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Dandelion wrote:
Kroot. A melee unit that lost its melee capability. Not to mention all the special rules they've lost over time.

IMO Kroot were never really a melee unit - they had decent melee ability but they were mostly shooty. But agreed that they were made irrelevant with their melee ability becoming WORSE than Fire Warriors, and with nothing to compensate in other respects - they just became a totally pointless unit which was left in Codex for historical reasons I suppose. "Hey, once Tau players used these guys before we spammed the game with MegaSuits!"

Backfire wrote:

Dandelion wrote:
Kroot. A melee unit that lost its melee capability. Not to mention all the special rules they've lost over time.

IMO Kroot were never really a melee unit - they had decent melee ability but they were mostly shooty. But agreed that they were made irrelevant with their melee ability becoming WORSE than Fire Warriors, and with nothing to compensate in other respects - they just became a totally pointless unit which was left in Codex for historical reasons I suppose. "Hey, once Tau players used these guys before we spammed the game with MegaSuits!"

I think that when Vetock happened and the Riptide Frenzy fell on us, the playerbase could have reacted in many ways.
After X (with X being big, really big) riptides were bought, the tau became big robots guys, later we had additional big robots models, FW also followed suit, and faster that is.
And the fate of the auxiliaries was sealed.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Tactical Marines: Primaris marines have the survivability to make their point cost back, Devastators can dish out enough damage to mitigate the 1W problem, AM infantry is hell a lot of more points efficient. Tatical marines have ... a single special weapon. GW is in a bind here, they can't make them cheap enough and all the options for making them better is already being used by another model.

Tac Marines remain the most offensively capable Troops unit. And don't forget the Combi-Weapon! The drop in price for Grav Cannons is also a boon.

That only matters for units that can take a lot of Grav Cannons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kommissar Kel wrote:
VV as just AM with +1A really are not competing with AM.

A) They take up different FOC slots
B) The VV often have more competion for the Elites slot, even though their are more of them available.
C) There is basically no difference between the 2 other than # of attacks(so not sure where Crazyterran was getting the character assassination bit other than pumping points into different weapons, which further chages the 2 units)

I cannot quite agree with the bikers comparison either: 74 points can get you another unit in many cases, so paying for an entire separate unit(like 5 scouts with 4 snipers and a heavy bolter), to gain more wounds and shooting than the assault squad(who has a different role anyways)...

Sorry but the FOC slots don't matter as much. The price difference is so negligible you handicap yourself buying Assault Squads.

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
Assault Marines and VVs both have jump packs, so can jump over chaff to get at characters. However, VVs actually carry weapons that will make the characters worry.

The bikes and AM have the same role, as they both are there to harass units and charge and clear up chaff. Bikes have better T, an extra wound, move faster and can also contribute at range. They also have a better strategem, and mesh better with the Tactical Doctrine, which is as far as most marine armies will want to go.

An extra Scout squad with sniper rifles is a pretty nice waste of points I guess, but you could do it.

Now, I know this is old school, but what about if they set it up where Assault Marines could be troop choices if you took a Jump HQ? I think that would be very fun in the least and would give a rather middling unit a huge bonus that may make it viable

Absolutely. Jump Troops would be a great unit for fast, mobile objective grabbers. Would make sense for them to still be 16ppm then!

 Crazyterran wrote:

 generalchaos34 wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
Assault Marines and VVs both have jump packs, so can jump over chaff to get at characters. However, VVs actually carry weapons that will make the characters worry.

The bikes and AM have the same role, as they both are there to harass units and charge and clear up chaff. Bikes have better T, an extra wound, move faster and can also contribute at range. They also have a better strategem, and mesh better with the Tactical Doctrine, which is as far as most marine armies will want to go.

An extra Scout squad with sniper rifles is a pretty nice waste of points I guess, but you could do it.

Now, I know this is old school, but what about if they set it up where Assault Marines could be troop choices if you took a Jump HQ? I think that would be very fun in the least and would give a rather middling unit a huge bonus that may make it viable

Absolutely. Jump Troops would be a great unit for fast, mobile objective grabbers. Would make sense for them to still be 16ppm then!

Yeah that was a pipedream the moment we lost Bikers as a troop choice.
Imagine Troop Assault Marines and giving them access to JUST enough of the Special Pistols (Plasma, Inferno, Flamer) they could specialize into killing particular targets.

Backfire wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Tau Hammerhead.

It lost its role as a halfway compromise between the fast but fragile Eldar skimmers and the slow but tough imperial tracked tanks in 6th with the culling of the Tau vehicle upgrades list and the loss of the "counts as fast for the purpose of shooting" multi-tracker.

Crisis suits.

Loss of JSJ, minimum unit size of 3 suits meaning you can't even take a suicide melta suit as 3 of them is way too expensive for a suicide unit and being flat out worse in every way than just taking a commander who can pack more guns and has the survivability granted by being a character.

Was going to write this exact same thing but you beat me to it. Hammerhead was my favourite Tau unit and when the daft 6th edition codex made it unplayable (together with rules changes which made Railgun suck), I essentially gave up Tau altogether.

Suits were fun, they existed to play clever and flexible style of game where you tailored your shooting and maneuvering around what opponent had and did. In newer editions they have become pure Dakka spam unit with no flair.

I've got a box of Tau that basically feel the same way

GW deciding to go full throttle on the Gundam thing didn't help.

Not a unit, but a profile: heat lances. In 7th, a Melta Lance was a really cool concept -- S6 melta, but vehicles always had a max of AV12 so you had a decent chance of cracking the armor. Now in 7th, you've still got S6... but no help with wounding and an AP -5 that's worth nothing over AP -4 99% of the time. I don't think there's another weapon profile as niche and worthless as this one (and IIRC, heat lances are more expensive than, say, haywire blasters)

Burna boyz - a unit that used to excel at both killing chaff at flamer range or marines in close combat fails to do either today. GW erred on the safe side with their 1d3 burnas, making them utterly useless for that role. Meanwhile, the close combat profile went from AP 3 (ignore marine armor) to AP-2, which means pretty much bouncing of 3+ armor instead of shredding it.

Warbikers - they used to be pretty durable due to their exhaust cloud, which got taken away and not replaced in a meaningful way (the stratagem is useless). Meanwhile, every other bike unit in the game got some sort of exhaust cloud...

Powerklaw - their role in any ork army was being the "ork lascannon". The lascannon got d6 damage, the PK got -1 to hit and d3 damage. Instead of being a threat to anything in the game they went to being a minor damage increase that pretty much everyone can ignore. This also neutered trukk boyz, nobz, MANz and biker nobz' offensive power. A unit of 10 PK nobz just barely takes down a LRBT, where they could wreck an entire parking lot in previous editions.
The only PKs that still do their job are the relic klaws with flat D3 and no -1 to hit.

Ork flanking units (kommandoz, koptas, buggies) - all those used to be the go-to units you used to tie up shooting units and threaten a vehicle, with no guarantee of actually destroying it. With twin rokkits being expensive as sin and vehicles simply ignoring one or two rokkit hits, the threat is gone, and since pretty much everything can jump out of combat and shoot through fly or stratagems and 8th editions heavy weapon rules, these ladz are out of a job. Instead we throw 210+ points of boyz into the tellyporta to do that job.

Ork flanking units (kommandoz, koptas, buggies) - all those used to be the go-to units you used to tie up shooting units and threaten a vehicle, with no guarantee of actually destroying it. With twin rokkits being expensive as sin and vehicles simply ignoring one or two rokkit hits, the threat is gone, and since pretty much everything can jump out of combat and shoot through fly or stratagems and 8th editions heavy weapon rules, these ladz are out of a job. Instead we throw 210+ points of boyz into the tellyporta to do that job.

TBF tellyporta and da jump has put them out of a job aswell.
Because why bother paying for that mobility when you can get more mobility for cheaper.

Thing is, a unit of boyz isn't actually cheap.

 Jidmah wrote:
Thing is, a unit of boyz isn't actually cheap.

It is, altough depends on what your army is.

How so? Trukk boyz and BW boyz are dead this edition. It's 30 or gretchin.

 Jidmah wrote:
How so? Trukk boyz and BW boyz are dead this edition. It's 30 or gretchin.

Just because they don't work in these fashion any more does not make boyz not cheap.

At 7ppm they have s distinct lack of durability.

Because they don't work in smaller squads they are expensive.

210 pts for a functionally useful unit ain't cheap

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
How so? Trukk boyz and BW boyz are dead this edition. It's 30 or gretchin.

Just because they don't work in these fashion any more does not make boyz not cheap.

210 points (+nob gear) for a troops units is NOT cheap. That's custodes territory.

There is as much reason to take less than 30 boyz as there is to take a unit of devastators without heavy weapons.

Eldar Corsairs.

Because you have to have a codex to have a role. RIP.

 Jidmah wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
How so? Trukk boyz and BW boyz are dead this edition. It's 30 or gretchin.

Just because they don't work in these fashion any more does not make boyz not cheap.

210 points (+nob gear) for a troops units is NOT cheap. That's custodes territory.

There is as much reason to take less than 30 boyz as there is to take a unit of devastators without heavy weapons.

except you get how many models in that squad?

and how many custodes would you get for that..

I agree with you that 30 is the only way to go, because the smaller squads just can't take advantage of the mechanics of the army atm.
That is unfortunate, but also to blame on the core mechanics of the army and the game itself.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
How so? Trukk boyz and BW boyz are dead this edition. It's 30 or gretchin.

Just because they don't work in these fashion any more does not make boyz not cheap.

210 points (+nob gear) for a troops units is NOT cheap. That's custodes territory.

There is as much reason to take less than 30 boyz as there is to take a unit of devastators without heavy weapons.

except you get how many models in that squad?

and how many custodes would you get for that..

I agree with you that 30 is the only way to go, because the smaller squads just can't take advantage of the mechanics of the army atm.
That is unfortunate, but also to blame on the core mechanics of the army and the game itself.

What on earth are you talking about? Expensive is not the same as inefficient. A unit of blightlord terminators is very expensive, but is still an awesome unit that sees play even on top tables.

The whole point is that orks used to have cheap disruption units in the form of koptas, kommandoz and buggies, now we fling units that cost two to four times as many points across the table to do the same job - because they can do way more than we actually need.

Shoota Boyz

In 5th edition, a full squad shooting would kill 3.33 MEQ. That's 46.5pts.
In 8th edition, a full squad shooting does 3.88 wounds, which isn't even 2 dead Intercessors. That's 33pts. In cover, it's 1.94 wounds, not even 1 Intercessor or 16.5pts.

In the meantime, Ork Boyz went to 7pts (vs 6pts in 5th edition).

All in all, Shoota Boyz' offensive output against Marines was cut by 33-66%. They used to be good all-rounders, now they're just trash meant to look pretty (sort of...) in a display case.

 Grimtuff wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do?

Welcome to a thread without a particular agenda. Seriously, I’m not up to owt, or trying to persuade people to my point of view on a given unit.

What I’m looking for here are voices of longer term experience. Not because snootiness or elitism etc. Rather, I want to explore units once more or less terrors of the field which have lost their sheen.

Basic example? Terminators. In 2nd ed, they were terrifying. A ridiculous save (3+ on 2D6), decent stats, decent firepower, then handy CCW.

Since then? They’ve just fulfilled the role of terror troops that well. Until they got their 5+ invulnerable, they were utter bobbins thanks to a prevalence of Plasma. Even with it, they weren’t quite the full shilling. Survivable, sure. They still took some killing. But their damage output rarely, properly justified their inclusion.

They should be a horror situation for your opponent. Firepower or attacks to carve through most opponents. Something one can reliably use to shore up a flank, or shatter a centre.

Now how to fix them? Possibly another thread. Certainly I don’t know enough about modern 40k to say what they need. But for now, sound off the units you used to have a firm role for, that over various rules changes have lost their way.

Terminators really aren't a good example because only the particular Chaos ones were any good.

I guess you missed 5th ed where everyone and their mum took TH/SS Termies...

Yep 4th edition DA book Belial Libby 3-4 squads of TH/SS good times

CSM obliterators. They used to be the go to swiss army knife heavy slot with long range lascannons, autocannons, missile luncher, midrange plasma cannons but now they are just deepstrike short range 24" guns random str random ap. They are also over costed now from the old 75ppm to 115ppm.

Forge and Mauler fiends have been replaced by war dogs moirax. The moirax has better ws, bs, and move but lack the 5++ combat invul.

Swooping Hawks.

They still have a role, sure. But back in 6th/7th, they were a great toolbox but had to be exposed to do their job.

In addition to removing a ton of GEQ when they came in, if they got close, they could either drop a Plasma Grenade on light infantry (and AP4 with TLOS and a lot of mobility often meant no save at all), or toss Haywire at something like a Land Raider. They did very little to Marines or better, very little to anything lighter than AV14 (comparatively), and very little at range, where they were relatively safe. But a great toolbox when you exposed them.

Now they do a couple MW, maybe, if they move over a high-modelcount unit. And they put out a good amount of anti-GEQ firepower (and do that from the full 24" away). But they just aren't the scalpel they were.

Skitarii units.

Them losing their Doctrina Imperatives was a kick in the nuts.
Onagers losing their squadron capability was just as bad.
Ruststalkers losing their grenades was ridiculous.

And let's not forget us losing the Scout Move.

Assaulty Orks in general have lost almost all of their movement options in 8th edition in favor of just two gimmicks: Da Jump and Tellyporta.

Footsloggers are too slow and vulnerable today with the greatly expanded number of shots coming their way and how pitiful the line of sight terrain rules have made cover. Every army now has access to 8, 12, or 20-shot gatling cannons that obliterate flootsloggers with bad armor who can no longer hide behind area terrain or benefit substantially from being inside it. So footslogging isn't a practical option, even with grot shields, kustom force fields, and FNP saves to buff them up.

This isn't entirely unrealistic, but the modern solution to this problem--APCs--doesn't work either, because with the 8th edition wound table anti-infantry guns can take out light transports like Trukks, and medium-heavy vehicles like Battlewagons get shredded by the preponderance of anti-tank weapons that everyone takes to deal with Knights. Also, passengers can't jump out and charge after the transport moved, so that tactic died too.

Even if this did work, small mobs of Orks lack hitting power in 8th edition compared to all prior editions. They get fewer attacks, each attack isn't as good against MEQ, and the Nob's superior weapons (Big Choppa or Powerklaw) don't make much of a difference anymore. They can also no longer threaten vehicles like they used to be able to due to the greatly increased durabilty of vehicles against assault infantry armed with grenades and powerful close combat weapon--reversing the trend of vehicles becoming more vulnerable to them across all prior editions (it's hilarious how your soldier armed with Melta or Tankbusta Bombs can *throw* them at a tank, but not *attach* them to the tank that's two feet in front of him).

This leaves basically one viable close combat infantry strategy for Orks: teleport a huge mob right into the enemy's face using Da Jump or Tellyporta. Little wonder that this is basically all you see from competitive Ork armies besides the shooty stuff.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Skitarii units.

Them losing their Doctrina Imperatives was a kick in the nuts.
Onagers losing their squadron capability was just as bad.
Ruststalkers losing their grenades was ridiculous.

And let's not forget us losing the Scout Move.

Have Ruststalkers been better in 7th edition? I really like the unit visually and lore wise, but I've never seen them played in 8th edition ever because apparently they just aren't that good.

 Stormonu wrote:
Working from hearsay, but it sounds like Assault marines don’t work like they used to. The lack of melee attacks and hammer of wrath (moved to a stratagem) means they can’t catapult into melee like they used to, and are better suited to dropping near opponents or on unprotected objectives and striking at range.

Generally speaking, I feel like GW has a problem with the fact they've got specialty roles for armies and then specialty armies based on those specialty roles. The game engine is flexible enough for vanilla marines to have CC specialists and then have Blood Angels be an army of CC specitalists with their Assault Marines being the best Assault Marines. Either the BA option is too good, or everyone else's is bad.

Diputs wrote:
Eldar Corsairs.

Because you have to have a codex to have a role. RIP.

As someone with 4k Corsairs, this makes me very sad...............

Yes some of the models are "playable", Hornets, Wasps, Warp Hunters, Reavers, Cloud, but its not the same at all. Heck the Bikes are completely different, they used to be like Shiny Spears, elite melee units, now they are heavy weapon bikers... that s HUGE change, i would still be ok with them in index form with 2/3 of the units wasnt gone and the other 1/3 didnt change their gear. Reavers used to be 5mans with 2 specials like SoB, now they are 2 per 10, little things like that.

But you know what the worst part is? They are 8th design already, they were playing 8th in 7th. They already had a detachment system (1 detachment must be a mix of Patrol and Supreme, and up to 3 patrols) they also already had Traits you could pick from that the full detachment had to be to get rules (Titan Breakers, Head takers, Vault breachers, Sky burners, Night hunters, Hate bringers).

You can literally plug and play Corsairs from 7th and they work in 8th without trying. FW coudlnt be bother b.c the person that made them died and everyone else is like "feth i need to do work? I dont like Eldar so feth it i'm not going to"


PS: Corsairs were also very well balanced outside of 2 formations, for our tournaments and local we followed the Adepticon 7th rules, 1 formation only, and 1 unit with D-weapons only (that killed off the "good corsair formation") and no one thought they were OP then, they were very fun, they were on White Scars level if you didnt take the Skyhammer Assault formation with all the free vehicle formation. B.c most of your models were T3, T4, or T5 and some vehicles (i played with 4 vehicles). having 40 guardians with JSJ teleporting around the table is fun for both players, b.c the other player kills them easily and if played well the corsair player has fun too. The biker unit with 3 exarchs was your hard hitting melee unit, but it was nothing compare to smash captain bike deathstar unit.

Im pretty salty still.....

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Diputs wrote:
Eldar Corsairs.

Because you have to have a codex to have a role. RIP.

As someone with 4k Corsairs, this makes me very sad...............

Yes some of the models are "playable", Hornets, Wasps, Warp Hunters, Reavers, Cloud, but its not the same at all. Heck the Bikes are completely different, they used to be like Shiny Spears, elite melee units, now they are heavy weapon bikers... that s HUGE change, i would still be ok with them in index form with 2/3 of the units wasnt gone and the other 1/3 didnt change their gear. Reavers used to be 5mans with 2 specials like SoB, now they are 2 per 10, little things like that.

But you know what the worst part is? They are 8th design already, they were playing 8th in 7th. They already had a detachment system (1 detachment must be a mix of Patrol and Supreme, and up to 3 patrols) they also already had Traits you could pick from that the full detachment had to be to get rules (Titan Breakers, Head takers, Vault breachers, Sky burners, Night hunters, Hate bringers).

You can literally plug and play Corsairs from 7th and they work in 8th without trying. FW coudlnt be bother b.c the person that made them died and everyone else is like "feth i need to do work? I dont like Eldar so feth it i'm not going to"


PS: Corsairs were also very well balanced outside of 2 formations, for our tournaments and local we followed the Adepticon 7th rules, 1 formation only, and 1 unit with D-weapons only (that killed off the "good corsair formation") and no one thought they were OP then, they were very fun, they were on White Scars level if you didnt take the Skyhammer Assault formation with all the free vehicle formation. B.c most of your models were T3, T4, or T5 and some vehicles (i played with 4 vehicles). having 40 guardians with JSJ teleporting around the table is fun for both players, b.c the other player kills them easily and if played well the corsair player has fun too. The biker unit with 3 exarchs was your hard hitting melee unit, but it was nothing compare to smash captain bike deathstar unit.

Im pretty salty still.....

About the only fw list that is in a worse condition then my r&h, it still amazes me how they killed them off.
Like why?

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Diputs wrote:
Eldar Corsairs.

Because you have to have a codex to have a role. RIP.

As someone with 4k Corsairs, this makes me very sad...............

Yes some of the models are "playable", Hornets, Wasps, Warp Hunters, Reavers, Cloud, but its not the same at all. Heck the Bikes are completely different, they used to be like Shiny Spears, elite melee units, now they are heavy weapon bikers... that s HUGE change, i would still be ok with them in index form with 2/3 of the units wasnt gone and the other 1/3 didnt change their gear. Reavers used to be 5mans with 2 specials like SoB, now they are 2 per 10, little things like that.

But you know what the worst part is? They are 8th design already, they were playing 8th in 7th. They already had a detachment system (1 detachment must be a mix of Patrol and Supreme, and up to 3 patrols) they also already had Traits you could pick from that the full detachment had to be to get rules (Titan Breakers, Head takers, Vault breachers, Sky burners, Night hunters, Hate bringers).

You can literally plug and play Corsairs from 7th and they work in 8th without trying. FW coudlnt be bother b.c the person that made them died and everyone else is like "feth i need to do work? I dont like Eldar so feth it i'm not going to"


PS: Corsairs were also very well balanced outside of 2 formations, for our tournaments and local we followed the Adepticon 7th rules, 1 formation only, and 1 unit with D-weapons only (that killed off the "good corsair formation") and no one thought they were OP then, they were very fun, they were on White Scars level if you didnt take the Skyhammer Assault formation with all the free vehicle formation. B.c most of your models were T3, T4, or T5 and some vehicles (i played with 4 vehicles). having 40 guardians with JSJ teleporting around the table is fun for both players, b.c the other player kills them easily and if played well the corsair player has fun too. The biker unit with 3 exarchs was your hard hitting melee unit, but it was nothing compare to smash captain bike deathstar unit.

Im pretty salty still.....

About the only fw list that is in a worse condition then my r&h, it still amazes me how they killed them off.
Like why?

I'm pretty sure they just dont care about 40k/aos anymore and focusing on 30k/specialist games, and if those models can be used for 40k throw some unbalanced rules at them (for better or for worst).

From the sound of it FW is basically being tasked with specialist games stuff and everything for the main 40k game is being handled by the main studio, has been for a while now.

I don't think its an issue of the FW people not wanting to do things, more that it's been taken out of their hands and the main GW studio just has no interest in supporting those old pre-8E army lists.