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.

Soup isn't the problem then.

Invul saves on taitanic units are a problem, dropping that save to 3 up re-rollable (cause pay the command point to re roll it) is a big problem. And word of the phoenix is a problem.


After that you will have a new problem. But those two things are the big hairy deal right now.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Anyone remember Maximillian Weisemann and his Lucius pattern Baneblade?

I remember Korren and his superheavy from an old WD!

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.

This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking

Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.

This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking

Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.

And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.

This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking

Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.

And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.

Such as it's anyone's right to do so. But people have also bickered about the cover system, modifier AP vs comparative AP, shooting vs melee, and the vast virtual paper wasted on which unit is overpower/underpowered or not.
Rules are not sacred, they're always a chance they'll change, and saying that "Allies has always existed" when how allies functioned was much, much more limited before 6 feels disingenuous.

 Xenomancers wrote:
My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.

The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....

And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.

Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.

The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.

Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.

How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.

Invulnerable saves ruined 8th for me... anything 5+ invulnerable is fine but the 2-4+ just kinda sucks the life out of the game (unless it's HQ 1 off low wound units). All they do is make my list basically double it's cost if I bring high AP weapons. At least with 5+there is only a 1/3 chance my shots will fail. With 3+ invulnerable I can fire weapons that would destroy a titan and cost more than the unit I'm firing at but stillonly have a 25% chance of wounding.

5++ on cheap stuff is soul crushing.

Martel732 wrote:
5++ on cheap stuff is soul crushing.

Cheap stuff tends to have low T so it balances out. Plus you're mostly firing like 50 no AP shots at that stuff anyway. What hurts my soul is when I have a single shot expensive weapon that hits, wounds and it's -3AP is useless and does nothing to help me. What hurts even more is when I hit wound and they fail their save only to reroll it and go from 1/3 chance of doing damage to a 1/6.

5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.

I'm talking raiders and venoms too.

Raiders and venoms have low toughness and low armor. Strenght 6 ap -1 is what you want. They also have few wounds and aren't really that cheep.

But I take your point.

I play Dark elfs (in spaaaaace!) The one that seems out of whack to me is the Grotesque. At t6 4++ and a 6 up feel no pain they are harder to take down than a land raider.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.

Terminators are a great example of how the invulnerable should work. It's not supposed to be your main save... it's a save you fall back on in the event your opponent decided to shoot his doomsday ark into your small little guy. Plasma is just more effective against a Terminator than a bolter because the save goes to 4-5+ while a anti tank -4ap forces it to go up to a 5++. You're unlikely to survive but there is the odd chance you pulled through. I've always seen Invulns as a design choice to let players know "hey, maybe you shouldn't shoot your anti tank into these guys.." Like FNP should only be a 5+++ and nothing more. You're supposed to be pulling through a mortal wound not going for a casual stroll as anti titan weapons hit you.

If I had my way FNP and Inulns would be locked at 5+ for anything other than HQ's and low wound units. And, in return, anything that had 3++ gets a 2+armour save. That way mass low S no AP weapons do very little damage while expensive high AP weapons have their place again.

The Invul problem is classic example of a chicken or the egg, what came first. I started in 5th and I remember when SS going to 3+ all the time was considered a massive shift in unit durability. Without that though, Terminators were not likely to get into combat as GW has increasingly upped how common high AP weapons are to the point were even a 2+ armor save is a joke this edition.

That isn't even touching the issue with mortal wounds being handed out like candy which means you now need to have to hand out FNP like saves to give units some protection from those attacks. The game needs to tone down how easy it is to ignore armor and then it can address how to handle saves.

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Luke_Prowler wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I recently did a trip through old White Dwarf and I'm seeing Soup Armies all the way back to second edition. Why are we considering removing a core part of the game that's been there for that long? This game has always had soup in it and removing it doesn't fix anything. GW isn't just going to squat all those Ynari players and Knight House infantry lists to not actually address the problem.

This is a knee-jerk 5-minute solution that smacks of populist thinking as opposed to actual critical thinking

Templates have also been a core mechanic since 1st. They no longer exist. "that's how it used to work" is not an argument.

And people have been bickering back and forth about the pros and cons of the template and blast system.

Such as it's anyone's right to do so. But people have also bickered about the cover system, modifier AP vs comparative AP, shooting vs melee, and the vast virtual paper wasted on which unit is overpower/underpowered or not.
Rules are not sacred, they're always a chance they'll change, and saying that "Allies has always existed" when how allies functioned was much, much more limited before 6 feels disingenuous.

The difference here is how long the debates have been going on for.

Arguments against allies has only begun near the end of 6th, whereas people have argued templates should go since the dawn of them being introduced.

 lolman1c wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
5++ on, say, DCA is fine. You don't want to shoot high AP guns at 1W T3 models anyway!
But 3++/4++ on knights means AP-1 weapons are more efficient against knights than AP-4 weapons which is dumb.
So really, just remove invulnerable save for T7+ models.

Terminators are a great example of how the invulnerable should work. It's not supposed to be your main save... it's a save you fall back on in the event your opponent decided to shoot his doomsday ark into your small little guy. Plasma is just more effective against a Terminator than a bolter because the save goes to 4-5+ while a anti tank -4ap forces it to go up to a 5++. You're unlikely to survive but there is the odd chance you pulled through. I've always seen Invulns as a design choice to let players know "hey, maybe you shouldn't shoot your anti tank into these guys.." Like FNP should only be a 5+++ and nothing more. You're supposed to be pulling through a mortal wound not going for a casual stroll as anti titan weapons hit you.

If I had my way FNP and Inulns would be locked at 5+ for anything other than HQ's and low wound units. And, in return, anything that had 3++ gets a 2+armour save. That way mass low S no AP weapons do very little damage while expensive high AP weapons have their place again.

Terminators are a nice example of how you DO NOT implements invul saves. A 5++ on a 2+ model is useless.

What really matters when you talk about invul saves are only 2 figures:

1) X+ - X++, as is, the difference between your armor save and your invul save. If the difference is 3, then the invul is useless, at 2 (like demon engines) this is a nice bonus to have, but nothing game breaking. When it gets lower than 2, you have problems.
On knights this is combined with:
2) Wounds. The more wounds you have, the better the invul save, because you are a target of high damage weapons, which always come with high AP.

 Smirrors wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.

The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....

And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.

Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.

The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.

Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.

How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.

I don't think its quite as simple as this, or how many people are making it out.

The problem isn't just the castellan, it is AM units being 4ppm for orders and regiment abilities.

Simply upping infantry squads by 1ppm, and some of the characters by 10-20pts would drastically change peoples abilities to combine the most efficient cheap troops in the game (CP battery) with the most efficient LoW in the game (Castellan)

The reason we will continue to see AM/IK dominate is because other factions soup does not compare. No other faction can get a low ppm unit as efficient as AM infantry squads, and a high ppm unit as efficient as the castellan.

Pure knights with castellan are not dominating, because they lack CP and bodies to hold objectives. It is the cheap AM units as well.

blaktoof wrote:

 Smirrors wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
My Castellan singlehandely with the support of some wyverns and helvrines brough me back into the game though. Only managed to tie the game by detonating my Castellan with my last 2 CP and killing like 500 points with a single dice roll. Would have gone on to win if we had time for 1 more round but that is my fault more than anything.

The point here is the stratagems are doubling to quadrupling base damage based on buffs. Gman gets a lot of hate and costs 400 points. All he does is increase units around him by like 50%-80%max and he costs 1/5 of your army....

And this is why I feel the Castellan is considered to be a gate keeper. And why at Australia's CANCON tournament (150 players) the winner decided to play scissors paper rock and went with 180 termagants.

Up until this point some codex and combinations are so strong that without a Castellan, many lists will just crumble. Replace the fire power of the Castellan with 3 tank commanders and watch as the list probably fails miserably.

The Castellan is single handedly keeping IG/Admech lists from failing.

Also lets not kid ourselves, if most other players ran Brandon Grants list (likewise Naydens or Nanavatis), they would just as likely lose a couple of games and finish somewhere in the middle. Some players are just on another level. It wasn't the Castellan that won the LVO, it was the tactical genius of Grant.

How would I want to see the Castellan nerfed? Probably a small points increase of say max 60pts.

I don't think its quite as simple as this, or how many people are making it out.

The problem isn't just the castellan, it is AM units being 4ppm for orders and regiment abilities.

Simply upping infantry squads by 1ppm, and some of the characters by 10-20pts would drastically change peoples abilities to combine the most efficient cheap troops in the game (CP battery) with the most efficient LoW in the game (Castellan)

The reason we will continue to see AM/IK dominate is because other factions soup does not compare. No other faction can get a low ppm unit as efficient as AM infantry squads, and a high ppm unit as efficient as the castellan.

Pure knights with castellan are not dominating, because they lack CP and bodies to hold objectives. It is the cheap AM units as well.

Infantry squads are 4 points. Period. GW has cemented that point in the last CA by lowering veterans to 5, so let's stop talking about it, it's meaningless.
We could discuss about upping the points on the IG HQs, which IMHO would be even better than upping the cost of guardsmen, but that is not the point of this discussion.

Pure AM are good, but nothing special (pure AM ranked below pure Astartes , and that pure AM didn't even play guards if i remember correctly ). It's the CP sharing which takes them to another level. Get rid of that and you won't be seeing imperial soups so dominant any more.

We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.

Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.

Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.

Shouldn't it be "tSport?"

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

It's been proven mathematically?

Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?

If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.

Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.

Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.

Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.

The only thing we have is a dubious direct confrontation between them and equivalent points of other troops, but that is hardly an indicator for everything. Guards lose a direct confrontation against equal points of tac marines, should we nerf tac marines?

Spoletta wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.

Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.

Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.

Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.

The only thing we have is a dubious direct confrontation between them and equivalent points of other troops, but that is hardly an indicator for everything. Guards lose a direct confrontation against equal points of tac marines, should we nerf tac marines?

Not to mention that many comparison suddendly started including stuff like FRFSRF, catachan cadian reroll mixed etc.

Aelyn wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

It's been proven mathematically?

Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?

If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?

Also this.

Even if you manage to create a mathematical model to make direct confrontations between profiles, you still would failt to consider this, which is by all means not secondary.

Look at CP generation for example (assuming no CP sharing, which is the root of all evils). CPs generated by guards are worth less than the CPs generated by Eldar guardians, because the AM faction uses less and has an easy access to them. If you were to give a point value to a CP in a monoAM army it would be worth less than the same CP in a mono CWE army.

When confronting troops this a hugely influencing parameter.

I'm not going to say that guards are fine at 4ppm, i'm of the idea that they are more of a 5ppm model than a 4ppm one, but saying that this is mathematically proven is not correct.

i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.


but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.


but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.

That's kind of an overkill, we would go back 6 editions. No good.
Limit CP by detachments, that's enough to add an hefty cost to souping and make people actually consider it as an option compared to a no brainer.

Spoletta wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

I wouldn't rule any points changes out. GW hasn't cemented anything apart from the meta until the next FAQ.

Castellans are also way too efficient for their cost.

Both of these troublesome units need to be addressed or the meta will remain stale and people will grow tired of competitive play. If GW want to turn 40k into an eSport they need to be much more reactive to the meta. We wouldn't see the meta in LoL stay the same without changes for this long.

Sorry, it has never been proved mathematically. All of us sort of did empirically because we "feel" that they perform over 4 points when playing against them, but a mathematical demonstration has never been provided.

What about when you're playing with them?

Spoletta wrote:

Aelyn wrote:

 An Actual Englishman wrote:
We can (and have) prove that 4ppm Guardsmen are too efficient for their cost mathematically compared to other units.

It's been proven mathematically?

Does the proof involve non-quantifiable or external elements such as stratagems, orders etc, or does it revolve specifically around the 4ppm Guardsmen against other units (which, to ensure the comparison is accurate, also don't have stratagems or other external elements)?

If it is the latter, can you provide a link to this proof?

Also this.

Even if you manage to create a mathematical model to make direct confrontations between profiles, you still would failt to consider this, which is by all means not secondary.

Look at CP generation for example (assuming no CP sharing, which is the root of all evils). CPs generated by guards are worth less than the CPs generated by Eldar guardians, because the AM faction uses less and has an easy access to them. If you were to give a point value to a CP in a monoAM army it would be worth less than the same CP in a mono CWE army.

When confronting troops this a hugely influencing parameter.

I'm not going to say that guards are fine at 4ppm, i'm of the idea that they are more of a 5ppm model than a 4ppm one, but saying that this is mathematically proven is not correct.

it has been done both with and without buffs, with and without msu battalions with and without faction bonuses and guard won time and again.

Someone claimed they lost 1v1 to intercessors but that was model to model not point for point.
They also over looked that intercessors make an MEQ wound 9 points with -1AP and additional range.
Not to mention once you shoot HBC dissys etc the intercessors loose points stupidly faster than IS.
IS out perform every other 1W model troop but in some cases rediculous margins.

Also all CP is equally as the common strategums are costed the same across all codex's. This idea that Guard CP is worth less than anyone else's is faulse and ignores the current rules.

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
i dont care how you twist it, soup IS the problem, forced mono codex in matched play is the only solution.
the "cheap and undercosted units" are just fine when you start playing mono codex, plus some proper balancing can then begin.
if you nerf a unit due to soup, you make it usless in a mono codex situation.


but as beeing said other places, by other humans so, many times, GW is not about selling a game, it is about selling models.

Do you want all Eldar top 8? Because that's how you get an all Eldar top 8. Soup is the only thing keeping Eldar in check.

I know for a fact that what you said is mathematically wrong (yes, now i can use that term), so please provide this math you say. There are many 1W troops to which guards lose in a "direct confrontation" (whatever that means) on a point per point basis, including the tac marines. Intercessors outshoot them point per point by such a huge margin that you would need 50% points more in guards to have an even match.

Can you please give the definition of "Out perform" that you are using? Maybe that we are valuing things differently and our math differs as a consequence.