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I've been lurking for awhile, but this inspired me to post sadly.

Have you looked at the top tier Chaos lists? Notice something missing? Like Chaos Space Marines?

The Chaos codex isn't bad, but it's definitely not top tier, and outside of a few aberrant lists (which use maybe 2 units from the actual codex), not tournament competitive. The Malefic Lord/Horror smite spam lists are basically the only thing that's placing. Yes, I'm ignoring Chaos Daemons because as an almost 30 year CSM player, I don't want to buy a Daemon army, I don't like how Daemons play, I don't like their fluff, I want to play an effective CSM list. Sadly, there's just not a lot of options for that. I have Legion soups that are thematically interesting and have a few nasty tricks and in a few cases could be effective if I was willing to chop up models that have been painted for 20 years and make them WYSIWYG, I have a super heavy list that is fun for tournaments, but is ultimately a win big-lose big list (and ultimately, I don't mind playing Chaos this way, it's thematically appropriate).

That's what you get for CSM these days. It used to be that you could play CSM in a similar manner to SM, with some Daemonic aspects thrown in to change the tactical dynamic, but that's really not the case these days.

Time will show though, CSM got shafted by an early codex release for the fourth edition in a row. We got a single new unit, that quite frankly, I already had a dozen models for, the Exalted Champion, and he's not half of what an SM Lieutenant can be, quite literally, given that you can get 2 LTs for 1 HQ and his ability works with ranged attacks also. CSM, despite having Legions like the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion (the only tournament legion in the book), has yet again been shoved into the assault box, sure, you can build a gunline list, but it will be 2nd tier at best, and honestly, that's probably being generous.

 TwinPoleTheory wrote:
I've been lurking for awhile, but this inspired me to post sadly.

Have you looked at the top tier Chaos lists? Notice something missing? Like Chaos Space Marines?

The Chaos codex isn't bad, but it's definitely not top tier, and outside of a few aberrant lists (which use maybe 2 units from the actual codex), not tournament competitive. The Malefic Lord/Horror smite spam lists are basically the only thing that's placing. Yes, I'm ignoring Chaos Daemons because as an almost 30 year CSM player, I don't want to buy a Daemon army, I don't like how Daemons play, I don't like their fluff, I want to play an effective CSM list. Sadly, there's just not a lot of options for that. I have Legion soups that are thematically interesting and have a few nasty tricks and in a few cases could be effective if I was willing to chop up models that have been painted for 20 years and make them WYSIWYG, I have a super heavy list that is fun for tournaments, but is ultimately a win big-lose big list (and ultimately, I don't mind playing Chaos this way, it's thematically appropriate).

That's what you get for CSM these days. It used to be that you could play CSM in a similar manner to SM, with some Daemonic aspects thrown in to change the tactical dynamic, but that's really not the case these days.

Time will show though, CSM got shafted by an early codex release for the fourth edition in a row. We got a single new unit, that quite frankly, I already had a dozen models for, the Exalted Champion, and he's not half of what an SM Lieutenant can be, quite literally, given that you can get 2 LTs for 1 HQ and his ability works with ranged attacks also. CSM, despite having Legions like the Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion (the only tournament legion in the book), has yet again been shoved into the assault box, sure, you can build a gunline list, but it will be 2nd tier at best, and honestly, that's probably being generous.

Did you read the name of the thread? It's unlikely people are interested in dropping the more powerful half of the chaos equation in discussions here.

I would disagree though that it's impossible to play Chaos in a shooting style. Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors, and Alpha Legion are all very good trait sets for shooting, and Noise Marines and Obliterators are certainly two of the standouts from the codex.

Breng77 wrote:
Take your noise marines against tactical marines kills 6.25 MEQ or 81 points worth of models.

Well not really, if we assume the marines are Raven Guard and getting the same -1 to hit then we're looking at only 5 MEQ killed WITH prescience or 65 pts of models. And we'd actually be removing threats instead of 30pts of Wall. You don't need to kill ALL the walls, just enough that you can see the characters or you could take the fight to them. Brims being Chaos is no surprise, it makes your enemy more likely to engage you in close combat where Chaos as a faction likes to be.

RogueApiary wrote:
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.

The changeling doesn't negate losses, it merely makes them harder to shoot at. The amount of brims that die with or without the changeling isn't of consequence compared to the number of Conscript lives the Commissar saved.

the_scotsman wrote:
....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 same squad only kills a 65-point unit of Raven Guard marines. Or 66-points of AL cultists or conscripts. All of which have actual guns and pose a threat, so really you're double dipping on murdering 33pts of wall and 33pts of guns.

I normally solve the problem by engaging them in close combat. The combined effect of shooting + close combat on a min squad 10 unit with 7 leadership is a morale test that may not end well for them. They have S1 and WS 5+, they won't be killing your stuff. Tzeentch Daemons are the anti-shooting faction that does it better than you with long range smites. Punch them in close combat and they start disappearing faster.

Berzerkers for example are 17pts each with chain axe and chainsword combo and some of the best troops. They fight twice. That's four attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+ and two attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+. So without any buffs each Berzerker kills 1.555 brims, clocking in at less than 7 Zerkers to kill a squad of 10. That's 119pts.

Don't have zerkers? Stuck with marines only? Try to remember that Flamers autohit and ignore the -1 penalty. Let's see how well a 5-man Tactical Squad fares.

85-pt squad
Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-flamer and Chainsword
Space Marine w/Flamer
3x Space Marines w/ Boltguns

Shooting phase - 7 auto hits from flamers (average) + 2 hits from boltguns + combi-flamer's bolter shots for double firing + a grenade = 3-4 dead brims
Fight phase - 7 total attacks hitting on 4+ and wounding on 3+ with a 50% save = at least 1 more dead brim
Morale check - Unit with 7 leadership has just lost 4-5 models this turn. More than half your rolls result in further models lost.

The more flamers the better. Making Chaos once again the best answer to itself since we can field squads of Chosen or Havocs with nothing but flamers.

Why would you assume Raven Guard? The only competitive way to run marines - outside of ONE Warhammer, not ITC/NOVA event - is with Guilliman. Raven Guard has done basically nothing since the codex dropped.

And having a stratagem to deploy your berzerkers 9" away, and then immediately execute a move+charge is pretty devastating.

Berzerkers, smite spam, and primarchs, make chaos, in a nutshell.

Guard and Chaos are the top two lists. The big issue with guard is most lists don't even have the tiniest bit of counter play options against them. Just by existing, in its current form, Guard wins against quite a few armies.

Lastly i'll say that Chaos is much more difficult to play than guard. Guard is the training wheels version of 40k. You could determine your shooting targets based on a scatter dice and still win most of your games with a tuned guard list.

Playing against chaos soup is actually fun even if it's brutal. Although FW is a bit of a sour taste.

 Arkaine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Take your noise marines against tactical marines kills 6.25 MEQ or 81 points worth of models.

Well not really, if we assume the marines are Raven Guard and getting the same -1 to hit then we're looking at only 5 MEQ killed WITH prescience or 65 pts of models. And we'd actually be removing threats instead of 30pts of Wall. You don't need to kill ALL the walls, just enough that you can see the characters or you could take the fight to them. Brims being Chaos is no surprise, it makes your enemy more likely to engage you in close combat where Chaos as a faction likes to be.

RogueApiary wrote:
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.

The changeling doesn't negate losses, it merely makes them harder to shoot at. The amount of brims that die with or without the changeling isn't of consequence compared to the number of Conscript lives the Commissar saved.

the_scotsman wrote:
....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 same squad only kills a 65-point unit of Raven Guard marines. Or 66-points of AL cultists or conscripts. All of which have actual guns and pose a threat, so really you're double dipping on murdering 33pts of wall and 33pts of guns.

I normally solve the problem by engaging them in close combat. The combined effect of shooting + close combat on a min squad 10 unit with 7 leadership is a morale test that may not end well for them. They have S1 and WS 5+, they won't be killing your stuff. Tzeentch Daemons are the anti-shooting faction that does it better than you with long range smites. Punch them in close combat and they start disappearing faster.

Berzerkers for example are 17pts each with chain axe and chainsword combo and some of the best troops. They fight twice. That's four attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+ and two attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+. So without any buffs each Berzerker kills 1.555 brims, clocking in at less than 7 Zerkers to kill a squad of 10. That's 119pts.

Don't have zerkers? Stuck with marines only? Try to remember that Flamers autohit and ignore the -1 penalty. Let's see how well a 5-man Tactical Squad fares.

85-pt squad
Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-flamer and Chainsword
Space Marine w/Flamer
3x Space Marines w/ Boltguns

Shooting phase - 7 auto hits from flamers (average) + 2 hits from boltguns + combi-flamer's bolter shots for double firing + a grenade = 3-4 dead brims
Fight phase - 7 total attacks hitting on 4+ and wounding on 3+ with a 50% save = at least 1 more dead brim
Morale check - Unit with 7 leadership has just lost 4-5 models this turn. More than half your rolls result in further models lost.

The more flamers the better. Making Chaos once again the best answer to itself since we can field squads of Chosen or Havocs with nothing but flamers.

...I don't even have arguments, you're making them for me.

A dedicated anti-infantry unit (noise marines) causes over double the points of damage against a MEQ target with their anti-infantry weapon, and also double the points of damage against a more expensive infantry target with a buff (I notice you didn't include the -1 to hit from the changeling when evaluating the Brimstones).

The fact remains: the problem with brimstone horrors is that there is absolutely nothing in the game that even comes close to points efficiency when killing them. Nothing. Old templates and old sweep put the kind of limiters on mega-hordes that we had with D weapons and the Explode result on super tank skew.

 chimeara wrote:
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.

An army made up of 'best picks' from multiple codexes. An Imperial army running Space Marines, Guard and a Sister of Battle Special character for example.

 Arkaine wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
Take your noise marines against tactical marines kills 6.25 MEQ or 81 points worth of models.

Well not really, if we assume the marines are Raven Guard and getting the same -1 to hit then we're looking at only 5 MEQ killed WITH prescience or 65 pts of models. And we'd actually be removing threats instead of 30pts of Wall. You don't need to kill ALL the walls, just enough that you can see the characters or you could take the fight to them. Brims being Chaos is no surprise, it makes your enemy more likely to engage you in close combat where Chaos as a faction likes to be.

RogueApiary wrote:
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.

The changeling doesn't negate losses, it merely makes them harder to shoot at. The amount of brims that die with or without the changeling isn't of consequence compared to the number of Conscript lives the Commissar saved.

the_scotsman wrote:
....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 same squad only kills a 65-point unit of Raven Guard marines. Or 66-points of AL cultists or conscripts. All of which have actual guns and pose a threat, so really you're double dipping on murdering 33pts of wall and 33pts of guns.

I normally solve the problem by engaging them in close combat. The combined effect of shooting + close combat on a min squad 10 unit with 7 leadership is a morale test that may not end well for them. They have S1 and WS 5+, they won't be killing your stuff. Tzeentch Daemons are the anti-shooting faction that does it better than you with long range smites. Punch them in close combat and they start disappearing faster.

Berzerkers for example are 17pts each with chain axe and chainsword combo and some of the best troops. They fight twice. That's four attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 2+ and two attacks hitting on 3+, wounding on 3+. So without any buffs each Berzerker kills 1.555 brims, clocking in at less than 7 Zerkers to kill a squad of 10. That's 119pts.

Don't have zerkers? Stuck with marines only? Try to remember that Flamers autohit and ignore the -1 penalty. Let's see how well a 5-man Tactical Squad fares.

85-pt squad
Space Marine Sergeant w/Combi-flamer and Chainsword
Space Marine w/Flamer
3x Space Marines w/ Boltguns

Shooting phase - 7 auto hits from flamers (average) + 2 hits from boltguns + combi-flamer's bolter shots for double firing + a grenade = 3-4 dead brims
Fight phase - 7 total attacks hitting on 4+ and wounding on 3+ with a 50% save = at least 1 more dead brim
Morale check - Unit with 7 leadership has just lost 4-5 models this turn. More than half your rolls result in further models lost.

The more flamers the better. Making Chaos once again the best answer to itself since we can field squads of Chosen or Havocs with nothing but flamers.

65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

Breng77 wrote:


65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

I care far, far more about the 20 brimstone horrors than the 5 bolter marines.

Plus, here's the thing about the bolter marines - I have weapons that are dedicated anti-meq with optimal use cases against them. I don't *need* to grind through them with bolters or lasguns at half-point efficiency to remove them, I can position a plasma squad and wipe them out with units worth half as much as the 65 points of marines if I want to.

Everything you've listed - flamers, melee blenders, multi shot weapons, noise marines - they're ALL points inefficient against brims.

Guardsman with a flamer?

Avg 3.5 autohits, 2.333 wounds, 1.17 dead brims. 3.5 points of brims killed by 11 points of guardsman.

A brimstone horror's statline could be 1s across the board and they'd be broken - as long as they still had their 4++ and you could take 1 blue in the unit for LD7. No 3-point model should have a 4++, period. A 4++ is worth more than 3 points with the way the game currently works.

the_scotsman wrote:


Did you read the name of the thread? It's unlikely people are interested in dropping the more powerful half of the chaos equation in discussions here.

I would disagree though that it's impossible to play Chaos in a shooting style. Emperor's Children, Iron Warriors, and Alpha Legion are all very good trait sets for shooting, and Noise Marines and Obliterators are certainly two of the standouts from the codex.

I did, and the OP's intimation is that the Chaos codex should be getting as much flak for being unbalanced or overpowered as the AM codex. However, you are correct, I perhaps didn't state my point clearly enough. Nothing in the Chaos codex is winning tournaments, period, full stop. You can look over the lists on BoK that are placing, currently, there is exactly 1 list (out of 8) that has any significant units from the released Codex at all.

What is winning tournaments or at least placing in them, is a soup of Index Chaos and Forge World models. The actual codex is decent, but it's by no means a world beater on it's own merits, and I would argue, it's not even particularly impressive within the confines of a soup list as most soup lists are taking the Changeling and Horrors from the Index.

So if you want to complain about Malefic Lords and Horrors, go ahead, but putting it within the context of the Chaos codex somehow being comparable with the Astra Militarum codex, please, it's not even close.

You cannot believe brimstone horrors are a problem, and simultaneously believe conscripts are balanced. Sorry.

Ordana wrote:

 chimeara wrote:
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.

An army made up of 'best picks' from multiple codexes. An Imperial army running Space Marines, Guard and a Sister of Battle Special character for example.

And all bound with a single large Faction Keyword such as "Imperium" or "Chaos".

the_scotsman wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

I care far, far more about the 20 brimstone horrors than the 5 bolter marines.

Plus, here's the thing about the bolter marines - I have weapons that are dedicated anti-meq with optimal use cases against them. I don't *need* to grind through them with bolters or lasguns at half-point efficiency to remove them, I can position a plasma squad and wipe them out with units worth half as much as the 65 points of marines if I want to.

Everything you've listed - flamers, melee blenders, multi shot weapons, noise marines - they're ALL points inefficient against brims.

Guardsman with a flamer?

Avg 3.5 autohits, 2.333 wounds, 1.17 dead brims. 3.5 points of brims killed by 11 points of guardsman.

A brimstone horror's statline could be 1s across the board and they'd be broken - as long as they still had their 4++ and you could take 1 blue in the unit for LD7. No 3-point model should have a 4++, period. A 4++ is worth more than 3 points with the way the game currently works.

I 100% agree, I don't think any 3 point model should have a save better than a 6+, unless they are T1. Wounds especially on individual single wound model have huge value in this edition. IF we look at those 65 points of marines. If things were balanced for anti-infantry fire, anti-infantry weapons should at least kill that many points of brims (not less than half). So The Noise Marines should at least kill 22 brims in a single shooting phase to be balanced. IF you want to give value to marines offense (what little it is) then maybe you say it should kill say 54 points of brims. However if these weapons are supposed to be specialized against light infantry/chaff they should kill more points worth of chaff than they do mid-heavy infantry. That is what is lacking right now and why these cheap units should not have good saves.

I don't understand any complaining about Mortarion. I get complaints about Rowboat and have seen the math on what Magnus can accomplish, but Mortarion is pretty darn fair for the price.

 Marmatag wrote:
You cannot believe brimstone horrors are a problem, and simultaneously believe conscripts are balanced. Sorry.

I believe neither. The current competitive meta is far enough out of the range of the "average" unit (partially because of a few egregious offenders and partially because of the codex/index divide) that Conscripts are currently nerfed to the point where I'm guessing we'll see at least less of them until the other offenders are taken care of. If you want Conscripts to be BALANCED, actual middle of the road average unit balanced, they need a point added. All Guard infantry with the exception of Veterans needs 1 point added. Either that, or something needs to be done structurally about hordes in 8th.

all that said, Brimstones are better than conscripts, post commissar nerf.

Can we also talk about the fact that the Guard took the #1 slot at this particular GT is proof positive that they are unequivocally the #1 army, and the fact that Alpha Legion took #2 is just "interesting" but CSM are still hideously UP and you never see them at tournaments?

How many tournaments have we had post CSM codex, anyway?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

I care far, far more about the 20 brimstone horrors than the 5 bolter marines.

Plus, here's the thing about the bolter marines - I have weapons that are dedicated anti-meq with optimal use cases against them. I don't *need* to grind through them with bolters or lasguns at half-point efficiency to remove them, I can position a plasma squad and wipe them out with units worth half as much as the 65 points of marines if I want to.

Everything you've listed - flamers, melee blenders, multi shot weapons, noise marines - they're ALL points inefficient against brims.

Guardsman with a flamer?

Avg 3.5 autohits, 2.333 wounds, 1.17 dead brims. 3.5 points of brims killed by 11 points of guardsman.

A brimstone horror's statline could be 1s across the board and they'd be broken - as long as they still had their 4++ and you could take 1 blue in the unit for LD7. No 3-point model should have a 4++, period. A 4++ is worth more than 3 points with the way the game currently works.

I 100% agree, I don't think any 3 point model should have a save better than a 6+, unless they are T1. Wounds especially on individual single wound model have huge value in this edition. IF we look at those 65 points of marines. If things were balanced for anti-infantry fire, anti-infantry weapons should at least kill that many points of brims (not less than half). So The Noise Marines should at least kill 22 brims in a single shooting phase to be balanced. IF you want to give value to marines offense (what little it is) then maybe you say it should kill say 54 points of brims. However if these weapons are supposed to be specialized against light infantry/chaff they should kill more points worth of chaff than they do mid-heavy infantry. That is what is lacking right now and why these cheap units should not have good saves.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

One of the structural problems with 8th is that anti-infantry weapons (which used to scale in damage with unit size and frequently featured AP5/6, which improved value against the lightest infantry while doing nothing to heavier infantry) no longer do proportionally MORE damage vs light infantry than heavier targets. The new wounding chart, AP system, and variable shot weaponry all contribute to this issue, and eventually something is going to need to be done to curb hordes in general, much like we need a fix for characters and we needed a fix for flyers.

So here is a question worth talking about, though perhaps I'm in the wrong place...

...what sort of structural change are we talking about? If we wanted to leave units the same, then how would we handle hordes?

I think part of the issue is how flamers are so expensive. On average, they hit about as well as a storm bolter, but are almost five times the price, and have a cripplingly shorter range.

Flamers also lost a lot of AP, which I think should be restored; you could even have the AP scale with toughness, e.g. if it is wounding on 3's or better, AP-2 (Some special rules can negate this, e.g. make one for SOB called "Purge in Fire: This squad always gets its full save value against flame weapons. Furthermore, flame weapons may fire twice if an <Order> unit moved half speed or less" or something). If it wounds on 4's, AP-1. If it wounds on 5's or worse, AP 0.

Something like that, maybe, anyways.

 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.

Me ether - turn 2 tabling aren't actually uncommon for me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Breng77 wrote:


65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

I care far, far more about the 20 brimstone horrors than the 5 bolter marines.

Plus, here's the thing about the bolter marines - I have weapons that are dedicated anti-meq with optimal use cases against them. I don't *need* to grind through them with bolters or lasguns at half-point efficiency to remove them, I can position a plasma squad and wipe them out with units worth half as much as the 65 points of marines if I want to.

Everything you've listed - flamers, melee blenders, multi shot weapons, noise marines - they're ALL points inefficient against brims.

Guardsman with a flamer?

Avg 3.5 autohits, 2.333 wounds, 1.17 dead brims. 3.5 points of brims killed by 11 points of guardsman.

A brimstone horror's statline could be 1s across the board and they'd be broken - as long as they still had their 4++ and you could take 1 blue in the unit for LD7. No 3-point model should have a 4++, period. A 4++ is worth more than 3 points with the way the game currently works.

I 100% agree, I don't think any 3 point model should have a save better than a 6+, unless they are T1. Wounds especially on individual single wound model have huge value in this edition. IF we look at those 65 points of marines. If things were balanced for anti-infantry fire, anti-infantry weapons should at least kill that many points of brims (not less than half). So The Noise Marines should at least kill 22 brims in a single shooting phase to be balanced. IF you want to give value to marines offense (what little it is) then maybe you say it should kill say 54 points of brims. However if these weapons are supposed to be specialized against light infantry/chaff they should kill more points worth of chaff than they do mid-heavy infantry. That is what is lacking right now and why these cheap units should not have good saves.

Yep - pretty well stated here. Invo saves need to not be handed out like candy. For crying out loud - a baneblade (a super heavy tank) doesn't have an invo save. How can a 3 point brimstone have a 4++ save? A terminator has a 5++ save and honestly most of the time that is all it is ever taking anyways. No mater what weapon you use to shoot at brims - they are going to ignore half the damage - it's pretty darn stupid for 3 points.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So here is a question worth talking about, though perhaps I'm in the wrong place...

...what sort of structural change are we talking about? If we wanted to leave units the same, then how would we handle hordes?

I think part of the issue is how flamers are so expensive. On average, they hit about as well as a storm bolter, but are almost five times the price, and have a cripplingly shorter range.

Flamers also lost a lot of AP, which I think should be restored; you could even have the AP scale with toughness, e.g. if it is wounding on 3's or better, AP-2 (Some special rules can negate this, e.g. make one for SOB called "Purge in Fire: This squad always gets its full save value against flame weapons. Furthermore, flame weapons may fire twice if an <Order> unit moved half speed or less" or something). If it wounds on 4's, AP-1. If it wounds on 5's or worse, AP 0.

Something like that, maybe, anyways.

You need to change weapons that are supposed to be anti-horde to be better at hordes. Making flamers cheaper doesn't really help because those weapons are still better against more expensive troops than against hordes. You need to add shots to weapons against larger squads, and have low strength high ROF weapons.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So here is a question worth talking about, though perhaps I'm in the wrong place...

...what sort of structural change are we talking about? If we wanted to leave units the same, then how would we handle hordes?

I think part of the issue is how flamers are so expensive. On average, they hit about as well as a storm bolter, but are almost five times the price, and have a cripplingly shorter range.

Flamers also lost a lot of AP, which I think should be restored; you could even have the AP scale with toughness, e.g. if it is wounding on 3's or better, AP-2 (Some special rules can negate this, e.g. make one for SOB called "Purge in Fire: This squad always gets its full save value against flame weapons. Furthermore, flame weapons may fire twice if an <Order> unit moved half speed or less" or something). If it wounds on 4's, AP-1. If it wounds on 5's or worse, AP 0.

Something like that, maybe, anyways.

You need to change weapons that are supposed to be anti-horde to be better at hordes. Making flamers cheaper doesn't really help because those weapons are still better against more expensive troops than against hordes. You need to add shots to weapons against larger squads, and have low strength high ROF weapons.

The problem is that there are some "hordes" which aren't broken at all. If you gave a Baneblade cannon +1d6 extra shots for every 10 people in a squad above the first 10, imagine how Orks would feel?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
OH! ALSO:

Another solution would be actually able to switch ammunition on tanks.

Part of the reason they did away with blasts is that they didn't mesh between large 1-model units and hordes of cheap infantry very well - Battlecannons were supposed to be "anti-everything" but against most targets only scored one hit, making them essentially just "anti-MEQ."

I feel like they changed Battlecannons in an effort to make them more effective against 1-model units, and they did - so suddenly hordes appear better.

Not sure how to change that but oh well.

You wouldn't give it to every weapon, but to some it would be fair. Especially if you make those weapons low strength (S1 or 2). It would also take points rebalancing of some units. As is Orks would not care to much as their competitive build is 200 orks.

You could do change profiles/ ammo, so you get more shots, but wound less often.

I'm thinking something like 3D6 + D6 for every 10 at S2 AP0.

Breng77 wrote:
You wouldn't give it to every weapon, but to some it would be fair. Especially if you make those weapons low strength (S1 or 2). It would also take points rebalancing of some units. As is Orks would not care to much as their competitive build is 200 orks.

You could do change profiles/ ammo, so you get more shots, but wound less often.

I'm thinking something like 3D6 + D6 for every 10 at S2 AP0.

Depending on how cheap that weapon is, it may be points efficient as an antitank weapon. Against Baneblades it's essentially a 3d6 Bolter.

I think the point on flamers is appropriate. People seem reluctant to use them.

Make them D6 +D3 hits per 10 models when not shooting overwatch (so as to not overly harm assault types like Orks). Keep them the same cost and see where it lands from there.

Only against T8 which is pretty rare.
if it hit on a 4+ then It would average 0.278 wounds against a Baneblade (or anything T4+ with a 3+ save), so you would need 3-4 such do a single wound to that statline. So even at 5 points I don't think it would be points efficient in that manner.

However against 30 conscripts it would get 6D6 shots (20 average) it would average killing 2 per turn.

I said before I might even go like 2D6 shots + 1D6 for every 5 models.

So 1 model 2D6 shots
5 models 3D6 shots
30 models 8D6

So against a 5 man marine squad see above 0.28 wounds
Against 30 T3 5+ save = 28 shots, 14 hits, 3 dead.

IF a squad had 4 such guns that would be 12 dead, vs 1 Marine/1 wound on a vehicle. Much more points efficient anti-horde (12 conscripts = 36 points, 1 wound off a baneblade is ~19, and the second version takes 5 guns to put 1 wound on a baneblade, or 15 dead conscripts).

Guns like this are the only way a weapon is better against a horde than against elite infantry/vehicles. I'm pretty sure no matter what it costs you could make much better anti-vehicle choices in your list.

You mentioned orks being an issue. For this weapon at 30 models it kills 2 Ork boyz vs say 3 conscripts. So slightly worse for the orks (12 Pts vs 9), but they are a horde so I don't think that is a huge issue, right now most weapons have a much bigger discrepancy.

The issue is still brims though as with a 4++, as it only kills 2 (2.33) per turn ( slightly more than the orks 1.9) only 6 points. Which goes to show just how much an issue the 4++ is.

Daedalus81 wrote:
I think the point on flamers is appropriate. People seem reluctant to use them.

Make them D6 +D3 hits per 10 models when not shooting overwatch (so as to not overly harm assault types like Orks). Keep them the same cost and see where it lands from there.

Flamers need you to be within 8".
That means surviving a turn after deepstrike or running headlong into a guard army.

Neither options seems particularly viable as a means of fighting Hordes.
And against Orks/Tyranids your only getting to shoot twice max, likely once, before your charged which means your likely to not kill enough to avoid getting torn to shreds.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So here is a question worth talking about, though perhaps I'm in the wrong place...

...what sort of structural change are we talking about? If we wanted to leave units the same, then how would we handle hordes?

I think part of the issue is how flamers are so expensive. On average, they hit about as well as a storm bolter, but are almost five times the price, and have a cripplingly shorter range.

Flamers also lost a lot of AP, which I think should be restored; you could even have the AP scale with toughness, e.g. if it is wounding on 3's or better, AP-2 (Some special rules can negate this, e.g. make one for SOB called "Purge in Fire: This squad always gets its full save value against flame weapons. Furthermore, flame weapons may fire twice if an <Order> unit moved half speed or less" or something). If it wounds on 4's, AP-1. If it wounds on 5's or worse, AP 0.

Something like that, maybe, anyways.

Well, a start and something easy would be to remove the "2cp auto-pass" stratagem.

The other would be to either price things appropriately based on what you can field and what buffs they have access to. There are horde units that function fine in 8th - gants, grots, etc - but the difference is that they are actually worth their points and priced based on the buffs available.

Ordana wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:
I think the point on flamers is appropriate. People seem reluctant to use them.

Make them D6 +D3 hits per 10 models when not shooting overwatch (so as to not overly harm assault types like Orks). Keep them the same cost and see where it lands from there.

Flamers need you to be within 8".
That means surviving a turn after deepstrike or running headlong into a guard army.

Neither options seems particularly viable as a means of fighting Hordes.
And against Orks/Tyranids your only getting to shoot twice max, likely once, before your charged which means your likely to not kill enough to avoid getting torn to shreds.

Well, you'll certainly need to put them in a transport regardless. No one will let you walk up with a bunch of flamers.

Probably an AP of 1 against models with a save of 5+ or worse would be warranted (invulnerable excluded).

the_scotsman wrote:
...I don't even have arguments, you're making them for me.

A dedicated anti-infantry unit (noise marines) causes over double the points of damage against a MEQ target with their anti-infantry weapon, and also double the points of damage against a more expensive infantry target with a buff (I notice you didn't include the -1 to hit from the changeling when evaluating the Brimstones).

The fact remains: the problem with brimstone horrors is that there is absolutely nothing in the game that even comes close to points efficiency when killing them. Nothing. Old templates and old sweep put the kind of limiters on mega-hordes that we had with D weapons and the Explode result on super tank skew.

No, not at all lol. What you're seeing is that an anti-infantry unit is just as effective killing Wound Walls as it is Wound Walls with Guns. The ones with Guns just cost more because they are actually a threat to you. I could take a Rhino cheaper than a Rhino decked out with lots of guns on it and havoc launchers but that doesn't mean I should kill the Rhino with lots of guns on it faster than the normal Rhino. Any instance where you can load out options onto a model or squad versus just leaving it blank and vanilla is going to have the same counterpart scenario. Making something deadlier doesn't mean you kill it faster.

Breng77 wrote:
65 points of bolter marines are no more of a threat than an equal points in brims. 10 bolter shots do very little. Plus if what I need is to clear objectives, or break a screen, I'd rather kill the marines it is far easier.

10 bolter shots do more than 0 shots.


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the_scotsman wrote:
Avg 3.5 autohits, 2.333 wounds, 1.17 dead brims. 3.5 points of brims killed by 11 points of guardsman.

You call that point inefficient? How about marines with plasma guns shooting each other?

Marine with Plasma Gun = 26pts
At rapid fire range it gets 2 shots that hit on 3+, wound on 3+, and kill 5/6 of the time.
So you're looking at 19pts of marine deaths using a highly efficient murder machine against something that hasn't been buffed with a -1 to hit.
If you could give the marines that -1 that Changeling grants, you'd only kill 14pts of marines with a 26pt weapon.
Boltguns are even worse. Marines shooting each other with boltguns cost 13pts and kill less than 6pts worth.
With the -1 to hit aura, those boltguns kill only 4pts worth.

Again, brims are low cost because they lack offense. Conscripts cost MORE than them despite having a WORSE save because GW prices guns as BETTER than saving throws. Blame them for that. The game has always been built around Guns being more expensive than Wounds and models failing to kill their points worth in a single shooting phase.

The issue isn't with brims being good meat shields or Changeling have a decent effect. It's with GW's concept of game balance in this new edition. Every game we go to involves various lists of Alpha Legion, Stygian Forgeworld, and Raven Guard against other -1 to hit traits (Dark Angels have shroud bubbles). Airborne flyers were so good because of this same effect, negating more shooting than a +1 bonus to armor saves ever would. Till this gets changed things will be tankier than the shooting that shoots at them most of the time and it stacks with cover save bonuses. Complain to GW directly and tell them to price the model more than the guns it carries. Just expect all your space marines to go up to 20pts if they start pricing things heavily based on tankiness instead of offense.