New Astra Militarum Codex (Pre-Order Next Weekend, Oct 7 Release)

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.

**Ragweek**

/quote]
Do you know what contradiction means?
Saying these handful of units aren't broken but everything else is really bad. While the army was already winning almost every tournament and then got upgrades across the board is not a contradiction.
Your head is so far in the sand if you don't think this codex is flat out bonkers broken!!

**gungo**

Kanluwen wrote:
All seriousness as I don't follow tournaments enough(they don't interest me):

Were there legitimately 100% Guard lists topping tournaments? My understanding was that it was Imperial soup lists winning. Conscripts and Artillery might have been present but that doesn't automatically make it an IG list.

there was lists with 90% of the models guard and token Celestine or guilliman. There is no reason to not play these units when multi detachments are allowed and guard is doing all the heavy lifting.

**gainsay**

SilverAlien wrote:
gainsay wrote:
As a long time guard player comments like this erk the gak out of me. Not everyone is spamming conscripts etc.

It's also kind of funny the consensus is they are OP and thank god you do not play against them. Come on rise up to a challenge for once. Figure out how to beat them instead of complaining.

First off, even without abusing the broken units yes the other bits of the codex is literally just better than previous armies have had available. Which is silly.

Second, most of us already know what could or could not be done to beat such a list. At a glance, I'm not beating an optimized guard list with my CSM, I might with my DG if I build for it, and I might with admech if I ally in a small guard detachment. The former and latter mean this edition now starts to remind me of 7th more, when some armies were simply on different levels and you often had to ally in other armies just to have a shot against some single faction armies. Those are not good things to be making me remember.

Guard (not the douchebags spamming hundreds on conscripts etc) are far from unbeatable dude. Work on your play skills.

**Slayer-Fan123**

gainsay wrote:
SilverAlien wrote:
gainsay wrote:
As a long time guard player comments like this erk the gak out of me. Not everyone is spamming conscripts etc.

It's also kind of funny the consensus is they are OP and thank god you do not play against them. Come on rise up to a challenge for once. Figure out how to beat them instead of complaining.

First off, even without abusing the broken units yes the other bits of the codex is literally just better than previous armies have had available. Which is silly.

Second, most of us already know what could or could not be done to beat such a list. At a glance, I'm not beating an optimized guard list with my CSM, I might with my DG if I build for it, and I might with admech if I ally in a small guard detachment. The former and latter mean this edition now starts to remind me of 7th more, when some armies were simply on different levels and you often had to ally in other armies just to have a shot against some single faction armies. Those are not good things to be making me remember.

Guard (not the douchebags spamming hundreds on conscripts etc) are far from unbeatable dude. Work on your play skills.

Spoken like a true Eldar player.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:
All seriousness as I don't follow tournaments enough(they don't interest me):

Were there legitimately 100% Guard lists topping tournaments? My understanding was that it was Imperial soup lists winning. Conscripts and Artillery might have been present but that doesn't automatically make it an IG list.

Outside Celestine and Roboute, they're basically 100% (and the Celestine and Roboute will actually vary, sometimes being one or the other). You can get Assassins and stuff now and then though.

**Therion**

Hyperbole nonsense about Guard winning it all.

Try disallowing Elysian bs and Earthshaker Carriages, then comp you can only take max 3 detachments and max 3 of the same unit, and all of a sudden the most absurd stuff is out.

Especially now as Scions took a heavy points increase and Conscripts were adjusted.

AM will remain competitive, and so do many other armies. As far as Guilliman and Celestine are concerned, they can be found in SM lists too, and once both go up in points about 25 to 50% we'll be in a good place.

Comparing AM to years of Eldar/Tau domination is absurd and insulting to that era.

**SilverAlien**

gainsay wrote:
Guard (not the douchebags spamming hundreds on conscripts etc) are far from unbeatable dude. Work on your play skills.

Okay again, a good guard army now involves conscripts, not infantry. If you don't use conscripts to any significant degree yes I won't have as much issue. If eldar didn't use scatter bikes and tau avoided the riptide/stormsurge they were much more manageable as well. I'm just not going to assume people as a whole will take deliberately subpar lists.

I find this whole "get good" line of reasoning from people who openly admit to running subpar armies weird. Not even subpar in the sense of not running a soup list, people openly talking about how they plan to avoid the better units in their codex because of what they find fluffy or fun. No one is particularly worried about that type of army, unless your preferred army happens to stumble into an absurdly powerful list.

**Lythrandire Biehrellian**

gungo wrote:
Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Most of these issues aren't that big a deal for me since I play powerlevel.

Since plasma increased in points, did powerlevel shift for scions or veterans?

Let's see veterans are still elites and not obj secured like scions.
Veterans still need a transport instead of air dropping 9in away in rapid fire range like scions
And plasma guns are still increased for veterans....
Nope vets still suck....
Oh and plasmaguns also get a free shot on a 6+ in a scions hands.

Oh and now people are also talking about since MT are an infantry regiment. Using defense search lights to give them +1 to hit. Then using thier order instead for reroll to wound and benefiting from a roll of 5+ for a free shot.... nope MT are still significantly better then veterans.

But what is their power level difference? You keep acting like plasma is King when every weapon option costs the same accross the board. I know 5 scions is 3 powerlevel, the same as 10 guard or 20 conscripts in the index. Did these numbers change? How many p.l. do the veterans have to have a chance to rapid fire plasma as a 30" gun, or an 18" rapid fire range?

Please, answer my question if you can instead of using it as a place to continue complaining about scions.

**Colonel Cross**

I've looked at the guard lists winning tournaments. It's conscripts, Earthshaker Platforms, with Scions or Elysians. No regular folks playing at your flgs are going to be running that garbage. Conscripts, yeah maybe. Scions, most likely. But not in those numbers. And it was that full combo that was winning tournaments. I'm sure the meta will shift slightly with this codex. But I'm betting only to remove Scions and to include only Elysians haha. Don't get your panties in a twist unless you play tournaments. At which point, I have no sympathy for you.

**Hollow**

and what if your army does stumble upon an absurdly powerful list? What's the problem?

**NenkotaMoon**

No new units, just the same old, darn. And of course hyperbole in the forums.

**BrookM**

New models, nope. But there is the generic Ogryn bodyguard codex entry and the Stratagem upgrade for Commissariat Tank.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Therion wrote:
Hyperbole nonsense about Guard winning it all.

Try disallowing Elysian bs and Earthshaker Carriages, then comp you can only take max 3 detachments and max 3 of the same unit, and all of a sudden the most absurd stuff is out.

Especially now as Scions took a heavy points increase and Conscripts were adjusted.

AM will remain competitive, and so do many other armies. As far as Guilliman and Celestine are concerned, they can be found in SM lists too, and once both go up in points about 25 to 50% we'll be in a good place.

Comparing AM to years of Eldar/Tau domination is absurd and insulting to that era.

So basically replace Elysians with Scions, Earthshakers with improved Basilisks or Russes. Boy, that was REALLY hard.

Oh, and you gotta hamstring yourself by doing Highlander-lite.

You read what you post at all?

**SilverAlien**

Hollow wrote:
and what if your army does stumble upon an absurdly powerful list? What's the problem?

Then it is the reason I'm optimizing my army? It's also an issue that a singular army can force other armies to turn into soup lists if they want to win, as at that point balance has been lost. Properly built mono guard should beat any other singular army, codex or index, at this moment. Having armies too weak to stand on their own was a major issue in 7th that mostly was avoided in early 8th, ignoring deliberately trimmed down factions like custodes or inquisition.

Colonel Cross wrote:
I've looked at the guard lists winning tournaments. It's conscripts, Earthshaker Platforms, with Scions or Elysians. No regular folks playing at your flgs are going to be running that garbage. Conscripts, yeah maybe. Scions, most likely. But not in those numbers. And it was that full combo that was winning tournaments. I'm sure the meta will shift slightly with this codex. But I'm betting only to remove Scions and to include only Elysians haha. Don't get your panties in a twist unless you play tournaments. At which point, I have no sympathy for you.

I'd point out earthshakers got a direct buff and some regiment tactics benefit them immensely. Conscripts again can be even tougher than they were before. And guard got a lot of new tools due to buffs across most of their units.

So again, mostly buffs, the only real nerf was to scions and I think the buffs will more than compensate for that.

**Davor**

Just saw this thread. I am not in a mood to read 26 pages. Has it been mentioned how this will apply to Genestealer Cults? I mean if going by the Index 2 book, Genestealer Cults can use any keywords that have Astra Militarium in it correct?

So not being a IG/AM player but trying to start a Genestealer Cult army, can I buy this codex and use all the units in it?

**Colonel Cross**

True the additional point of AP helps the Basilisk tremendously. Those tourney lists are running like 6 Earthshakers and several Basilisks. I have 1 freaking Basilisk and it's rarely done anything due to its previous ap and D3 damage. My 3 Lascannon in my infantry squads have done more damage in my games. Idk it will definitely help me out, sorry if you play people with a half dozen of them? I've played guard for like 18 years lol. I'm just going to continue playing them my way. I'll probably use LRs again so that's fun. I bought 1k of ad mech because I couldn't kill vehicles or flyers. Maybe now I won't need them. So there was an issue before this codex for normal people who aren't buying FW BS.

**gainsay**

SilverAlien wrote:
gainsay wrote:
Guard (not the douchebags spamming hundreds on conscripts etc) are far from unbeatable dude. Work on your play skills.

Okay again, a good guard army now involves conscripts, not infantry. If you don't use conscripts to any significant degree yes I won't have as much issue. If eldar didn't use scatter bikes and tau avoided the riptide/stormsurge they were much more manageable as well. I'm just not going to assume people as a whole will take deliberately subpar lists.

I find this whole "get good" line of reasoning from people who openly admit to running subpar armies weird. Not even subpar in the sense of not running a soup list, people openly talking about how they plan to avoid the better units in their codex because of what they find fluffy or fun. No one is particularly worried about that type of army, unless your preferred army happens to stumble into an absurdly powerful list.

A lot of the complaints on this forum are far beyond conscripts. I have an X-1 record using the index with a "sub par" list whatever that means. My local tournament meta has WAAC people playing razor wing flock spam, brimstone horrors the storm ravens now conscripts whatever is good at the time. infantry squads are quite good because people looking to counter conscripts get stifled by lots of infantry squads. I guess other guard armies are inherently good against conscripts to be fair tho.

**Kanluwen**

Davor wrote:
Just saw this thread. I am not in a mood to read 26 pages. Has it been mentioned how this will apply to Genestealer Cults? I mean if going by the Index 2 book, Genestealer Cults can use any keywords that have Astra Militarium in it correct?

So not being a IG/AM player but trying to start a Genestealer Cult army, can I buy this codex and use all the units in it?

I would say so.

Some will be more applicable than others, as I expect the Leman Russ variants that GSC can take as part of their Index list will get the same boosts as the Codex Guard ones(Grinding Advance, etc), but gaining the artillery and other similar things will be a big boost too.

**SilverAlien**

Colonel Cross wrote:
True the additional point of AP helps the Basilisk tremendously. Those tourney lists are running like 6 Earthshakers and several Basilisks. I have 1 freaking Basilisk and it's rarely done anything due to its previous ap and D3 damage. My 3 Lascannon in my infantry squads have done more damage in my games. Idk it will definitely help me out, sorry if you play people with a half dozen of them? I've played guard for like 18 years lol. I'm just going to continue playing them my way. I'll probably use LRs again so that's fun. I bought 1k of ad mech because I couldn't kill vehicles or flyers. Maybe now I won't need them. So there was an issue before this codex for normal people who aren't buying FW BS.

Why did you buy admech to deal with flyers and vehicles in 8th? 7th sure, 7th was awful about this and I want to avoid returning to it, but you had in house options for those in 8th. Fairly good ones. You say say you don't want to buy FW, but you can't even buy earthshaker or hydra batteries from FW anymore, all you do is take the guns off a normal basilisk/hydra and mount it onto something that looks like a turret base. You can even magnetize it to switch it between tank and battery mode, that's what I did with my R&H earthshakers.

It's also odd to me you've never seen IG players who focus on artillery at all, but that's a different story.

So yeah, that wasn't a situation you needed to go to another army for an optimal list. Nor but FW, unless you take issue with the price of their indices. Even if you outright refuse FW, you still could've stayed in house and, optimizing the units, been operating at around 80%-90% efficiency compared to the admech option. For comparison, our infantry is roughly half as effective as a screen compared to conscripts post codex, precodex we were even less, around a third as efficient. And that would be our best option, not our third place choice after we dismissed other better options our army had available.

**Colonel Cross**

Well in 7th I just used my Vendetta or Vulture to help against flyers. But they haven't done well this edition. And since I started 8th I've come across more flyers than ever. The Hydra is soooo bad it's pretty amusing.

There also aren't many IG players at my shop besides me. There's 2 teenagers who just have every tank but it's not like they are min maxing their lists. And until this codex drops their lists were garbage due to Chimeras and LRs.

I play tons of Tau, Ynnari, and space Marines. I'm playing against tons of flyers, hammerheads, land raiders, and knights. So yeah, the Basilisk and my LRs weren't cutting it for AT and anti air. And when I take my army to the store, nobody wants to play against 200+ infantry. So I needed vehicles to fill a role and the robots and Onagers did really well. Especially with their invuln saves.

**Therion**

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Therion wrote:
Hyperbole nonsense about Guard winning it all.

Try disallowing Elysian bs and Earthshaker Carriages, then comp you can only take max 3 detachments and max 3 of the same unit, and all of a sudden the most absurd stuff is out.

Especially now as Scions took a heavy points increase and Conscripts were adjusted.

AM will remain competitive, and so do many other armies. As far as Guilliman and Celestine are concerned, they can be found in SM lists too, and once both go up in points about 25 to 50% we'll be in a good place.

Comparing AM to years of Eldar/Tau domination is absurd and insulting to that era.

So basically replace Elysians with Scions, Earthshakers with improved Basilisks or Russes. Boy, that was REALLY hard.

Oh, and you gotta hamstring yourself by doing Highlander-lite.

You read what you post at all?

LMAO, as if Elysians and the new high points cost Scions would be anywhere near the same power level. Same play style, sure, but I wasn't aware you are demanding deep striking plasma to be removed from the game altogether.

Keep posting your hyperbole nonsense. I'm sure you'll find one or two guys willing to join you on your emo crusade.

**Twoshoes23**

Was hoping grenade launchers went down to 3 points to maybe give them a purpose... guess that didn't happen? Also, all this complaining about conscripts I find hillarious. Just spam assault cannons for SM or whatever anti-infantry you have. Counter their cheese spam with your cheese spam because tournaments are the land of cheese spam. My point is don't complain about cheese at a spam party, especially if you forgot to bring your cheese...spam. CHEESE SPAM!

Edit: I approve of this message...that the codex is not broken.

**SilverAlien**

Colonel Cross wrote:
Well in 7th I just used my Vendetta or Vulture to help against flyers. But they haven't done well this edition. And since I started 8th I've come across more flyers than ever. The Hydra is soooo bad it's pretty amusing.

There also aren't many IG players at my shop besides me. There's 2 teenagers who just have every tank but it's not like they are min maxing their lists. And until this codex drops their lists were garbage due to Chimeras and LRs.

I play tons of Tau, Ynnari, and space Marines. I'm playing against tons of flyers, hammerheads, land raiders, and knights. So yeah, the Basilisk and my LRs weren't cutting it for AT and anti air. And when I take my army to the store, nobody wants to play against 200+ infantry. So I needed vehicles to fill a role and the robots and Onagers did really well. Especially with their invuln saves.

Again, I make a distinction between "my army has no way to do this effectively" and "My army has multiple ways to do this effectively but I prefer the way another army does it".

Guard had multiple methods of dealing with this effectively, you just chose a different method due to... honestly I'm still kinda unclear on that. Most of your complaints seem to indicate you don't like guard, individually weaker models and units that can be spammed. Possibly a dislike of FW, even though most the FW options being discussed don't involve FW models themselves. Possibly just not being aware of the variety of options available and picking an obvious solution from a less cluttered army list.

Anyways, the point being the guard was one of the most self sufficient factions, and the new codex merely increases that. Other factions need to use allies, often IG allies, to be as competitive. That's both before and after the codex.

**Colonel Cross**

Apparently your definition of effective and mine are different. Why pay whatever a Hydra costs for BS 4 autocannon shots when I can pay damn near the same for an Icarus Onager? It was fun to build some new models and the ad mech are visually appealing.

Haha when was I complaining? I have been having more fun this edition than in years. What the hell makes you think I don't like my guard? I enjoy my masses of troops dying for the emperor. My only issue is it is time consuming to play with and pack up for the store. When my friends come over to play I have no issue with my massed infantry at home.

I dislike the abuse of FW models. I had an Earthshaker from many many years ago when they made them. Not sure what happened to it though.

**SilverAlien**

Colonel Cross wrote:
Apparently your definition of effective and mine are different. Why pay whatever a Hydra costs for BS 4 autocannon shots when I can pay damn near the same for an Icarus Onager? It was fun to build some new models and the ad mech are visually appealing.

I dislike the abuse of FW models. I had an Earthshaker from many many years ago when they made them. Not sure what happened to it though.

Are we talking points or cash? Because the hydra is about 2/3rds of the cost in both cash and points, and operates at roughly 2/3rds effectivensss as well. A hydra battery costs the same in cash as normal hydra (again, modeling tips), is half as expensive in points, and is 2/3rds as effective. So... yeah it's literally as effective. I have no idea what makes you think otherwise?

It sounds like you are having the issue a lot of people have with guard, they are weak but so cheap you can take them in bulk. If that's not your thing yeah guard probably isn't for you, I'm just not sure how someone running the army for a decade is bothered by it. You are ranged shooty orks in practice.

Abuse of FW? I'm not even sure how to respond to that. The idea FW is an imbalanced mess compared to the normal indices and codices has no real merit.

**xmbk**

Spoiler:

Dionysodorus wrote:
I'll reiterate that, as someone mostly interested in playing Sisters and Eldar, I don't think this codex looks simply broken. I do think, as I've said before, that this codex appears to make Guard easily the strongest solo faction in the game. But it doesn't appear to me to add all that much to Imperial Soup, which is obviously the major concern, competitive balance-wise. Scion (and presumably soon Elysian) plasma got nerfed, which is a big deal. Conscripts got a bit better if you're taking them in a pure Guard detachment, although this is at least a little limiting if you also want Guilliman (a LoW) and Celestine and a squad of Sisters and some Assassins. I suspect that non-Guilliman Soup got somewhat better, thanks in large part to the excellent warlord traits and relics available here. However, it doesn't strike me as likely to be that much better than Chaos Soup.

Maybe what's going on here is just that GW simply does not intend for people to look at Guard as a single faction. The faction is Imperium. The other major faction is Chaos. There are two small-ish factions under the Aeldari and Tyranid/Cult/Guard umbrellas, and then there are a couple of bit players (Necrons, Orks, Tau). It would not be crazy for GW to care only about balancing Imperial and Chaos Soup against these other factions, while totally ignoring meaningless comparisons between pure Guard armies and pure Death Guard armies. Now, of course it would be surprising if the goal here is for Codex: Orks to be competitive with Imperial Soup, but it's plausible that they're mostly thinking about Imperium vs Chaos.

The big losers here seem to me to be people who want to play with and against one-subfaction armies. It is not a good day to be a Black Templars player. In some ways the Guard codex is fantastic for this: a bunch of different kinds of Catachan armies are going to be really solid. But of course they're a lot more solid than many Space Marine Chapter, Chaos Legion, Grey Knight, AdMech, and Death Guard armies. It'll be really interesting to see what they do with the much less soup-oriented Tyranid and Eldar codices, though I suppose the real test will be when we get to one of the 3 friendless xenos factions.

Smart post, interesting.

**Diomecles**

Anybody know if the Tempestus lose their doctrine if they take air units like valkyries Or vendettas?

**Carnikang**

Diomecles wrote:
Anybody know if the Tempestus lose their doctrine if they take air units like valkyries Or vendettas?

Do Vendetta's or Valkaries have the Regiment keyword?

**Diomecles**

Carnikang wrote:
Diomecles wrote:
Anybody know if the Tempestus lose their doctrine if they take air units like valkyries Or vendettas?

Do Vendetta's or Valkaries have the Regiment keyword?

No I don't believe so. Is that the requirement? I've been reading that keeping their doctrine is a bit more strict than other regiments.

**Kanluwen**

Diomecles wrote:
Anybody know if the Tempestus lose their doctrine if they take air units like valkyries Or vendettas?

Valkyries and Vendettas are "Aeronautica Imperialis" units, which means they are Auxiliaries and do not detract from the Regiment's special rules.

It's important to remember that if you look at the Index? There's a specific list of things that are Militarum Tempestus:
Tempestor Prime
Tempestus Command Squad
Scions
Taurox Prime

Militarum Tempestus was in the Index explicitly called out as not being a "Regiment" that you can choose to replace "Regiment" with.

So if you took a Leman Russ as part of your Militarum Tempestus Detachment? It would break the Detachment's Regimental rules--but if you take a Valkyrie or Vendetta or a unit of Ratlings or a Primaris Psyker or a Commissar? It won't break them since all of those are considered Auxiliaries.

**Heafstaag**

So...why are rough riders not in the codex? WTF.