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Dandelion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
People don't need to bring Chimeras when they can bring Hellhounds. You can't make the case that a unit isn't used, so therefore it is bad, when there is an undercosted unit fulfilling the same general role.

So, Hellhound aside, whats particularly functional about a Chimera at its current pricepoint?

It's rolling in at almost a hundred points to carry a squad that costs almost half as much, while putting out a pathetic amount of firepower, which is not terribly confidence inspirng. A classic ML/HB Chimera at 93pts is killing a whopping 0.55 MEQ's or 1 GEQ on the move. A Rhino, which I also think is slightly overcosted, sporting double stormbolters at 74pts, is killing 0.66 MEQ's a turn (albeit with a bit less range) on the move. That gives us 169pts per wound for the Chimera and 109pts per wound for the Rhino.

The Chimera is objectively overcosted for its role and firepower output, Hellhounds have no bearing on that.

The heavy weapon penalty really hurts guard vehicles. Russes, hellhounds and baneblades ignore it and are unsurprisingly the most popular choices. Well, artillery doesn't need to move so add them as well.
RIP sentinels and chimera. Especially plasma sentinels. Which is a shame since they look pretty cool.

I think GW really missed the mark by not having all <Tank> units ignore the penalty to move with heavy weapons. Negatives to hit are so incredibly punishing for BS4+ guard (they lose 33% of their hits) that it really changes how their weapons work. Space Marines at BS3+ are hurt by this as well, though not quite as much (they lose 25% of their hits).

It's silly that dark eldar vehicles can move and shoot their heavy weapons as well as get all of the bonuses of <fly> while imperium vehicles are generally terrible at everything.

 Vaktathi wrote:

ThePorcupine wrote:
Chimeras are trash. Hydras are trash. Sentinels are beyond trash. Any hellhound variant besides the actual hellhound is trash. Rough riders are trash. Sanctioned psykers are trash. Ratlings are trash. Veterans are trash. Special weapon squads are trash. Company command squads are trash. Commissars are trash. Conscripts are beyond trash. Ogryn (not bullgryn) are trash. Creed is trash. Yarrick is trash. Vendettas are trash.

Basically any guard vehicle that's not a hellhound, a basilisk, or a manticore is pretty bad due to no invuln save.

There's a few gems in the guard codex, but I feel like a mono-guard army can't hold a candle to a lot of other mono armies. That's probably a bit hyperbolic.

But this forum is widely known for its seething hatred of imperial guard. Nothing new there.

I'm not sure there is a wide seething hatred for the Guard on here, largely thats confined to a couple of posters. That said, yeah the interal balance of the Guard book is, as is tradition, awful, and half the army never sees the tabletop.

I really want to use my Chimeras. Unfortunately they've been absolute garbage for literally every single edition of this game except one (5th). 93pts for a typical ML/HB Chimera with a 4+BS is absurd, especially for transporting squads of T3 5+sv dudes who cost half what their ride does. If they were 70pts after kit, great, but at almost a hundred they sit on the shelf.

Most of the armies have half of the units not played, that does not mean guards should not be nerfed. Currently guards are swish army knife and that make them to strong in competative and about local community probably everything is viable there.

Exactly. That would've been the equivalent of saying to not nerf Scatterbikes simply because Banshees were garbage.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Exactly. That would've been the equivalent of saying to not nerf Scatterbikes simply because Banshees were garbage.

You keep going to the well of Scatterbikes, and it's important to note that Scatterbikes weren't making it so that Wraithknights could utilize some ability that cost them a finite resource.

Scatterbikes were just super optimized.

I don't believe I said that problem stuff shouldn't be nerfed, I only agreed with the assesment that the Guard book is filled with it's own fair share of garbage, that the Chimera's issues are it's own and not because it's outshone by other units like the Hellhound, and that the Guard-specific hate isn't a widespread thing on the board.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Exactly. That would've been the equivalent of saying to not nerf Scatterbikes simply because Banshees were garbage.

You keep going to the well of Scatterbikes, and it's important to note that Scatterbikes weren't making it so that Wraithknights could utilize some ability that cost them a finite resource.

Scatterbikes were just super optimized.

Math already proved Infantry are optimized against a range of targets, like Scatrerbikes, and you keep blaming the CP.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Exactly. That would've been the equivalent of saying to not nerf Scatterbikes simply because Banshees were garbage.

You keep going to the well of Scatterbikes, and it's important to note that Scatterbikes weren't making it so that Wraithknights could utilize some ability that cost them a finite resource.

Scatterbikes were just super optimized.

Math already proved Infantry are optimized against a range of targets, like Scatrerbikes, and you keep blaming the CP.

The "math" keeps being done in such ridiculous ways that it would be impossible for it to not prove that.

I'm going to keep blaming CP until we stop seeing Guard taken as part of soup. End. Of. Story. We're not seeing mono-Guard dominating tournaments. We're seeing SOUP, predicated upon using the Guard as batteries, dominating those tournaments.

You're arguing that the two things are the same, while ignoring that there's another factor at play.

Guard aren't a problem and haven't been for about a year. The problem is greedy space marine players who will try to take anything nice the guard finally has and keep it for themselves.

These people got a primarch back and they're still not happy! They get a whole new line of models and do nothing but complain.

Sadly entitled space marine players won't be happy until guard are nerfed back to last edition levels, and they're given free razorbacks again. Its sad to see for narrative reasons, but restricting them to mono-faction lists would remove any temptation to ruin the game for the rest of us.

 Kanluwen wrote:
We're not seeing mono-Guard dominating tournaments.

Which is not super relevant tbh. Tau weren't dominating tourneys either but commanders got very specifically targeted... something to do with them being op, while the other options sucked. Funnily enough, nerfing the problem unit and buffing the weak units (i.e. everything but drones) pushed tau up rather than down...

But let's say Guardsmen go up in price, while certain other options go down. It could theoretically cancel out in mixed/balanced armies while punishing people who only take infantry *cough* soup *cough*. Then people could take their appropriately costed chimeras for a change. Heck, if chimeras dropped 20-30 pts, armored fist squads would even come out cheaper!

Now, I am under no illusion that this will stop CP farms, but from my experience Guardsmen are worth 5 pts relative to most things. Whether it happens before or after soup restrictions is largely irrelevant to me.

The "math" keeps being done in such ridiculous ways that it would be impossible for it to not prove that.

Would you mind providing a scenario that would be acceptable to you?

After playing in a tournament yesterday and facing an endless guard army with Smash Captains I have to agree with some posters that I'd like to see a Guard army stand completely on its own. The current CP regeneration is ridiculous and having them feed a completely different paradigm of a unit(Blood Angel) has converted me to the fact that allies should be removed or at least severely limited.

Also, having a Guard army be on its own might better reveal how good or bad it is. Having another entity attached blurs the army quality and might end up having GW nerf IG just to satisfy soup imbalance, something I worry about with Craftworld and Ynnari/drukhari soup. It would force IG/Craftworld players to rely on allies to keep their army working if their core/pure army is nerfed too hard.

 Eldarsif wrote:
After playing in a tournament yesterday and facing an endless guard army with Smash Captains I have to agree with some posters that I'd like to see a Guard army stand completely on its own. The current CP regeneration is ridiculous and having them feed a completely different paradigm of a unit(Blood Angel) has converted me to the fact that allies should be removed or at least severely limited.

Also, having a Guard army be on its own might better reveal how good or bad it is. Having another entity attached blurs the army quality and might end up having GW nerf IG just to satisfy soup imbalance, something I worry about with Craftworld and Ynnari/drukhari soup. It would force IG/Craftworld players to rely on allies to keep their army working if their core/pure army is nerfed too hard.

BAO - second best mono army placing.

Last 6 months primary Guard lists (more point spent on Guard units than any other detachment) have been dominating competitive scene. This isn't Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery by the way. These are primary Guard armies with allies.

I posted actual stats to back this up a few pages back but because certain people didn't want to hear it, it went completely ignored.

Dandelion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
We're not seeing mono-Guard dominating tournaments.

Which is not super relevant tbh. Tau weren't dominating tourneys either but commanders got very specifically targeted... something to do with them being op, while the other options sucked. Funnily enough, nerfing the problem unit and buffing the weak units (i.e. everything but drones) pushed tau up rather than down...

Commanders were specifically targeted because people were effectively fielding Crisis Teams consisting of Commanders rather than actually fielding Crisis Teams.

It would be like if Marines were fielding 5x Captains instead of Tactical or Intercessor Squads.

But let's say Guardsmen go up in price, while certain other options go down. It could theoretically cancel out in mixed/balanced armies while punishing people who only take infantry *cough* soup *cough*. Then people could take their appropriately costed chimeras for a change. Heck, if chimeras dropped 20-30 pts, armored fist squads would even come out cheaper!

So breaking this nonsense down...
Guardsmen going up in price would just shift what gets used in soup.
People aren't taking Chimeras because of "inappropriate costs", it's because they aren't great and are inappropriately costed.

Now, I am under no illusion that this will stop CP farms, but from my experience Guardsmen are worth 5 pts relative to most things. Whether it happens before or after soup restrictions is largely irrelevant to me.

They're not, but thanks for your delightfully incorrect insight.

The "math" keeps being done in such ridiculous ways that it would be impossible for it to not prove that.

Would you mind providing a scenario that would be acceptable to you?

Take a basic squad of each thing, no buffs, and go from there.

Every instance of "scenario" done for the math inevitably goes into FRFSRF, Cadian doctrines, blah blah blah.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
After playing in a tournament yesterday and facing an endless guard army with Smash Captains I have to agree with some posters that I'd like to see a Guard army stand completely on its own. The current CP regeneration is ridiculous and having them feed a completely different paradigm of a unit(Blood Angel) has converted me to the fact that allies should be removed or at least severely limited.

Also, having a Guard army be on its own might better reveal how good or bad it is. Having another entity attached blurs the army quality and might end up having GW nerf IG just to satisfy soup imbalance, something I worry about with Craftworld and Ynnari/drukhari soup. It would force IG/Craftworld players to rely on allies to keep their army working if their core/pure army is nerfed too hard.

BAO - second best mono army placing.

Last 6 months primary Guard lists (more point spent on Guard units than any other detachment) have been dominating competitive scene. This isn't Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery by the way. These are primary Guard armies with allies.

I posted actual stats to back this up a few pages back but because certain people didn't want to hear it, it went completely ignored.

Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
After playing in a tournament yesterday and facing an endless guard army with Smash Captains I have to agree with some posters that I'd like to see a Guard army stand completely on its own. The current CP regeneration is ridiculous and having them feed a completely different paradigm of a unit(Blood Angel) has converted me to the fact that allies should be removed or at least severely limited.

Also, having a Guard army be on its own might better reveal how good or bad it is. Having another entity attached blurs the army quality and might end up having GW nerf IG just to satisfy soup imbalance, something I worry about with Craftworld and Ynnari/drukhari soup. It would force IG/Craftworld players to rely on allies to keep their army working if their core/pure army is nerfed too hard.

BAO - second best mono army placing.

Last 6 months primary Guard lists (more point spent on Guard units than any other detachment) have been dominating competitive scene. This isn't Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery by the way. These are primary Guard armies with allies.

I posted actual stats to back this up a few pages back but because certain people didn't want to hear it, it went completely ignored.

2nd best BAO army.... so I’m assuming you wanna see Tau nerfed before guard because they were the #1 mono army?

Wow over the last 6 months soup has been dominating? You must have been the first person to noticed this trend. Surely mono IG finishing behind tau once and then being part of soup means we have to nerf IG into the dirt

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

So they were "second best"...but you're still talking about mono armies as though they're not a rarity.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

When your points are spent filling out a Brigade for CPs and the heavy lifting is done by a Knight Castellan and two Slamguinius Captains, the "more points spent" metric means nothing. It's a caveat for you to point at so you can justify your ridiculous stance that Guard are broken and that it's NOT the sharing of Command Points and that it's NOT the ability for a Guard Officer to be chosen as the Warlord over two frigging Marine Captains and a Knight.

But hey, you do you.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

So they were "second best"...but you're still talking about mono armies as though they're not a rarity.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

When your points are spent filling out a Brigade for CPs and the heavy lifting is done by a Knight Castellan and two Slamguinius Captains, the "more points spent" metric means nothing. It's a caveat for you to point at so you can justify your ridiculous stance that Guard are broken and that it's NOT the sharing of Command Points and that it's NOT the ability for a Guard Officer to be chosen as the Warlord over two frigging Marine Captains and a Knight.

But hey, you do you.

He is right on this point. Mono guard is a thing, mono guard with 3 smash captains is on a whole other level of competitiveness.
Saying that primary guard being good means that mono guard is good, is definitely not true.

If we do not have clear results coming from MONO guard lists, then we have nothing, and a single result at BAO counts as nothing.

Not to mention that even if mono guard lists proved to be at the top, nothing says that the problem lies in the guardsmen. Actually i would look first at hellhounds.

That said, i do believe that guardsmen are more a 5 point model than a 4 point model, it's just that it's a really low priority issue. There are at least 10 other changes the game needs before that.

Spoletta wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

So they were "second best"...but you're still talking about mono armies as though they're not a rarity.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

When your points are spent filling out a Brigade for CPs and the heavy lifting is done by a Knight Castellan and two Slamguinius Captains, the "more points spent" metric means nothing. It's a caveat for you to point at so you can justify your ridiculous stance that Guard are broken and that it's NOT the sharing of Command Points and that it's NOT the ability for a Guard Officer to be chosen as the Warlord over two frigging Marine Captains and a Knight.

But hey, you do you.

He is right on this point. Mono guard is a thing, mono guard with 3 smash captains is on a whole other level of competitiveness.
Saying that primary guard being good means that mono guard is good, is definitely not true.

If we do not have clear results coming from MONO guard lists, then we have nothing, and a single result at BAO counts as nothing.

Not to mention that even if mono guard lists proved to be at the top, nothing says that the problem lies in the guardsmen. Actually i would look first at hellhounds.

That said, i do believe that guardsmen are more a 5 point model than a 4 point model, it's just that it's a really low priority issue. There are at least 10 other changes the game needs before that.

The difference is You don't see 3 smash captain marine lists, you don't see A Castellan backed up by another imperial faction.

Guard has been the consistent ingredient in soup from the very start along with being consistently one of the top mono factions, which is kinda rediculous when you consider that soup lists are packing so many advantages.

Simply put bringing 20+CP to any given game is a huge advantage even it it's only being spent on command re-rolls.

But as to that brigade not contributing are you serious, hellhounds, infantry squads and mortar spam as Catachan are doing big work at covering both knights and marines big weakness of not being able to deal with cheap infantry spam.

In addition to the advantage that cheap infantry gives with board control and hence scoring objectives.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Take a basic squad of each thing, no buffs, and go from there.

???
But I did. Multiple times, and they come out ahead in every scenario against other unbuffed infantry. And when I do that people are all like "but you have to consider the faction as a whole" so I do the math again but with buffs affecting both sides, and guard still win handily. And then people go "orders are different from auras so it's not the same" and then just declare all the math unrepresentative. Or even better, that the comparison involves units that don't have the same role and so is wrong.

And it really baffles me when people downplay the effects of FRFSRF, saying it doesn't do much because it's S3. I mean, 3 guard infantry squads can use FRFSRF to keep up with a double tapping Russ Punisher's firepower, and that's at long range. At half range, the punisher is completely outdone. And most Guard players seem to think that the punisher needs a point increase, so...

Ice_can wrote:

The difference is You don't see 3 smash captain marine lists, you don't see A Castellan backed up by another imperial faction.

Ice_can wrote:
Guard has been the consistent ingredient in soup from the very start along with being consistently one of the top mono factions, which is kinda rediculous when you consider that soup lists are packing so many advantages.

Guard has a number of advantages that makes them appealing for soup, cheap if occasionally less effective units (which lets you get the same number of units for less points), an unmatched ability to generate and recycle CP (which is where the root of the issue is) and a fairly flexible roster with good answer's to most problems that can be thrown at you. They make a solid foundation to pull in units from other codex's to do more specilised work while letting guard take care of the basics, in short Guard's purpose in soup is to be an enabler, they allow the more elite units from other codex's to go do what they're good at and buffs them as well by supplying a gak load of CP.

Ice_can wrote:
Simply put bringing 20+CP to any given game is a huge advantage even it it's only being spent on command re-rolls.

Agreed and it should be the first thing to be nerfed. Cut down the recyling that's possible in soup and lets see how things stand, will guards presence in soup drop down and be replaced by other factions? will monoguard stay steady or drop a bit? Either way, nerf the CP aspect of the problem then go in for point adjustments afterwards if there are still blatant issues.

Ice_can wrote:
But as to that brigade not contributing are you serious, hellhounds, infantry squads and mortar spam as Catachan are doing big work at covering both knights and marines big weakness of not being able to deal with cheap infantry spam.

That's the whole point of soup, to cover different armies weaknesses. The real problem in those lists isn't the guard units (or monoguard would be placing better) it's the CP generation they bring to to the table that then gets spent on the soup elements.

Ice_can wrote:
In addition to the advantage that cheap infantry gives with board control and hence scoring objectives.

That's true of every cheap troop unit though, it's the whole reason you bring cheap troops in any army, for board control and objectives.

Bringing 20 cp to the fight is an enormous advantage, no questioning that, and that is exactly the reason why they are the preferred faction when it comes to souping in CP intensive stuff.

Do we really have reasons to say that mono guard is a top faction though? Without souping, would it be competitive?

It has many many weaknesses after all. Folds to hit penalties, folds to flying assaults, has no invul saves, limited melee options, bad transports...

Seriously, they are not this invincible faction they are being made out of. What they have is the fact that the basic combination of screens and firepower is effective, and they are the best at it. Plus they have some really good super heavies.

They have a lot of bad matchups though:

1) CWE (hit penalties and shining spears)
2) Drukhari (everything)
3) Kinghts (17 Catachan basilisks required to down a single 4++ knight, good luck)
4) Tau (we shoot better than you and don't care about your screens)


Guards are good at ONE thing and that's it.

I could be wrong, but until i see actual results i'm gonna stand by my analysis.

That said, please GW nerf Artemis Hellhound, that thing is broken.

Dandelion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Take a basic squad of each thing, no buffs, and go from there.

???
But I did. Multiple times, and they come out ahead in every scenario against other unbuffed infantry. And when I do that people are all like "but you have to consider the faction as a whole" so I do the math again but with buffs affecting both sides, and guard still win handily. And then people go "orders are different from auras so it's not the same" and then just declare all the math unrepresentative. Or even better, that the comparison involves units that don't have the same role and so is wrong.

And it really baffles me when people downplay the effects of FRFSRF, saying it doesn't do much because it's S3. I mean, 3 guard infantry squads can use FRFSRF to keep up with a double tapping Russ Punisher's firepower, and that's at long range. At half range, the punisher is completely outdone. And most Guard players seem to think that the punisher needs a point increase, so...

I've seen plenty of mathhammer of firewarrior's vs guardsmen but I don't think I've ever seen one run with the range starting at 30" or higher, it's always starting at 24" negating the range advantage pulse rifles get over lasguns, on the same vein if you take buffs into account you could also run the numbers on firewarriors with 42" pulse rifles from the bor'khan trait and a pulse accelerator drone.

Dandelion wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Take a basic squad of each thing, no buffs, and go from there.

???
But I did. Multiple times, and they come out ahead in every scenario against other unbuffed infantry. And when I do that people are all like "but you have to consider the faction as a whole" so I do the math again but with buffs affecting both sides, and guard still win handily. And then people go "orders are different from auras so it's not the same" and then just declare all the math unrepresentative. Or even better, that the comparison involves units that don't have the same role and so is wrong.

And it really baffles me when people downplay the effects of FRFSRF, saying it doesn't do much because it's S3. I mean, 3 guard infantry squads can use FRFSRF to keep up with a double tapping Russ Punisher's firepower, and that's at long range. At half range, the punisher is completely outdone. And most Guard players seem to think that the punisher needs a point increase, so...

My simple math says that a firewarrior shoot better than a guardsmen at T4,6,7 and 8 targets (slightly more wounds and at longer range) and that a kabalite wins on every target with more than T3. A devourer gant wins against T4, 6 and 7 (and is assault). Against TEQ even primaris interecessors shoot better than them.


You have to consider all the possible profiles when making comparisons, and honestly i do not see this "mathematical superiority".

Yeah, the reason you always see Guard in Soup is Kurov's Aquila and Grand Strategist. Those can be nerfed to hell, that's fine.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

So they were "second best"...but you're still talking about mono armies as though they're not a rarity.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

When your points are spent filling out a Brigade for CPs and the heavy lifting is done by a Knight Castellan and two Slamguinius Captains, the "more points spent" metric means nothing. It's a caveat for you to point at so you can justify your ridiculous stance that Guard are broken and that it's NOT the sharing of Command Points and that it's NOT the ability for a Guard Officer to be chosen as the Warlord over two frigging Marine Captains and a Knight.

But hey, you do you.

The fact that mono Guard are taken at all, given that there's absolutely no disadvantage to souping, shows how incredibly strong Guard are. I don't see mono Knights. I very rarely see mono SM or BAngels. Mono Guard are much more common than you'd have us believe though.

Ah of course. The 'heavy lifting' is done by every other unit that isn't a Guard unit, in that army spending more points on Guard models than any others. Of course. How could I forget the heavy lifting?! I'm sure those hellhounds, infantry and mortars contribute nothing but CP all game. Your bias is really, really telling. Its obvious that all elements of the holy trinity of Slam Captain, Castellan and various Guard units need to have changes because they are getting taken in a competitive setting far more than any other units in the game by a country mile. It doesn't take a genius to see the units need balancing. Stop making excuses for broken things.

 gbghg wrote:

I've seen plenty of mathhammer of firewarrior's vs guardsmen but I don't think I've ever seen one run with the range starting at 30" or higher, it's always starting at 24" negating the range advantage pulse rifles get over lasguns, on the same vein if you take buffs into account you could also run the numbers on firewarriors with 42" pulse rifles from the bor'khan trait and a pulse accelerator drone.

Do we really need to say that a unit with 30" range will outshoot a unit with 24" when targeting units at 30" range? But if you really want to know, a 10-man Fire warrior team will kill 2 Guardsmen at 30". Which I brought up before, and factored into my scenario. Of course, it was dismissed by someone who said FW and Guardsmen don't have the same role and so are incomparable.

But since you seem more reasonable let's give it a go:
1) No buffs:
- 12 fire warriors (84 pts)
- 20 Guard (80 pts)
Round 1 at 24-30"
- FW kill 2 Guardsmen
- Guard move 6", and get within 24". Kill 2 FW
Round 1 losses: 2 Guardsmen (8pts) 2 FW (14 pts)
I really don't need to continue, since it only gets worse for the tau.

2) Steel Legion guard with commander vs Borkan tau with fireblade and accelerator drone
- 20 Guard + 1 C Commander (110 pts)
- 12 FW + 1 Fireblade + 1 drone (132 pts)
Round 1 at 42"
- FW kill 2 Guard
- Guard move 15" with "Move! Move! Move!" to get within 27" of the FW
Round 2 at 27"
12 FW vs 18 Guard
- FW retreat 6" (33" total away) and fire: 2 kills
- Guard advance and get within 24", use "Forwards for the Emperor": 2 kills
Round 3:
10 FW vs 16 Guard
- FW move up to within 21": 7 kills
- Guard move up to within 18", FRFSRF: 5 kills
Round 4:
5 FW vs 9 Guard
- FW shoot: 3 kills
- Guard FRFSRF: 3 kills
Round 5:
2 FW vs 6 Guard
- FW shoot: 1 kill
- Guard FRFSRF: 2 kills

Guard win.
Of course, depending on terrain and the board, the Guard could have made it into combat by round 4, which still nets a win for them.
Note: commander and fireblade contributions (other than buffs) were ignored since I was focusing on the squad outputs. If you want to know, the fireblade would have killed 5 guard total, and the c commander would have killed 1-2 FW if he gets into combat at round 4, but that would have locked down the FW and fireblade from shooting for the last turn saving 3 Guardsmen. So, maybe 2 more guard die than shown above, but the end result is the same.

Now, you may be wondering why I chose to compare 110pts of guard vs 132 pts of tau, well, because if guard go to 5pts that would be 130pt vs 132pts.

Edit: I'd like to take a moment to appreciate how saying the orders makes the whole scenario more cinematic. Hands down my favorite part of playing guard.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Mono Army != "more points spent on Guard units than any other detachment".

And yes, it does still account for "Guard just taken for a cheap CP battery" in many cases.

BAO second best mono army was Guard.

So they were "second best"...but you're still talking about mono armies as though they're not a rarity.

When you spend more points on Guard than on any other faction in your list they are clearly not just a "cheap CP battery".

When your points are spent filling out a Brigade for CPs and the heavy lifting is done by a Knight Castellan and two Slamguinius Captains, the "more points spent" metric means nothing. It's a caveat for you to point at so you can justify your ridiculous stance that Guard are broken and that it's NOT the sharing of Command Points and that it's NOT the ability for a Guard Officer to be chosen as the Warlord over two frigging Marine Captains and a Knight.

But hey, you do you.

The fact that mono Guard are taken at all, given that there's absolutely no disadvantage to souping, shows how incredibly strong Guard are. I don't see mono Knights. I very rarely see mono SM or BAngels. Mono Guard are much more common than you'd have us believe though.

Ah of course. The 'heavy lifting' is done by every other unit that isn't a Guard unit, in that army spending more points on Guard models than any others. Of course. How could I forget the heavy lifting?! I'm sure those hellhounds, infantry and mortars contribute nothing but CP all game. Your bias is really, really telling. Its obvious that all elements of the holy trinity of Slam Captain, Castellan and various Guard units need to have changes because they are getting taken in a competitive setting far more than any other units in the game by a country mile. It doesn't take a genius to see the units need balancing. Stop making excuses for broken things.

Wow someone managed to bring a mono army..... What other people would do something crazy like that.... other than like 75% of the players I know. Seriously though they finished behind Tau, that everyone says are fine, clearly they need to be nuked.

The obvious solution to soup is to nuke all the ingredients so that all these books are even worse mono and more reliant on soup. Yup, that is obviously the answer. We wouldn't want to do something crazy like add a drawback to soup so that it isn't the obvious choice 100% of the time..... I mean what would that solve?

Spoletta wrote:
Bringing 20 cp to the fight is an enormous advantage, no questioning that, and that is exactly the reason why they are the preferred faction when it comes to souping in CP intensive stuff.

Do we really have reasons to say that mono guard is a top faction though? Without souping, would it be competitive?

It has many many weaknesses after all. Folds to hit penalties, folds to flying assaults, has no invul saves, limited melee options, bad transports...

Seriously, they are not this invincible faction they are being made out of. What they have is the fact that the basic combination of screens and firepower is effective, and they are the best at it. Plus they have some really good super heavies.

They have a lot of bad matchups though:

1) CWE (hit penalties and shining spears)
2) Drukhari (everything)
3) Kinghts (17 Catachan basilisks required to down a single 4++ knight, good luck)
4) Tau (we shoot better than you and don't care about your screens)


Guards are good at ONE thing and that's it.

I could be wrong, but until i see actual results i'm gonna stand by my analysis.

That said, please GW nerf Artemis Hellhound, that thing is broken.

1) You mean alitoc and it's-2 to hit army wide, yeah well they suck for everyone. But your catachan just run forward and punch them to death you hit like marines for less than 1/3 the points before charictors, which make you hit like 3 marines.
Try that with marines or tau then you'll value what you have.
2) Drukari just got a number of undercosted synergies and the most broken strategum yet.
3) Really every game I've played knights vrs guard the guard player lost the game buy making poor decisions. Guard can easily win vrs knights if guard players would stop trying mono tactic their army.
4) If your loosing to Tau with guard you need to rethink your list as guard have all the tools to smash tau currently. The difference might be T'au's current best build is the same vrs just about everything short of pure knights. Not sure it changes that much even then. While guards best build varies depending on regiment.

Transports are game wide overcosted in 8th edition that's not unique to guard.

Let's assume that all the math for Infantry Squads was done, that it didn't take liberties (e.g. including buffs without including the cost of the buffing models) and that it was accurate.

I feel it worth noting that, earlier in 8th, there were numerous threads showing that Necron Warriors were extremely overpowered and completely broken compared to all other troops. And they had the math to demonstrate this conclusively.

The only problem was that the outcome of this math, whilst containing no numerical errors, utterly failed to reflect reality. In theory, Necron Warriors were these unstoppable monoliths that could regenerate infinitely, had amazing basic weapons and would win any and all firefights. However, on the table, Necron warriors are slow, cumbersome blobs which struggle to get into optimum range of most targets and lack the firepower to inflict meaningful damage (relative to their cost) even when they do. What's more, whilst mathhammer allowed them to infinitely reccur, in reality they are almost always either focused down in one turn or else just ignored while the opponent kills the actual threats in the Necron army. In either case, their revival ability (which looked amazing when mathhammered) was rendered almost entirely worthless.

This is why I am reluctant to take the word of people who say they can prove with maths that Infantry Squads are undercosted, because the math frequently fails to tell the whole story. There are too many variables that are never accounted for but which nevertheless have a huge impact on a given unit's effectiveness.

It is also why I would like to see Soup addressed before tweaking Imperial Guard. As it stands, we see Infantry Squads being used in Soup armies partially to aid in CP generation and partially to act as screening units and objective holders. However, in spite of what the math purports to show, they are only used as anvil units. The lists that use them always have Knights, Custodes, Smash-Captains etc. to act as hammers.

If IG were forced to work alone, they would still have their anvil infantry squads, but they would be severely lacking in a Hammer unit. And I really don't think Infantry Squads will be able to perform this role effectively. Thus, IG will be good at holding their own objectives but will likely struggle to advance up the field to take objectives further up the table. Similarly, whilst decent screening units, I think Infantry Squads will struggle to bring their firepower to bear. With an optimal range of 12" and a 6" move, they're liable to suffer the same sort of issue as Necron Warriors. Heavy weapons might help with this to some extent, but will also make them even more defensive and unwilling to move in the process. And God Emperor help you if you want to use the Cadian doctrine with them.

My point is, I think if armies were forced to play on their own, Infantry Squads would be far less of an issue and highlight their weaknesses.

I freely admit that I could be wrong, but we simply can't know for certain until allies are fixed so that IG doesn't have free access to Hammer units (and non-IG don't have free access to Anvil/screening units and CP generation).

If, after soup is fixed (to the point where mono armies have at least an even chance of winning), Infantry Squads are still causing issues even in mono-IG armies, then I will be more than happy to support increasing their cost to 5pts per model.

 An Actual Englishman wrote:

The fact that mono Guard are taken at all, given that there's absolutely no disadvantage to souping, shows how incredibly strong Guard are.

This just in: If you enter a tournament, you are not allowed to play something just because you enjoy it. You must use the most competitive army possible, even it it means including units you have no interest in using or armies you have no interest in playing. Do that or GTFO.

Almost nobody said Necron Warriors were broken outside maybe 1 or 2 trolls. That's definitely not a valid comparison.

"Guards are OP. Even compared with unbalanced infantry like Tau Firewarriors at 7ppm or Kabalites at 6ppm they are op, and only become balanced with Guard being 5ppm, showing how strong they are now, and how strong they would be at 5ppm"

"Show me the math"

"Ok there you have it"

"Well... math doesn't show anything! The variables, the variables!"

This is what people said to Auticus when he said that skeletons in AoS where absolutely OP, just by pure mathematical power. A couple of months after that, you had skeletons hordes left and right sweeping people and everyone complaining about them.