Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I disagree. Point for point ends up being far more relevant in most situations.

There's no reason to compare like to like. We can agree to disagree on that.

I've already described how marines can never actually get a local advantage on IG.

Point for point is only relevant for situations where neither side is using tactics. The whole point of a wargame is that it's not a computer simulation - you can't just load up the lists, feed them into a computer that lines them up across the table from each other, does some die-roll adjudication, and prints out the results. 2000 points of marines fits in a different space than 2000 points of Guard, and should, in theory and with proper terrain, be able to cut off portions of the Imperial Guard army from participating in the fight, making it difficult for the IG to bring their firepower to bear meaningfully.

I will concede that in certain army builds that include indirect fire (which is probably a lot of competitive builds), this is much harder to do (damn near impossible in the case of indirect fire exclusively). But those army builds have weaknesses to other builds in competitive settings if they bring more than 2 or 3 artillery pieces, and only 2 or 3 pieces is tolerable. So the meta rolls on.

Most competitive guard builds (or imperium builds) have 9+ mortars, and then many have 3-4 artillery tanks on top of that. So they are pretty common but not unbeatable by any stretch they just make the idea of forcing 1-1 confrontation impossible. The answer to them oddly enough is -1 to hit armies, that can hit their lines quickly. I personally don’t like ignores LOS shooting because it has very limited counter play and no real trade off for its benefit.

Generally in the case of Imperial Guard the trade-off is supposed to be reduced durability, but apparently they're so good at hiding that there is nowhere on the board where anyone can get a shot at one. Mortars are a problem.... kinda. It takes an average of just over 3 entire mortars to kill a single Tactical Marine, so... one heavy weapon squad per tactical marine isn't that OP.

EDIT:
Martel, the way I typically beat my opponent's guard artillery gunline is fast-moving units like Sororitas Dominion-squad Immolators, or superheavies that move 10" and shoot without penalty to get the fairly fragile vehicles damaged easily right out of the gate. I've also done it with a split-firing Land Raider Proteus with the Blasphemous Machines stratagem, Prescience, and a nearby Chaos Lord. The Land Raider was warptimed forwards to find a spot with LOS to 3 of the artillery tanks, and then put a single twin lascannon into each - they were either crippled to a 6+ or destroyed outright. My Slaanesh daemons generally have to use shenanigans in the assault phase to avoid being shot altogether, eventually reaching the artillery by plowing through the enemy - on my terms, since I control their fallback options with the placement and piling in of my units (surrounding enemy models, etc), especially leveraging Slaanesh Fiends and then using Zarakynel as a "SHOOT ME" because if the enemy kills the fiends instead, Zarakynel will wholesale wreck their army. I make heavy use of the Slaanesh power that gives you another pile in, fight, and consolidate in my psychic phase, allowing me to compensate for fights that I didn't expect the enemy to live through into my turn, for example.

Like DE boats, IG artillery isn't THAT squishy. They still have 10-11 wounds, and heavy weapons wound them on a 3+, and they have a 3+ base save. Point for point, they are much more durable than any predator build.

If IG artillery took double damage from damage 2+ weapons, then yeah, they'd have a real downside. But they are too cheap for their large number of wounds to have a downside currently.

Martel732 wrote:
Like DE boats, IG artillery isn't THAT squishy. They still have 10-11 wounds, and heavy weapons wound them on a 3+, and they have a 3+ base save. Point for point, they are much more durable than any predator build.

If IG artillery took double damage from damage 2+ weapons, then yeah, they'd have a real downside. But they are too cheap for their large number of wounds to have a downside currently.

T6 is a pretty big downside, in my experience, relative to T7, given the proliferation of winged daemon princes, helldrakes - really anything with fast moving strength 7 weapons.

Averages are just that though, sometimes they kill 4 marines if they roll hot. I will say that I have not lost to guard this edition, but most of the guard players I face are not as good at the game as I am, and I have gone first more often than not. This has been with marines. As I said -1 to hit is huge, as has been abusing characters to touch tanks so they don’t get to shoot. It is why adding custodes or BA characters to guard is better than straight guard. Hard to push into a line if they can beat my face in close combat when I get there. They are not unbeatable by any stretch, I just think as long as LOS ignore shooting exists, the idea of forcing model equivalent fights is something that cannot happen.

No, it really isn't. Just stop. T6 is fine. Actually, T5 is fine, too when you rock a 5++ like raiders. You should be killing melee threats before they get to your artillery. Endless guardsmen tarpit GO!!! T7 is actually one of the most useless T scores in the game. Still vulnerable to T4, weak vs S8, and the stuff seems to pay a lot of points for it.

Breng77 wrote:
Averages are just that though, sometimes they kill 4 marines if they roll hot. I will say that I have not lost to guard this edition, but most of the guard players I face are not as good at the game as I am, and I have gone first more often than not. This has been with marines. As I said -1 to hit is huge, as has been abusing characters to touch tanks so they don’t get to shoot. It is why adding custodes or BA characters to guard is better than straight guard. Hard to push into a line if they can beat my face in close combat when I get there. They are not unbeatable by any stretch, I just think as long as LOS ignore shooting exists, the idea of forcing model equivalent fights is something that cannot happen.

I think it becomes harder, but not impossible. The presence of 3 Basilisks is + or - 300 points to an engagement, for example. Let's just do some quick maffs that are probably too abstract to be meaningful but are useful to illustrate my point:

A marine is roughly 3 times the price of a IG. Extrapolating, we will say IG stuff is 1/3rd the price, and Space Marines take up 1/3rd less space on the table.

This means that if an IG gunline fills its deployment zone, the Space Marine player should be able to bring 2000 points to bear on 666 points and win, assuming that LOS-blocking terrain divides the table into 3 neato little firing lanes - exactly in 3rds. The presence of 3 Basilisks will make it 2000 points to fight ~1000 points, instead, which is still a winnable fight for the Marines, and all the Marines have to do is make sure the basilisks are in the original 666 points they were engaging, and the equation swings decisively into their favor again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
No, it really isn't. Just stop. T6 is fine. Actually, T5 is fine, too when you rock a 5++ like raiders. You should be killing melee threats before they get to your artillery. Endless guardsmen tarpit GO!!! T7 is actually one of the most useless T scores in the game. Still vulnerable to T4, weak vs S8, and the stuff seems to pay a lot of points for it.

Did you read what I wrote about playing my own melee army (Slaanesh daemons) against opponent's artillery gunline, or did you just ignore it?

I think that's basically a fantasy scenario. We can't agree on basal assumptions, so I'm not sure we'll agree on anything else.

Martel732 wrote:
I think that's basically a fantasy scenario. We can't agree on basal assumptions, so I'm not sure we'll agree on anything else.

That's because I try to validate my assumptions with data, and the data isn't backing up your assumptions. My data may be acquired anecdotally, but it's all I've got to go on, and is all that is required to debunk pure speculation with 0 evidence at all.

My games against IG aren't assumptions. It's anecdote vs anecdote.

Thats basically exactly right though, you have to concentrate force (tactics 101), and marines can roll guard. Yes, equal points of marines vs guard standing in the open is no good for marines. But if you can manage to only be fighting half of those points at a time, you're in good shape.

Martel732 wrote:
My games against IG aren't assumptions. It's anecdote vs anecdote.

Then I challenge you to write a battle report next time you play against guard, and PM it it to me. Film it, whatever. I'll do the same when I fight Imperial Guard next, and we can compare notes. That way, we can begin the real process of data collection and analysis, and see whether it is bad tactics that is losing you games, or bad terrain, or if it's really the armies, or if it's something outlandish like cheating...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's because I try to validate my assumptions with data

To be fair - your data is unrealistic.
Tables are not and never will be divided into three firing lanes where an entire 2000pt marine army gets to fight three 600 pt guard armies one after another.

Though it does indirectly raise one problem central to all of this - which is that some of the things that hurt cheap hordes more than elite units were removed. Almost nothing scales up with unit size now that scatter and templates are gone whereas in past editions one big benefit of elites were than you only suffered a couple of hits from a passing template, not a dozen or more.

A.T. wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
That's because I try to validate my assumptions with data

To be fair - your data is unrealistic.
Tables are not and never will be divided into three firing lanes where an entire 2000pt marine army gets to fight three 600 pt guard armies one after another.

Though it does indirectly raise one problem central to all of this - which is that some of the things that hurt cheap hordes more than elite units were removed. Almost nothing scales up with unit size now that scatter and templates are gone whereas in past editions one big benefit of elites were than you only suffered a couple of hits from a passing template, not a dozen or more.

I explicitly mentioned in my post that that setup was a hypothetical example to illustrate my point, not an actual datapoint on which I was basing my conclusions.

So, you haven't actually played any games on this kind of table. And since we just agreed they don't exist, why even mention it at all?

Martel732 wrote:
So, you haven't actually played any games on this kind of table. And since we just agreed they don't exist, why even mention it at all?

Because it is a useful example of what I am talking about without having to physically build a table and take pictures. It's easily visualized and explained in a textual medium, rather than having to videotape said tactics on an actual table where their application takes considerably more energy and thought to both explain and understand.

I am saying "here is an easily-visualized situation in which Marines can get an optimal 1 vs 1 advantage, putting 2000 points against 700. This situation doesn't actually exist, but it is a useful example of what force concentration means. Now that we have had a simplistic example, I will let you clever folks do the extrapolating into a real game. I would note that your opponent will also try to avoid this happening to them, and that's part of why it is a game."

It's a hypothetical example for the purposes of illustration, much like how Shroedinger's Cat is a hypothetical thought-experiment for the purpose of illustrating quantum superposition.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
So, you haven't actually played any games on this kind of table. And since we just agreed they don't exist, why even mention it at all?

Because it is a useful example of what I am talking about without having to physically build a table and take pictures. It's easily visualized and explained in a textual medium, rather than having to videotape said tactics on an actual table where their application takes considerably more energy and thought to both explain and understand.

I am saying "here is an easily-visualized situation in which Marines can get an optimal 1 vs 1 advantage, putting 2000 points against 700. This situation doesn't actually exist, but it is a useful example of what force concentration means. Now that we have had a simplistic example, I will let you clever folks do the extrapolating into a real game. I would note that your opponent will also try to avoid this happening to them, and that's part of why it is a game."

It's a hypothetical example for the purposes of illustration, much like how Shroedinger's Cat is a hypothetical thought-experiment for the purpose of illustrating quantum superposition.

While you have a point until terrain rules make terrain actually matter in this edition, it doesn't work.
Almost nothing blocks LOS in 8th edition, and getting cover is a PITA. I really think a lot of marines issues could be solved with some real terrain rules that stop it feeling like planet bowling ball.

(ITC's no LOS through 1st floor of ruins is a start but woods etc all need the same rules to really allow force concentration to matter)

I play exclusively ITC scenarios for the most part. The 1st floor thing has actually helped the IG more than it has ever helped me. I think more LoS-blocking is better, but it just doesn't matter vs IG.

Also, by this logic, Drukhari are even more super awesome, because they have dudes shooting out of vehicles and they have the speed to bring their entire army to one side of the table. But I don't see them paying for these benefits.

Martel732 wrote:
I play exclusively ITC scenarios for the most part. The 1st floor thing has actually helped the IG more than it has ever helped me. I think more LoS-blocking is better, but it just doesn't matter vs IG.

If they actually took a penalty for non line of sight shooting it might.
I'm starting to get rose tinted glasses for some 7th edition rules hopefully 9th edition will re introduce terrain rules.

They ignored LoS in 7th, too. It just took it all on an artificer biker captain tank IC with FNP rolls. Now that actual marines have to take the damage, it's the same old problems.

Cost effective snipers would actually help against many IG lists I face. But marines don't have those, either.

The force concentration isn't hypothetical. I've done it with Marines a number of times.

I've done it with CWE more, but Marines can definitely make it happen.

It's not as easy as it was last edition, but still possible. The biggest change may have been the upscale to 2k points, while also downscaling points. The boards of modern games makes it to hard to actually use tactics. And that hurts Marines more than Guard.

Yeah, I do it too. An SG bomb with an ancient and a jump libby, for example. That's a lot of points concentrated in one place. But what does that actually get you? I still have to be able to physically get to the things I want to chop.

It really doesn't help Marines that they aren't specialized. Look at Eldar, Fire Dragons are 5ppm but have to take a 17pt melta gun (frankly I don't think it's anywhere near worth 17 points but still).

So forcing a unit to take an expensive gun regardless of it's effectiveness pushed the cost of the model down to an aguable unbalanced cost. But then again the unit costs 120 points for five guys that reroll 1s against their preferred targets. Marines on the other hand to get 2 shots from one squad it costs 101 pts with no special rule. Or you could go the route of getting a squad of sternguard for the same amount of shots for 175.

And this is why I love hellblasters, a specialist unit. But I'm also aware that no body is whining about Fire dragons, I'm not really either but it helps with my question.

What's more important the end cost of the unit or everything costing appropriately?

Ice, I agree with you about the terrain. You really have to work with your opponent to make the terrain work.

Martel, perhaps the ITC rules are the problem, then? My local group almost exclusively plays Chapter Approved Eternal War or Maelstrom missions, so that could explain our different experiences.
EDIT: Also, any response to formulating a battle report next time you play against Imperial Guard? Preferably with pictures?

ITC mission are far more fair than GW stuff. I'm get tabled, not losing on some esoteric meta consideration. IG put more wounds on the table than I could kill even if he didn't fight back. Cheap cost >>>>>>>> anything else atm. They're shooting me hundreds of times in melee range, dozens of which ignore LoS. It truly is simple math.

Martel732 wrote:
ITC mission are far more fair than GW stuff. I'm get tabled, not losing on some esoteric meta consideration. IG put more wounds on the table than I could kill even if he didn't fight back. Cheap cost >>>>>>>> anything else atm. They're shooting me hundreds of times in melee range, dozens of which ignore LoS. It truly is simple math.

I look forwards to our swapping of battle reports then, so we can figure out why the Imperial Guard codex you're playing against so dramatically outperforms the one I am playing against...

...provided you're actually up for it. Your conspicuous and uncharacteristic silence on the matter has me worried.

Fraser - that Fire Dragon unit dies a *lot* faster to small arms. It also It also loses a fusion gun for every death in the squad, whereas the SM Tac squad just loses a chump on the first 3 wounds. It also is substantially worse in CC, although that doesn't matter often.

It should be a tradeoff. Fire Dragons are a little better pointed than Melta Tacs, certainly. But ignoring their downsides won't help balance things.

I think that ablaitive wounds vs fully specialized units should be a tradeoff. Reapers vs Devs come up a lot. Reapers can add half again their firepower for about the same number of points that Devs would spend to more than double their durability. It's general consensus that being able to get half again the firepower is better than being able to double the durability. That can't be a healthy sign for the game.

If it were balanced such that a pair of melta or flamers or PGs were actually a real threat if in position, Tacs would look better and FDs would look worse. Unfortunately, the game moved even further away from that in 8th.

I've dropped out of the current league because special characters were not allowed, even after the FAQ dropped. No special characters just gives vanilla marines and IG extra advantages over BA they didn't need.

Drukhari have straight ran me out of the game for the moment. I don't even know how to begin to fight them. Grotesques alone make me want to quit the game.

Can RG gunlines do work vs IG? Sure, but I'm not dropping 500 bucks on FW dreads to do it. I shouldn't have to go to FW to get a decent dreadnought.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
Fraser - that Fire Dragon unit dies a *lot* faster to small arms. It also It also loses a fusion gun for every death in the squad, whereas the SM Tac squad just loses a chump on the first 3 wounds. It also is substantially worse in CC, although that doesn't matter often.

It should be a tradeoff. Fire Dragons are a little better pointed than Melta Tacs, certainly. But ignoring their downsides won't help balance things.

I think that ablaitive wounds vs fully specialized units should be a tradeoff. Reapers vs Devs come up a lot. Reapers can add half again their firepower for about the same number of points that Devs would spend to more than double their durability. It's general consensus that being able to get half again the firepower is better than being able to double the durability. That can't be a healthy sign for the game.

If it were balanced such that a pair of melta or flamers or PGs were actually a real threat if in position, Tacs would look better and FDs would look worse. Unfortunately, the game moved even further away from that in 8th.

Aspect warriors other than reapers aren't a problem in the meta. Splinter boats ignoring cover rerolling 1s generating extra hits on 6s with two blaster shots, a dark lance, and a disintegrator for less than 200 are. IG lined up hub to hub with 90-140 pt artillery tanks are.

So I guess the "trade battle reports thing and critique" isn't happening then.

A pity, it would've probably proved useful in our reasoned, evidence-based discussion.

It might, just not anytime until I've recovered from burnout and writing my thesis.

@Unit- part of the problem with your mythical scenario is even in that case chances are guard has more drops so will inevitably drop the basilisks in the position where they are not in your 1/3rd. Or out of LOS in that 3rd. But even in the best case that advantage only lasts 1 turn before things move into that area. Beyond that perhaps the move toward progressive objectives is part of the issue, hard to commit to a single 3rd and win unless you table your opponent, otherwise you are not gaining your 2 or 3 to 1 points advantage, as you need your models elsewhere scoring points. In a game where board control is relavant marines cannot (and really should not) compete with guard.