot more situational than shooting, and require skill to get close, but once it gets there should be good.

sossen wrote:

Once again you show that you aren't bothering to read the context for the posts you reply to or supply any mathhammer to support your conclusions. There's no point in arguing when you throw out baseless claims like these. Rhinos require at least 3x their own cost in AT? Wrong, plasma scion command squad does it at 1.5x. You want IG to be the new top dog, that is your opinion and it's fine, just use honest arguments instead.

 Melissia wrote:
He's reading your arguments, they're just crappy and unconvincing.

 Melissia wrote:
He's reading your arguments, they're just crappy and unconvincing.

 ross-128 wrote:

sossen wrote:

Once again you show that you aren't bothering to read the context for the posts you reply to or supply any mathhammer to support your conclusions. There's no point in arguing when you throw out baseless claims like these. Rhinos require at least 3x their own cost in AT? Wrong, plasma scion command squad does it at 1.5x. You want IG to be the new top dog, that is your opinion and it's fine, just use honest arguments instead.

First of all, the two squads you need at 128 points are closer to 2x (140) than 1.5x (105). Second, the two mandatory tempestor primes that they are shackled to as per the FAQ raise the total cost to 208 points, juuuust 2 points shy of 3x and close enough for government work.

Thirdly, aren't people still saying plasma scions are OP at tankbusting? So if you want your own units to be as good at killing infantry as scions command squads are at tankbusting, doesn't that imply that you want *your* units to be OP? Or are you going to say that plasma command squads are fine?

sossen wrote:
Writing this is not going to debunk my arguments

 Melissia wrote:

sossen wrote:
Writing this is not going to debunk my arguments

According to you, nothing is going to debunk your arguments. Your obsession is blinding you to everyone else's posts, and it's showing.

How the hell did I get dragged back in here anyway? Screw it, you guys are irrational as hell and it's not worth my time.

 ross-128 wrote:
While one squad of regular plasma scions does get rid of the Tempestor Primes, it still only has 4 plasma guns, so it's not likely to kill the Rhino in one turn. It theoretically can, if everything hits, everything wounds, and nothing saves, but... not likely. The hot-shot lasguns will contribute a wound or two probably, but they're no plasma guns.

So you're going to need two squads, which will run you 248 points (12 of which are hot-shot lasguns, they cost 1 point). Without said primes to make them reroll 1s you'll probably lose one or two scions to Gets Hot in the process.

A 10-man and a 5-man with 6 plasma guns might have a chance of pulling it off for 186 points (somewhere between 2.6x and 2.7x) depending on just how much work the hot-shot lasguns put in, but you'll be cutting it close and losing one guy to Gets Hot.