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I'd start by recosting ig tanks and see if the infantry is still an issue. Of course, eldar and nids might make this moot.


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 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
I created a hypothesis, and performed an experiment to test it. I've been quite clear with my assumptions and methods. If you wish to disagree with some kind of measurable proof, regardless of quality, I'd be happy To discuss it.

Well, many of your initial assumptions are problametic.

One, that taking up space on the field is always advantages/neutral, and never a downside (something that every horde player can tell, at some point being too big is a problem-your units are in each other's way and can't all reach.)
That's a really big factor in a shootout. the ability to engage only some models at a time, as the opposing unit is too large to all get into range.

Two, and more important, is the assumption that tactical marines with bolters SHOULD be a cost-effective answer to conscripts/infantry to begin with. tactical marines are not a dedicated horde clearer in shooting, its a "bit of everything" unit.
The bolters put a dent into hordes, the sarge gets a bit done in CC and the special/heavy weapons harm high-end targets, while keeping the platform as a whole in decent durability, and picking off the models you least need each time.
The infantry unit, to a degree, does the same with its own special/heavy weapons and sarge and the las troopers as meatshields
Your entire analysis is based upon a scenario in which BOTH units are equipped wrong, and used wrong.

The IG units are just there to space fill. They aren't being relied upon to do a single wound. This analysis is meaningless. The pressure is 100% on the marines to get mileage out of their stat-bloated models.

Thats literally been true of every edition. Lasguns dont kill squat, never really have, they've always been there largely just to fill space while other support stuff does the killing. Likewise, yes, it's incumbent upon the marine player to make the most of the flexibility of their generalist infantry while their support elements are there to support and not do most of the lifting. Thats the defining hallmark of the army. None of that is new.

No, it's not. The defining hallmark of a power armor list is the gimmick bequeathed by gw. Gladius defined 7th ed marines, not their stat line.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Ordana wrote:

 ross-128 wrote:
Tactical marines are actually much better than they look in melee, as long as you MSU them and take that free chainsword on the Sergeant.

If you take two 5 man squads instead of 1 10 man squad, you get two sergeants with two chainswords (and can take two combi-weapons, though that's on the shooting side of things).

This means your 10 space marines now have a total of 14 attacks. But wait, there's more, the other 8 who aren't sergeants still have their bolt pistols, adding another 4 effective attacks (because in a total round everyone gets two fight phases but one shooting phase).

So now your 10 space marines have 18 effective attacks, or basically 1.8 attacks per marine. But as long as you kill the sergeant last, each squad will only lose 1/6 of their strength per casualty because the sergeant accounts for the remaining 1/3 single-handedly.

Also, fun fact: from an offensive output standpoint, you don't care very much if your opponent falls back. You lose 1 melee attack, but gain 1 shooting attack because now you can double-tap the bolter in the shooting phase, so it evens out. Except for the sergeant, who loses 3 melee attacks and gains 2 shooting attacks (because he went from having no pistol to using his bolter).

A difference of just 1 attack across the entire squad isn't much, so whether your opponent stays or falls back you pretty much kill them equally well.

Just make sure to run your tacs MSU, to maximize the number of sergeants you have.

You actually lose an attack if the enemy falls back

Falling back: no melee during opponents phase, double tap bolter + 2 melee attacks from a new charge in your phase. = 4 attacks
Not Falling back: 2 melee attacks during opponent phase, bolt pistol + 2 melee attacks in your phase. = 5 attacks

The biggest problem with your opponent falling back is that you presumable get shot to **** by the rest of his army.

Or you don't because y'know, not every unit is going to be in range?

It's amazing how Schrodinger's Conscript Blobs are both in range of being charged then able to Fall Back with no issues, but then there is still enough of an army present to shoot you to pieces with constant LOS and range.


If you're having that as such a consistent problem?
YOU ARE AT FAULT. YOU HAVE CONSISTENTLY ALLOWED THE BOARD TO BE SET UP IN A MANNER THAT PUNISHES YOU.

AHHHHH GREAT DID GW PATCH MEANINGFUL COVER MECHANICS INTO THE GAME AND ADD A FURTHER AM FAQ REMOVING ALL LOS IGNORING WEAPONS. IF NOT THEN ALL I KAN say IS only AN IDIOT WOULD SETUP A BOARD LIKE THAT AGAINST AM GIVING THEM ANOTHER LARGE ADVANTAGE.

So tac marines should be able to just walk up to a line of guardsmen and shoot them clean off the table without leveraging the rest of their stat line at all?

first time posting but could help but resist uhm what do you think of veterans, are they undercosted aswel since you seem to declare that the normal infantry is worth 6 points according to you calcu.
0
how much points should veterans ( they cost 6 atm) cost then or special weapons squads(share the same stat line -sergant) for example.

 greatbigtree wrote:


I ran it above. Even in a situation where Morale was ignored, they're worth 6 points, compared to a Marine. Less, when you factor in morale, ineptitude in CC, generally being inferior in all ways.

If one presumes that infantry are undercosted, as I do, then adding one point per Guardsman / Conscript should bring them in line with the abilities per point of Tactical Marines. At that point, the Bolter becomes a points-reasonable way to take out Guardsmen. Which, really, it should be.


IG still have access to all the tools that win games in 8th edition, much as Eldar had all the tools to win in 7th. The trick is simply to charge a fair value for the units. Adding one point per Conscript makes them 3/4 times as valuable on the table.

So....when did the Gladius become the defining hallmark of Space Marines, especially through all editions?

Ultimately the point is that, yeah, guardsmen have never been relied on to kill stuff, theyve been there largely just to keep the scary stuff away from the killy things. Nothing is new about that. Likewise, SM armies have always relied much more on their infantry than IG has, and have always had to rely on them to do work, on some level, in multiple phases, and do more lifting themselves than the support units. Thats not new or unique to any single edition, thats fundamentally how these armies have always been pitched.


As for IG tanks...if you think they're bad, I'm guessing you haven't cracked the Eldar codex yet

So... would you agree that Guardsmen should be 5 points each, instead of 4, and that Conscripts should be 4 points instead of 3?

That's what I'm getting at. If you disagree, please let me know what you think they should be worth.

@ SIM: Hard to say. I'd gut-reaction that the improved BS and wider access to special weapons (the real strength of IG infantry are Special Weapons) should have Vets at 65 points for 10 dudes.

That said, Scions are better in every way to Vets, at 10 (?) points each, for the mobility they offer with "deepstrike". I haven't used Vets in 8th, due to the under costing of regular infantry and the cost of Scions, in the Index, anyway.

@ All: For the way I play, I've been using my infantry to screen out deep striking or infiltrating or outflanking units, same as I always have. IG rely on attrition as their primary win condition. They maintain damage output through casualties. For example, a plasmagun in an infantry squad approximately triples the wounds done to MEQ, and does so until 8 other dudes have died. The dudes are worth 50 points, but the plasma guns should be worth about 15 points as an upgrade. Maybe even 20. It completely changes what the unit can accomplish in the game.

Guardsmen are valuable for the space they fill, and to provide ablative protection for your upgraded infantry and vehicles. It's the same game they always have played, but now they're too cheap and the alpha-strike nature of the game means that you can only effectively alpha the chaff. Guard can then beta strike, with 90% effectiveness, and most armies can't handle taking an alpha, so there tertiary response isn't enough to soften the quartiary attack, that is probably still at 75% strength, due to the way Guard handles losses.

I think they're fine at 4 and 3. Especially since they've already been nerfed in other areas (ie commissars and orders), and other armies are seeing plenty of buffs in their codices.

But apparently some people just won't be happy until we're banished back to the low tiers from whence we came.

 ross-128 wrote:
So tac marines should be able to just walk up to a line of guardsmen and shoot them clean off the table without leveraging the rest of their stat line at all?

The problem is that they often die before being able to use CC, due to the rest of the IG list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ross-128 wrote:
I think they're fine at 4 and 3. Especially since they've already been nerfed in other areas (ie commissars and orders), and other armies are seeing plenty of buffs in their codices.

But apparently some people just won't be happy until we're banished back to the low tiers from whence we came.

I think 5 points for a guardsmen if more fair than 4 given what other 4 pt units in the game look like. It would take a lot of nerfs to do that at this point. Especially now that CC as a whole has been eviscerated.

It is my observation, and experience, that our infantry are not overpowered, but they are undercosted. To that end, nerfing was the wrong response, higher points for the unit/s would have more accurately and simply balanced their use.

When many high end lists are taking chaff units simply for board control, I'd say that GW undervalued the point value of that board control, and by extension, the value of cheap, space filling infantry. Particularly Infantry like Guardsmen with access to cheap and effective shooting upgrades.

Being able to fall back from CC, and then allowing your protected units behind / beside you to freely attack the cc unit makes the screening / board control value of cheap Infantry even more... but there's exponential loss of value as cost increases. Which is why I think one point more per model is about right.

 Vaktathi wrote:
So....when did the Gladius become the defining hallmark of Space Marines, especially through all editions?

Ultimately the point is that, yeah, guardsmen have never been relied on to kill stuff, theyve been there largely just to keep the scary stuff away from the killy things. Nothing is new about that. Likewise, SM armies have always relied much more on their infantry than IG has, and have always had to rely on them to do work, on some level, in multiple phases, and do more lifting themselves than the support units. Thats not new or unique to any single edition, thats fundamentally how these armies have always been pitched.


As for IG tanks...if you think they're bad, I'm guessing you haven't cracked the Eldar codex yet

I can imagine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greatbigtree wrote:
It is my observation, and experience, that our infantry are not overpowered, but they are undercosted. To that end, nerfing was the wrong response, higher points for the unit/s would have more accurately and simply balanced their use.

When many high end lists are taking chaff units simply for board control, I'd say that GW undervalued the point value of that board control, and by extension, the value of cheap, space filling infantry. Particularly Infantry like Guardsmen with access to cheap and effective shooting upgrades.

Undercosted = overpowered.

@ Martel: Still no position to hold. You still haven't come to the table with a point cost.

I draw a distinction between op / uc, but that's about as pathetic of a knit-pick as I can manage. If you've got something meaningful to add, feel free to do so. Like what you think the point cost should be? Come on, you're being specifically called out here! Take a stand and defend a position!

I just said up above 5 ppm is more fair for guardsmen than 4 ppm. Guardsman > termagant, and is more likely to have cover, to boot!

But the real problems are wyverns/manticores/Russes(?)/mortar teams/scions. A manticore is a 150 pt tank at least. Especially when you compare to the whirlwind or Ork lobbas or other indirect weaponry.

You can't just math out marines vs guardsmen in a vacuum because the marines are being bombarded by manticores and the guardsmen by whirlwinds (lol).

Out of LoS weapons as a whole need a -1 to hit when firing that way. That would resolve a great many issues in general, though now that it looks like we're going to have armies where almost everything is natively going to be at a -2 almost by default, we may run into issues there (though we may regardless).

With regards to Russ tanks...is there really a problem with these? They were largely seen as garbage before the Grinding Advance doubleshot update for a host of reasons, most of the variants are still seen as garbage, and most everyone else's equivalents seem to be either better at particular roles than the specialized Russ equivalent or just better in general (e.g. Railgun Hammerhead or Las Predator vs Vanquisher, Fire Prism vs...most any Russ variant), the only thing they have going for them is Tank orders.

Same ends, a quibble over means then.

I'll also agree that Wyverns and Manticores are undercosted, compounded by cheap board control units like Infantry Squads. My current game-winning 1500 point list is a mash of (Index) Infantry Squads with lots of weapon upgrades, Support Characters, Scions, Artillery, Sentinels (cheap FA choices) that fills out a Brigade and a Batallion, If memory serves. I play the way I've always enjoyed, with advance units, static units, and advancing units to take the midfield.

It's OP, mostly due to undercosted Infantry and Artillery. I've taken to playing at a points disadvantage in my garage group to keep things interesting.

Nothing about the army is new-tech, or game breaking like Invisibility was. The Index just didn't charge enough points for it. Marines and Eldar can "break through" the barrage at 1500 IG vs 110% Ie 1650 points of Marines or Eldar. Works for our casual group, and I prefer a challenging game over a curb stomp any how.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Out of LoS weapons as a whole need a -1 to hit when firing that way. That would resolve a great many issues in general, though now that it looks like we're going to have armies where almost everything is natively going to be at a -2 almost by default, we may run into issues there (though we may regardless).

With regards to Russ tanks...is there really a problem with these? They were largely seen as garbage before the Grinding Advance doubleshot update for a host of reasons, most of the variants are still seen as garbage, and most everyone else's equivalents seem to be either better at particular roles than the specialized Russ equivalent or just better in general (e.g. Railgun Hammerhead or Las Predator vs Vanquisher, Fire Prism vs...most any Russ variant), the only thing they have going for them is Tank orders.

Hence the (?).

 greatbigtree wrote:
I created a hypothesis, and performed an experiment to test it..

Not a very good test, though-- certainly not very scientific, and if, as you seem to be, you're trying to claim you're being scientific, then you're not doing a very good job.

I propose a better test; run 200 games. 100 games are "control" games. Two players considered to be of roughly equal skill each play against the other, one guard, one marine, taking turns to see who is playing which army (so that each get 50 games as either army, to even out the skill difference). Then another pair of players play 100 games of your "test" list with higher point costs for guardsmen, same general alternating style. Then compare winrates of the two tests. This is a fairly barebones test, the kind of which would be suitable for at best junior level classes in any science-based course, but it's far better than the test you attempted to provide which is purely armchair mathhammer without considering the reality players actually face in the game.

 Melissia wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
I created a hypothesis, and performed an experiment to test it..

Not a very good test, though-- certainly not very scientific, and if, as you seem to be, you're trying to claim you're being scientific, then you're not doing a very good job.

I propose a better test; run 200 games. 100 games are "control" games. Two players considered to be of roughly equal skill each play against the other, one guard, one marine, taking turns to see who is playing which army (so that each get 50 games as either army, to even out the skill difference). Then another pair of players play 100 games of your "test" list with higher point costs for guardsmen, same general alternating style. Then compare winrates of the two tests. This is a fairly barebones test, the kind of which would be suitable for at best junior level classes in any science-based course, but it's far better than the test you attempted to provide which is purely armchair mathhammer without considering the reality players actually face in the game.

Wow, look at you punching for the stars! You can look at every post I've made in this thread. At no point have I indicated that this was anything other than number crunching in a vacuum. This, at best, establishes an upper limit for the value of a guardsman relative to a marine, at six points. In conditions so ideal they don't exist in the game. I have not represented this in any other way, at any point in this discussion.

So the call out is returned. I hollaback at 'cha. How many points is a squad if Guardsmen / Conscripts worth?


PS: I don't have time to run that many tests, so I'm taking an heuristic approach. Determine an upper limit, and work back from there, based on my less tangible experience. Which, again, is exactly the way I've been presenting my position.

Please don't let that prevent you from coming out swinging, though. I'm in the mood for a verbal rumble.

If it were me, guard infantry would be 5 base, conscripts 4 base.

They weren't worth 5 in the previous edition because A) S3 was mighty useless against everything in the meta of the T4-T5 shift, B) 5+ armor was mighty useless against...everything, practically everything was AP5.

Just the edition change massively helped out the Guardsmen.

5ppm/4ppm, and I would buff Veterans slightly by making them Troops again. With Scions in troops and vets in Elites, there is absolutely no reason to bring vets. They're at best equivalent, in most situations flatly inferior, but they fill a less useful slot. No clue why they were swapped out.

5ppm Guardsmen in 5th with the combined infantry squad rule was not unreasonable. Powerblobs were far from the most powerful combination, but it was reasonable. The real issue back then was how cheap Vets were.

My baseless guess would be to sell more kits. Making Scions better, in a troop slot gives older players reason to adopt Scion models as our special weapon platform of choice, while maintaining the viability of Tempestus armies.

I wholeheartedly agree that Vets are off my table in the elite slot, where all the support characters are. I doubt I'd use them as troops... maybe if G's were 50 and V's were 60 points per squad. But I'd also support raising the cost of Vets to 65 if they were troops, to prevent their use as main line units.

I don't think that there's enough points granularity to justify three units within 1 point per model of each other, you know what I mean? Half-points per model create auto-include / exclude choices at that level.

 greatbigtree wrote:
At no point have I indicated that this was anything other than number crunching in a vacuum.

And I am arguing this is a bad way to do it. Hell, it's not like the people endlessly bitching about conscripts ever listen whenever someone points out how the mathhammer doesn't favor their arguments anyway.

Soooo.... how many points should Guardsmen and Conscripts cost? I've explained my reasoning already, what's yours?

I killed a Terminator with las fire once.... double 1’s baby!

usmcmidn wrote:
I killed a Terminator with las fire once.... double 1’s baby!

OMG MUR MAREN KILLED BY OP IG LASMAN! ALL IG OP NEED NERF AN COST MOAR!
All jokes aside thats the impression I am getting from this thread, and it seems that certain mods are taking the marine players side as well. As if GW pandering to them almost all the time was not bad enough.

Now, on to the tanks:
Why is the Russ better than the Predator?
Because the Russ is a Heavy/MBT built specifically for heavy duty combat conditions and, more importantly, as a dedicated tank.
The Predator is an APC with a turret strapped to the roof and a some extra armour taped on, which functions more akin to a Medium tank.

The Leman Russ was built to be a dedicated heavy tank, to break lines and to be easy and reliable to operate. It is slower than the predator but when operated by a trained crew can out perform it with ease.
The Predator is overengineered and not designed to engage in heavy slugging combat. It is intended to hit and run, firing from prepared positions then swiftly relocating to the next one, relying a lot on automation to function.

The irony of this is that the Predator is still a better tank than the Russ in many aspects. It is faster, more accurate and will easily win a tank-on-tank fight with a Russ. The only difference is that now the Russ can sacrifice speed for firepower, which is a good thing and was heavily needed (whichever fool at GW HQ thought that turning blast weapons into 'x number of D6 shots' and then forcing the gun to then roll to hit with its randomly determined number needs sacking) owing to the major nerf fr many of the weapons.

And from a fluff/crunch perspective it works too as the Guard have always been a mix 'n match combined arms force with many regiments having a heavy emphasis on tanks supported by infantry. Marines have always been more of a elite strategic army who rely on units that are quick and easy to deploy. Kind of like a regular unit compared to the SAS. The SAS are far better trained and (in this case) equipped, but they lack the heavier vehicles and equipment for heavy, protracted fights as they are intended to be mobile in nature.

Anyway, its nearly half one overhere so I dont know if any of the above will make sense, but I hope it gets through. Night.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Before I go, these. Just these.
Think about it Marine players, you have had a slight taste of the place the Imperial Guard players have been for the past 4-5ish years. Stop feeling so sorry for yourselves and get over it, the FAQ has hit and soon some love will (inevitably) come your way too.

ross-128 wrote:I think they're fine at 4 and 3. Especially since they've already been nerfed in other areas (ie commissars and orders), and other armies are seeing plenty of buffs in their codices.

But apparently some people just won't be happy until we're banished back to the low tiers from whence we came.

ross-128 wrote:So tac marines should be able to just walk up to a line of guardsmen and shoot them clean off the table without leveraging the rest of their stat line at all?

 greatbigtree wrote:
Soooo.... how many points should Guardsmen and Conscripts cost? I've explained my reasoning already, what's yours?

Better and simpler yet, run the same type of calculations but replace the 20 Space Marines with their equal points(ish) worth of Assault Cannon Razorbacks. Then with the same logic, tell us how expensive a Guardsmen should be.

Ie. Two Razorbacks, 50 Guardsmen, between 13 and 24 inches.

T1 - G 39 - R 1.4 wounds taken

See where this goes?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Are you suggesting the Navy Seals charge them in melee?

If being in melee has a decent chance of magically stopping all of the insurgents from shooting at the Seals, and will give the Seals more kills, with the added benefit of making more of the insurgents give up the fight and run away... Then yeah, it sure beats the alternative of just standing there and dying. It's a chance vs. no chance.

It's a poor scenario because that's not how elite troops actually function (so why do people expect them to gunction that way?) nor is it ideal play from the perspective of the game mechanics.

And as pointed out above, replacing the marines with a different unit will give you a completely diffetent result. It's basically a brilliant example of the myopea of mathhammer.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Soooo.... how many points should Guardsmen and Conscripts cost? I've explained my reasoning already, what's yours?

Better and simpler yet, run the same type of calculations but replace the 20 Space Marines with their equal points(ish) worth of Assault Cannon Razorbacks. Then with the same logic, tell us how expensive a Guardsmen should be.

Ie. Two Razorbacks, 50 Guardsmen, between 13 and 24 inches.

T1 - G 39 - R 1.4 wounds taken

See where this goes?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Are you suggesting the Navy Seals charge them in melee?

If being in melee has a decent chance of magically stopping all of the insurgents from shooting at the Seals, and will give the Seals more kills, with the added benefit of making more of the insurgents give up the fight and run away... Then yeah, it sure beats the alternative of just standing there and dying. It's a chance vs. no chance.

It's a poor scenario because that's not how elite troops actually function (so why do people expect them to gunction that way?) nor is it ideal play from the perspective of the game mechanics.

And as pointed out above, replacing the marines with a different unit will give you a completely diffetent result. It's basically a brilliant example of the myopea of mathhammer.

1. Nobody argued that Assault Cannon Razorbacks were appropriately priced ever.
2. Except, as the math shows, Tactical Marines are not an elite Troop choice, they're just a bad one. People would bring up "player skill" argument if Cultists now had 10" movement, BS/WS2+, a 2+ save, and carried Assault Cannons standard for their current price point.
You can only attribute so much to player skill.

5ppm seems fair to me - they gained so much from the transition to 8th. Here are some of the buffs infantry squads got...

Auto-pass orders
Orders cheaper and easier to acquire.
Able to fall back from CC
No blasts/temlates so easier to survive
Usually being able to take some kind of saving throw
Lasguns now wound T5 on a 5+
FRFSRF buff
Cheaper - base cost down to 4pts
Plasma 8pts cheaper than in seventh
Can move and fire with heavy weapons at only -1 to hit
A regimental trait of your choice
Potential to potentially fire overwatch multiple times per turn
Can rapid fire and charge.
Easy-to-access stratagems due to guard excelling at MSU and infantry squads easily fill out a brigade.

They certainly lost a couple of things (such as blob squads), but they gained SO MUCH. A lot of units went UP in points at the transition to 8th, but these guys did not.

 greatbigtree wrote:
So... would you agree that Guardsmen should be 5 points each, instead of 4, and that Conscripts should be 4 points instead of 3?

That's what I'm getting at. If you disagree, please let me know what you think they should be worth.

@ SIM: Hard to say. I'd gut-reaction that the improved BS and wider access to special weapons (the real strength of IG infantry are Special Weapons) should have Vets at 65 points for 10 dudes.

That said, Scions are better in every way to Vets, at 10 (?) points each, for the mobility they offer with "deepstrike". I haven't used Vets in 8th, due to the under costing of regular infantry and the cost of Scions, in the Index, anyway.

@ All: For the way I play, I've been using my infantry to screen out deep striking or infiltrating or outflanking units, same as I always have. IG rely on attrition as their primary win condition. They maintain damage output through casualties. For example, a plasmagun in an infantry squad approximately triples the wounds done to MEQ, and does so until 8 other dudes have died. The dudes are worth 50 points, but the plasma guns should be worth about 15 points as an upgrade. Maybe even 20. It completely changes what the unit can accomplish in the game.

Guardsmen are valuable for the space they fill, and to provide ablative protection for your upgraded infantry and vehicles. It's the same game they always have played, but now they're too cheap and the alpha-strike nature of the game means that you can only effectively alpha the chaff. Guard can then beta strike, with 90% effectiveness, and most armies can't handle taking an alpha, so there tertiary response isn't enough to soften the quartiary attack, that is probably still at 75% strength, due to the way Guard handles losses.

Completely agreed on guardsmen points costs... I play tyranids and my infantry is plain worst yet more expansive than guard's one (4 pt Termas and 5 pt Hormas)

 DoomMouse wrote:
5ppm seems fair to me - they gained so much from the transition to 8th. Here are some of the buffs infantry squads got...

Auto-pass orders
Orders cheaper and easier to acquire.
Able to fall back from CC
No blasts/temlates so easier to survive
Usually being able to take some kind of saving throw
Lasguns now wound T5 on a 5+
FRFSRF buff
Cheaper - base cost down to 4pts
Plasma 8pts cheaper than in seventh
Can move and fire with heavy weapons at only -1 to hit
A regimental trait of your choice
Potential to potentially fire overwatch multiple times per turn
Can rapid fire and charge.
Easy-to-access stratagems due to guard excelling at MSU and infantry squads easily fill out a brigade.

They certainly lost a couple of things (such as blob squads), but they gained SO MUCH. A lot of units went UP in points at the transition to 8th, but these guys did not.

A lot of these apply to most armies - anyone with a codex can choose traits, any weapon that is strength 3/4 got better in the sense that it can wound higher toughness creatures at all, however unlikely some of the scenarios may be, the overwatch and rapid fire/charge thing is also true of every army, and the move and fire heavy weapons benefits better BS models moreso than low BS models compared to 7th.

Orders did get better, but still have their limits, and in exchange Guard has relatively few units that can give other sorts of buffs, and all of them are named characters.

You also missed the one big item they and other horde factions definitely gained - their armor saves actually mean something now. 5+ armor means that the humble guardsman is actually making his or her saves now, compared to previous editions where it meant that something as simple as a bolter both hit often due to ballistic skill, wounded often due to strength 4, and completely ignored the armor.

Honestly before the Commissar nerf and the Eldar / Nid leaks I'd have agreed that the basic guardsman should be 5 points. Now I'm more in a wait and see mode, since Chapter Approved should be coming soon.

kurhanik wrote:

 DoomMouse wrote:
5ppm seems fair to me - they gained so much from the transition to 8th. Here are some of the buffs infantry squads got...

Auto-pass orders
Orders cheaper and easier to acquire.
Able to fall back from CC
No blasts/temlates so easier to survive
Usually being able to take some kind of saving throw
Lasguns now wound T5 on a 5+
FRFSRF buff
Cheaper - base cost down to 4pts
Plasma 8pts cheaper than in seventh
Can move and fire with heavy weapons at only -1 to hit
A regimental trait of your choice
Potential to potentially fire overwatch multiple times per turn
Can rapid fire and charge.
Easy-to-access stratagems due to guard excelling at MSU and infantry squads easily fill out a brigade.

They certainly lost a couple of things (such as blob squads), but they gained SO MUCH. A lot of units went UP in points at the transition to 8th, but these guys did not.

A lot of these apply to most armies - anyone with a codex can choose traits, any weapon that is strength 3/4 got better in the sense that it can wound higher toughness creatures at all, however unlikely some of the scenarios may be, the overwatch and rapid fire/charge thing is also true of every army, and the move and fire heavy weapons benefits better BS models moreso than low BS models compared to 7th.

Orders did get better, but still have their limits, and in exchange Guard has relatively few units that can give other sorts of buffs, and all of them are named characters.

You also missed the one big item they and other horde factions definitely gained - their armor saves actually mean something now. 5+ armor means that the humble guardsman is actually making his or her saves now, compared to previous editions where it meant that something as simple as a bolter both hit often due to ballistic skill, wounded often due to strength 4, and completely ignored the armor.

Honestly before the Commissar nerf and the Eldar / Nid leaks I'd have agreed that the basic guardsman should be 5 points. Now I'm more in a wait and see mode, since Chapter Approved should be coming soon.

The profile that received the most buffs is T3 5+ (for a myriad of reasons both in terms of damage output and tankiness) which is the hallmark of Guard