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.

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

How many of those armies you've collected have easy access to an always on -1 to Hit aura for your infantry units?

I'm sure someone will be along shortly to tell me "That doesn't actually matter!" but...yeah, it kinda does. There are very little units in the Guard which are hitting on 3+ when shooting. Even fewer of those units have weapons with meaningful range or statlines.

The list is basically:
Ratlings, Scions, Veterans, and Harker for a range band that is beyond that of pistols. The Master of Ordnance is kinda/sorta but remember he gets just one Artillery Barrage.
Pask, Tank Commanders, and Taurox Prime all occupy a niche in and of themselves. They're vehicles that somehow get BS 3+(2+ in the case of Pask) but Baneblade variants don't.

Add in that very few vehicles have a primary weapon that hits automatically(Hellhounds and Bane Wolves are basically it while other vehicles can swap to a Heavy Flamer) and that -1 to Hit can be a big deal when it's the vehicles that usually do the work that supposedly makes the Guard so scary right now.

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

Don't units of Genestealers with the Adrenal Glands upgrade and the re-roll charges tactic have something like a combined 84% chance of getting in off of deep strike? That seems like something that could probably carve up a Guard army pretty solidly, especially considering that one of the better countermeta lists for dealing with Guard are Alpha Legion Berserkers.

Guard don't deal well with reliable alpha strike melee or -hit modifiers thanks to BS4+ pretty much across the board. Nids feature both.

" "That doesn't actually matter!" but...yeah, it kinda does"

Does it matter enough? Against marines, IG can exploit the poor model count and just dice their way through it. Maybe Nids will be too much, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

Don't units of Genestealers with the Adrenal Glands upgrade and the re-roll charges tactic have something like a combined 84% chance of getting in off of deep strike? That seems like something that could probably carve up a Guard army pretty solidly, especially considering that one of the better countermeta lists for dealing with Guard are Alpha Legion Berserkers.

Guard don't deal well with reliable alpha strike melee or -hit modifiers thanks to BS4+ pretty much across the board. Nids feature both.

Genestealers don't get to fight twice, so no. First turn alpha melee that can't fight twice is actually useless vs guard due to all the layers of bubble wrap.

Martel732 wrote:
" "That doesn't actually matter!" but...yeah, it kinda does"

Does it matter enough? Against marines, IG can exploit the poor model count and just dice their way through it. Maybe Nids will be too much, though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

Don't units of Genestealers with the Adrenal Glands upgrade and the re-roll charges tactic have something like a combined 84% chance of getting in off of deep strike? That seems like something that could probably carve up a Guard army pretty solidly, especially considering that one of the better countermeta lists for dealing with Guard are Alpha Legion Berserkers.

Guard don't deal well with reliable alpha strike melee or -hit modifiers thanks to BS4+ pretty much across the board. Nids feature both.

Genestealers don't get to fight twice, so no. First turn alpha melee that can't fight twice is actually useless vs guard due to all the layers of bubble wrap.

I can tell you from a test-run I saw of the new Eldar codex, it certainly does matter enough when you've got tons of -2s across the board on various units. Gave me flashbacks to 7th in the opening two turns when pretty much every worthwhile target was only able to be hit on sixes.

Basically the game was an eldar army with Illic, a bike farseer, rangers, 2 fire prisms, 1 hemlock, 1 crimson hunter and several Vypers for objective grabbing vs a brigade of infantry squads packing lascannons, 2 commanders, 2 Basilisks, a manticore, a Hydra, a couple LR Battlecannon Commanders, 3 sentinels and a buffed up bullgryn blob with psykers (I know I'm forgetting some stuff, but that's the gist of what I remember).

Turn 1, snipers take out both Company Commanders, Fire Prisms pull out the linked-fire stratagem and along with the planes blow up both tank commanders. Guard turn 1, pretty much nothing dies though the Crimson Hunter is pretty badly beat up by the Hydra and a couple HF sentinels.

Turn 2, Hemlock drops Horrify and gets within 12" of the bullgryns for -3LD, and all the anti-tank fire concentrates on blasting through their 1+ armor save. 5 die and the player burns 2 command points to keep the rest alive. Anti-infantry fire and morale kills three infantry squads that were within range of the plane to make them 5ld. Snipers kill the psykers with the two most important powers (-1 to hit and +1 to save)

Return fire finishes off the crimson hunter, damages a Fire Prism pretty good. Bullgryns charge and kill a vyper.

Remaining units kill the infantry and sentinels and finish off the last couple Bullgryns, and by the end of the game the only thing the artillery accomplishes is killing one more fire prism. Ends with an easy overwhelming victory point win by the Eldar.

So I wasn't talking about Eldar, but good to know I guess.

Martel732 wrote:
So I wasn't talking about Eldar, but good to know I guess.

I think he was addressing your point that negative to hit modifiers don't matter.

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

Did you see today's leaks? The calls to orbit-to-surface nerf tyranid have already begun.

At this point people are calling for every codex except Grey Knights to be nerfed. At this point it seems that this really is a game of pushing broken armies towards each other.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Did you see today's leaks? The calls to orbit-to-surface nerf tyranid have already begun.

At this point people are calling for every codex except Grey Knights to be nerfed. At this point it seems that this really is a game of pushing broken armies towards each other.

Given my long-term believe that you shouldn't trust Dakka to be able to balance a chequebook properly, I'm going to assume that this actually means that this edition is actually working out better than anticipated. Except for GK, of course.

If summary execution was activated by a dice roll rather than being automatic, could that have worked better? Like if an IG unit within 6” of a commissar fails a morale test, roll a D6. On a 4+ (?), only one model flees. Or is this too clunky?

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
I'm building my tyranid army up, and with the leaks it will be fun. But I still don't see it managing to do anything against imperial guard. Their kits are simply too strong. Taurox Primes, Wyverns, and suicide plasma ruin Tyranids day.

Of course I don't have the codex yet so that may change, but ffs, every army i've collected is hosed playing guard.

Did you see today's leaks? The calls to orbit-to-surface nerf tyranid have already begun.

At this point people are calling for every codex except Grey Knights to be nerfed. At this point it seems that this really is a game of pushing broken armies towards each other.

Rose tinted goggles taken off, this is how 40k is. 7th was like this, 6th was like this, and 5th was like this. If every army is broken save GK, then maybe GK is the one that needs fixed.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
If summary execution was activated by a dice roll rather than being automatic, could that have worked better? Like if an IG unit within 6” of a commissar fails a morale test, roll a D6. On a 4+ (?), only one model flees. Or is this too clunky?

It's clunky and stupid.

replace the word CORN with GW.... this is how I'm feeling right now XD

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's clunky and stupid.

There’s a fine line between constructive criticism and being a jerk.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
It's clunky and stupid.

There’s a fine line between constructive criticism and being a jerk.

Putting it as nicely as I can, there is no comment or suggestion that is acceptable given the fact that what a Commissar did is being added into two different armies' special rules.

Those armies have inferior units, mathematically speaking.

Rather see something like if the unit fails morale then the Commissar executes one model and the number of models that flee is reduced by half. Still highly effective for keeping 10 man guardsman/vet squads fighting to the last man while reducing but not eliminating the impact of butchering 15 conscripts in a turn. What GW did was incredibly knee jerky and poorly thought out.

I disagree. Other lists need to be able to battleshock conscripts 15 at a time. That's still only 45 pts extra off the table.

I think they should have introduced a rule whereby each time a commissar blams someone, they roll a dice.

First blam of the game? Roll of a 1 equals 1 mortal wound on commissar.
Second blam? Roll of 1 or 2 equals 1 mortal wound.
Third blam? 1, 2 or 3
etc. etc.

Killing your own men carries risks. Push them too far and you get a lasgun in the back.

Sound like a catachan doctrine

 Vankraken wrote:
Rather see something like if the unit fails morale then the Commissar executes one model and the number of models that flee is reduced by half. Still highly effective for keeping 10 man guardsman/vet squads fighting to the last man while reducing but not eliminating the impact of butchering 15 conscripts in a turn. What GW did was incredibly knee jerky and poorly thought out.

Your solution is still horrible for Infantry, Veteran, or Scion Squads.

If you truly wanted something to impact Conscripts?
We have the Raw Recruits rule on them for a reason. Seriously, it was added to the Codex explicitly to tone just Conscripts down. Modify that rule, leave Commissars as they were, and poof. Done.

Raw Recruits: Roll a D6 each time an Officer uses the Voice of Command ability to issue an order to this unit; on a 4+ the order applies as normal, otherwise the order has no effect and no other orders can be issued to this unit for the rest of the turn.

Additionally when a Commissar uses the Summary Execution ability on this unit, roll a D6(adding a D6 for each model with the "Commissar" keyword within 6" of the unit or within 12" for a Lord Commissar). Compare the result of the D6 roll to the number of models lost to enemy attacks.
If the result is less than the number of models lost to enemy attacks, the Summary Execution fails to prevent further casualties from morale.
If the result is greater than the number of models lost to enemy attacks, the Summary Execution is successful in preventing further casualties from morale.
If the result is equal to the number of models lost to enemy attacks, the Summary Execution has to remove an additional D3 models along with the single model removed by Summary Execution but is otherwise considered successful.

Italics is a spitballing idea. Very rarely should Conscripts be losing just one or two models to enemy shooting or close combat...
If Conscripts lose just one or two guys to shooting/combat, a lone Commissar theoretically should be able to maintain control by executing a single model. I don't see a problem with that.
If the Conscripts lost 4 or 5 guys? That should be harder.
Making it harder for lone Commissars to maintain morale on a unit of Conscripts should absolutely be a thing if they're losing 6+ guys a turn.

Requiring more Commissars to order means that it becomes more points and slot intensive to bring Conscripts--which is, again, a good thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I think they should have introduced a rule whereby each time a commissar blams someone, they roll a dice.

First blam of the game? Roll of a 1 equals 1 mortal wound on commissar.
Second blam? Roll of 1 or 2 equals 1 mortal wound.
Third blam? 1, 2 or 3
etc. etc.

Killing your own men carries risks. Push them too far and you get a lasgun in the back.

And then nobody takes Commissars, still.

If you want something like this to work, it really should be a bespoke rule on the individual units.

Veterans:

We know our jobs--Roll a D6 when a model from this unit is removed from a Commissar's Summary Execution ability. On a 4+, the Commissar suffers D3 Mortal Wounds as the Veterans return fire. For the remainder of the game, this unit of Veterans cannot have their morale modified by a Commissar's Summary Execution ability or their Leadership value.

Raw Recruits, again, could have something similar.

Scions apparently don't care that the Commissars kill them(such stupid fluff in that regard but c'est la vie) and Infantry Squads should be untouched. Just the right amount of raw recruits and veterans mixed together.

Commissars weren't fine. Even ignoring conscripts, the idea that Commissars suddenly made guardsmen have better morale than Space Marines is silly. Tyranids and Orks get away with fearless because they always were fearless, it is in their fluff. That was never true for Commissars.

Sure they were overnerfed, but they weren't fine. They only need to make the execution optional instead of obligatory and it would be fine.

Tyran wrote:
Commissars weren't fine. Even ignoring conscripts, the idea that Commissars suddenly made guardsmen have better morale than Space Marines is silly. Tyranids and Orks get away with fearless because they always were fearless, it is in their fluff. That was never true for Commissars.

Have you ever read Commissar fluff?

There is a reason they had the USR "Stubborn" last edition. They don't retreat--even when any rational person would. Orks don't care because of the whole mentality of "We don't lose--if we're dead, we're dead so we can't lose!" and Tyranids are puppets for an inexorable alien will.
Commissars? They just shoot anyone who looks like they're about to run away.

Sure they were overnerfed, but they weren't fine. They only need to make the execution optional instead of obligatory and it would be fine.

No, it wouldn't be. Not even remotely.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Tyran wrote:
Commissars weren't fine. Even ignoring conscripts, the idea that Commissars suddenly made guardsmen have better morale than Space Marines is silly. Tyranids and Orks get away with fearless because they always were fearless, it is in their fluff. That was never true for Commissars.

Have you ever read Commissar fluff?

There is a reason they had the USR "Stubborn" last edition. They don't retreat--even when any rational person would. Orks don't care because of the whole mentality of "We don't lose--if we're dead, we're dead so we can't lose!" and Tyranids are puppets for an inexorable alien will.
Commissars? They just shoot anyone who looks like they're about to run away.

Sure they were overnerfed, but they weren't fine. They only need to make the execution optional instead of obligatory and it would be fine.

No, it wouldn't be. Not even remotely.

And Stubborn wasn't Fearless. So instead of giving Commissars something they never had (Fearless), give them the 8th edition of Stubborn, which I guess would be a cap on morale modifiers.

Tyran wrote:

And Stubborn wasn't Fearless. So instead of giving Commissars something they never had (Fearless), give them the 8th edition of Stubborn, which I guess would be a cap on morale modifiers.

Yup. Stubborn was better than fearless almost always. Also, 97.2% of the time with stubborn and the reroll, previous edition commissars succeeded their morale. Think about that a while. To put it a different way, 2.6% is your odds of failing a LD8 leadership in 5-7th, and then failing it after you reroll.

The prenerf commissar is 103% as effective than previous edition commissars. OMG PLZ NERF AMIRITE?

@ kanluwen

And you called my idea clunky and stupid.

 daedalus wrote:

Tyran wrote:

And Stubborn wasn't Fearless. So instead of giving Commissars something they never had (Fearless), give them the 8th edition of Stubborn, which I guess would be a cap on morale modifiers.

Yup. Stubborn was better than fearless almost always. Also, 97.2% of the time with stubborn and the reroll, previous edition commissars succeeded their morale. Think about that a while. To put it a different way, 2.6% is your odds of failing a LD8 leadership in 5-7th, and then failing it after you reroll.

The prenerf commissar is 103% more effective than previous edition commissars. OMG PLZ NERF AMIRITE?

And yet it still had the small probability of failing and the whole unit running, morale happened each phase and Commissars only worked in one unit IIRC, so at the very least the execution should have been limited to one per turn. Also killing guardsmen was far easier in previous editions.

And my argument is more to the fluff, Commissars didn't make their companions fearless, but rather they worked by a combination of inspiring and/or making their companions more afraid of them than the enemy.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
@ kanluwen

And you called my idea clunky and stupid.

Yup, I did. I still maintain that stance as "just roll a D6 for any Guard unit within 6" is just awful.

My suggestion is hinged upon the ideas that:
A) Anything needs to be done (I think that we just need the nerf reverted and for people to put big boy pants on personally)
B) We don't want Commissars to be useless

One of our ideas doesn't negatively impact the units that should be receiving the benefits of Commissars with no issues(Infantry Squads, HWS, SWS, etc--the "full" Guardsmen) but instead specifically targets the problematic interactions between single Commissars and blobs of Conscripts.

If you want to argue that my idea was complex and wordy? Sure. I'll admit it totally is far more complex and wordy than I think it needs to be, but with the fact that we needed people to have "Yes, moving 0 inches is in fact moving less than half your movement value" outright explained to them...complexity is unfortunately going to be necessary.

But again, we had the "Raw Recruits" rule added to Conscripts from the Index listing for a reason.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyran wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

Tyran wrote:

And Stubborn wasn't Fearless. So instead of giving Commissars something they never had (Fearless), give them the 8th edition of Stubborn, which I guess would be a cap on morale modifiers.

Yup. Stubborn was better than fearless almost always. Also, 97.2% of the time with stubborn and the reroll, previous edition commissars succeeded their morale. Think about that a while. To put it a different way, 2.6% is your odds of failing a LD8 leadership in 5-7th, and then failing it after you reroll.

The prenerf commissar is 103% more effective than previous edition commissars. OMG PLZ NERF AMIRITE?

And yet it still had the small probability of failing and the whole unit running, morale happened each phase and Commissars only worked in one unit IIRC, so at the very least the execution should have been limited to one per turn. Also killing guardsmen was far easier in previous editions.

Killing Guardsmen was far easier in previous editions because of the absolute nature of saves. Blobs of Guardsmen in CC with Priests and the Invulnerable hymn didn't go down like chumps and were annoying for a reason.

It didn't necessarily make them broken or OP though. People whined about them for the same reason you're whining about them now:
The army you expected to die like tissue paper to a stiff breeze didn't, based upon a lynchpin character that if it got singled out or killed via singling out completely ruined the strategy the Guard player was using.

And my argument is more to the fluff, Commissars didn't make their companions fearless, but rather they worked by a combination of inspiring and/or making their companions more afraid of them than the enemy.

So how do you differentiate between fearless and inspirational on the tabletop?

Anyways you can't say "Commissars didn't do X" because Commissars aren't one specific guy. They run the range of Gaunt(a badass who inspired his men) to Hark(a hardcase who executed people on the spot when not part of his Regiment) to Cain(a guy who really should have been shot for incompetence and cowardice ages ago), and there's probably more than I can't think of right now.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Killing Guardsmen was far easier in previous editions because of the absolute nature of saves. Blobs of Guardsmen in CC with Priests and the Invulnerable hymn didn't go down like chumps and were annoying for a reason.

It didn't necessarily make them broken or OP though. People whined about them for the same reason you're whining about them now:
The army you expected to die like tissue paper to a stiff breeze didn't, based upon a lynchpin character that if it got singled out or killed via singling out completely ruined the strategy the Guard player was using.

Exactly this. I still do not understand how other players are calling Guard overpowered when you can neuter them simply by removing a few characters. But hey-ho there are those here who demand that Guard armies roll over and die as soon as the first marine/guardian/whatever is placed on the table because 'reasons', and those sought's will never be satisfied until they can happily wipe entire Imperial Guard armies off the board on the first turn.

Personally, I think one of the things that made Commissars better in 8th was their ability to affect multiple squads all at once rather than only giving their bonuses to the squad they were attached to.

 Red_Five wrote:
Personally, I think one of the things that made Commissars better in 8th was their ability to affect multiple squads all at once rather than only giving their bonuses to the squad they were attached to.

The problem is this magical "layering" that people keep claiming was happening.

You'd have conga lines of Conscripts acting as charge protection/sniper protection and a Commissar at one end...with vehicles at the other end/behind the Conscripts and terrain.

What exactly did Commissars do for vehicles? Nothing.