SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

1. Its not replying to everything i post its selectively quoting them and trying to use it as a strawman to discredit the main point of my post.
2. "why would you not take allies" This quote of yours is the underlining issue. There is zero reason to not take allies. There needs to be a drawback to mixing armies or you will never be able to correctly balance the game. The fact that including soup is a "no-brainer" is evidence that it needs to be changed.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

Asmodios wrote:

No, every army has an option but not a clone that can fill in.
If guard had a knight they wouldn't need to soup it in
If guard had jet bike captains they wouldn't need to soup it in
Yes, chess is popular but I assume there is a reason we are all on a WH board discussing WH and not chess. I could buy WH figures and play chess with them.... The fact is that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want the only thing differentiating my IG army from my brothers thousand suns to be the physical models and paint.

 Peregrine wrote:

If those "thematic differences" don't translate into strengths and weaknesses then they are only aesthetic differences. Sure, you can have a given amount of anti-tank firepower represented by single models on 25mm bases or heavy weapon teams on 60mm bases but if both are equally effective then it's no different from painting your Ultramarines yellow and calling them a whole new faction. Having meaningful gameplay differences requires variation, and if you don't want to have one faction be straight better than the other (you don't) then you need to have different strengths and weaknesses. The 25mm heavy weapons have meatshields in the squad and therefore better durability, the 60mm heavy weapons have more point efficiency on offense because they lack meatshields but lose firepower faster if attacked. Etc. Same thing at the faction level. 8th edition's over-homogenization and soup rules have damaged the concept, but each faction does have an identity in terms of strengths and weaknesses:

Space marines have no weaknesses but aren't top-tier at anything either. Their versatile elite infantry will always be better than the opponent's weakest point and able to attack there, but will always be weaker than the opponent's strongest point and vulnerable to attack. But neither of these differences will be by as large a margin as you might find with other comparisons. Winning depends on tactical flexibility and being able to use the same unit in different roles depending on the opponent.

Eldar are the opposite. Their specialists are each top-tier in their specific role, but weak at any other role. They will always have the best option for attacking each point in an opposing army, but if they are out-played and their specialists have to go up against the wrong target they get wiped off the table. Winning depends on superior execution of the Eldar plan, getting the specialists to their correct targets and staying one step ahead of the enemy to keep their massive weak points away from danger.

Imperial Guard are great as a defensive gunline but have poor force projection. A layered defensive force of heavy armor screened by cheap and super-efficient infantry is very hard to break, but their options for pushing up the table and claiming objectives are much more limited and mostly glass cannons that struggle to hold an objective for multiple turns. Winning depends on balancing point allocations between locking down the "home" objectives and contesting the rest of the table, and identifying the correct timing to send the storm troopers/rough riders/etc into battle for their one shot at victory.

Tau have great mid-range mobile shooting but limited long-range firepower and nonexistent melee ability. Anything getting into melee with them wins and their ability to make an IG-style gunline is limited to a handful of railguns, but JSJ and fast tanks let them stay mobile without sacrificing firepower. Winning depends on managing the delicate balance between getting close enough to deliver effective offense and staying away from charges.

Orks are great at overwhelming the enemy in a horde of bodies but helpless at long range. They won't do much in the opening besides move forward, but once they get into combat sheer weight of numbers will beat almost anything. Winning depends on coordinating the attack, making sure that the whole green tide makes its charges simultaneously without getting too many models lost as casualties or stalled outside threat range.

Etc.

See how each army has a plan for winning, but also has a vulnerability that can be attacked? And each of those pairings is meaningfully different from the others? That's how you make interesting faction diversity.

SemperMortis wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:
Being an ork player, I recognize that guard infantry have very similar statistical outcome with some edge cases. Similar defense (44% IG vs 42% Ork chance to be kill against bolters, with orks being better vs 6/7 str and ig better at str 8 and higher), similar ranged output (16.6r% to wound vs t4 for lasguns and shootas, with the shoota having more shots 13"-18", lasgun at 19"-24".

But Orks have +1S and A, native charge reroll, the ability to get more attacks, and one of the best morale boosting rules in the game.

I simply don't believe that's all worth one point.

And the biggest problem with your math? you forgot that you get 3 guardsmen for every 2 orkz.

Basics, 3 guardsmen get 3 shots from 19-24 inches while the Orkz get zero. From 13-18 the Orkz get 4 shots to the guardsmens 3. And from 1-12 the guard get 6 shots to the orkz 4. So in a 24 inch range, orkz do better for 6 inches compared to the guards 18 inches. Ranged wise its heavily in favor of the guard. They also get heavy weapons worth taking and specialist weapons worth taking. Orkz get big shootas and Rokkitz, all of which are useless and over priced. Add to that the fact that the Guard will always have an officer nearby and then you factor in the orders bonus and yeah, shooting goes to Guard. IN CC Orkz are superior, not even going to debate that.

And again, durability wise, it goes to Guard hands down. Yes T4 is better then T3 and that is basically cancelled out by 5+ being better then 6+ but guard have the added bonus of being able to camp in cover and use longer ranged weapons to be useful where as the orkz need to be advancing every turn to get full use out of their CC abilities. So realistically you are seeing Guard with 4+ saves not 5+.

To summarize, Orkz are better overall due to T, S and # of attacks, but since most of their benefits are CC oriented they aren't as powerful as they appear. Guard are significantly better at ranged combat and are better at camping objectives and utilizing that advantage. Overall I think they are 1 point apart, not 2. I would not lower the cost of Ork boyz though because I am sick and tired of cheap boyz hordes, but yeah i could see guard going to 5ppm.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:
Yes, only allies placed, and this is how the tournament scene looks, because why would you not take allies? Of those allied armies, Guard primarys were head and shoulders above the rest. This is what people are trying to change with the nerf. If you are asking for nerfs to allies, I already said I agree with that. The problem is, that nerfs every other IoM the hardest and again leaves Guard by far the strongest solo army, as the primaries, and common sense will prove.

Asmodios wrote:


Also, way to selectively cut out my part of the post where i mentioned knights. You have continued to do this regardless of how many time I mention not just the knights but also the issue being soup in general.

I can't respond to every single statement you made since I went to sleep last night, because it would be a 3 page wall, and mostly of stuff that I have already addressed and that others have addressed after me, such as Knights, who as I said, I also think are too much right now.

This thread is about IG, hence why I'm not letting you play misdirection tactics like this.

1. Its not replying to everything i post its selectively quoting them and trying to use it as a strawman to discredit the main point of my post.
2. "why would you not take allies" This quote of yours is the underlining issue. There is zero reason to not take allies. There needs to be a drawback to mixing armies or you will never be able to correctly balance the game. The fact that including soup is a "no-brainer" is evidence that it needs to be changed.

>complains about selectively quoting
>next line, selectively quotes a fragment of my sentence and inaccurately condenses my entire argument down to that.


The problem isn't just allies, at all. There's problems definitely with Guard as a standalone faction too. If you remove allies from the game, Guardsmen are still stupidly costed infantry an incredibly powerful army. This my argument. Stop trying to rewrite what I'm saying and then throwing out accusations of Strawman fallacies. You're really bad at this.

I've seen well rationalised arguments as to why, or why not, Guardsmen should be 5pts, from people not letting bias cloud their judgement. You are not one of them. Every single post from you (and a couple of select others) screams faction-bias all through it, the transitional logic jumps you leap through don't even make sense half the time, you just repeat it ad nauseam, and then when people get tired of disproving the same point over and over you accuse them of fallacies that I don't think you even understand the definition of, for not responding with a spreadsheet of points that could basically be copy pasted from past responses already disproving what you've said.

Just give it a rest.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

While I agree with your outlook on the game, even in a game with tons of anti-infantry options the problem is that even among other good, similarly costed infantry, Guard stands above the rest. Neophyte Hybrids, 5pts. Hormagants, 5 pts, etc. This would be a much fairer level for Guardsmen too, they are not 4pt infantry in the context of this game.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
A lot of people are for 5pt guardsmen, including guard players. However, as is expected, there are many who think 4pt guard is fine.
Kanluwen should be along shortly to tell you why 5pt guard is bad.

I was in the 5ppm camp until the commissars lost their seriously crazy ld abilities. Nowadays with the amount of anti horde weapons out there 4ppm doesn't seem as ridiculous as it did. Used to be we had the best morale in the game. Nowadays we're actually vulnerable to leadership shock again and more tricks are being used to actually remove or get around the screens guardsmen provide. Captain smash is a great example, guardsmen screens are almost entirely incapable of stopping him.

The big issue is that guardsmen can be allied to half the armies in the game and you'd be stupid not to for the cp they provide. Allies drastically need to be reworked because as it sits you could make guardsmen 6ppm and they would still be abused by soup lists for the regenerating cp and being the cheapest decent troop tax around.

Ironically guardsmen are an issue in almost every list except a pure IG army. Make it where knights, space marines, and other imperium armies can't use us as a crutch/cheaper troop tax and guardsmen would be fine where they are. You don't do that by upping their price, but by reworking how ally detachments work so 3 squads of infantry and a couple officers aren't leading your whole army and providing half it's command points. Locking CP to the detachment or <keyword> that generates it is the only way you're going to end that. If you try to fix it with a points change to guardsmen all you'll do is Nerf IG's most iconic unit and the tournament crowd will just sub in scions, nothing serious will change.

 Drudge Dreadnought wrote:
**skims first 2 pages. No mention of flamers or anti horde**
**ctrlf+f 'flamer' on page 3 and 4. No results**

Guys I hate to just drop in 4 pages into a good old forum argument, but the problem is that guardsmen are a cheap horde infantry unit, and there are currently no hard counters to cheap horde infantry. I see people mentioning that there's no points efficient way to counter them, but there's not enough talk about WHY.

The reason why is that small arms got gutted in 8th by the AP changes. Most small arms (bolters, shuriken weapons, etc) went from ignoring guard armor to not. So cheap small arms are no longer efficient anti horde weapons. And then the blast and template changes made those weapons far weaker vs multi model units too. Flamers could reliably get ~5+ hits on hordes in the past, even if they were spread out (and much more if forced together). Now they get 1d6 and cost a huge amount. Small blasts like frag missiles got usually got 3 or 4 hits, or 6+ on clumped up guys. And both those weapons used to ignore guard armor, and now they do not even ignore ork armor! And FNP is all over the place.

Remember in 5th when a tac squad could have a flamer and missile launcher nearly for free and reliably overkilled guard squads even in cover in a single round?

Morale changes have also destroyed anti horde abilities. It used to be that you could charge guardsmen with tactical marines, kill a couple, and then finish them with a sweeping advance. Now that is gone. And the new moral system isn't an adequate replacement.

I'm not saying guardsmen should stay 4 points. I'm saying that guardsmen themselves aren't the issue. We need anti-horde to get fixed, which means a fix to small arms for certain armies, and a fix to blasts and templates for everyone. Get us back to having hard counters to hordes, and then we'll see where guard need to be priced at.

PiñaColada wrote:

Yeah, all flamers should really be "roll 2d6 and pick the highest" for amount of hits and they should ignore cover. A space marine successfully hitting 1 out of the 40 cultists 5 meters in front of him is just sad.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Assuming the best case for the guard (on objective, in cover, everyone's in range and LoS), then yes they have an advantage. Key words there is "best case". With all that, at 12 inch the 30 imperial guards unleash fire down range at the advancing orks, killing 8 boyz! None flee with morale because, realisticly, there's another mob nearby for Mob Rule. the 12 boyz shoot back for 3 dead guardsmen, they charge and cut down 8. Guardsmen only drag down 2 orks, and min 5 flee from combat. And this is with IG advantage, compare 30 choppa boyz vs 45 guard out in the open.

You keep marginalizing melee, but since that's how orks do the most damage it can't be ignored

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

jcd386 wrote:

Unfortunately I think with things like chapter tactics, auras, and strategems, you have to balance things based on the ideal or at least the average combination rather than the individual parts in a vacuum.

What we frequently see in the game is that two units cost about the same but one is much better due to faction synergies, so the inverse wouldn't be much different.

As for the difference between those armies, Ork boys are actually expected to do some heavy lifting in Ork lists, and do real damage if they aren't stopped. Guardsmen are more about just existing, taking up space, and being annoying while the real damage dealers like tanks and artillery (or allies) continue to function. Guardsmen are chaff. If you could you would ignore them and kill something else, but they force you to focus on them by their positioning. You want to kill Ork boys because they are actually scary. Reducing the number of boys reduces the meaningful damage output of the enemy list. Killing guardsmen typically doesn't to the same extent. This makes the guardsmen more valuable IMO.

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

 vipoid wrote:
Serious question - are any armies winning tournaments with hordes of IG infantry?

And by 'hordes' I mean actual massed infantry, not 'just enough Infantry Squads to make up a minimum Battalion'.

My point is, I don't think the price of IG infantry is the issue. The issues are:
1) Soup has basically no cost. There's no meaningful benefit to using a pure army, nor any downside to mixing factions. Hence, you get to cover downsides basically for free.
2) CPs are universal. If you have a few IG detachments generating a ton of CPs, then those CPs should be limited to those IG detachments. As it stands, you can use a relatively small number of guardsmen (in terms of points) to generate a huge amount of CPs for the rest of your army.

If you're desperate to fix actual units (rather than the godawful ally rules), then perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the units in these soup lists that are doing the actual damage?

Karol wrote:

Dandelion wrote:

jcd386 wrote:

Comparing orks and guardsmen is pointless because there serve very different purposes in their sperate factions.

But do they really? What is the purpose of Guardsmen? And what is the purpose of Boyz?
- Hold objectives?
- Clear out enemy infantry?
- Bog down vehicles?
- Screen your own vehicles?
Both are equally durable to each other, and shoota boyz even have similar shot output to guardsmen.

It's perfectly possible for two units to be exactly the same, but one is better because of the faction it's in, and need to cost more.

Respectfully disagree. Units should cost exactly what they are worth before outside buffs are considered because buffs are generally inconsistent. And buffs usually require outside investment to function, so charge the player there.

But static point costs aren't a very good representative power of a unit. one unit of ten reapers is not the same in power as 3xten sized units of reapers. IMO GW should just make premade armies and balance them against each other. Otherwise you get stuff like razorbacks going up in points, because they are too good for normal marines with all the re-rolls, only the GK players did not have access to those re-rolls.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

No. That’s poor design that leads to homogenized factions that may as well just be different “skins” of each other.

Assymetrical games charge you extra for being able to do something outside your focus. Magic for example DOES have things like green direct damage spells, red card draw, blue fat creatures etc. They typically suffer higher than normal cost or other significant downsides that would make them very bad cards in the color(s) they are emulating, but the ability to cover a weakness without crossing colors is what you’re paying extra (or getting less) for.

 vipoid wrote:
Serious question - are any armies winning tournaments with hordes of IG infantry?

And by 'hordes' I mean actual massed infantry, not 'just enough Infantry Squads to make up a minimum Battalion'.

My point is, I don't think the price of IG infantry is the issue. The issues are:
1) Soup has basically no cost. There's no meaningful benefit to using a pure army, nor any downside to mixing factions. Hence, you get to cover downsides basically for free.
2) CPs are universal. If you have a few IG detachments generating a ton of CPs, then those CPs should be limited to those IG detachments. As it stands, you can use a relatively small number of guardsmen (in terms of points) to generate a huge amount of CPs for the rest of your army.

If you're desperate to fix actual units (rather than the godawful ally rules), then perhaps it would make more sense to focus on the units in these soup lists that are doing the actual damage?