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So there has been a lot of fuss over the power of the Guard codex, and while I do feel it is top teir, there seems to be no talk at all at how utterly dominant soup armies seem to be at most tournaments, notably chaos. The bash brothers, changeling, brimstones, maelific lords, all are quite bad to face, especially combined into one army. Seems odd that guard have been copping so much flak and nothing about chaos.

Brimstone received their own amount of flak until they where nerfed with a 50% point cost increase and a nerf in smite. But their 4++ armour is still pretty damm good for chaff so cheap.

Magnus is... well. A Primarch. Like all Primarchs they are beast, Mortarion is the weaker of the three in a competitive point of view but he is still pretty damm powerfulll (As one should expect from a primarch, I don't think their rules are bad, is just the three of them need to be more expensive)

And malefic lords is just the kind of 5% OP stuff FW does that keeps the unjustified FW stigma. At this point its not if they are gonna be nerfed, it is when.
With the IG FAQ, GW released one for the FW stuff to, so probably when they touch Chaos, they'll release a FW faq too to touch Malefic Lords.

I think part of this is that gunline armies tend not to make enjoyable games (IMO). Chaos is powerful but tends to also be fairly aggressive, and so even in losing it often feels like at least you are achieving something. Against Gunline guard it often feels like your army bounces off theirs to little gain.

But also prior to the most recent FAQ, guard were largely untouched, Brimstones (the big offender in Chaos) were actively nerfed, though arguably still not enough.

hmm, I understand that guard were very strong, but the chaos soup has been demonstrated to be stronger than all the other codex's so far, winning or placing very highly in every tournament.

 Klowny wrote:
hmm, I understand that guard were very strong, but the chaos soup has been demonstrated to be stronger than all the other codex's so far, winning or placing very highly in every tournament.

Just like Necrons, Eldar and Space Marines in 7th. But Tau did had all the hate for JSJ, and their gunline playstile. Breng77 has a good amount of truth in what he has said. Players don't always hate the most powerfull faction, but one that is both perceived as very powerfull and "obnoxious" to play agaisn't.

 Klowny wrote:
hmm, I understand that guard were very strong, but the chaos soup has been demonstrated to be stronger than all the other codex's so far, winning or placing very highly in every tournament.

What do you mean winning? All three major ITC tournaments were won by a (mostly guard) Imperial Soup army, and the official GT was won by Ultramarines.

Right the most hated things aren't always those which win the most.

Tau in 6th and 7th were not the strongest army, but were one of the least liked.

Screamer star wasn't a super winning army, but it was frustrating to win against

Those types of armies leave a sense of helplessness when you are losing. There is a feeling that you are just bouncing off their army, while they shoot you to bits. They are also often not even that fun to play when you win, because winning often means not engaging. For instance if "winning" against guard in this edition means sitting on objectives and scoring points while I die, I can do that and win, but it won't be a fun game. Whereas if Chaos beats me but they are attacking with berserkers that I am trading blows with, or even Throwing magnus at me I'm still doing something.

For instance in playing against Guard I preferred their 5th ed incarnation of mech IG, because it was a mobile force that was devastating but you could trade blows with it vs their 8th gunline form.

I think others have covered this topic very well. Guard have some nasty combinations but killing conscripts/Tanks and seeing my opponent picking up the models gives me that feeling of accomplishment.

It's not the same with that chaos soup one to be fair, because...you can only work through all the little brimstones which are not as satisfactory when killing to say the least (due to the characters being untargettable as we all know)

In my opinion the most boring chaos list might be that Magnus, Morty and 2 knights one. Thats like the 5 stormravens lists that first showed up, how boring.

How is looking across the board and seeing 4-5 untargatable DP, magnus, a sea of 4++, smite everywhere, with alot of it at -1 to hit? I know guard can be unfun to play against, and maybe its just the matchup (no psychic defence), but it's not terribly fun to play against lists like that. Magnus alone is incredibly strong, and insanely durable.

I was just curious about how they get let off and guard get demonised immediately. Sure CSM might not be winning every tournament, but they are dominating the amount played, you hardly see a xenos in the top 50 (eldar seem to be doing okay), and its the two big soup armies outclassing everyone else. I focused on Chaos more as it seems that everyone isn't bothered they are head and shoulders above most of the other codex's, yet they are a major player.

 KingCorpus wrote:
I think others have covered this topic very well. Guard have some nasty combinations but killing conscripts/Tanks and seeing my opponent picking up the models gives me that feeling of accomplishment.

It's not the same with that chaos soup one to be fair, because...you can only work through all the little brimstones which are not as satisfactory when killing to say the least (due to the characters being untargettable as we all know)

In my opinion the most boring chaos list might be that Magnus, Morty and 2 knights one. Thats like the 5 stormravens lists that first showed up, how boring.

Well you can shoot magnus, and while characters are mostly targetable there are answers to that, of which I'm hoping more codices will provide better and more answers. For example against CSM at one point I had a vehicle blow up in his lines (that he needed to move toward in order to smite) and kill all but one of his maelific lords. Which is far more entertaining than what typically happens against guard where that explosion would have killed at most 6 guardsman. Now this is extremely rare to happen, and he probably could have positioned against to some extent, it was not boring.

I agree though on all super heavy lists I find them generally boring to face, but that is because those lists often lead to short games.

I think saying Chaos gets "let off" is just blatantly incorrect; malefic lords are one of the units that literally everyone agrees is overpowered, the primarchs get constant complaints... I guess the Changeling doesn't get as much criticism as he should, he's an obviously undercosted model.

I do think the Magnus problem can at least partially be solved if GW does more to try to kill soup in general. Make it so you have to bring a <Chapter/Legion> army to bring that faction's primarch (at least 50% of your points, including the primarch).

 Klowny wrote:
How is looking across the board and seeing 4-5 untargatable DP, magnus, a sea of 4++, smite everywhere, with alot of it at -1 to hit? I know guard can be unfun to play against, and maybe its just the matchup (no psychic defence), but it's not terribly fun to play against lists like that. Magnus alone is incredibly strong, and insanely durable.

I was just curious about how they get let off and guard get demonised immediately. Sure CSM might not be winning every tournament, but they are dominating the amount played, you hardly see a xenos in the top 50 (eldar seem to be doing okay), and its the two big soup armies outclassing everyone else. I focused on Chaos more as it seems that everyone isn't bothered they are head and shoulders above most of the other codex's, yet they are a major player.

It might be because the top CSM lists I have seen don't match what you put there.

I think the real solution will be a massive increase in tournaments stating your army (going forward) must be contained within a single codex. Simple as that. Or similarly strict rules.

Units which are overpowered will eventually be nerf'ed by GW - but army composition will likely end up being adjusted heavily by tournament organizers and rightly so. I think you may also see limitations based on detachments, or penalties assigned for "soup", etc.

The community will figure out whatever GW does not.

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I think saying Chaos gets "let off" is just blatantly incorrect; malefic lords are one of the units that literally everyone agrees is overpowered, the primarchs get constant complaints... I guess the Changeling doesn't get as much criticism as he should, he's an obviously undercosted model.

I do think the Magnus problem can at least partially be solved if GW does more to try to kill soup in general. Make it so you have to bring a <Chapter/Legion> army to bring that faction's primarch (at least 50% of your points, including the primarch).

The Magnus issue can also be solved if GW releases the TS codex and he doesn't have a +1 to save power.

Breng77 wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I think saying Chaos gets "let off" is just blatantly incorrect; malefic lords are one of the units that literally everyone agrees is overpowered, the primarchs get constant complaints... I guess the Changeling doesn't get as much criticism as he should, he's an obviously undercosted model.

I do think the Magnus problem can at least partially be solved if GW does more to try to kill soup in general. Make it so you have to bring a <Chapter/Legion> army to bring that faction's primarch (at least 50% of your points, including the primarch).

The Magnus issue can also be solved if GW releases the TS codex and he doesn't have a +1 to save power.

Magnus will definitely have Weaver of Fates, based on how the DG spell list has Miasma of Pestilence in it.

He'll lose the FNP warlord trait though. And possibly Warptime? Still not sure how they're going to handle that.

 Elbows wrote:
I think the real solution will be a massive increase in tournaments stating your army (going forward) must be contained within a single codex. Simple as that. Or similarly strict rules.

Units which are overpowered will eventually be nerf'ed by GW - but army composition will likely end up being adjusted heavily by tournament organizers and rightly so. I think you may also see limitations based on detachments, or penalties assigned for "soup", etc.

The community will figure out whatever GW does not.

I highly doubt that this will be common, unless GW makes it so. Given that the top TOs have a working relationship with GW makes me think that they want to keep composition as close to the book as possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arachnofiend wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Arachnofiend wrote:
I think saying Chaos gets "let off" is just blatantly incorrect; malefic lords are one of the units that literally everyone agrees is overpowered, the primarchs get constant complaints... I guess the Changeling doesn't get as much criticism as he should, he's an obviously undercosted model.

I do think the Magnus problem can at least partially be solved if GW does more to try to kill soup in general. Make it so you have to bring a <Chapter/Legion> army to bring that faction's primarch (at least 50% of your points, including the primarch).

The Magnus issue can also be solved if GW releases the TS codex and he doesn't have a +1 to save power.

Magnus will definitely have Weaver of Fates, based on how the DG spell list has Miasma of Pestilence in it.

He'll lose the FNP warlord trait though. And possibly Warptime? Still not sure how they're going to handle that.

true losing warptime will help

Primarchs are to good for their cost (all 3 of them basically tho Mort is the 'worst').
FW is still producing broken units.

Breng77 wrote:

For instance if "winning" against guard in this edition means sitting on objectives and scoring points while I die, I can do that and win, but it won't be a fun game. Whereas if Chaos beats me but they are attacking with berserkers that I am trading blows with, or even Throwing magnus at me I'm still doing something.

This is a good summary of "unfun" armies. When an army (or worse, both armies) focus less on actually bringing a slugfest to your opponent, but focus on "don't die, camp objectives", you might as well play Stone Age or some other eurogame where you preempt your foe but don't actually directly interact. From Ninja Tau (in itself a weak army, that "won" by a turn 5 objective grab and contest), to Eldar hanging back until it was the last turn to tank-shock off objectives, or the "mass Necron Warrior" swarms from 3.5, to Nob Bikers, such armies were not necessarily OP or even that good, but could go "I will take longer to kill than the game, neenerneener."

I skipped out on 6th edition, as the weakening of vehicles, combined with restrictive scoring (only troops can score, and not if they're in a transport) meant the game devolved really fast into Gunlinehammer. For me, the low point was seeing "competitive" Chaos armies summarized as "Typhus, Plague Zombies, and Helbrutes." You know, an army that does nothing except be annoying to kill.

So when 7th added universal scoring and Obsec, I gave it a shot. Of course, Eldar got superbikers and Flickerjumping Warp Spiders, and even if you took away their shooting, they would be an "unfun" army to fight since they could hide small obsec Bike units in reserve, which could Turbo onto any point of the board to cap objectives. Incidentally, even after being modified, Maelstrom made objectives less about "take and secure" and more into an elaborate game of rocket-tag.

And now, we have 8th. Obsec, alongside "most models piled on an objective" alongside other changes have pushed the game more towards that 6e "hordes of objective-capping crap" slog, coupled with oddball alphastrike shenanigans.

One thing I have been interested in experimenting with (either for 40k or other games) is "weighted objectives." In 40k, all objectives have the same value. Own an objective in your DZ, one point. Own an objective in the middle, one point. Yes, Linebreaker is an "end of game" option, but that's a relatively small contribution. Instead, what I am imagining is: Each objective is connected to the one before it, in a "graph" of sorts. Each player has one or two objectives in their DZ, and a player gets bonus points for having an unbroken chain of objectives reaching back to their DZ. So, a last-minute capping may be an annoyance, but a more secure "lane" is worth more in the long run.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

For instance if "winning" against guard in this edition means sitting on objectives and scoring points while I die, I can do that and win, but it won't be a fun game. Whereas if Chaos beats me but they are attacking with berserkers that I am trading blows with, or even Throwing magnus at me I'm still doing something.

This is a good summary of "unfun" armies. When an army (or worse, both armies) focus less on actually bringing a slugfest to your opponent, but focus on "don't die, camp objectives", you might as well play Stone Age or some other eurogame where you preempt your foe but don't actually directly interact. From Ninja Tau (in itself a weak army, that "won" by a turn 5 objective grab and contest), to Eldar hanging back until it was the last turn to tank-shock off objectives, or the "mass Necron Warrior" swarms from 3.5, to Nob Bikers, such armies were not necessarily OP or even that good, but could go "I will take longer to kill than the game, neenerneener."

I skipped out on 6th edition, as the weakening of vehicles, combined with restrictive scoring (only troops can score, and not if they're in a transport) meant the game devolved really fast into Gunlinehammer. For me, the low point was seeing "competitive" Chaos armies summarized as "Typhus, Plague Zombies, and Helbrutes." You know, an army that does nothing except be annoying to kill.

So when 7th added universal scoring and Obsec, I gave it a shot. Of course, Eldar got superbikers and Flickerjumping Warp Spiders, and even if you took away their shooting, they would be an "unfun" army to fight since they could hide small obsec Bike units in reserve, which could Turbo onto any point of the board to cap objectives. Incidentally, even after being modified, Maelstrom made objectives less about "take and secure" and more into an elaborate game of rocket-tag.

And now, we have 8th. Obsec, alongside "most models piled on an objective" alongside other changes have pushed the game more towards that 6e "hordes of objective-capping crap" slog, coupled with oddball alphastrike shenanigans.

One thing I have been interested in experimenting with (either for 40k or other games) is "weighted objectives." In 40k, all objectives have the same value. Own an objective in your DZ, one point. Own an objective in the middle, one point. Yes, Linebreaker is an "end of game" option, but that's a relatively small contribution. Instead, what I am imagining is: Each objective is connected to the one before it, in a "graph" of sorts. Each player has one or two objectives in their DZ, and a player gets bonus points for having an unbroken chain of objectives reaching back to their DZ. So, a last-minute capping may be an annoyance, but a more secure "lane" is worth more in the long run.

Have you tried the Open War mission "Take and Hold" (I think that's what it's called). Basically, one objective in your deployment zone but 12" from the edge of the board, and one objective dead-center.

Hold an objective, one point.

Hold an objective your opponent previously held, three points.

That's rapidly becoming my favorite mission so far in 8th, with my favorite "default condition" being the Acid Rain twist card, also from Open War, which I see as basically a spiritual successor to Night Fight from 7th: -1BS to everyone turn 1, also -1 to advance and charge rolls. Goes a long way to mitigating "I got second turn-itis" and alpha strikes of the deep strike and fast charge variety that happen before you get to move.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

And now, we have 8th. Obsec, alongside "most models piled on an objective" alongside other changes have pushed the game more towards that 6e "hordes of objective-capping crap" slog, coupled with oddball alphastrike shenanigans.

Have you actually seen an 8th game go to objectives? I haven't.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

And now, we have 8th. Obsec, alongside "most models piled on an objective" alongside other changes have pushed the game more towards that 6e "hordes of objective-capping crap" slog, coupled with oddball alphastrike shenanigans.

Have you actually seen an 8th game go to objectives? I haven't.

Generally no. I've seen it boil down to "is my bubblewrap and DPS greater than yours", but tablings have been common. Me? I've been observing 8th mostly

Not sure how people can find "a sea of 4++" scary. They have t3 and die 50% of the time. They're only "scary" against elite armies that spam nothing but AP weapons and call that a list.

I'm actually glad that daemons and Magnus and even Guard are doing well because it's forcing players to rethink their idea of what a good weapon is. Previously the only weapons you ever saw were plasma guns, AP2 everything, AP3 some stuff, D-weapon spam, nothing but insanely high strength crap in large amounts. It was Tankhammer and it was full of melta. Now we actually have a purpose behind taking heavy bolters, bolters, flamers, assault cannons, or other random high shot count stuff. All of which kill Brimstones as easily as your AP weapons.

This edition is fun with a diverse meta because Guard makes taking shot spam necessary along with AP and high strength for tanks. Magnus gets complained about a lot but ultimately he's just a space marine who is immune to AP. Which causes the players who love their AP gak to complain about him more than anyone else. Now you know what facing Storm Shields is like and has been like for the past few editions.

See I'm of the camp that I hope they keep soup armies because it allows me to create a fluffy inquisition army with IG, Admech, a few marines.

I don't use Forgeworld or play tzeentch units. There might be some synergy between Chaos Legions but its nothing that other armies can't do cheaper and more efficiently.

Enjoy your Malefic Lords while you can.

 Arkaine wrote:
Not sure how people can find "a sea of 4++" scary. They have t3 and die 50% of the time. They're only "scary" against elite armies that spam nothing but AP weapons and call that a list.

I'm actually glad that daemons and Magnus and even Guard are doing well because it's forcing players to rethink their idea of what a good weapon is. Previously the only weapons you ever saw were plasma guns, AP2 everything, AP3 some stuff, D-weapon spam, nothing but insanely high strength crap in large amounts. It was Tankhammer and it was full of melta. Now we actually have a purpose behind taking heavy bolters, bolters, flamers, assault cannons, or other random high shot count stuff. All of which kill Brimstones as easily as your AP weapons.

This edition is fun with a diverse meta because Guard makes taking shot spam necessary along with AP and high strength for tanks. Magnus gets complained about a lot but ultimately he's just a space marine who is immune to AP. Which causes the players who love their AP gak to complain about him more than anyone else. Now you know what facing Storm Shields is like and has been like for the past few editions.

be cause they cost 3 points? and have easy access to -1 to hit. They are hard to remove for any army, not just elite armies with AP weapons. Lets look at the Twin assault cannon RB against this unit. So hits on 4s (If it does not move) wounds on 2s. In this scenario it takes ~48 shots to kill 10 Brims. SO 400 points of Razorbacks to kill 30 points of Brims...

Bolters - hit on 4s wound on 3s - that will be 59 shots, or 3 10 man tactical squads rapid firing, 390 points to kill 10 Brims (30 points). It honestly has nothing to do with it being an invul save for me. 3 point models should not have 4+ saves at all, they end up far too cheap for their durability.

Even without the -1 buff they are almost as durable as Sisters at 1/3rd of the price.

Breng77 wrote:
be cause they cost 3 points? and have easy access to -1 to hit.

Just about every infantry has easy access to -1 to hit now. At least you can remove the Changeling. Most tournament lists bring snipers and this thing has only 4 wounds with a 50% save.

Noise Marines vs Brims
- Hitting on 2+ with Pres (Sorcerer buff for your Changeling buff), subtract 1 for Changeling
- Wounding on 3+ (or 2+ with VotLW)
- 3 shots per marine

2/3 hit, 2/3 wound, 1/2 save. Takes 45 shots, or 15 Noise Marines, to kill a blob of 10 brims instantly.
At 19 per model, that's 285pts of Noise Marines.

As for how cheap brims are? Have you looked at them? They have worse than Conscript stats with no guns. They are literally just walls and nothing else. You're complaining that sandbags that are 3pts each are too good. Might as well complain about how awesome the Aegis Defense Line is since it's a gun emplacement that cannot be attacked or targeted and can be given lascannons or quad guns.

The issue is that wall is standing infront of a whole bunch of characters who use smite to then kill your noise marines. A trade I'll take you killing 30 points of models to losing 200. So unless your army is nothing but Noise marines...you kill a few brims and then lose your ability to keep doing so. If you need to kill say 120 of them, it will only take your noise marines 12 turns to do so. Or you can bring more and do it more quickly, but you are paying quite the price to do so.

As chaos you have no snipers that I'm aware of and you only get prescience on one squad. But sure it is easy to deal with that giant screen.

For the purpose of being a screen they are better than conscripts at this point. The Aegis doesn't prevent character targeting, does not block assaults and cannot claim objectives, so that point is not useful.

There is a point when a screen becomes too good for its points, and brims are borderline. Prior to the nerf they were way too good. The point is though that sure these weapons kill brims at a rate equal to the high AP weapons, however they kill everything else better than that.

Take your noise marines against tactical marines kills 6.25 MEQ or 81 points worth of models.

 Arkaine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
be cause they cost 3 points? and have easy access to -1 to hit.

Just about every infantry has easy access to -1 to hit now. At least you can remove the Changeling. Most tournament lists bring snipers and this thing has only 4 wounds with a 50% save.

Noise Marines vs Brims
- Hitting on 2+ with Pres (Sorcerer buff for your Changeling buff), subtract 1 for Changeling
- Wounding on 3+ (or 2+ with VotLW)
- 3 shots per marine

2/3 hit, 2/3 wound, 1/2 save. Takes 45 shots, or 15 Noise Marines, to kill a blob of 10 brims instantly.
At 19 per model, that's 285pts of Noise Marines.

As for how cheap brims are? Have you looked at them? They have worse than Conscript stats with no guns. They are literally just walls and nothing else. You're complaining that sandbags that are 3pts each are too good. Might as well complain about how awesome the Aegis Defense Line is since it's a gun emplacement that cannot be attacked or targeted and can be given lascannons or quad guns.

....you don't get that a dedicated anti-infantry unit costing 285 points being required to remove a 30-point unit might be problematic/obnoxious?

Very, very few weapons are efficient at removing conscripts. NO weapons are efficient at removing brimstones. The consolation is brims do no damage, but they stand in front of daemon princes and bigger models that very much do. Brimstones are the equivalent of the 7th ed decurion - they're incredibly, incredibly slow to kill and the fact that they do no damage is basically entirely offset by the fact that they have obsec and can simply win score-as-you-by almost by default.

The core problem is that Blasts in 7th presented an "optimum use case" similar to Meltas did and still to some extent do against vehicles. If you got a unit with a template in very close, or an opponent had so many models they couldn't position optimally against blast weapons, you could chunk out an enormous amount of wounds for a small investment. a 5-point flamer could remove 5-7 guardsmen in a single shot. the conversion in 8th to random shots greatly reduced those edge cases.

 Arkaine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
be cause they cost 3 points? and have easy access to -1 to hit.

Just about every infantry has easy access to -1 to hit now. At least you can remove the Changeling. Most tournament lists bring snipers and this thing has only 4 wounds with a 50% save.

.

Hmmm, given a Commissar had only 3 wounds and a 5+ save and was 'too difficult' for snipers to counter, I'd say the changeling is next on the ol' chopping block.

This might come off a noobish, but what's a soup army? I've never heard this term until I came back to the game.