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the_scotsman wrote:

He does seem to be choosing many of the cheapest things possible here, including some units that are basically pure tax (his whole fast attack selection, for instance.) IG do make a brigade pretty damn easily, as does any horde-ier army with access to cheap troops. But 5-man squads of marines aren't exactly expensive, I just don't see people taking them.

your list, for instance, could have 6 troop squads just by splitting all those squads into 5-mans. That puts you at 2HQs, 2 I assume fast attacks for the land speeders, 3 HS, 2(?) elites.

What would you include/cut to make a brigade here? Sammael seems like a pretty expensive dude who doesn't do a lot, most special characters are like that. a barebones captain+Lieutenant is never a bad idea when you're looking at a significant gunline component of your army - they can pay for themselves in rerolls on expensive weapons like lascannons. If you're willing to spend a few points on mostly tax units, attack bikes fill out your fast attack slots really easily.

It seems like, from an outside perspective, he was willing to field min troop squads and use slots for cheap buffers (which probably made his army more efficient overall) and you went for a couple super inefficient options (Vendread with twin AC and PF+HF, for instance) plus a couple expensive options like the laspred and sammael. and you were still only 2-3 slots from a brigade.

Sammael grants rerolls of all missed to-hit rolls for any Ravenwing units within proximity of him, and rerolls of 1's to hit for all other Dark Angels units in proximity. He's what make the Land Speeders actually work - there's a world of difference between hitting on 4s when you move something and hitting on 4s with full rerolls. He's also got not-unrespectable firepower on his own, and is a phenomenal badass when he charges. His Land Speeder variant is better, but a little more expensive, but I don't currently have that model. I intend to get it assembled today.

You're not wrong - I could have made a brigade if I'd been willing to take cheap tax units in certain categories, but they're units that don't do anything but sit in the required slots. Attack Bikes, for instance, are currently not worth taking, nor are most of the cheap characters in the Elites section. That said, you're basically restating my point - as a Dark Angels player, I can make a brigade, but I have to be willing to make hard choices to do it across the board, and in so doing I'm apt to leave myself without the tools to deal with harder targets. Were my Predator and VenDread expensive? Sure, but they were also the greatest threats I had to my opponent's Leman Russes, and you can be sure he treated them as such.

Guard players don't really have to make difficult choices to build a brigade. They have enough cheap choices that actually do things - particularly in Troops, but as you pointed out Fast Attack as well, that they don't have to take any units that are strictly just tax - they can take a full brigade of units that are at least useful and often amazing. That is not a balanced situation - certainly not when a Guard player can field a brigade with plentiful good choices and also field a whole additional battalion.

 Grand.Master.Raziel wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

He does seem to be choosing many of the cheapest things possible here, including some units that are basically pure tax (his whole fast attack selection, for instance.) IG do make a brigade pretty damn easily, as does any horde-ier army with access to cheap troops. But 5-man squads of marines aren't exactly expensive, I just don't see people taking them.

your list, for instance, could have 6 troop squads just by splitting all those squads into 5-mans. That puts you at 2HQs, 2 I assume fast attacks for the land speeders, 3 HS, 2(?) elites.

What would you include/cut to make a brigade here? Sammael seems like a pretty expensive dude who doesn't do a lot, most special characters are like that. a barebones captain+Lieutenant is never a bad idea when you're looking at a significant gunline component of your army - they can pay for themselves in rerolls on expensive weapons like lascannons. If you're willing to spend a few points on mostly tax units, attack bikes fill out your fast attack slots really easily.

It seems like, from an outside perspective, he was willing to field min troop squads and use slots for cheap buffers (which probably made his army more efficient overall) and you went for a couple super inefficient options (Vendread with twin AC and PF+HF, for instance) plus a couple expensive options like the laspred and sammael. and you were still only 2-3 slots from a brigade.

Sammael grants rerolls of all missed to-hit rolls for any Ravenwing units within proximity of him, and rerolls of 1's to hit for all other Dark Angels units in proximity. He's what make the Land Speeders actually work - there's a world of difference between hitting on 4s when you move something and hitting on 4s with full rerolls. He's also got not-unrespectable firepower on his own, and is a phenomenal badass when he charges. His Land Speeder variant is better, but a little more expensive, but I don't currently have that model. I intend to get it assembled today.

You're not wrong - I could have made a brigade if I'd been willing to take cheap tax units in certain categories, but they're units that don't do anything but sit in the required slots. Attack Bikes, for instance, are currently not worth taking, nor are most of the cheap characters in the Elites section. That said, you're basically restating my point - as a Dark Angels player, I can make a brigade, but I have to be willing to make hard choices to do it across the board, and in so doing I'm apt to leave myself without the tools to deal with harder targets. Were my Predator and VenDread expensive? Sure, but they were also the greatest threats I had to my opponent's Leman Russes, and you can be sure he treated them as such.

Guard players don't really have to make difficult choices to build a brigade. They have enough cheap choices that actually do things - particularly in Troops, but as you pointed out Fast Attack as well, that they don't have to take any units that are strictly just tax - they can take a full brigade of units that are at least useful and often amazing. That is not a balanced situation - certainly not when a Guard player can field a brigade with plentiful good choices and also field a whole additional battalion.

That last part is the exact opposite of what I said... That Guard list has nothing but tax in the fast attack slot. If you want to take the decent to good fast attack units (the hellhounds) they're 120+ point choices. There's no functional difference between a lascannon sentinel and an attack bike, both sit and plink with a single heavy weapon.

Did you also miss the part where you had 6 troops choices, you just chose not to use them? What is the functional difference between your 3 troops and the very same squads in 6 5-man units?

It's really hard for me to sympathize when you make choices like Autocannons and the Relic WW and Typhoon Land Speeders backed up by sammael, all of which are anti elite/anti light tank and claim that you were "tailoring against guard" so when you lost it was because guard are broken. You brought a very uncompetitive TAC list to a normal game, and lost. Not knowing the choices made in the game and how the dice came up, there's not really much more of an assessment that you can make than that.

I'm just going to leave this here!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/
Commissar nerfs, grinding advance for all, bodyguard nerf, grav chute nerf (no more 20in drop), master of ordnance nerf(only codex artillery), tallarn strategem nerf, send in next wave cost points, dagger relic nerf(company and platoon commander only basically), GSC brood brother massive nerf. Elysian plasmagun finally 2 damage but still OP as fek with drop assault rule, none of the malcador have grinding advance rule :(, no more spamming command squads in Elysian or dkok armies.

That commisar nerf, oh my god.

Good ridance! Please GW, you said you wanted morale to matter and be a counter-measure agaisnt hordes. Then lets do it.

But to be honest I think this makes Commisars a little... useless. At least for Conscripts.

 Galas wrote:
That commisar nerf, oh my god.

Good ridance! Please GW, you said you wanted morale to matter and be a counter-measure agaisnt hordes. Then lets do it.

But to be honest I think this makes Commisars a little... useless. At least for Conscripts.

It's not to bad conscripts are ld9 near the commissar and if catachan are +1ld. Rerolling can make that 5/6 into a 1/2 and save a bunch of casualties. It also makes things like standards worth taking again. And the draconian discipline warlord trait is basically the old commisssr rule but d3 models and auto pass.

Yeah I think the Commissar nerf is fair. Especially since they didn't remove every tool for morale mitigation from the book!

There's still Mental Fortitude from psykers, then that Inquisition psychic power, then the stratagem.

Now there's just a point to taking standards and the Draconian Disciplinarian Warlord Trait.

Notice also that the Valhallan relic is unchanged, meaning Valhallan conscripts are still really badass (as per the fluff).

Lastly, I don't think it's so harsh of a nerf that comissars are /useless/ - they're just better for 10 man squads now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, curiously, they didn't change Acts of Faith - perhaps it's intended to be a unit level ability?

All in All I think all the changes were very good, bot the ones to let things clear like the Grinding advance one, and the "nerfs" ones.

Yeah definitely pretty awesome!

And they still did not clarify how many points an Infantry Squad HWT costs...

Huh. Wasn't expecting to see that Commissar change. Interesting.

And the stopped Bodyguards being able to jump in front of tanks and soak up bullets. That one I -was- expecting, eventually, though I'm surprised they got round to it so quickly.

And they finally made it so that people couldn't get free 20" move + disembarks + movement + advance + charge out of a valkyrie. (Edit: I mean, you -can- still do that, but it's not completely risk free like it was before)

Most of these seem pretty good changes (I mean ok, a lot are nerfs, but mostly they're plugging up RAI/RAW loopholes that people knew they were exploiting).

I do wonder about the dagger change though... didn't it used to be <Character>? I'm sure people were thinking of doing things like giving it to a priest and having him take an Ogryn squad with him or whatever... <Infantry><Officer> is pretty restrictive, there's not many of those. Can't give it to Commissars, for instance, or Lords. But you can give it to Masters and Commanders. (So Russell Crowe is still handy).

I'm fine with making Commissars useless is if People will quit whining about IG.

Commissars will still be a very strong tool to minimize morale loses for IG infantry as other people have said.
The difference is that they now MINIMIZE them, not just IGNORE them.

gungo wrote:
I'm just going to leave this here!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/
Commissar nerfs, grinding advance for all, bodyguard nerf, grav chute nerf (no more 20in drop), master of ordnance nerf(only codex artillery), tallarn strategem nerf, send in next wave cost points, dagger relic nerf, GSC brood brother massive nerf. Elysian plasmagun finally 2 damage but still OP as fek with drop assault rule, none of the malcador have grinding advance rule :(, no more spamming command squads in Elysian or dkok armies.

Whoah, the Commissar one is big. Not sure exactly how big, but it's something. Lol at murder enforced ATSKNF.

 Insectum7 wrote:

gungo wrote:
I'm just going to leave this here!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/
Commissar nerfs, grinding advance for all, bodyguard nerf, grav chute nerf (no more 20in drop), master of ordnance nerf(only codex artillery), tallarn strategem nerf, send in next wave cost points, dagger relic nerf, GSC brood brother massive nerf. Elysian plasmagun finally 2 damage but still OP as fek with drop assault rule, none of the malcador have grinding advance rule :(, no more spamming command squads in Elysian or dkok armies.

Whoah, the Commissar one is big. Not sure exactly how big, but it's something. Lol at murder enforced ATSKNF.

Speaking personally, I can't see myself ever using Commissars after this.

(To clarify, I didn't use them for Conscripts - just Infantry Squads).

I'd be paying points to kill one of my models and then potentially lose the same number of models (or more) anyway. And that would be in addition to the model I had to kill just for the privilege.

Just not worth it in my view.

Personally I think send in the next wave is useless. Unlike summoning it's not even a good deepstrike mechanic replacement. Honestly if it's going to cost points I rather see it used before the unit is destroyed to replace it with a fully repaired unit.

And I know the steel legion order is clear but I would have like to see that one allow units to reembark after disembarking the same turn. Chimera mech units aren't that great this edition and allowing a few units to use an order for protection would have made them decent.

Other then that I think this FAQ did a great job at removing unintended exploits people were trying to abuse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

gungo wrote:
I'm just going to leave this here!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/
Commissar nerfs, grinding advance for all, bodyguard nerf, grav chute nerf (no more 20in drop), master of ordnance nerf(only codex artillery), tallarn strategem nerf, send in next wave cost points, dagger relic nerf, GSC brood brother massive nerf. Elysian plasmagun finally 2 damage but still OP as fek with drop assault rule, none of the malcador have grinding advance rule :(, no more spamming command squads in Elysian or dkok armies.

Whoah, the Commissar one is big. Not sure exactly how big, but it's something. Lol at murder enforced ATSKNF.

Speaking personally, I can't see myself ever using Commissars after this.

(To clarify, I didn't use them for Conscripts - just Infantry Squads).

I'd be paying points to kill one of my models and then potentially lose the same number of models (or more) anyway. And that would be in addition to the model I had to kill just for the privilege.

Just not worth it in my view.

Considering conscripts are ld4 and a commissar was the only way to substantially increase thier leadership anyway. Commissars are pretty much required for conscripts still. Even if you take catachan (+1 ld) and platoon banner(+1 ld), ld 6 means you have a chance losing models to morale with even 1 casualty. A commissar makes that same unit ld 10 and thus not only can you reroll a bad morale roll you need to take 5 casualties and roll a 6 twice on morale to lose a casualty. Odds are you need to take 8-9 casualties before you lose a model for morale near a commissar. And no I would never take a commissar for a 10 man unit with ld7 (8 if catachan)already.

But if your playing conscripts still (and combined infantry to a smaller degree) and not using the vahallan relic or draconian discipline a commissar is a huge bonus. The main point of the commissar is now spreading his leadership 8/9 around especially to ld4 and ld7 units.

Jesus, 'dat nerf though. I mean, regarding commissars, I kinda stopped taking them with infantry anyway. This is going to further solidify that. Unless it's a lord for that little bit of surprisingly effective melee, I'm probably not using them again. I kinda feel like it was too much a kneejerk, but whatever. I imagine there will be about four very vocal people who will seriously try to argue that it wasn't enough, so to each their own.

Interesting that they didn't change FW plasma cost. Maybe they're waiting a month for chapter approved.

 daedalus wrote:
Jesus, 'dat nerf though. I mean, regarding commissars, I kinda stopped taking them with infantry anyway. This is going to further solidify that. Unless it's a lord for that little bit of surprisingly effective melee, I'm probably not using them again. I kinda feel like it was too much a kneejerk, but whatever. I imagine there will be about four very vocal people who will seriously try to argue that it wasn't enough, so to each their own.

Interesting that they didn't change FW plasma cost. Maybe they're waiting a month for chapter approved.

My thoughts exactly. I have one power-sworded Lord Commissar who hangs out with my crusader-spam army near a priest for to do the stabbing but all-in-all it's not crippling for me. Commissars are pretty awful now though, that's certain.

I don't play IG, and I think the Commissar nerf seems harsh.

What is this about 20'' drops? I don't have my Codex, but in the Index it clearly says you roll a D6 after a 20+ drop

Well, there go Conscript blobs. looks like the Marine player whined hard enough once again. Now, minus the only defensible bubble wrap units the Guard army should be open for destruction on turn two, after the conscripts have fled on turn one. Hell, Commissars might as well be removed from the list, the only reason to take them (negating crap leadership) has gone.

 vipoid wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

gungo wrote:
I'm just going to leave this here!
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/
Commissar nerfs, grinding advance for all, bodyguard nerf, grav chute nerf (no more 20in drop), master of ordnance nerf(only codex artillery), tallarn strategem nerf, send in next wave cost points, dagger relic nerf, GSC brood brother massive nerf. Elysian plasmagun finally 2 damage but still OP as fek with drop assault rule, none of the malcador have grinding advance rule :(, no more spamming command squads in Elysian or dkok armies.

Whoah, the Commissar one is big. Not sure exactly how big, but it's something. Lol at murder enforced ATSKNF.

Speaking personally, I can't see myself ever using Commissars after this.

(To clarify, I didn't use them for Conscripts - just Infantry Squads).

I'd be paying points to kill one of my models and then potentially lose the same number of models (or more) anyway. And that would be in addition to the model I had to kill just for the privilege.

Just not worth it in my view.

Well they're now the same buff as other army's leader choices, they still upgrade your infanrty/conscript units leadership from 4/6 to 8, which is all the boost to morale most army's get from leaders that cheap.

I do notice that the re-roll is compulsory though, which is odd. I'd have expected it to be a choice. So if you only fail by 1, you just take the model loss, but if you roll a 6 and lose like 4 models, then you can choose to re-roll as it would likely be an improvement.
But the new rules seems to say you must roll if you fail, so you do risk losing more guys. Odd. That might get tweaked into being a choice.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Well, there go Conscript blobs. looks like the Marine player whined hard enough once again. Now, minus the only defensible bubble wrap units the Guard army should be open for destruction on turn two, after the conscripts have fled on turn one. Hell, Commissars might as well be removed from the list, the only reason to take them (negating crap leadership) has gone.

You're overreacting.

There are still 4 mechanisms remaining in the Imperial Guard codex to completely ignore morale for a unit.

Commissars, perhaps, are gone from lists, but conscript screens are still just fine.

I for one can’t see it worthwhile to get that Commissar Warlord or any other way to keep morale. Conscripts are dead.

But they are not dead for just AM lists. Guilliman’s soup lists used them too.

In the end, this forces AM to soup even more to have some credible way to stop an assault. Deep strikers can still be blocked with other units, like Sentinels etc.

Laughable optimism from some posters claiming blobs are fine.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Well, there go Conscript blobs. looks like the Marine player whined hard enough once again. Now, minus the only defensible bubble wrap units the Guard army should be open for destruction on turn two, after the conscripts have fled on turn one. Hell, Commissars might as well be removed from the list, the only reason to take them (negating crap leadership) has gone.

You're overreacting.

There are still 4 mechanisms remaining in the Imperial Guard codex to completely ignore morale for a unit.

Commissars, perhaps, are gone from lists, but conscript screens are still just fine.

He's overreacting, but he's not entirely off base. If you lose equal to or more than 7 conscripts, having a commissar is probably hurting you more than it's helping at that point. You lose d6+1 instead of d6, and its mandatory, so you can't not-reroll if the first roll was a 1. And you're paying points to get to do it. Yay!

And, lets be honest, people (actual people, not me) don't take the commissar for anything other than conscripts. There's no reasonable use case for it now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Therion wrote:

In the end, this forces AM to soup even more to have some credible way to stop an assault. Deep strikers can still be blocked with other units, like Sentinels etc.

Mordian infantry squads. More expensive and you have to care about spacing so that they don't get multiassaulted more than you can help, but spacing always should have been a concern anyway.

Maybe replace your commissar with a command squad with standard. Do both and you have LD 9 infantry.

Right, yes.

Commissars are gone (bye, Officio Praefectus!).

But Conscripts are still absolutely viable - that's my point. Our screens are still there.

 daedalus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Well, there go Conscript blobs. looks like the Marine player whined hard enough once again. Now, minus the only defensible bubble wrap units the Guard army should be open for destruction on turn two, after the conscripts have fled on turn one. Hell, Commissars might as well be removed from the list, the only reason to take them (negating crap leadership) has gone.

You're overreacting.

There are still 4 mechanisms remaining in the Imperial Guard codex to completely ignore morale for a unit.

Commissars, perhaps, are gone from lists, but conscript screens are still just fine.

He's overreacting, but he's not entirely off base. If you lose equal to or more than 7 conscripts, having a commissar is probably hurting you more than it's helping at that point. You lose d6+1 instead of d6, and its mandatory, so you can't not-reroll if the first roll was a 1. And you're paying points to get to do it. Yay!

And, lets be honest, people (actual people, not me) don't take the commissar for anything other than conscripts. There's no reasonable use case for it now.

Eh, I probably am to some extent, but right now I can see another "Ohknows, they hurt the marines" kneejerk reaction coming in from GW, just as the 6th edition Guard codex was a massive nerf after the very brief period where the leafblower (which in itself was not a Guard list - it was Inquisition AND Guard) list proved to be powerful, and even without it the Guard codex was relatively well balanced and capable of giving as good as it got.
At te start of 8th we where good, provided we took some very monobuild lists. Now these are being rapidly nerfed from under us, and it wont be long until we see the Russ going up even further in points and Lasguns becoming S2....

 daedalus wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Well, there go Conscript blobs. looks like the Marine player whined hard enough once again. Now, minus the only defensible bubble wrap units the Guard army should be open for destruction on turn two, after the conscripts have fled on turn one. Hell, Commissars might as well be removed from the list, the only reason to take them (negating crap leadership) has gone.

You're overreacting.

There are still 4 mechanisms remaining in the Imperial Guard codex to completely ignore morale for a unit.

Commissars, perhaps, are gone from lists, but conscript screens are still just fine.

He's overreacting, but he's not entirely off base. If you lose equal to or more than 7 conscripts, having a commissar is probably hurting you more than it's helping at that point. You lose d6+1 instead of d6, and its mandatory, so you can't not-reroll if the first roll was a 1. And you're paying points to get to do it. Yay!

And, lets be honest, people (actual people, not me) don't take the commissar for anything other than conscripts. There's no reasonable use case for it now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Therion wrote:

In the end, this forces AM to soup even more to have some credible way to stop an assault. Deep strikers can still be blocked with other units, like Sentinels etc.

Mordian infantry squads. More expensive and you have to care about spacing so that they don't get multiassaulted more than you can help, but spacing always should have been a concern anyway.

Maybe replace your commissar with a command squad with standard. Do both and you have LD 9 infantry.

This makes Conscripts a choice, rather than a must-take. Isn't a bad thing. And they're also fluffier now, as they are actually capable of running away instead of being more courageous than space marines (which, come on, was pretty weird).

HOWEVER - While I like the new rule, I agree that it being compulsory is wrong. It should be a choice. Otherwise like this guys says, if you lose enough models in one turn, then you'll *always* have to roll twice, and end up losing the extra guy to friendly fire no matter what. I really do think GW meant it to be a choice.

Niiru wrote:

This makes Conscripts a choice, rather than a must-take. Isn't a bad thing.

Which is great if you only used Commissars for Conscripts.

If you used Commissars for anything else, then GW gives you the middle finger.

gungo wrote:

Considering conscripts are ld4 and a commissar was the only way to substantially increase thier leadership anyway. Commissars are pretty much required for conscripts still. Even if you take catachan (+1 ld) and platoon banner(+1 ld), ld 6 means you have a chance losing models to morale with even 1 casualty. A commissar makes that same unit ld 10 and thus not only can you reroll a bad morale roll you need to take 5 casualties and roll a 6 twice on morale to lose a casualty. Odds are you need to take 8-9 casualties before you lose a model for morale near a commissar. And no I would never take a commissar for a 10 man unit with ld7 (8 if catachan)already.

But if your playing conscripts still (and combined infantry to a smaller degree) and not using the vahallan relic or draconian discipline a commissar is a huge bonus. The main point of the commissar is now spreading his leadership 8/9 around especially to ld4 and ld7 units.

One thing to clarify, commissars can't get any unit to ld 10. The max a normal one can get them to is 8, and Yarrick/Lord Commissars only get them to 9. This is because they don't benefit from the catachan trait or the platoon banner etc due to them being a different "regiment".

Personally, i think the best way to go right now is just take the Valhallan relic if you want to keep running massive blobs. Other than that, i'd go for infantry squads. As soon as a conscript squad looses 8 men with a standard commissar next to them, they will loose d6+1 models from the unit, as you don't get a choice as to whether or not you use the ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I can understand the change for Send in the Next Wave stratagem costing reinforcement points - but it now just feels off when compared to Tide of Traitors.

A little annoyed about the Tallaran stratagem change as well. Would still be useable if it was changed to 1-2 units for 1/3 CP like some of the others. Right now, i'm not going to use 3cp to just outflank 1 russ and then 2 infantry squads.

Forgeworld update pretty much updates rules and unit buffs to same as codex and as expected the clarification that Krieg/Elysian abilities are existing regimental doctrines and they cant take another. There is one major nerf though, Master of Ordinance only affects motorised artillery doesn't buff Earthshaker stationary/carriages.