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Breng77 wrote:

It is immune to damage if LOS blocking terrain exists and those conscripts deny the angles where you can see the artillery. Unless you also have artillery...which wait for it...is mostly limited to guard.

Which is why I said largely immune. Most tables have enough LOS blockers to hide several artillery pieces, then the screen blocks the deepstrike angles and movement to see said artillery, in addition to assault. If deepstrike worked like drop pods last edition it would be hard to block this off, but with a 9" no-go zone it is a simple matter.

Lasguns are 24" range.

You trying to say there is nothing that can hit artillery parked behind LOS blocking terrain that outranges 24"? That the LOS blocking terrain is high enough that you won't be able to use units that have "Fly" to go over/through it?

You can shoot past the Conscripts too. Guard Artillery doesn't get a special rule where they can't be targeted unless the infantry is killed first y'know.
Guard Artillery is split between T6(Basilisks and Wyverns) or T7 (Manticores and Deathstrikes), with both variations having 11W and a 3+ save. Yeah the artillery will outrange most things shooting at it--but it's artillery, why shouldn't it be?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game.

Then why did they neither place first or second in the GT?

Which GT? Players matter you know. Guard is not an auto win, but it is right now in the top 2 armies in the game. Time will tell if that remains the case.

The one that GW livestreamed last week or the week before?

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game. Complaining about this nerf is bad form.

Would anyone like to take a stroll down Data Avenue with me?

So, BoK has a tracker for 8th edition events, broken down by faction winner, with links to lists. Additonally, Frontline Gaming/ITC tracks individual player results and faction results.

Let's assume that any army in the top 3 is functionally a top tier army list on near equal footing. The justification being that 40k tournaments are score based with a limited number of rounds, meaning tourney match ups could very well be uneven, and that most top 3 lists are unbeaten in the tourney, with the winners decided on specific scores of how greatly they won or on soft scores.

Looking at BoK's site, we find that Ultramarines and Space Marines make up 12 entries in top 3, with 4 being 1st place.

IG have 8 entries in the top 3, with 4 being 1st place as well.

To put it in perspective, Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons have a total of 10 entries in the top 3, with a single 1st place.

So far, the data shows that Marines and Guard are on pretty even footing. If we agree with my line of reasoning about being top 3, Chaos is doing equally well.

Now we can delve a little deeper into the ITC data.

ITC uses a point system that accumulates with wins, so the general idea is the higher the better. The top number for each faction (worth noting for this example) is as follows;

Marines: 483.77
Guard: 525.55
Chaos Daemons: 538
Chaos (Generic): 457.26
Chaos Marines: 494.54
Sisters: 493.87

Going by just the first placer in each faction leads us to conclude that is in fact Daemons who are the true terror of the battlefield! But of course, its statistically irrelevant to cherry pick the top player who happens to mostly play one faction, so maybe we should take an average of the top 3 from each faction. This would give us

Marines: 452.9
Guard:475.59
Chaos (Generic): 371.6
Chaos Daemons: 501.4
Chaos Marines: 473.7
Sisters: 415.63

Which now puts both Daemons and Chaos Marines ahead of the vaunted, number 1, unbeatable codex that is Guard. But still, is top 3 even still significant? I'd argue no, for gauging the overall power of a codex, seeing as how luck and tournament match ups can dramatically alter a few players results.

If we expand to top 5, things get more interesting (in order this time);

Chaos Daemons: 483
Chaos Marines: 461
Space Marine: 440
Imperial Guard: 438
Sisters: 357
Chaos Generic: 347

This trend continues as you average more players. Guard scores drop off quickly after the top 5, while Chaos and Marines are much more gradual decline, meaning they'd continue to dominate the top 3 slots.

I don't know about all of you, but this seems to paint the picture that Chaos and Marines need to get nerfed to IG levels! Jokes aside, the hyperbolic nonsense that Guard is an unbeatable, #1 army that is dominating every tournament ever, is complete and utter horsegak. And don't forget this is all pre-nerf (but a lot of pre-codex too, to be fair).

Draw what conclusions you will, but it'd be hard for someone to look at this and somehow continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

IG are a top tier codex, no one is denying that, but the bs that they're #1 at all times no matter what is exactly that, bs.

For every person in here complaining about the IG being super overpowered, I expect to see you in threads about Chaos and Marines being equally overpowered.

We can now end our stroll down Data Avenue.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game.

Then why did they neither place first or second in the GT?

You say "the GT" but there are a ton of GTs. You're saying "THE" GT because it fits your complainer narrative. In fact Guard have been dominating the ITC tournaments for a long time.

And how many of those ITC tournaments took place after the book dropped with the change to Orders for Conscripts?
How many took place after the points bump on Scions taking Plasma Guns?

Book's been out since October 7th. We really going to pretend there have been that many ITC events since then?

 Blacksails wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game. Complaining about this nerf is bad form.

Would anyone like to take a stroll down Data Avenue with me?

So, BoK has a tracker for 8th edition events, broken down by faction winner, with links to lists. Additonally, Frontline Gaming/ITC tracks individual player results and faction results.

Let's assume that any army in the top 3 is functionally a top tier army list on near equal footing. The justification being that 40k tournaments are score based with a limited number of rounds, meaning tourney match ups could very well be uneven, and that most top 3 lists are unbeaten in the tourney, with the winners decided on specific scores of how greatly they won or on soft scores.

Looking at BoK's site, we find that Ultramarines and Space Marines make up 12 entries in top 3, with 4 being 1st place.

IG have 8 entries in the top 3, with 4 being 1st place as well.

To put it in perspective, Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons have a total of 10 entries in the top 3, with a single 1st place.

So far, the data shows that Marines and Guard are on pretty even footing. If we agree with my line of reasoning about being top 3, Chaos is doing equally well.

Now we can delve a little deeper into the ITC data.

ITC uses a point system that accumulates with wins, so the general idea is the higher the better. The top number for each faction (worth noting for this example) is as follows;

Marines: 483.77
Guard: 525.55
Chaos Daemons: 538
Chaos (Generic): 457.26
Chaos Marines: 494.54
Sisters: 493.87

Going by just the first placer in each faction leads us to conclude that is in fact Daemons who are the true terror of the battlefield! But of course, its statistically irrelevant to cherry pick the top player who happens to mostly play one faction, so maybe we should take an average of the top 3 from each faction. This would give us

Marines: 452.9
Guard:475.59
Chaos (Generic): 371.6
Chaos Daemons: 501.4
Chaos Marines: 473.7
Sisters: 415.63

Which now puts both Daemons and Chaos Marines ahead of the vaunted, number 1, unbeatable codex that is Guard. But still, is top 3 even still significant? I'd argue no, for gauging the overall power of a codex, seeing as how luck and tournament match ups can dramatically alter a few players results.

If we expand to top 5, things get more interesting (in order this time);

Chaos Daemons: 483
Chaos Marines: 461
Space Marine: 440
Imperial Guard: 438
Sisters: 357
Chaos Generic: 347

This trend continues as you average more players. Guard scores drop off quickly after the top 5, while Chaos and Marines are much more gradual decline, meaning they'd continue to dominate the top 3 slots.

I don't know about all of you, but this seems to paint the picture that Chaos and Marines need to get nerfed to IG levels! Jokes aside, the hyperbolic nonsense that Guard is an unbeatable, #1 army that is dominating every tournament ever, is complete and utter horsegak. And don't forget this is all pre-nerf (but a lot of pre-codex too, to be fair).

Draw what conclusions you will, but it'd be hard for someone to look at this and somehow continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

IG are a top tier codex, no one is denying that, but the bs that they're #1 at all times no matter what is exactly that, bs.

For every person in here complaining about the IG being super overpowered, I expect to see you in threads about Chaos and Marines being equally overpowered.

We can now end our stroll down Data Avenue.

I have a shiny nickel that says it'll be really, incredibly, intensely easy for someone to look at this and continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

*David Attenborough Voice* Here we see the Dakka poster confronted by numbers that do not conform to their previously held convictions. Let's watch what it does next.

the_scotsman wrote:

I have a shiny nickel that says it'll be really, incredibly, intensely easy for someone to look at this and continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

*David Attenborough Voice* Here we see the Dakka poster confronted by numbers that do not conform to their previously held convictions. Let's watch what it does next.

I'm sure there'll be some twisting and squirming with words. I imagine something along the lines of 'Marines are only good cause of Guilliman' and 'Guard are just amazing with every single unit [except the following 10]'.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game.

Then why did they neither place first or second in the GT?

The codex has been out for 2 weekends.

It won the last one with the SoCal open.
So by your logic guard has won 50% of GT's.

Is that enough to qualify?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

It is immune to damage if LOS blocking terrain exists and those conscripts deny the angles where you can see the artillery. Unless you also have artillery...which wait for it...is mostly limited to guard.

Which is why I said largely immune. Most tables have enough LOS blockers to hide several artillery pieces, then the screen blocks the deepstrike angles and movement to see said artillery, in addition to assault. If deepstrike worked like drop pods last edition it would be hard to block this off, but with a 9" no-go zone it is a simple matter.

Lasguns are 24" range.

You trying to say there is nothing that can hit artillery parked behind LOS blocking terrain that outranges 24"? That the LOS blocking terrain is high enough that you won't be able to use units that have "Fly" to go over/through it?

You can shoot past the Conscripts too. Guard Artillery doesn't get a special rule where they can't be targeted unless the infantry is killed first y'know.
Guard Artillery is split between T6(Basilisks and Wyverns) or T7 (Manticores and Deathstrikes), with both variations having 11W and a 3+ save. Yeah the artillery will outrange most things shooting at it--but it's artillery, why shouldn't it be?

Do you not seriously understand the issue? The guard player has LOS blocking terrain in their Deployment zone that I cannot see behind with my long range weapons, Las gun range has nothing to do with it. If I cannot get an angle to see the artillery because any said space is blocked physically by Guard models I cannot target it because I CANNOT SEE IT. Flying over said terrain would assume I could get to it through the screen.... That is what I am trying to say. Range is irrelevant if I cannot see the target, if the screen blocks Deepstrike equivalent flanking around the terrain, or movement into those positions, with units that have range (most of which are slow). I then need to kill the screen to have the ability to kill the artillery at all. As for artillery range, it shouldn't have that range because it is bad for balance, unless it has a ridiculous minimum range (say cannot shoot anything closer than 24" or something similar.) Personally I am opposed to any long range ignores LOS weapons in this edition, it lessens strategy when one player does not need to move to do damage. guard players never seem to want to Acknowledge that this scenario exists, but it does.

Breng77 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

It is immune to damage if LOS blocking terrain exists and those conscripts deny the angles where you can see the artillery. Unless you also have artillery...which wait for it...is mostly limited to guard.

Which is why I said largely immune. Most tables have enough LOS blockers to hide several artillery pieces, then the screen blocks the deepstrike angles and movement to see said artillery, in addition to assault. If deepstrike worked like drop pods last edition it would be hard to block this off, but with a 9" no-go zone it is a simple matter.

Lasguns are 24" range.

You trying to say there is nothing that can hit artillery parked behind LOS blocking terrain that outranges 24"? That the LOS blocking terrain is high enough that you won't be able to use units that have "Fly" to go over/through it?

You can shoot past the Conscripts too. Guard Artillery doesn't get a special rule where they can't be targeted unless the infantry is killed first y'know.
Guard Artillery is split between T6(Basilisks and Wyverns) or T7 (Manticores and Deathstrikes), with both variations having 11W and a 3+ save. Yeah the artillery will outrange most things shooting at it--but it's artillery, why shouldn't it be?

Do you not seriously understand the issue? The guard player has LOS blocking terrain in their Deployment zone that I cannot see behind with my long range weapons, Las gun range has nothing to do with it. If I cannot get an angle to see the artillery because any said space is blocked physically by Guard models I cannot target it because I CANNOT SEE IT.

I understand the issue. I just think that you and your opponent are ridiculous if you're allowing for him to have such heavy LOS blocking terrain density on his side but you don't have firing angles opened up on the flanks.

Flying over said terrain would assume I could get to it through the screen.... That is what I am trying to say. Range is irrelevant if I cannot see the target, if the screen blocks Deepstrike equivalent flanking around the terrain, or movement into those positions, with units that have range (most of which are slow). I then need to kill the screen to have the ability to kill the artillery at all. As for artillery range, it shouldn't have that range because it is bad for balance, unless it has a ridiculous minimum range (say cannot shoot anything closer than 24" or something similar.) Personally I am opposed to any long range ignores LOS weapons in this edition, it lessens strategy when one player does not need to move to do damage. guard players never seem to want to Acknowledge that this scenario exists, but it does.

If the screen is able to prevent you from moving over intervening terrain with "Fly"--then the screen isn't doing its job on the flanks that you should be able to be looking through.
Alternatively you could always consider, oh, using an actual Flyer? I hear some of them even have anti-tank loadouts...

Now if you want to discuss a reintroduction of minimum range to artillery? I'm down for that. I'd say 12" would be about right in this day and age.
I would also be open for a -1 to Hit against things that have been fired Indirectly.

Yeah I was surprised that there was no to-hit penalty for weapons firing out of LoS in 8E.

That said, it's also been interesting to see the Basilisk as a unit people actually take and think is consistently usable, cant recall such ever having been the case.

Blacksails, your data does not conform with certain poster's preconceived notions. This of course means either the data is wrong, the tournaments are wrong, or the data manipulation is wrong, or the world is wrong, or something.

Guard is, after all, the best codex. Mathematically, apparently.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah I was surprised that there was no to-hit penalty for weapons firing out of LoS in 8E.

That said, it's also been interesting to see the Basilisk as a unit people actually take and think is consistently usable, cant recall such ever having been the case.

The funny part is that there is a penalty to Hit for weapons firing out of LoS...but it only seems to exist on the Master of Ordnance's Artillery Barrage ability.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

It is immune to damage if LOS blocking terrain exists and those conscripts deny the angles where you can see the artillery. Unless you also have artillery...which wait for it...is mostly limited to guard.

Which is why I said largely immune. Most tables have enough LOS blockers to hide several artillery pieces, then the screen blocks the deepstrike angles and movement to see said artillery, in addition to assault. If deepstrike worked like drop pods last edition it would be hard to block this off, but with a 9" no-go zone it is a simple matter.

Lasguns are 24" range.

You trying to say there is nothing that can hit artillery parked behind LOS blocking terrain that outranges 24"? That the LOS blocking terrain is high enough that you won't be able to use units that have "Fly" to go over/through it?

You can shoot past the Conscripts too. Guard Artillery doesn't get a special rule where they can't be targeted unless the infantry is killed first y'know.
Guard Artillery is split between T6(Basilisks and Wyverns) or T7 (Manticores and Deathstrikes), with both variations having 11W and a 3+ save. Yeah the artillery will outrange most things shooting at it--but it's artillery, why shouldn't it be?

Do you not seriously understand the issue? The guard player has LOS blocking terrain in their Deployment zone that I cannot see behind with my long range weapons, Las gun range has nothing to do with it. If I cannot get an angle to see the artillery because any said space is blocked physically by Guard models I cannot target it because I CANNOT SEE IT.

I understand the issue. I just think that you and your opponent are ridiculous if you're allowing for him to have such heavy LOS blocking terrain density on his side but you don't have firing angles opened up on the flanks.

Flying over said terrain would assume I could get to it through the screen.... That is what I am trying to say. Range is irrelevant if I cannot see the target, if the screen blocks Deepstrike equivalent flanking around the terrain, or movement into those positions, with units that have range (most of which are slow). I then need to kill the screen to have the ability to kill the artillery at all. As for artillery range, it shouldn't have that range because it is bad for balance, unless it has a ridiculous minimum range (say cannot shoot anything closer than 24" or something similar.) Personally I am opposed to any long range ignores LOS weapons in this edition, it lessens strategy when one player does not need to move to do damage. guard players never seem to want to Acknowledge that this scenario exists, but it does.

If the screen is able to prevent you from moving over intervening terrain with "Fly"--then the screen isn't doing its job on the flanks that you should be able to be looking through.
Alternatively you could always consider, oh, using an actual Flyer? I hear some of them even have anti-tank loadouts...

Now if you want to discuss a reintroduction of minimum range to artillery? I'm down for that. I'd say 12" would be about right in this day and age.
I would also be open for a -1 to Hit against things that have been fired Indirectly.

It really doesn't take a ton of terrain to have this be the case, a single ruin that blocks LOS is enough to essentially make shooting these units impossible at range. These types of pieces are essentially required otherwise things like marine gunline dominate. The solution to those armies is LOS blocking terrain. But such terrain makes artillery all but invincible at range with a smart general piloting it.

Also we are talking about people running 100+ conscripts in this case, it is pretty easy to use that many bodies to essentially block your entire deployment zone. Which would stop the flyers as well. A minimum range of 12" is essentially worthless, which is why I don't bother with it because any range of value makes them unusable. I could see doing a -1 to hit, and have advocated such before.

All that said, I play Orks. Which Flyer should I use that has any chance of killing your artillery? Essentially my only option is to beat my way through your screen, unless you deploy it in a completely incompetent manner.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Yeah I was surprised that there was no to-hit penalty for weapons firing out of LoS in 8E.

That said, it's also been interesting to see the Basilisk as a unit people actually take and think is consistently usable, cant recall such ever having been the case.

Yep, the only thing really is that if you're out of LOS, its easier to claim ruin cover if you're non-infantry (because you're always 100% obscured from the perspective of the firer)

A lot of people forget that.

Honestly it sounds like Breng just doesn't like the very core idea of the Guard, and would rather they be an infantry-based low model-count assault army.

Which is, you know, not what they are at all.

Breng77 wrote:

It really doesn't take a ton of terrain to have this be the case, a single ruin that blocks LOS is enough to essentially make shooting these units impossible at range. These types of pieces are essentially required otherwise things like marine gunline dominate. The solution to those armies is LOS blocking terrain. But such terrain makes artillery all but invincible at range with a smart general piloting it.

A "single ruin" shouldn't be blocking LOS in a 360 degree angle. Just throwing that out there.

Also we are talking about people running 100+ conscripts in this case, it is pretty easy to use that many bodies to essentially block your entire deployment zone. Which would stop the flyers as well. A minimum range of 12" is essentially worthless, which is why I don't bother with it because any range of value makes them unusable. I could see doing a -1 to hit, and have advocated such before.

To be completely honest, I said 12" because most of the stuff I've seen with minimum ranges has been Superheavies/Titanics with 24" minimum range(Supremacy Armour for example). But those things also have the ability to fire while still engaged in combat or at things in B2B with them/

All that said, I play Orks. Which Flyer should I use that has any chance of killing your artillery? Essentially my only option is to beat my way through your screen, unless you deploy it in a completely incompetent manner.

Wazbom Blastajet with Tellyporta Mega-Blastas and its Smasha Gun.
Assault D3 with S8(versus T6 or 7) and an AP-2 versus 3+ saves.

Also, remember that the Smasha Gun lets you roll 2D6 for Wounding instead of a flat value and it lets you have +1 to hit vs a single unit once per turn.

PS--That's not a silver bullet for you, but it's something to rattle around in the noggin.

 Melissia wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
Like the Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors tactic?

Ignoring cover and a 6+ feel-no-pain, respectively, are both complete positives and actually quite useful. They're not as good as the Ultramarines one, but Ultramarines are broke as feth right now anyway so that's not surprising. Certainly more powerful than Valhallans.

If you remove Rowboat, Ultramarines aren't broken. You can't be serious.

I believe that commissars should go down to something like 24-25 points with this new rule, or even better, change it to reduce morale loses by D6 and keep it at his current price.
But I think, even if IG is strong (And more important, diverse and competent, allowing for different builds, something we should celebrate, not critizise) because they have still a very efective chaff to protect their artillery (The best artillery in the game. As it should be of course, even if somes are worse and others better, but those are small point/balance changes. But I'll add that I think, the hability to ignore LOS isn't as valued by GW in point costs as it should be), and pretty good tanks, and very competent infantry even in Meele with Crusaders and Ogryns/Bullgryns. So they will be good.

Will they win (As a pure Codex army without mixing) agaisn't the OP Guilliman parking lot or Chaos malefic lords, magnus, etc... spam? I don't think so, but those are the next lists in the chopping lot to be nerfed.

IG still needs balance adjustements, give buffs or point discounts to some Leman Russ variants that are still weak (Or useless), nerf the Shadowsword and buff the less potent Baneblade variants, fix chimeras, veterans, etc... but I think in general those are minor balance changes, that are more about points than rules.

The Commisar was a problem because it negated the problem of Morale for IG all together without counter play for the opponent and minimal investment for the IG player. And yes, Synapse and Tyranids should be tweaked to offer more counter play for the opponent. Orks have a nice morale mechanic, that is fitting and allow for counter-play to the opponent, it doesn't just make them inmune to morale. (The Warboss does I believe, killing D3 orks, but that kind of hability should be pretty limited)

I'm expecting Grey Knights buffs, Admech nerfs (To a small amount of units) and buffs (To a good amount of units, but to be honest the Admech problem is more about "Go Mars or Go home"), IG small balance tweaks and Space Marines and Chaos small balance tweaks and good nerfs to Guilliman, Magnus, etc... in Chappter APproved.

Will FW nerf Malefic Lords? I expect it to happen but... who knows with FW?

 Kanluwen wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

It really doesn't take a ton of terrain to have this be the case, a single ruin that blocks LOS is enough to essentially make shooting these units impossible at range. These types of pieces are essentially required otherwise things like marine gunline dominate. The solution to those armies is LOS blocking terrain. But such terrain makes artillery all but invincible at range with a smart general piloting it.

A "single ruin" shouldn't be blocking LOS in a 360 degree angle. Just throwing that out there.

Also we are talking about people running 100+ conscripts in this case, it is pretty easy to use that many bodies to essentially block your entire deployment zone. Which would stop the flyers as well. A minimum range of 12" is essentially worthless, which is why I don't bother with it because any range of value makes them unusable. I could see doing a -1 to hit, and have advocated such before.

To be completely honest, I said 12" because most of the stuff I've seen with minimum ranges has been Superheavies/Titanics with 24" minimum range(Supremacy Armour for example). But those things also have the ability to fire while still engaged in combat or at things in B2B with them/

All that said, I play Orks. Which Flyer should I use that has any chance of killing your artillery? Essentially my only option is to beat my way through your screen, unless you deploy it in a completely incompetent manner.

Wazbom Blastajet with Tellyporta Mega-Blastas and its Smasha Gun.
Assault D3 with S8(versus T6 or 7) and an AP-2 versus 3+ saves.

Also, remember that the Smasha Gun lets you roll 2D6 for Wounding instead of a flat value and it lets you have +1 to hit vs a single unit once per turn.

PS--That's not a silver bullet for you, but it's something to rattle around in the noggin.

The ruin doesn't need to block 360 degrees, 270 is easily enough and as often as not 180 is plenty. Blocking that much makes the angle you need to shoot behind it essentially requiring you to get into the opposing deployment zone. Which is hard to do when your opponent has a ton of bodies in their deployment zone.

Minimum ranges used to be common on basically all IG artillery units. Basilisks used to be minimum 36" I believe back in 4th or 5th ed. (which is why no one used them).

As for the Wazbom Blasta Jet - that is an awful solution

1.) The load out you suggest requires I get within 24" of said artillery, It hits on a 4+ with an average of 4 Telleport blasta shots (wazbom mega cannon would be better), these do 1 damage each. The smasha gun is ~72% to wound T6 when it does hit
2.) This is for 151 points. So not particularly cheap for its stats, and if I don't spam them they will likely die turn 1 to shooting.
3.) Math suggests that even if I get in range, the teleport blasta do ~1 wound, and the smasha gun does another 1 against T6 or 7. Which means the Teleport blasta rule does nothing. Now I could get lucky and do 6 damage with the smasha gun, and 1 with the teleport blasta then roll a 5+ and kill the unit. But it is hardly reliable.

It could work but it would take a lot of luck for that to work out, and still require me to be able to line up shots on you. So unless your recommendation is taking say 5 or 6 of these I don't really see it working out. But generally it reads more like, here is a long shot you could take to deal with this really powerful thing I have. Which is also not very good against basically anything else.

Now with the commissar nerf this is easier to deal with which I guess is the point.

Ordana wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game.

Then why did they neither place first or second in the GT?

The codex has been out for 2 weekends.

It won the last one with the SoCal open.
So by your logic guard has won 50% of GT's.

Is that enough to qualify?

It's too few data points to say, but seeing as theres a mix of Marines, Chaos and IG in the top lists, I'd call that pretty balanced. I certainly wouldn't say IG is an obvious best. Just strong.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game.

Then why did they neither place first or second in the GT?

You say "the GT" but there are a ton of GTs. You're saying "THE" GT because it fits your complainer narrative. In fact Guard have been dominating the ITC tournaments for a long time.

Hardly matters. If it were the clear "best", it would have been the top list. Right? It should have been blowing everything else out of the water. But it didn't, so why not?

 Blacksails wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game. Complaining about this nerf is bad form.

Would anyone like to take a stroll down Data Avenue with me?

So, BoK has a tracker for 8th edition events, broken down by faction winner, with links to lists. Additonally, Frontline Gaming/ITC tracks individual player results and faction results.

Let's assume that any army in the top 3 is functionally a top tier army list on near equal footing. The justification being that 40k tournaments are score based with a limited number of rounds, meaning tourney match ups could very well be uneven, and that most top 3 lists are unbeaten in the tourney, with the winners decided on specific scores of how greatly they won or on soft scores.

Looking at BoK's site, we find that Ultramarines and Space Marines make up 12 entries in top 3, with 4 being 1st place.

IG have 8 entries in the top 3, with 4 being 1st place as well.

To put it in perspective, Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons have a total of 10 entries in the top 3, with a single 1st place.

So far, the data shows that Marines and Guard are on pretty even footing. If we agree with my line of reasoning about being top 3, Chaos is doing equally well.

Now we can delve a little deeper into the ITC data.

ITC uses a point system that accumulates with wins, so the general idea is the higher the better. The top number for each faction (worth noting for this example) is as follows;

Marines: 483.77
Guard: 525.55
Chaos Daemons: 538
Chaos (Generic): 457.26
Chaos Marines: 494.54
Sisters: 493.87

Going by just the first placer in each faction leads us to conclude that is in fact Daemons who are the true terror of the battlefield! But of course, its statistically irrelevant to cherry pick the top player who happens to mostly play one faction, so maybe we should take an average of the top 3 from each faction. This would give us

Marines: 452.9
Guard:475.59
Chaos (Generic): 371.6
Chaos Daemons: 501.4
Chaos Marines: 473.7
Sisters: 415.63

Which now puts both Daemons and Chaos Marines ahead of the vaunted, number 1, unbeatable codex that is Guard. But still, is top 3 even still significant? I'd argue no, for gauging the overall power of a codex, seeing as how luck and tournament match ups can dramatically alter a few players results.

If we expand to top 5, things get more interesting (in order this time);

Chaos Daemons: 483
Chaos Marines: 461
Space Marine: 440
Imperial Guard: 438
Sisters: 357
Chaos Generic: 347

This trend continues as you average more players. Guard scores drop off quickly after the top 5, while Chaos and Marines are much more gradual decline, meaning they'd continue to dominate the top 3 slots.

I don't know about all of you, but this seems to paint the picture that Chaos and Marines need to get nerfed to IG levels! Jokes aside, the hyperbolic nonsense that Guard is an unbeatable, #1 army that is dominating every tournament ever, is complete and utter horsegak. And don't forget this is all pre-nerf (but a lot of pre-codex too, to be fair).

Draw what conclusions you will, but it'd be hard for someone to look at this and somehow continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

IG are a top tier codex, no one is denying that, but the bs that they're #1 at all times no matter what is exactly that, bs.

For every person in here complaining about the IG being super overpowered, I expect to see you in threads about Chaos and Marines being equally overpowered.

We can now end our stroll down Data Avenue.

I really wanted to see this, but was way to lazy to go looking. Sounds like some misconceptions need to change. Also be interested in how many of those guard lists are really soups.

Not surprising at all regarding the Marine codex. It's really damn powerful. I AM a little surprised at the Chaos scores... that's news to me. I hadn't given Chaos much attention (I rarely do).

No one ever expects Chaos.

Darkagl1 wrote:


I really wanted to see this, but was way to lazy to go looking. Sounds like some misconceptions need to change. Also be interested in how many of those guard lists are really soups.

Two of the marine lists were 'soups' I guess, involving at least conscripts in them.

One of the Guard lists had some GKs, but most were either pure, or had some assassins or a Knight.

All from the BoK records.

*Edit* Not a single one of the IG lists there had Guilliman or even Celestine. There's a separate section for Ministorum lists and other Imperial lists, so you can check those out for more soupy stuff.

Interesting to note, that nearly every one of the 8 IG lists on that site had conscripts, normally at least 60. With the nerf, I'm sure we'll be seeing a mix up of what Guard will bring, because the common theme was Conscripts plus commissars plus Scions, backed by artillery. Three of those things got nerfed, so we'll see how it pans out.

 Melissia wrote:
Not surprising at all regarding the Marine codex. It's really damn powerful. I AM a little surprised at the Chaos scores... that's news to me. I hadn't given Chaos much attention (I rarely do).

Magnus, Mortarion(to a lesser extend) and Malific Lords are what give Chaos its power.

so,
FW still produces wide outliers and Primarchs make good armies.

Funny, I keep getting told Magnus sucks.

 Blacksails wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:


I really wanted to see this, but was way to lazy to go looking. Sounds like some misconceptions need to change. Also be interested in how many of those guard lists are really soups.

Two of the marine lists were 'soups' I guess, involving at least conscripts in them.

One of the Guard lists had some GKs, but most were either pure, or had some assassins or a Knight.

All from the BoK records.

*Edit* Not a single one of the IG lists there had Guilliman or even Celestine. There's a separate section for Ministorum lists and other Imperial lists, so you can check those out for more soupy stuff.

Interesting to note, that nearly every one of the 8 IG lists on that site had conscripts, normally at least 60. With the nerf, I'm sure we'll be seeing a mix up of what Guard will bring, because the common theme was Conscripts plus commissars plus Scions, backed by artillery. Three of those things got nerfed, so we'll see how it pans out.

Still I think it illustrates the point rather well. While AM may be good and fixing conscripts/commissars may be a net positive for the game (though most arguments I see against the nerf were on how they did it not that they did something), there's hardly justification for any sort of AM is wildly OP narrative. Beyond that if anything it's a justification for buffing GK and admech (assuming they're numbers are as bad as what you've posted suggests since they have a codex and aren't doing well).

Darkagl1 wrote:


Still I think it illustrates the point rather well. While AM may be good and fixing conscripts/commissars may be a net positive for the game (though most arguments I see against the nerf were on how they did it not that they did something), there's hardly justification for any sort of AM is wildly OP narrative. Beyond that if anything it's a justification for buffing GK and admech (assuming they're numbers are as bad as what you've posted suggests since they have a codex and aren't doing well).

Oh I agree. I've stated many times that the IG codex is very strong, with or without conscripts, but some sort of unbeatable monstrosity, the Guard codex is not. With conscripts more or less neutered, the real strength will still come from the arty supported by infantry squads or the occasionaly conscript squad back by the likes of the Valhallan relic.

*Edit* And Scions. Still good, now the plasma is costed within the realm of sanity.

Blacksails wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Guard is still the best army in the game. Complaining about this nerf is bad form.

Would anyone like to take a stroll down Data Avenue with me?

So, BoK has a tracker for 8th edition events, broken down by faction winner, with links to lists. Additonally, Frontline Gaming/ITC tracks individual player results and faction results.

Let's assume that any army in the top 3 is functionally a top tier army list on near equal footing. The justification being that 40k tournaments are score based with a limited number of rounds, meaning tourney match ups could very well be uneven, and that most top 3 lists are unbeaten in the tourney, with the winners decided on specific scores of how greatly they won or on soft scores.

Looking at BoK's site, we find that Ultramarines and Space Marines make up 12 entries in top 3, with 4 being 1st place.

IG have 8 entries in the top 3, with 4 being 1st place as well.

To put it in perspective, Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons have a total of 10 entries in the top 3, with a single 1st place.

So far, the data shows that Marines and Guard are on pretty even footing. If we agree with my line of reasoning about being top 3, Chaos is doing equally well.

Now we can delve a little deeper into the ITC data.

ITC uses a point system that accumulates with wins, so the general idea is the higher the better. The top number for each faction (worth noting for this example) is as follows;

Marines: 483.77
Guard: 525.55
Chaos Daemons: 538
Chaos (Generic): 457.26
Chaos Marines: 494.54
Sisters: 493.87

Going by just the first placer in each faction leads us to conclude that is in fact Daemons who are the true terror of the battlefield! But of course, its statistically irrelevant to cherry pick the top player who happens to mostly play one faction, so maybe we should take an average of the top 3 from each faction. This would give us

Marines: 452.9
Guard:475.59
Chaos (Generic): 371.6
Chaos Daemons: 501.4
Chaos Marines: 473.7
Sisters: 415.63

Which now puts both Daemons and Chaos Marines ahead of the vaunted, number 1, unbeatable codex that is Guard. But still, is top 3 even still significant? I'd argue no, for gauging the overall power of a codex, seeing as how luck and tournament match ups can dramatically alter a few players results.

If we expand to top 5, things get more interesting (in order this time);

Chaos Daemons: 483
Chaos Marines: 461
Space Marine: 440
Imperial Guard: 438
Sisters: 357
Chaos Generic: 347

This trend continues as you average more players. Guard scores drop off quickly after the top 5, while Chaos and Marines are much more gradual decline, meaning they'd continue to dominate the top 3 slots.

I don't know about all of you, but this seems to paint the picture that Chaos and Marines need to get nerfed to IG levels! Jokes aside, the hyperbolic nonsense that Guard is an unbeatable, #1 army that is dominating every tournament ever, is complete and utter horsegak. And don't forget this is all pre-nerf (but a lot of pre-codex too, to be fair).

Draw what conclusions you will, but it'd be hard for someone to look at this and somehow continue to claim that IG are sweeping every tournament with ease.

IG are a top tier codex, no one is denying that, but the bs that they're #1 at all times no matter what is exactly that, bs.

For every person in here complaining about the IG being super overpowered, I expect to see you in threads about Chaos and Marines being equally overpowered.

We can now end our stroll down Data Avenue.

Wow, nice digging there! Might change a couple minds, though watch out for others shifting the goalposts. I can see the crowd that crowed before that it was clearly brokenly strong in all regards in the Index so it is now clearly broken with the Codex suddenly crowing that we need to wait for more data to prove their world view.

Galas wrote:I believe that commissars should go down to something like 24-25 points with this new rule, or even better, change it to reduce morale loses by D6 and keep it at his current price.
But I think, even if IG is strong (And more important, diverse and competent, allowing for different builds, something we should celebrate, not critizise) because they have still a very efective chaff to protect their artillery (The best artillery in the game. As it should be of course, even if somes are worse and others better, but those are small point/balance changes. But I'll add that I think, the hability to ignore LOS isn't as valued by GW in point costs as it should be), and pretty good tanks, and very competent infantry even in Meele with Crusaders and Ogryns/Bullgryns. So they will be good.

Will they win (As a pure Codex army without mixing) agaisn't the OP Guilliman parking lot or Chaos malefic lords, magnus, etc... spam? I don't think so, but those are the next lists in the chopping lot to be nerfed.

IG still needs balance adjustements, give buffs or point discounts to some Leman Russ variants that are still weak (Or useless), nerf the Shadowsword and buff the less potent Baneblade variants, fix chimeras, veterans, etc... but I think in general those are minor balance changes, that are more about points than rules.

The Commisar was a problem because it negated the problem of Morale for IG all together without counter play for the opponent and minimal investment for the IG player. And yes, Synapse and Tyranids should be tweaked to offer more counter play for the opponent. Orks have a nice morale mechanic, that is fitting and allow for counter-play to the opponent, it doesn't just make them inmune to morale. (The Warboss does I believe, killing D3 orks, but that kind of hability should be pretty limited)

I'm expecting Grey Knights buffs, Admech nerfs (To a small amount of units) and buffs (To a good amount of units, but to be honest the Admech problem is more about "Go Mars or Go home"), IG small balance tweaks and Space Marines and Chaos small balance tweaks and good nerfs to Guilliman, Magnus, etc... in Chappter APproved.

Will FW nerf Malefic Lords? I expect it to happen but... who knows with FW?

All things I wouldn't mind seeing - though if going the route with reduce casualties, it might be better to give regular Commissars "reduce by 1d3" and Lord Commissars "reduce by 1d6", just to differentiate them a bit more and give the lords a bigger niche.

 Blacksails wrote:
Oh I agree. I've stated many times that the IG codex is very strong, with or without conscripts, but some sort of unbeatable monstrosity, the Guard codex is not. With conscripts more or less neutered, the real strength will still come from the arty supported by infantry squads or the occasionaly conscript squad back by the likes of the Valhallan relic.

*Edit* And Scions. Still good, now the plasma is costed within the realm of sanity.

The general consensus is that IG is strong, no one is arguing that. But the thing is a handful of players here hear that and go "omgwtfbbq they're OP".

It's like how when the GT heat results got posted and Tac Marines were in the winning list, most people took that as a sign that Tac Marines weren't completely useless while the same handful of people took that as a sign of people going insane because, obviously, "good = OP" and Tactical Marines can't ever be OP.

Basically there's no middle ground with them. Either it's OP or worthless. It can't just be "good" or even "above average". It's also why we can't really point out any issues ourselves, since in their minds any comments even remotely close to what they're saying is an omission that everything we've said so far is a lie, even when we have data backing it up.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Oh I agree. I've stated many times that the IG codex is very strong, with or without conscripts, but some sort of unbeatable monstrosity, the Guard codex is not. With conscripts more or less neutered, the real strength will still come from the arty supported by infantry squads or the occasionaly conscript squad back by the likes of the Valhallan relic.

*Edit* And Scions. Still good, now the plasma is costed within the realm of sanity.

The general consensus is that IG is strong, no one is arguing that. But the thing is a handful of players here hear that and go "omgwtfbbq they're OP".

It's like how when the GT heat results got posted and Tac Marines were in the winning list, most people took that as a sign that Tac Marines weren't completely useless while the same handful of people took that as a sign of people going insane because, obviously, "good = OP" and Tactical Marines can't ever be OP.

Basically there's no middle ground with them. Either it's OP or worthless. It can't just be "good" or even "above average". It's also why we can't really point out any issues ourselves, since in their minds any comments even remotely close to what they're saying is an omission that everything we've said so far is a lie, even when we have data backing it up.

Agreed completely. Fortunately its only been like one or two posters who seem to be on an IG witch hunt. Most everyone else has been some varying degree of civil and reasonable.

While I still feel 40k is not living up to its potential as a game and that its still pretty poorly written and balanced, the IG codex is about as internally balanced as I've ever seen it, and more flavourful than the last one (tied with 5th, we gained doctrines, lost dozens of characters and wargear), so I'm looking forward to being to run a solidly mid tier mechanized and armoured company.