March FAQ - Upcoming Guard Nerf

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**Slayer-Fan123**

Peregrine wrote:
kastelen wrote:
In my opinion, soup is fine since it can fix holes that certain armies have like daemons needing good shooting and custodes needing guardsmen or skitarii blobs to protect them.

But you shouldn't be able to fix those holes, that's the whole point. Armies are supposed to have strengths and weaknesses, not great units for every role. A melee army like demons should not have good shooting units to negate its weakness in ranged combat. A super-elite army like custodes should not have horde meatshield blobs to negate its weakness in numbers. You've just highlighted exactly why soup needs to die and why the game needs to go back to single-faction lists.

Nobody is saying that the Skullcannon should be OP to make up for not having any shooting units overall, but it shouldn't be a BAD choice at least in terms of artillery available. Just make it comparable to other artillery and not make more shooting units.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Alright slayer fan, nice missing the point there.

I didn't miss the point. Insectum keeps saying "hurrdurr they're not the same unit so you can't compare" when they're the same exact role so you CAN compare. It's seriously not a hard concept to grasp if he'd put a modicum of effort into using his head.

**Leo_the_Rat**

@Boomwolf - If I ran the zoo (GW) I would automatically include the appropriate marked daemons in each specialty CSM codex. So you would have Tzeetch(sp) daemons in the T-Son codex and Nurgle daemons would infest the Death Guard Codex.

I threw out that number as a basic benchmark. I didn't mean it as a hard and fast game design rule. My idea is that if you have a codex then you should be a stand alone force for gaming (not fluff) purposes. To me matched play should be made with competitive events in mind. Open play and Narrative play are separate animals.

**bananathug**

Colonel Cross wrote:
I thought it was easy to understand. This is a hobby. With adults playing with toy soldiers and people on here are having aneurysms over it. It just sickens me. It's depressing.

All of this discussion and speculation and math is just wasted breathe because everyone here has put more thought into these changes than GW, I'd wager. I just don't understand why people get so worked up over it knowing that GW doesn't really have a system for balancing the game. Honestly, I read these threads because I always half expect some genius programmer type to have developed a program to balance points, abilities, weapons, stats, etc and offer the results as a sort of beta for people here to try out. I recall one argument proposed before about changing points across the board. I think they wanted to double everything so there was better granularity. I'd support the hell out of that.

I'm not saying I don't want a balanced game. That's obviously what everyone wants.

I completely agree with this post. Sorry I misjudged your disdain of comp warhammer discussions as a "my way is better" instead of "GW doesn't care as much about balance as you folks and although this marathon of a thread is entertaining you realize that GW isn't reading this like "those are some great ideas, we should think about implementing them.""

I try not to get too discouraged that a bunch of randos on the interwebs seem to take this product more seriously than GW (hell the ITC does more to balance/unbalance 40k than GW) and honestly I just really like to argue. I feel that adversarial discourse often teases out the facts better than most other forms of analysis, now the conclusions/assumptions based on those facts are to be taken with a grain of salt but I think it really helps to get to what the actual issue is (after some time).

Sorry again about the salt thrown your way.

**Martel732**

The real solution is for guardsmen to not be objectively superior to all other imperial troop choices.

**Spoletta**

Soup is not a problem, but a welcome feature.

Fix those few models that are creating a problem, don't mess with core rules.

Also, on the artillery discussion, i don't want to say that artilleries are fine, but if the discussion goes like this:

>> Arty is OP because it is put out of LOS

<< You can only put one or 2 out of LOS!

>> In ITC many elements block LOS

This means that we players are creating the problem with house rules and then asking GW to fix the point costs so that they are in line with our house rules instead of with the game standard rules.

With standard rules putting something out of LOS is really hard, so if the problem with Astra Militarum is the abundance of LOS ignoring stuff, it means that we have only to blame ourselves for making manticores and basiliks much better than GW ever intended.

**Martel732**

How many posters on here talk about using huge amounts of terrain to balance the game?

**Porphyrius**

It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

**Martel732**

It would fix it immediately.

**LunarSol**

Blackie wrote:

I understand that and I may agree, but the problem is that many imperium factions shouldn't even exist, I mean they should be part of a bigger codex. Custodes don't have cheap troops? Of course, they shouldn't be an independent army made only of custodes, imagine if flash gitz, nobz and meganobz become an independent army, they'll lack too many things to be even remotely viable. That's the problem with those elites armies that shouldn't be real armies but just elites of other armies. Of course if you have only 8-10 units/characters to chose from, that faction would never be viable without some allies.

I think custodes, GK, SoB, inquisition and Ad mech should merge into a single codex. Banning soups is IMHO necessary but only if each faction has a decent amount of options available. That big imperium faction plus AM, generic SM, BA, DA and SW. 5 independent codexes that don't need to pick up units from other books.

Harlequins and Gen Cult are hard to play without allies, and in fact they should be part of the drukhari and the tyranids codexes, simple.

Chaos and daemons should also be two independent factions, but I'd accept Death Guard and T.Sons with their own codex if GW continues to release some new stuff.

I'd accept mixing different chapters or marks that belong to the same codex with some penalties.

This is more or less exactly what they've done with detachments though. While I'm 100% with you on what a Codex "should" be; the reality is its not what they are. I was super behind the Indexes because they were pretty close to what I think Codexes should be. Your argument basically comes down to the idea that the current detachment options should be defined within a codex, which is fine, but isn't really arguing for much of a change. If that was the state of the game I'd agree with the removal of allies, but you can't argue for their removal based around what Codexes should be, but ultimately aren't.

**Dandelion**

I actually like being able to mix n' match armies. It makes it easier to start a new force instead of buying 2000 pts worth of a faction to play it properly. Plus it's really fluffy, the Imperium is a whole faction, while marines and guard are subfactions.

Also, GW is not going to stop soup because mono-factions have been the main reason they have had trouble expanding product lines. Anything not space marines just didn't sell as much due to the number of marine players. Now, GW can market new armies to marine players and get them to mix them in their force. It's really the only way to get redone lines for things like plastic sisters because it ensures better sales.

Martel732 wrote:
How many posters on here talk about using huge amounts of terrain to balance the game?

City Fight all day everyday!

**CREEEEEEEEED**

vipoid wrote:
CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
But by the same token you could house rule to have one battalion off by heart.

I genuinely have no clue what "have one battalion off by heart" is supposed to mean.

Neither do I, but that's autocorrect for you.

**fe40k**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If I sound grumpy on the subject by the way, it's because ever since I started in 5th edition it's been "well, you've just got a bad Codex this edition, play [Space Wolves/Grey Knights/Khorne/Blood Angels] instead and wait for the next edition, when you'll get a better book!". Here we are four editions later, my army is still a contender for "worst Space Marine Chapter" rules-wise and I'm being told to "just ally in Imperial Guard!" as though that were some sort of panacea.

If it's discouraging to go up against Imperial soup as, say, Dark Eldar, try going up against it as someone who has almost exactly the same units except yours are worse across the board. That's fun.

Welcome to the world of Xenos.

Edit: On the subject of armies having strengths and weaknesses; sure, that sounds nice - but at the end of the day, every army should have multiple viable playstyles. Melee, ranged, vehicle, etc.

**kronk**

How certain are we that guard are getting bumped to 5 ppm, anyway?

**LunarSol**

kronk wrote:
How certain are we that guard are getting bumped to 5 ppm, anyway?

I want them to publish the FAQ with them reduced to 3 ppm with a quick correctly within 24 hours just to taste those glorious 24 hours of panic and rage.

**Kanluwen**

Porphyrius wrote:
It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Not really. It's a penalty that is, again, going to affect Guard disproportionately.

If you do that, I expect a points drop or a BS bump for the things which will be affected since they're balanced/pointed around being BS4+ to start with.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
How many posters on here talk about using huge amounts of terrain to balance the game?

How many people on here act as though having a few bastions or city ruins is "huge amounts of terrain"?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

kronk wrote:
How certain are we that guard are getting bumped to 5 ppm, anyway?

It's still speculative at this point, but given that they were stupid enough to nerf Commissars and leave the nerf despite them knowing they were bumping Conscripts to 4ppm while only giving Guilliman a relatively minor points bump...it's entirely within the realm of belief.

**AlmightyWalrus**

fe40k wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If I sound grumpy on the subject by the way, it's because ever since I started in 5th edition it's been "well, you've just got a bad Codex this edition, play [Space Wolves/Grey Knights/Khorne/Blood Angels] instead and wait for the next edition, when you'll get a better book!". Here we are four editions later, my army is still a contender for "worst Space Marine Chapter" rules-wise and I'm being told to "just ally in Imperial Guard!" as though that were some sort of panacea.

If it's discouraging to go up against Imperial soup as, say, Dark Eldar, try going up against it as someone who has almost exactly the same units except yours are worse across the board. That's fun.

Welcome to the world of Xenos.

Way to miss the point. The entire idea of my posts has been to point out that this isn't a problem limited to non-Imperial armies. It isn't, and never has been, the "world of Xenos". When Space Wolves and Grey Knights were powerful in 5th edition it didn't somehow magically benefit my Black Templars. The fact that Ultramarine Gladius lists were great in 7th likewise had absolutely no relevance to the viability of Black Templars. The fact that Guilliman and Tigurius supporting Fire Raptors is a decent list now in 8th doesn't change the fact that I can't play that list. Implying that this is somehow more typical of Xenos than of Imperial armies is just perpetuating the problem I pointed out.

Kanluwen wrote:
Porphyrius wrote:
It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Not really. It's a penalty that is, again, going to affect Guard disproportionately.

If you do that, I expect a points drop or a BS bump for the things which will be affected since they're balanced/pointed around being BS4+ to start with.

Dude, the entire point was to nerf them. If a unit is overpowered and you need to nerf them you, by definition, take something away from them to make them less good. The entire point is that it's supposed to get worse.

**Colonel Cross**

Porphyrius wrote:It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Martel732 wrote:It would fix it immediately.

You're right about fixing it immediately. Because there'd be ZERO guard players using any at that point. Then we'd have to deal with people complaining about Leman Russes!

**pismakron**

LunarSol wrote:
kronk wrote:
How certain are we that guard are getting bumped to 5 ppm, anyway?

I want them to publish the FAQ with them reduced to 3 ppm with a quick correctly within 24 hours just to taste those glorious 24 hours of panic and rage.

That would indeed be hilarious. This and a five point drop on Dark Reapers. Witness the rage

**Daedalus81**

Colonel Cross wrote:

You're right about fixing it immediately. Because there'd be ZERO guard players using any at that point. Then we'd have to deal with people complaining about Leman Russes!

Well, they could simply not hide them and target using LOS or target stuff that is in LOS.

**daedalus**

kronk wrote:
How certain are we that guard are getting bumped to 5 ppm, anyway?

Pretty skeptical. Far as I can tell no source for the rumor has been presented still as of yet in spite of repeated requests, and I haven't seen the OP for a while now.

I'm honestly not sure why this thread is still here.

**Bobthehero**

Colonel Cross wrote:
Porphyrius wrote:It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Martel732 wrote:It would fix it immediately.

You're right about fixing it immediately. Because there'd be ZERO guard players using any at that point. Then we'd have to deal with people complaining about Leman Russes!

Yeah, there's already things Guard will hit only a 6+, adding another penalty means that indirect fire might as well not exist, because they'll almost never be able to fire out of LOS, which defeats the purpose of the unit entirely.

**Marmatag**

Only one of two things can possibly happen:

(a) People aren't getting line of sight on your artillery, giving you a colossal advantage.

(b) People are getting line of sight on your artillery, meaning they're shooting at it.

In the event of case (a), artillery clearly needs a nerf because people should have the ability to do some counter play.

In the even of case (b), you would definitely still be able to shoot at things, so a -1 to hit penalty wouldn't have as bad of an effect as you claim.

Which is it?

And if you're firing at stuff with stacked -1 to hit penalties, like a flyer with an additional -1, I have to ask why. Your target priority is very clearly off. And before you say "but what about flyers in an army, with -1 to hit?" I play Tyranids, i have even less of an answer than you do already.

**bananathug**

Yeah, GW screwed the pooch with the army wide -1 to hits (except for SM vehicles because you know those are so powerful...) or the out of los -1 to hit rule would be great.

Without some sort of complicated scout/spotter rules or changing the rules so that multiple negatives to hit do not stack (which I support) I don't think the -1 is viable (as much as I hate out of LOS shooting).

**Daedalus81**

Bobthehero wrote:

Yeah, there's already things Guard will hit only a 6+, adding another penalty means that indirect fire might as well not exist, because they'll almost never be able to fire out of LOS, which defeats the purpose of the unit entirely.

I'm not certain that's a good reason not to do it. As stated previously - shoot things you can see or can see you. Removing your opponents ability to hide with no downside whatsoever is a little ridiculous.

**Bobthehero**

Daedalus81 wrote:
Bobthehero wrote:

Yeah, there's already things Guard will hit only a 6+, adding another penalty means that indirect fire might as well not exist, because they'll almost never be able to fire out of LOS, which defeats the purpose of the unit entirely.

shoot things you can see or can see you.

So might as well remove out of LOS shooting then...

**Martel732**

Bobthehero wrote:
Colonel Cross wrote:
Porphyrius wrote:It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Martel732 wrote:It would fix it immediately.

You're right about fixing it immediately. Because there'd be ZERO guard players using any at that point. Then we'd have to deal with people complaining about Leman Russes!

Yeah, there's already things Guard will hit only a 6+, adding another penalty means that indirect fire might as well not exist, because they'll almost never be able to fire out of LOS, which defeats the purpose of the unit entirely.

Well, they're too effective vs units that don't possess a to-hit penalty.

**Kanluwen**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:
Porphyrius wrote:
It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Not really. It's a penalty that is, again, going to affect Guard disproportionately.

If you do that, I expect a points drop or a BS bump for the things which will be affected since they're balanced/pointed around being BS4+ to start with.

Dude, the entire point was to nerf them. If a unit is overpowered and you need to nerf them you, by definition, take something away from them to make them less good. The entire point is that it's supposed to get worse.

Right, because "nerfing" something is the only solution...we should only nerf things, god forbid we should try to actually balance things!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Bobthehero wrote:
Colonel Cross wrote:
Porphyrius wrote:It doesn't seem at all unreasonable to me that if a unit is targeting an enemy outside of LOS they have a -1 to hit. Wouldn't that solve a lot of problems?

Martel732 wrote:It would fix it immediately.

You're right about fixing it immediately. Because there'd be ZERO guard players using any at that point. Then we'd have to deal with people complaining about Leman Russes!

Yeah, there's already things Guard will hit only a 6+, adding another penalty means that indirect fire might as well not exist, because they'll almost never be able to fire out of LOS, which defeats the purpose of the unit entirely.

Well, they're too effective vs units that don't possess a to-hit penalty.

And they're not exactly shining against anything with a to-hit penalty since they start at 4's to Hit.

**WrentheFaceless**

50/50 is not a penalty its baseline

7th had penalties for indirect fire with full scatter

a -1 to hit for indirect fire is more than fair.

Anyways I don't understand this thread, why would they nerf guard, they're in a good balanced spot right now

If anything, Nerf Eldar

**Colonel Cross**

I'm assuming people who are saying the guard artillery is too good are still scarred from the opening days of 8th where tourny guard armies were plasma Scions, conscripts, and a half dozen Earthshaker platforms?

My basilisk regularly only gets 1 or 2 damage rolls through. 2-6 dmg per turn is too effective? I gotta tell ya, I only take mine if I have 108 points open in my list. I'd rather take my Hellhound! You Nerf that stuff any more and it'll go the way of the Commissar.

**Bobthehero**

WrentheFaceless wrote:
50/50 is not a penalty its baseline

7th had penalties for indirect fire with full scatter

a -1 to hit for indirect fire is more than fair.

7th had no way to stack that full scatter with other penalties.