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.

Considering how much of a beatstick he is while also being an insanely good force multiplier, should he be 10w? He is an ultra tough character, in both lore and gamewise, and it doesn't make much sense that he cannot be targeted before he chooses to break away from his conscript screens.

Why/why not?

No. He should have all of his other defenses stripped away. You should have to get to him to kill him, but once you do he needs to actually be killable.

The problem is that even with 10 wounds, he's still only T6. If he had 10 wounds he would literally never survive to turn 2.

We're having a related discussion in the Proposed Rules section about whether or not the wound cap that allows models to be "screened" by other units should be reduced. Guilliman is kind of central to the topic.

There's a weird fluff vs mechanics balancing act you have to perform with primarchs. On one hand, a primarch that can't survive a single battle isn't much of a primarch (fluff problem). On the other hand, stacking on arbitrary amounts of defense on him just makes him an annoying, unkillable mechanical problem.

So from a gameplay perspective, I'm inclined to say, "make him easier to kill." From a narrative perspective, I'm more inclined to say, "he should be unkillable." And when I step back and look at it all together, part of me says, "Maybe primarchs aren't really suitable for a game of this scale." Which puts them in that awkward category of, "Things that probably shouldn't be in normal 40k" along with flyers and imperial knights.

But why is he afforded protection when say, a swarmlord, isn't protected. Yet it is roughly the same size model wise, same toughness but 12w?

Or a bloodthirster, or a stormsurge. I realise they are alot bigger model/wound wise, but Guilliman could have 15 wounds. They are comparable in points after all. And neither of them offer as much to their armies as he does.

I just dont think for such a powerful character he should be afforded character protection when there are iconic/lynchpin models from other factions that aren't afforded this protection while also not being anywhere near as powerful.

I know GW favour the 'umies, but not only does he get his cake and eats it too, but he gets his opponents cake and eats it in front of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
We're having a related discussion in the Proposed Rules section about whether or not the wound cap that allows models to be "screened" by other units should be reduced. Guilliman is kind of central to the topic.

There's a weird fluff vs mechanics balancing act you have to perform with primarchs. On one hand, a primarch that can't survive a single battle isn't much of a primarch (fluff problem). On the other hand, stacking on arbitrary amounts of defense on him just makes him an annoying, unkillable mechanical problem.

So from a gameplay perspective, I'm inclined to say, "make him easier to kill." From a narrative perspective, I'm more inclined to say, "he should be unkillable." And when I step back and look at it all together, part of me says, "Maybe primarchs aren't really suitable for a game of this scale." Which puts them in that awkward category of, "Things that probably shouldn't be in normal 40k" along with flyers and imperial knights.

On this line of thinking, Magnus is very capable of being 1-shot. A gauss pylon, focused fire from heavy weaponry etc can easily take him down in 1 round of shooting. Hell even storm bolters from Stormraven's can kill him in one round of shooting. He is a primarch, arguably more powerful since he has psychic protection on top of his enormous size and warp energies, yet again on the tabletop he is nowhere near as safe as Guilliman.

Maybe dropping the cap to >8w characters? It sorta makes more sense, as these are more akin to 'normal' leaders, not superhuman monstrosities marching downfield.

 Klowny wrote:
But why is he afforded protection when say, a swarmlord, isn't protected. Yet it is roughly the same size model wise, same toughness but 12w?

Or a bloodthirster, or a stormsurge. I realise they are alot bigger model/wound wise, but Guilliman could have 15 wounds. They are comparable in points after all. And neither of them offer as much to their armies as he does.

I just dont think for such a powerful character he should be afforded character protection when there are iconic/lynchpin models from other factions that aren't afforded this protection while also not being anywhere near as powerful.

I know GW favour the 'umies, but not only does he get his cake and eats it too, but he gets his opponents cake and eats it in front of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
We're having a related discussion in the Proposed Rules section about whether or not the wound cap that allows models to be "screened" by other units should be reduced. Guilliman is kind of central to the topic.

There's a weird fluff vs mechanics balancing act you have to perform with primarchs. On one hand, a primarch that can't survive a single battle isn't much of a primarch (fluff problem). On the other hand, stacking on arbitrary amounts of defense on him just makes him an annoying, unkillable mechanical problem.

So from a gameplay perspective, I'm inclined to say, "make him easier to kill." From a narrative perspective, I'm more inclined to say, "he should be unkillable." And when I step back and look at it all together, part of me says, "Maybe primarchs aren't really suitable for a game of this scale." Which puts them in that awkward category of, "Things that probably shouldn't be in normal 40k" along with flyers and imperial knights.

On this line of thinking, Magnus is very capable of being 1-shot. A gauss pylon, focused fire from heavy weaponry etc can easily take him down in 1 round of shooting. Hell even storm bolters from Stormraven's can kill him in one round of shooting. He is a primarch, arguably more powerful since he has psychic protection on top of his enormous size and warp energies, yet again on the tabletop he is nowhere near as safe as Guilliman.

Maybe dropping the cap to >8w characters? It sorta makes more sense, as these are more akin to 'normal' leaders, not superhuman monstrosities marching downfield.

So I think it's useful to break down this topic and acknowledge that we're (as I understand it) really talking about several separate issues including...

*Guilliman's durability. If we're talking strictly about this one model's durability being perceived as "too good," then we should address that issue specifically. Lowering the wound cap would probably solve this, but it also has other, possibly undesirable, effects (see below). You could also make his invulnerable save less powerful (why shouldn't it be a regular iron halo, or, conversely, why can't Cawl install 3++ iron halos on everyone's armor now that we're innovating again?). You could give him a 3+ save and significantly increase his wounds. You could do either, both, or neither of the above and also give him a special rule that allows him to be screened by Ultramarine units if you like the idea of him being protected by a bodyguard of marines.

*Screening physically large models. Some people think it's silly for large models to be screenable by smaller models. This makes plenty of sense. After all, a warboss is rather large, and gretchin are rather small. Shouldn't I be able to point my bolter a little higher and shoot the big guy instead of the little ones? But how do you implement this? Do you introduce a size stat (something else that was pitched in the proposed rules section) and only let units screen if they're within X size categories of the target unit? Does this mean that one unit of marines can screen for another given that they're the same size? Is making gretchin unable to screen for a warboss something that we want, and if not, why does a gretchin screen make more sense than a smurf screen for Roboute? If the answer to that last part is, "Because Roboute is annoyingly durable," then we're probably really talking about the bullet point above rather than an issue with model size.

*Lowering the "screening wounds cap" to X. You could say that models with more than 9 wounds can't be screened, or more than 8, or 7, or whatever. As per the discussion in proposed rules, I personally am not a fan of this because it punishes units that, to my mind, do not need to be punished. Sure, this would nerf Bobby G., but it would also hurt units like the Avatar of Khaine who is finally able to get across the table in one piece provided you run lots of footslogging elves to screen for him. Do you feel that the Avatar needs to be nerfed? If not, is there a different solution that doesn't involve nerfing the Avatar and similarly tall models unnecessarily?

So I think it's important for us to identify what the real goal of any proposed rule change is so that we can weigh whether or not the proposed rule is doing what it's intended to.

Personally, I think screening physically large models, or models that are proportionally much, much larger breaks the immersion quite a bit, I screen my CCB with scarabs alot, and it makes not much fluff sense. But its RAW and permissable. It seems quite hard to implement a work around to this, besides just increasing the wounds of these larger models to above the 'CHARACTER' protection threshold.

I dont think lowering the protection threshold is warrantable, its a good mechanic, and I like it the way it is, I just feel powerful models like Guilliman should be above the threshold.

Obviously there will be outliers that abuse new rule's, and they just need finetuning.

Large models can just have a W increase as a simple workaround to the CHARACTER protection.

I feel that any model that is trying to gain the protection of the CHARACTER keyword should also physically be behind other friendly models in comparison to the enemies attempting to shoot at them.

E.G

x --------- y -------------- z

unit y has deepstruck between unit x and unit z (character). Because z is .1" further away from unit y than unit x, he is protected. It is wonky and glaringly breaks immersion.

He can be 10W but not at the current price, which is way undercosted. I'm ok with guilliman being 10W at 450 points.

With regard to screening, I think you should be able to ignore closer units if their toughness is 2 or more points less than that of the character.

So, with T6, Guiliman would need T5+ units to screen him.


If that doesn't happen then yes, Guiliman should definitely go to 10-12 wounds. I think Daemon Princes and CCBs should be the same. These models are just too large to reasonably hide or blend in behind others.

At ten wounds he needs a price reduction. At nine wounds he needs a price increase

pismakron wrote:
At ten wounds he needs a price reduction. At nine wounds he needs a price increase

He needs a cost increase either way

The mechanical vs background issues highlighted here all point to the key problem, IMO: keep Primarchs out of the game. Between the convoluted background justification for him being alive and the way the rules struggle to really represent a Primarch it seems fairly clear they have no place in 40k.

Personally, I'd have gone with either 12W or keep him as is without all of his ridiculous defensive tech.

he'd die 1st turn every game against anyone that has a little shooting, rendering him absolutely impotent.

He isn't nearly durable enough to shrug off concentrated fire.

stratigo wrote:
he'd die 1st turn every game against anyone that has a little shooting, rendering him absolutely impotent.

He isn't nearly durable enough to shrug off concentrated fire.

If Swarmlord is playable (and he's A LOT less durable), Guilliman will be fine too

If you make him 10w, I bet GW will just give him a +2 rerollable FNP

stratigo wrote:
he'd die 1st turn every game against anyone that has a little shooting, rendering him absolutely impotent.

He isn't nearly durable enough to shrug off concentrated fire.

He'll die turn 1 against 1-2 armies maybe. And even if he dies he can resurrect. He's currently way undercosted for his efficiency, he should be priced around 450 points.

Slipspace wrote:
The mechanical vs background issues highlighted here all point to the key problem, IMO: keep Primarchs out of the game. Between the convoluted background justification for him being alive and the way the rules struggle to really represent a Primarch it seems fairly clear they have no place in 40k.

Personally, I'd have gone with either 12W or keep him as is without all of his ridiculous defensive tech.

This also shows that maybe the fluff for them is just a little bit to much, The Primarchs are kinda becoming the joke of 40k why GW wants to be all strait and serious. Maybe toning them down in both is actually to benefit.

If you don't want him to die turn 1-2, then perhaps he shouldn't have the best buff in the game?

Imagine if Eldar had a unit that said 'Every unit within 6" is under the effect of Guide. Every unit within 6" counts all enemy units as being under the effect of Doom. This does not require a psychic test and is unaffected by Deny the Witch or similar abilities'.

Would you perhaps consider shooting that unit?

Basically, if you don't want Guiliman to be shot so quickly, then he shouldn't be the best force multiplier in the entire game.

Slipspace wrote:
The mechanical vs background issues highlighted here all point to the key problem, IMO: keep Primarchs out of the game. Between the convoluted background justification for him being alive and the way the rules struggle to really represent a Primarch it seems fairly clear they have no place in 40k.

Personally, I'd have gone with either 12W or keep him as is without all of his ridiculous defensive tech.

Agreed.

I don't think major named characters (Chapter Masters or above) or Lords of War should be allowed at ALL. Or at least not at any level under 2500 points. Otherwise, they're "must-takes" from a balance perspective.

From someone who loves the model, but also doesn't want the annoyed looks whenever I play him, things do need to change. He should be increased to 400 points and then given these changes: completely remove the get back up rule he has. Reduce his invulnerable save to 4++. Change his reroll ability so it costs 1 command points to reroll all hits for ultramarines within 6 and 1 c p to reroll all wounds for ultra within 6. This can be activated at any time, and only the hits active or the wounds. His other abilities like the 12" bubble of reroll, stays the same etc and so does everything else. Thoughts guys?

 Skalathrax8 wrote:
From someone who loves the model, but also doesn't want the annoyed looks whenever I play him, things do need to change. He should be increased to 400 points and then given these changes: completely remove the get back up rule he has. Reduce his invulnerable save to 4++. Change his reroll ability so it costs 1 command points to reroll all hits for ultramarines within 6 and 1 c p to reroll all wounds for ultra within 6. This can be activated at any time, and only the hits active or the wounds. His other abilities like the 12" bubble of reroll, stays the same etc and so does everything else. Thoughts guys?

Why bother taking him then

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Skalathrax8 wrote:
From someone who loves the model, but also doesn't want the annoyed looks whenever I play him, things do need to change. He should be increased to 400 points and then given these changes: completely remove the get back up rule he has. Reduce his invulnerable save to 4++. Change his reroll ability so it costs 1 command points to reroll all hits for ultramarines within 6 and 1 c p to reroll all wounds for ultra within 6. This can be activated at any time, and only the hits active or the wounds. His other abilities like the 12" bubble of reroll, stays the same etc and so does everything else. Thoughts guys?

Why bother taking him then

You cant have ur cake and eat it. He needs a price reduction, and would still be very useful, but not essential. Currently, he makes other Characters useless. Maybe keep him at 360 points tho.

 Klowny wrote:


I feel that any model that is trying to gain the protection of the CHARACTER keyword should also physically be behind other friendly models in comparison to the enemies attempting to shoot at them.

E.G

x --------- y -------------- z

unit y has deepstruck between unit x and unit z (character). Because z is .1" further away from unit y than unit x, he is protected. It is wonky and glaringly breaks immersion.

I feel you there. To play daemon's advocate, however... Imagine you are a guardsman in unit Y with orders to shoot unit Z, a chaos lord who is yelling at some noise marines to shoot at something in the distance. But then you hear the sound of a chain axe revving up, and you realize that unit X is actually a squad of berzerkers that are coming right at you. The oncoming bulk of khornate fury could probably serve as an understandable distraction from that one dude in the distance that isn't even paying attention to you. Admittedly, this example works less well when you want to shoot at a farseer in the distance, but you can't because some avengers are slightly closer but way off to your right shooting at some other dudes.

Or the Warboss is 8" ahead of you, but hey, there's a SINGLE GROT 5" behind you! OH NO!

Yeah fluff wise it can go either way, it's still rather frustrating, both when it happens to you and when it saves your character.

 Blackie wrote:

stratigo wrote:
he'd die 1st turn every game against anyone that has a little shooting, rendering him absolutely impotent.

He isn't nearly durable enough to shrug off concentrated fire.

He'll die turn 1 against 1-2 armies maybe. And even if he dies he can resurrect. He's currently way undercosted for his efficiency, he should be priced around 450 points.

I would literally never use him at 450. He would be auto-shelved. Similarly if he cost what he does now but wasn't character-protected. At the very least in the second case, I'd insist on having a convenient LOS blocking terrain piece that could hide him in my zone literally every game. People around here have realized that 8e is still largely a shooty edition, so priority targets in our games die turn 1 unless they can be completely hidden.

As he is, a bunch of our "my marines are whatever chapter I want today" players are just taking captain/LT combos instead to save a bucket full of points. In every game I've played with or against him, the guys he's buffing just get killed and then he runs angrily around getting shot while the other army splits up and holds objectives. No one around here has complained about him. Maybe we just have players who know how to deal with him around here?

It does always strike me as a huge double standard that when people complain about something ridiculous from a non-marine army, they get told that "they just don't know how to play against it," but if it's in marines, if it is at all threatening to the online non-marine player, or requires any change in tactics whatsoever, it must be OP

 niv-mizzet wrote:
It does always strike me as a huge double standard that when people complain about something ridiculous from a non-marine army, they get told that "they just don't know how to play against it," but if it's in marines, if it is at all threatening to the online non-marine player, or requires any change in tactics whatsoever, it must be OP

You do realise that you are the other side of that coin, right? That statement is hypocrisy incarnate.

KurtAngle2 wrote:


If Swarmlord is playable (and he's A LOT less durable), Guilliman will be fine too

Is the Swarmlord playable? I've yet to see a competitive list with El Senior de la Horda that actually did well.

A common complaint about Magnus among competitive Chaos players is that he rarely makes it past turn 2. If Magnus with all his defenses can't last longer then a turn or two I'm curious how Swarmlord is supposed to.

 vipoid wrote:
If you don't want him to die turn 1-2, then perhaps he shouldn't have the best buff in the game?

Imagine if Eldar had a unit that said 'Every unit within 6" is under the effect of Guide. Every unit within 6" counts all enemy units as being under the effect of Doom. This does not require a psychic test and is unaffected by Deny the Witch or similar abilities'.

Would you perhaps consider shooting that unit?

Basically, if you don't want Guiliman to be shot so quickly, then he shouldn't be the best force multiplier in the entire game.

This is an excellent point.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:


If Swarmlord is playable (and he's A LOT less durable), Guilliman will be fine too

Is the Swarmlord playable? I've yet to see a competitive list with El Senior de la Horda that actually did well.

A common complaint about Magnus among competitive Chaos players is that he rarely makes it past turn 2. If Magnus with all his defenses can't last longer then a turn or two I'm curious how Swarmlord is supposed to.

Yeah I haven't seen swarmy make it to turn 2 yet. Valuable things that can be targeted die. Hell, over here land raiders are barely making it to t2.

10 wounds specifically would be way too big a nerf and doesn't feel like the logical step to fix him.

If the conclusion was to increase wounds, it would perhaps make sense to jump it all the way up to something like 15, rather than 10? I don't think it would be that outrageous from a fluff perspective too.

But really, points cost adjustment makes more sense.