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Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




With my Adeptus Mechanicus almost complete I'm looking at a durable alternative force for as cool as they are, tough the majority of Adeptus Mechanicus units are not. The current options I'm looking at are:

Space Marines
Pros
Tough infantry and super flexible
Can ally with Adeptus Mechanicus
Cons
The world does not need more Space Marines

Astra Militarum
Pros
Tough tanks
Can ally with Adeptus Mechanicus
Cons
Outside of tanks same squishy infantry as Adeptus Mechanicus

Death Guard
Pros
Even tougher infantry
Cons
Still Space Marines

Currently I'm leaning towards Astra Militarum because tanks but anyone got any other suggestions for a army that doesn't keel over in a stiff breeze?


   
Made in gb
Regular Dakkanaut




Another option for the list is an Eldar Wraith Host.
   
Made in ca
Monstrously Massive Big Mutant






Grab Space Marines. Ad Mech already has amazing backline, Space Marines can fill out your front line issues, and protect your admech against deepstrike
   
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Damsel of the Lady




Are you in a competitive meta? If you are, Space Marines aren't going to cut it. Terminators get cut down like chaff. The most durable of the durable are going to be:

1. Custodes.

2. Eldar Wraith armies.

3. Death Guard.

4. Imperial Knights.

Astra Militarum tanks aren't too bad but they're definitely below those 4. Space Marines will only really be 'durable' if you spam flyers.
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut




The most durable option by far is Astra Militarum infantry. Guardsmen are anything but squishy. Guard tanks are also pretty good, but in small numbers they tend to suffer. Most TAC lists should be able to kill or cripple a Letter Man Russ per turn. Regards
   
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My experience of 8th is that "tough" units aren't tough enough to be considered tough most of the time (volume of big guns renders Marines not really much tougher than Guardsmen, for instance), so toughness comes out of model count more often than not. And even when you find a "tough" unit that's actually cost-effective for how tough it is it's still important to have cheap units that can occupy space and dictate terms of engagement for your big things.

So, for instance, Guard pack big guns and fancy tanks, but they still need a lot of infantry to keep the enemy from getting powerful short-ranged guns in their face, or locking them in melee and keeping them from shooting.

An Eldar Wraith army is probably the list most independent of the chaff I've seen; T6 minimum on non-character models renders a huge amount of anti-infantry firepower irrelevant, Wave Serpents get you where you need to be at great speed while still laying down respectable chaff-clearing out of shuriken cannons, and the Hemlocks can pick out and destroy most single-model threats quite easily.

Tyranids ("Nidzilla" is a popular nickname for monster-heavy lists) seem to do well with a big-model army as well, though most lists I've seen still have fifty or sixty Gaunts left around to control space.

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Also, Eldar. Alaitoc Rangers are 12 ppm, and in cover has a 3+ save and -2 to hit. And Waveserpents are ridiculously durable. But on balance Guardsmen are probably still more durable.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/30 17:31:54


 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




My local meta isn't super competitive but from the replies so far it looks like in 8th durability may well be through numbers as nothing can really be able to generally ignore small arms fire anymore.
   
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Locked in the Tower of Amareo





Durability isn't about t and save but cheap wounds. Ig infantry is one of the most durable armies period. Marines meanwhile are opposite of durable army

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Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.
   
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Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


Yep, they seem to have really messed something up balance wise in that regard, definitely got some issues with overcosting elite units. It's also worth mentioning admech actually can be fairly durable right now, with the right configurations.

Running both DG and admech, I can say that the two armies are fairly close in durability. The infantry durability is offset by how few you have on the board in the plague marines' case, or the fact they just aren't that tough in the poxwalkers' case. Graia, Lucius, and Stygies rangers all cost a mere point more per model, but can have a 4+ (3+ with cover) save, and the benefit of their dogma, vs just the 5+ DR. They do have some tough terminators and the plagueburst crawler, but dragoons and onagers match up fairly well, particularly given how much healing your army has access to.

If you want tougher than admech are currently, go either chaos demons or IG. I don't think anything else is better than them by a notable margin, and even IG have lost ground in this area, particularly when you factor in the more generally powerful dogmas vs regimental tactics.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/30 18:58:26


 
   
Made in nl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


That is not alway true either. Kroot, Poxwalkers, Hormagaunts and Boyz are all light infantry without being very durable. It is the combination of a wound for only 4 points with a decent 5+ save that makes Guardsmen so durable. In 7th edition it was pretty rare that the the 5+ save did anything at all. Now it has a major impact.
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




pismakron wrote:
Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


That is not alway true either. Kroot, Poxwalkers, Hormagaunts and Boyz are all light infantry without being very durable. It is the combination of a wound for only 4 points with a decent 5+ save that makes Guardsmen so durable. In 7th edition it was pretty rare that the the 5+ save did anything at all. Now it has a major impact.


Ah so guardsmen have lucked out on the sweet spot of having a good enough save on a cheep enough body to get at least a 6+ against most massed firepower they are likely to face.
   
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New Bedford, MA USA

pismakron wrote:
The most durable option by far is Astra Militarum infantry. Guardsmen are anything but squishy. Guard tanks are also pretty good, but in small numbers they tend to suffer. Most TAC lists should be able to kill or cripple a Letter Man Russ per turn. Regards


Guardsman are squishy. T3 5+ die pretty quick.

People just tend to focus their fire on the Tanks.

   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





pismakron wrote:
Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


That is not alway true either. Kroot, Poxwalkers, Hormagaunts and Boyz are all light infantry without being very durable. It is the combination of a wound for only 4 points with a decent 5+ save that makes Guardsmen so durable. In 7th edition it was pretty rare that the the 5+ save did anything at all. Now it has a major impact.


wouldn't chaos cultists be similer in that regard?
   
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Necrons?

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Said no Necron 8th edition player ever.

When they had FNP saves in 7th sure. Now you just focus fire on the squad and wipe them out before they ever make a roll to resurrect. Also, they neutered Scarab Farms, so it's more of a fun thing than anything you can actually count on.

   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Volkmair wrote:
pismakron wrote:
Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


That is not alway true either. Kroot, Poxwalkers, Hormagaunts and Boyz are all light infantry without being very durable. It is the combination of a wound for only 4 points with a decent 5+ save that makes Guardsmen so durable. In 7th edition it was pretty rare that the the 5+ save did anything at all. Now it has a major impact.


Ah so guardsmen have lucked out on the sweet spot of having a good enough save on a cheep enough body to get at least a 6+ against most massed firepower they are likely to face.


There are many factors that come together in this. In 7th edition Guardsman were 5 ppm and they would get no save against bolters, heavy bolters, pulse rifles etc. That's why people paid 2 points per model to carapace armor.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 adamsouza wrote:
pismakron wrote:
The most durable option by far is Astra Militarum infantry. Guardsmen are anything but squishy. Guard tanks are also pretty good, but in small numbers they tend to suffer. Most TAC lists should be able to kill or cripple a Letter Man Russ per turn. Regards


Guardsman are squishy. T3 5+ die pretty quick.

People just tend to focus their fire on the Tanks.


They are extremely durable, because they have so many wounds for the same amount of points. It is easier to kill 120 points of marines than to kill 120 points of Guardsmen, no matter what weapon you use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrianDavion wrote:
pismakron wrote:
Volkmair wrote:
Suppose its a quirk of 8th edition that swarms of dorks are the durable armies rather than small elite forces with high toughness and good saves.


That is not alway true either. Kroot, Poxwalkers, Hormagaunts and Boyz are all light infantry without being very durable. It is the combination of a wound for only 4 points with a decent 5+ save that makes Guardsmen so durable. In 7th edition it was pretty rare that the the 5+ save did anything at all. Now it has a major impact.


wouldn't chaos cultists be similer in that regard?


Kind of. Cultists only has a 6+ save but Iron Warriors can get huge blobs of fearless Cultists, and I think Abaddon can pull off the same trick. But I am not sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


Necron infantry is too expensive to be durable. Necron warriors would be durable at 9 ppm. Scarabs are nice though.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2017/12/30 21:45:34


 
   
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Fresh-Faced New User




If its as much about how many models you can get for your points for your opponent to have to get rid of as how hard it is to get rid of those models, if they keep on tweaking the points values which units are in the optimum position may well shift about. With how generally lethal things are now I suppose the issue is anything that can generate enough shots to chew through hordes is also going to be able to take chunks out of tough elite units through sheer volume of dice so currently having the firepower to handle hordes an be an issue.
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut




Volkmair wrote:
If its as much about how many models you can get for your points for your opponent to have to get rid of as how hard it is to get rid of those models, if they keep on tweaking the points values which units are in the optimum position may well shift about. With how generally lethal things are now I suppose the issue is anything that can generate enough shots to chew through hordes is also going to be able to take chunks out of tough elite units through sheer volume of dice so currently having the firepower to handle hordes an be an issue.


Yes, it is all about the points, and if they tweak the points, then they also tweak durability. Right now a Guardsman is 4 points and a Tactical Space Marine is 13 points. That makes Guardsmen more durable than Tacticals, even when standing against bolter and lasgun fire . If Guardsman were 5 points and Tacticals 11, then small arms would kill Guardsmen more effectively than they would kill Tacticals.

Killing a T4 model with a 3+ save is harder than killing a T3 model with a 5+ save. But it is not 3 times harder. And there are 3.3 times as many Guardsman as there are Space Marines for the same amount of points.

And I suspect that all this will be adjusted in future balance updates. Intercessors are already down to 18 points per model, so they are starting to become usable.
   
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Guardsmen are around 20% more durable than marines. Of course, there are another factors that lowers guardsman's durability somewhat. Morale and cover. Marines don't have morale issues, so they forget to count ld into the equasion. That's why the outcry is so loud. In pracrice, marines are indeed tougher than ig a bit. 2+ save in cover and a smaller footprint are also a big deal.
However, guardsmen are around 1-1.5 pts underpriced when you also factor in orders, doctrines and their general role that they perform outstandingly good.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/12/31 00:02:37


 
   
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Volkmair wrote:
With my Adeptus Mechanicus almost complete I'm looking at a durable alternative force for as cool as they are, tough the majority of Adeptus Mechanicus units are not. The current options I'm looking at are:

Astra Militarum
Pros
Tough tanks
Can ally with Adeptus Mechanicus
Cons
Outside of tanks same squishy infantry as Adeptus Mechanicus



If you're willing to go mechanized, 8th Ed APCs are so much more durable. +you get to have highly mobile forces running around the board. Doesn't completely solve the squishy infantry problem, but it is an option.
   
Made in ca
Commander of the Mysterious 2nd Legion





 koooaei wrote:
Guardsmen are around 20% more durable than marines. Of course, there are another factors that lowers guardsman's durability somewhat. Morale and cover. Marines don't have morale issues, so they forget to count ld into the equasion. That's why the outcry is so loud. In pracrice, marines are indeed tougher than ig a bit. 2+ save in cover and a smaller footprint are also a big deal.
However, guardsmen are around 1-1.5 pts underpriced when you also factor in orders, doctrines and their general role that they perform outstandingly good.


it helps that their doctrines are plain BETTER then chapter tactics too. IMHO rather then doctrines each regiment type should have had it's own unique order list

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 adamsouza wrote:
pismakron wrote:
The most durable option by far is Astra Militarum infantry. Guardsmen are anything but squishy. Guard tanks are also pretty good, but in small numbers they tend to suffer. Most TAC lists should be able to kill or cripple a Letter Man Russ per turn. Regards


Guardsman are squishy. T3 5+ die pretty quick.

People just tend to focus their fire on the Tanks.


Any gun you fire at guardsmen kill more points in marines.

You fell to newbie trap of assuming t and save is measure of durability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 koooaei wrote:
Guardsmen are around 20% more durable than marines. Of course, there are another factors that lowers guardsman's durability somewhat. Morale and cover. Marines don't have morale issues, so they forget to count ld into the equasion. That's why the outcry is so loud. In pracrice, marines are indeed tougher than ig a bit. 2+ save in cover and a smaller footprint are also a big deal.
However, guardsmen are around 1-1.5 pts underpriced when you also factor in orders, doctrines and their general role that they perform outstandingly good.


Not that guard in practise has morale issue. By the time it starts to worry squad is more often than not dead already! If there still was blop sure but now individual guardsmen are so squishy morale is no issue.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/31 08:33:08


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut






With so mutch multi wounds weap easily avalibe in the codex armies and at worst everything hits and wounds on a 6, there is no sutch thing as durable armies in the old way.
3 wound "elite" models gets cut down just as easily and fast as an IG standard troop does, and anything that could have durability gets primaried on turn 1 by anything that can shoot as weapon arcs was removed.

The amount of actual models on the table is durability in 8th and nothing can surpass IG in that matter as the more models, the longer time your enemy has to spend killing them.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/31 09:39:47


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Longtime Dakkanaut




tneva82 wrote:

Not that guard in practise has morale issue. By the time it starts to worry squad is more often than not dead already! If there still was blop sure but now individual guardsmen are so squishy morale is no issue.


Guardsmen are not heavily affected by morale like, say, Kroot. But morale still matters to Guard infantry. If you kill six Guardsmen, then an unlucky morale check will wipe out the rest of the unit.

As an Ork player I will say this: Nine out of ten players focus down our infantry units to wipe them out completely before moving on to the next blob, and this is simply the wrong approach. If opponents would instead whittle boy blobs down evenly, then morale losses WILL accumulate and the unit size bonuses will be eliminated.

I think it is simply bad 7th edition habits, because the Nob is not the potent force in 8th as he was in last edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 FrozenDwarf wrote:
With so mutch multi wounds weap easily avalibe in the codex armies and at worst everything hits and wounds on a 6, there is no sutch thing as durable armies in the old way.
3 wound "elite" models gets cut down just as easily and fast as an IG standard troop does, and anything that could have durability gets primaried on turn 1 by anything that can shoot as weapon arcs was removed.

The amount of actual models on the table is durability in 8th and nothing can surpass IG in that matter as the more models, the longer time your enemy has to spend killing them.


I don't think that is entirely true, though. If it was, then we would not have had stormraven spam or Magnus + Changeling + Weaver of Fates builds. Nowadays in the tourney meta, I think we see a lot Alaitoc fliers. Because -2 to hit in the shooting phase is difficult to dealt with for a lot of armies.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/12/31 10:38:24


 
   
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Longtime Dakkanaut






Stormraven spam desipte the fact it was massivly broken was prolly the first real example of an actual working elite army in 8th, and that is sad as it prooves that only double digit wound models has the durability to stay for 2-3 turns.

But the thing is, games are not all about 1850-2000p. they are played at 500p-1250p range too.

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 adamsouza wrote:




Said no Necron 8th edition player ever.

When they had FNP saves in 7th sure. Now you just focus fire on the squad and wipe them out before they ever make a roll to resurrect. Also, they neutered Scarab Farms, so it's more of a fun thing than anything you can actually count on.


Are they that bad in 8th? I don't play them myself.

I just remember the utter gakstorm which came with the Decurion being introduced.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/12/31 12:14:16


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I'd take an Imperium army. Then the new army will have a keyword in common with AdMech.
AdMech lacks tanks (besides of walkers). A decent choice will be AM these days. Their tanks are very shooty and can complement your AdMech list very well.

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From the replies so far it looks like as 8th edition stands the durable faction isn't so much of a thing and what could be classed as the durable armies could be only a points change away from loosing that. Which is sad times for the image of units like Terminators wading through a hail of fire.
   
 
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