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 Mr.Omega wrote:

I'm not disputing that Intercessors are more efficient.

Efficiency is the name of the game here, for the thread.

The difference is when you apply constraints within a practical context, its easier to gun down a decent number of Intercessors with Guardsmen than it is to put a dent in the advance of some Custodes.

Well, I am not sure this matters terribly. In tournament play, guard win rates against custodes (38.46%) are much better than against iron hands (24.29%) or raven guard (17.39%).

https://www.40kstats.com/faction-vs-faction

I would argue that intercessors being so point efficient play a significant role in those victories.

That's the name of the game, point efficiency. If you can outtrade your opponent even with your generalists against their specialists (as has been shown here with intercessors) while keeping equal or better point efficiency with specialists, you win.

Grey40k wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:


You don't. You take a sustainable number of casualties each turn to long range bolt rifle fire and then watch as Intercessor squads suffer critical existence failure one after another as your heavy support destroys them from a distance. If the enemy list is alpha-striking, then you get good mileage out of close range FRFSRF as an added bonus.

The thing about Custodes is that you have to kill them fast with units that have to multi-task against killing other immediate threats like grav tanks and jetbike captains since your infantry are useless.

I think that is moving away a bit from the point of the thread, which is that intercessors are too point efficient in many roles.

I compared them against guards because those are the generalist troops of another faction. Others have compared them even against specialist units which should beat them at their role and don't; specially not from a point efficient perspective.

You said you cannot beat custodes with a guard infantry list but that intercessors didn't scare you as much. My point was to show you that even in the most favorable trade (rapid fire range and a unit with orders) your point efficiency is worse than that of an intercessor; and that's even without accounting for rerolls, weird raven cover mechanics, invulnerable saves, you failing morale saves after guards start falling, and so on.

For clarity: when your point efficiency is worse, you can always expect to lose.

Intercessors probably are a little too points efficient at 17 ppm, but they're not that strategically impactful to me.

You're right, points efficiency is king. It's efficient when a similarly costed Executioner Leman Russ TC wipes out almost an entire squad of 10 Intercessors in a single salvo with the only risk being opportunity cost.

Its just that before overly elite armies, you could make an efficient enough infantry contingent. No, you can't meet Intercessors head on and kill them with Guardsmen, granted, but at least anything that makes Guardsmen more effective actually has some return when used against Primaris Marines rather than being a waste of points straight up.

Mathhammer is great, but context can also be important. Mathhammer says that my list with 5 Leman Russ Conquerors and 2 Leman Russ Executioners that I ran a short while back should destroy my opponent's army in a single turn. Context says, this is a reasonable LOS blocking board, good luck killing anything that's too big to hide on the first turn. #

Grey40k wrote:
It just doesn't work, IMHO.

At this point, you would need to bring literal buckets of guardsmen to beat effictively intercessors in a gun fight (and forget about close combat unless you are catachan and even then). Once you factor in real world costs, and timed matches, it is a losing option.

Realistically though, that's the point - you shouldn't be using those Guardsmen to kill the Intercessors alone. That's why you bring specialised units to do it properly - and that's what I think Intercessors (and all Space Marines) realistically should be like, pretty good all round, but if something specialised to kill them crops up, they'll be hurt badly.

Of course, the real world costs and how big the armies would be are the real issue here. It goes either of two ways: the games get bigger on the enemy side (so a 2k army of guardsmen being double the size it is now, compared to a currently sized Marine one), or the Marine army gets smaller and more points heavy (ie, a 2k Marines army looking more like a 1k one).
Obviously, GW wouldn't do the latter, got to have people buying Space Marines, and the former would kill the idea of playing any kind of infantry heavy non-Marine army out of sheer model cost.

But, the question is "how elite are Marines suppose to feel" - if Marines were as elite as I'd describe them properly, the game wouldn't look anything like it is now. So, that's impractical. In terms of current Marine killiness, I don't mind it, but they definitely do need a price increase, IMO. I think we're all on board with Marines being less points efficient than they currently are, the real question is "should they get nerfed", or "should their points increase". I favour the latter.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

Intercessors probably are a little too points efficiently at 17 ppm, but they're not that strategically impactful to me.

You're right, points efficiency is king. It's efficient when a similarly costed Executioner Leman Russ TC wipes out almost an entire squad of 10 Intercessors in a single salvo with the only risk being opportunity cost.

Its just that before overly elite armies, you could make an efficient enough infantry contingent. No, you can't meet Intercessors head on and kill them with Guardsmen, granted, but at least anything that makes Guardsmen more effective actually has some return when used against Primaris Marines rather than being a waste of points straight up.

I think that when the troops of one faction start being overly point efficient, things become a lot harder to balance.

Pitching guards against intercessors might be better than guards against custodes, but it is still a losing scenario (and if we compute it fully, by quit a bit).

This means that you need to start devoting specialist resources to deal with the troops of the other faction in a cost efficient manner. At that point, how do you intent to deal with the specialists of the other faction? Because IG troops surely are not point efficient in that role either.

The reason why I insisted a bit more on your custodes vs intercessor example is because while custodes are more point efficient troop wise than guard, average point efficiency is not that ahead wrt to the general IG faction. This is proven by the victory rates in the encounter.

However, overall point efficiency is really bad for IG vs top marine factions. I would argue that it begins with SM basic troops (intercessors) being too point efficient. A point efficiency that is by no means corrected in the other troop categories.

If anything, my understanding of it is that SMs tended to suffer from troop point efficiency, which would then tax them and force them to seek better point efficiency in other categories. Intercessors completely removed that weakness.

Grey40k wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

Intercessors probably are a little too points efficiently at 17 ppm, but they're not that strategically impactful to me.

You're right, points efficiency is king. It's efficient when a similarly costed Executioner Leman Russ TC wipes out almost an entire squad of 10 Intercessors in a single salvo with the only risk being opportunity cost.

Its just that before overly elite armies, you could make an efficient enough infantry contingent. No, you can't meet Intercessors head on and kill them with Guardsmen, granted, but at least anything that makes Guardsmen more effective actually has some return when used against Primaris Marines rather than being a waste of points straight up.

I think that when the troops of one faction start being overly point efficient, things become a lot harder to balance.

Pitching guards against intercessors might be better than guards against custodes, but it is still a losing scenario (and if we compute it fully, by quit a bit).

This means that you need to start devoting specialist resources to deal with the troops of the other faction in a cost efficient manner. At that point, how do you intent to deal with the specialists of the other faction? Because IG troops surely are not point efficient in that role either.

The reason why I insisted a bit more on your custodes vs intercessor example is because while custodes are more point efficient troop wise than guard, average point efficiency is not that ahead wrt to the general IG faction. This is proven by the victory rates in the encounter.

However, overall point efficiency is really bad for IG vs top marine factions. I would argue that it begins with SM basic troops (intercessors) being too point efficient. A point efficiency that is by no means corrected in the other troop categories.

If anything, my understanding of it is that SMs tended to suffer from troop point efficiency, which would then tax them and force them to seek better point efficiency in other categories. Intercessors completely removed that weakness.

I don't disagree ; Troops choices for SM have traditionally been units that you take for tactical utility and objective taking rather than being efficient blunt instruments, and that's how it should be. I would far rather see a rework of Marine troops rather than a simple points change or flat nerf so that they have ways and means of getting onto objectives and staying there rather than their effectiveness coming from conveniently being a decent source of raw firepower when they're taken in a minimal setup as a tax.

The stuff I'm looking at for taking with my Guard with the newest Greater Good book would seem to give them a pretty good helping hand at dealing with those specialists with the new strategems and tank ace rules more efficiently. I won't comment more than that though just yet because I'll have to wait until the weekend to try out the new rules.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Realistically though, that's the point - you shouldn't be using those Guardsmen to kill the Intercessors alone. That's why you bring specialised units to do it properly - and that's what I think Intercessors (and all Space Marines) realistically should be like, pretty good all round, but if something specialised to kill them crops up, they'll be hurt badly.

Of course, the real world costs and how big the armies would be are the real issue here. It goes either of two ways: the games get bigger on the enemy side (so a 2k army of guardsmen being double the size it is now, compared to a currently sized Marine one), or the Marine army gets smaller and more points heavy (ie, a 2k Marines army looking more like a 1k one).
Obviously, GW wouldn't do the latter, got to have people buying Space Marines, and the former would kill the idea of playing any kind of infantry heavy non-Marine army out of sheer model cost.

But, the question is "how elite are Marines suppose to feel" - if Marines were as elite as I'd describe them properly, the game wouldn't look anything like it is now. So, that's impractical. In terms of current Marine killiness, I don't mind it, but they definitely do need a price increase, IMO. I think we're all on board with Marines being less points efficient than they currently are, the real question is "should they get nerfed", or "should their points increase". I favour the latter.

Wel, that's the thing being discussed here. The fact that marine troops are right now too point efficient for generalist troops.

Usually, generalist troops are supposed to be less point efficient than specialists at specific roles; that's the whole point of having specialists to begin with.

When generalist troops are too point efficient at specialist roles (and intercessors are), then it creates problems of balance.

The fluff idea that a marine is 10 normal troops 100 (or whatever this has been inflated to throughout the years) is completely impractical in the tabletop. Why? Because to achieve this and not obliterate the possibility of the other armies being played (no, hundreds of guardsmen are not feasible), then what ends up happening is that the marine needs to be more point efficient. Once that happens, balance disappears.

So for the sake of the game, marines need to be less good than what the imperial propaganda says. Once you make them "worse", relative point efficiency will improve.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

I don't disagree ; Troops choices for SM have traditionally been units that you take for tactical utility and objective taking rather than being efficient blunt instruments, and that's how it should be. I would far rather see a rework of Marine troops rather than a simple points change or flat nerf so that they have ways and means of getting onto objectives and staying there rather than their effectiveness coming from conveniently being a decent source of raw firepower when they're taken in a minimal setup as a tax.

The stuff I'm looking at for taking with my Guard with the newest Greater Good book would seem to give them a pretty good helping hand at dealing with those specialists with the new strategems and tank ace rules more efficiently. I won't comment more than that though just yet because I'll have to wait until the weekend to try out the new rules.

I am incredibly rusty, so I try to be cautious with my opinions. I appreciate the points you were making about custodes, though, and generally the viability of guard infantry lists. I am here to learn!

That said, have fun this weekend. I am a bit more pessimistic than you regarding PA guard rules, since it doesn't seem to change much the outcome of games (at least at a competitive tournament level). But maybe time proves me and the other naysayers wrong!

"Efficienty" isn't an existing meter, so i don't think that you can use it as an argument.

"Efficient at x" is a meter. Intercessors have things where they are really efficient, and other things where they are the least efficient of all troops.

If you pit guardsmen against intercessors, they are going to lose 100% of the times. But that is true even with CA17 costs and before marine supplements and codex 2.0.

Intercessors have ALWAYS mulched down on other troops, but it never was a problem, since they suffer a lot from dedicated fire. Actually they were always considered to be quite underpowered.

They have become better now (doctrines, new chapter tactics and some point less), but the basics don't change. They still mulch other light infantry and get deleted much faster than other troops (point wise) when met with the proper equipment.

Ahhh, bad mathhammer comparisons, my white whale!

Point 1: you are muddying the waters by adding commanders and support elements into the mix, for starters lets just look at raw durability.

36 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 17-point intercessor. 2.11 shots per point.

108 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 49-point custode. 2.20 shots per point.

So, as you pointed out, custodes are more mathematically inefficient when shooting at them with guardsmen versus shooting at them with intercessors. The reason that most people are going to view intercessors as more threatening comes more on the offense side of things.

Let's round down: 8 intercessors vs 3 custodes. We're giving the custodes 11 points for free. What do these guys do vs guardsmen?

Well, the intercessor squad can remove 6 GEQ per turn, anywhere 30" away, which is very nearly a squad per turn. Rounding down to an average of 8 casualties per turn, they return 23.5% just from shooting.

The custode squad can take out 9 guardsmen, if and only if they get within 12", rapid fire their guns, and successfully charge into melee. It's worth noting that if you put the intercessors in a similar situation, they'd pretty handily wipe 2 squads out. A custode squad whacking an infantry squad in an ideal turn is a 27% return.


At 12" range with no charge, the custodes kill 2.8 guardsmen. At 24" range, 1.4.

With both units, once they're optimally engaging with you, you're mathmatically on the losing end of the exchange. Guardsmen pumping shots into custodes at 12" range is a 22% return, and into Intercessors is 23.6%.

But Intercessors can start doing that from 30" range, and custodes have to move across the whole battlefield with their 6" moves to get in range.

Spoletta wrote:
"Efficienty" isn't an existing meter, so i don't think that you can use it as an argument.

"Efficient at x" is a meter. Intercessors have things where they are really efficient, and other things where they are the least efficient of all troops.

If you pit guardsmen against intercessors, they are going to lose 100% of the times. But that is true even with CA17 costs and before marine supplements and codex 2.0.

Intercessors have ALWAYS mulched down on other troops, but it never was a problem, since they suffer a lot from dedicated fire. Actually they were always considered to be quite underpowered.

They have become better now (doctrines, new chapter tactics and some point less), but the basics don't change. They still mulch other light infantry and get deleted much faster than other troops (point wise) when met with the proper equipment.

I would love some examples. In which encounters are they significantly less point efficient than other generalist troops?

Easy.

They are far less durable (per point) against many kind of threats.

For example. I want to screen against Scion plasma drops.

I can use intercessors for this task or i can use Storm Guardians. Which one is more efficient?

Fot this task you aim for 2 objectives:

1) Maximum area covered per point
2) Minimum points lost when they absorb the threat.

I can go into mathammer, but i don't think that we really need it. It is obvious that Storm Guardians are much better at that task.

Another example. Do you want to absorb the impact of khorne zerkers? They suck compared to many other options. Same for a repentia bomb, or even a bloodletter bomb.

You need a screen against the new GK smite spam? They are really really bad (8,5 points per wound).

Guess who's better at holding a point against Bursttide fire? Intercessors or boyz?


Intercessors are the best troop in the game to counter light infantry, but a blanket statement saying that "They are the most efficient!" is obviously wrong.

Grey40k wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
"Efficienty" isn't an existing meter, so i don't think that you can use it as an argument.

"Efficient at x" is a meter. Intercessors have things where they are really efficient, and other things where they are the least efficient of all troops.

If you pit guardsmen against intercessors, they are going to lose 100% of the times. But that is true even with CA17 costs and before marine supplements and codex 2.0.

Intercessors have ALWAYS mulched down on other troops, but it never was a problem, since they suffer a lot from dedicated fire. Actually they were always considered to be quite underpowered.

They have become better now (doctrines, new chapter tactics and some point less), but the basics don't change. They still mulch other light infantry and get deleted much faster than other troops (point wise) when met with the proper equipment.

I would love some examples. In which encounters are they significantly less point efficient than other generalist troops?

There are few generalist troops is the issue, but areas where they can lose out to other troops: tarpitting, board coverage, sheer volume of models (relevant for contesting objectives), as much as they can and do threaten vehicles etc via volume of fire, they lack the ability to take specalist weapons to handle scenarios outside of the norm.

Intercessors are not perfect, they're jsut less imperfect than the other troops if that makes sense. A tacical squad with a combi melta, metla gun and multi melta might kill a vehicle faster than intercessors. Chaos marines are 6 poitns cheaper and can come in 20 man units to swarm stuff etc.

the_scotsman wrote:
Ahhh, bad mathhammer comparisons, my white whale!

Point 1: you are muddying the waters by adding commanders and support elements into the mix, for starters lets just look at raw durability.

36 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 17-point intercessor. 2.11 shots per point.

108 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 49-point custode. 2.20 shots per point.

So, as you pointed out, custodes are more mathematically inefficient when shooting at them with guardsmen versus shooting at them with intercessors. The reason that most people are going to view intercessors as more threatening comes more on the offense side of things.

Let's round down: 8 intercessors vs 3 custodes. We're giving the custodes 11 points for free. What do these guys do vs guardsmen?

Well, the intercessor squad can remove 6 GEQ per turn, anywhere 30" away, which is very nearly a squad per turn. Rounding down to an average of 8 casualties per turn, they return 23.5% just from shooting.

The custode squad can take out 9 guardsmen, if and only if they get within 12", rapid fire their guns, and successfully charge into melee. It's worth noting that if you put the intercessors in a similar situation, they'd pretty handily wipe 2 squads out. A custode squad whacking an infantry squad in an ideal turn is a 27% return.


At 12" range with no charge, the custodes kill 2.8 guardsmen. At 24" range, 1.4.

With both units, once they're optimally engaging with you, you're mathmatically on the losing end of the exchange. Guardsmen pumping shots into custodes at 12" range is a 22% return, and into Intercessors is 23.6%.

But Intercessors can start doing that from 30" range, and custodes have to move across the whole battlefield with their 6" moves to get in range.

I'm not doing anything to muddy the waters by including IG support units. When you're taking multiple squads, they're a mandatory extra limb that you will have around unless you're a muppet or they get sniped. And even then, I was making the exact point that the Guard vs Custodes projection was based on ideal circumstances. If anything, the fact that the support characters could get sniped out by a Vindicare supports my argument on the futility of using Guardsmen as anything other than a blocker against Custodes.

As I said on the last page, Intercessors are not a great threat to a Guard army. If they're 30'' away and killing a few handfuls of 4 pt guardsmen a turn I couldn't care less. That's tuesday for the Guard. Any game where I don't lose handfuls of Guardsmen on T1 and T2 is a weird one. I'm going to be switching soon to trying out minimal mechanized Guardsmen soon as they work better at this point in time in the meta than footsloggers from what I've heard.

You talk about bad Mathhammer and then go on about Intercessors killing Guardsmen at long range. It doesn't matter how many "points-per-shot" Intercessors get if they're a smoking pile of ash from getting obliterated by tanks at the end of turn 2, having only killed half my Guardsmen.

If I only went by points per shot, I wouldn't bother with artillery as a Guard player and would only use Leman Russes since they get more hits out of the gate. But what would you know, when I did take 8 Leman Russes to one tournament I had my worst tournament performance in 8th on that day because every board involved a significant amount of LOS blocking terrain. A Leman Russ that you can't shoot with is little more than an expensive brick, and half of them couldn't shoot in 2/3 games. That's why now I'm mixing up artillery with Russes because Mathhammer so often ceases to be important when context comes into play.

Equally, it doesn't matter if Intercessors have an impressive points-per-shot if they're walking target practice in the grand scheme of things. They're not what I'm afraid of, that would be the Repulsors and Aggressors.

Also again with the bad Mathhammer and you come out by comparing Custodes footslogging from across the board at shooting from outside of melee range. I mean, what? A Custodes player is going to be using the deepstrike strategem. If they're on top of you in turn 2 with 2 units of Custodes, that's when they're an immediate threat that I have to deal with, when Intercessors can have their potshots all they like before I begin to care on turn 3. Again, you've completely forgotten that context is a thing.

Grey40k wrote:Wel, that's the thing being discussed here. The fact that marine troops are right now too point efficient for generalist troops.

The question then becomes which way does one go about doing that - making them more expensive in points, or weaker in power?

The fluff idea that a marine is 10 normal troops 100 (or whatever this has been inflated to throughout the years) is completely impractical in the tabletop. Why? Because to achieve this and not obliterate the possibility of the other armies being played (no, hundreds of guardsmen are not feasible), then what ends up happening is that the marine needs to be more point efficient. Once that happens, balance disappears.

Well, not unless every other army's elite forces are made equally as efficient.

Marines being point efficient is fine. Everyone else being point inefficient isn't.

Basically, I propose making specialist units more powerful, or making Marines more expensive, instead of making Marines weaker or everyone else cheaper.

I'd rather see Marines stay as an elite army than see Tacticals and Intercessors treated like a horde.

"I'd rather see Marines stay as an elite army than see Tacticals and Intercessors treated like a horde."

Ship sailed on that when they brought back AP.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Ahhh, bad mathhammer comparisons, my white whale!

Point 1: you are muddying the waters by adding commanders and support elements into the mix, for starters lets just look at raw durability.

36 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 17-point intercessor. 2.11 shots per point.

108 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 49-point custode. 2.20 shots per point.

So, as you pointed out, custodes are more mathematically inefficient when shooting at them with guardsmen versus shooting at them with intercessors. The reason that most people are going to view intercessors as more threatening comes more on the offense side of things.

Let's round down: 8 intercessors vs 3 custodes. We're giving the custodes 11 points for free. What do these guys do vs guardsmen?

Well, the intercessor squad can remove 6 GEQ per turn, anywhere 30" away, which is very nearly a squad per turn. Rounding down to an average of 8 casualties per turn, they return 23.5% just from shooting.

The custode squad can take out 9 guardsmen, if and only if they get within 12", rapid fire their guns, and successfully charge into melee. It's worth noting that if you put the intercessors in a similar situation, they'd pretty handily wipe 2 squads out. A custode squad whacking an infantry squad in an ideal turn is a 27% return.


At 12" range with no charge, the custodes kill 2.8 guardsmen. At 24" range, 1.4.

With both units, once they're optimally engaging with you, you're mathmatically on the losing end of the exchange. Guardsmen pumping shots into custodes at 12" range is a 22% return, and into Intercessors is 23.6%.

But Intercessors can start doing that from 30" range, and custodes have to move across the whole battlefield with their 6" moves to get in range.

I'm not doing anything to muddy the waters by including IG support units. When you're taking multiple squads, they're a mandatory extra limb that you will have around unless you're a muppet or they get sniped. And even then, I was making the exact point that the Guard vs Custodes projection was based on ideal circumstances. If anything, the fact that the support characters could get sniped out by a Vindicare supports my argument on the futility of using Guardsmen as anything other than a blocker against Custodes.

As I said on the last page, Intercessors are not a great threat to a Guard army. If they're 30'' away and killing a few handfuls of 4 pt guardsmen a turn I couldn't care less. That's tuesday for the Guard. Any game where I don't lose handfuls of Guardsmen on T1 and T2 is a weird one. I'm going to be switching soon to trying out minimal mechanized Guardsmen soon as they work better at this point in time in the meta than footsloggers from what I've heard.

You talk about bad Mathhammer and then go on about Intercessors killing Guardsmen at long range. It doesn't matter how many "points-per-shot" Intercessors get if they're a smoking pile of ash from getting obliterated by tanks at the end of turn 2, having only killed half my Guardsmen.

If I only went by points per shot, I wouldn't bother with artillery as a Guard player and would only use Leman Russes since they get more hits out of the gate. But what would you know, when I did take 8 Leman Russes to one tournament I had my worst tournament performance in 8th on that day because every board involved a significant amount of LOS blocking terrain. A Leman Russ that you can't shoot with is little more than an expensive brick, and half of them couldn't shoot in 2/3 games. That's why now I'm mixing up artillery with Russes because Mathhammer so often ceases to be important when context comes into play.

Equally, it doesn't matter if Intercessors have an impressive points-per-shot if they're walking target practice in the grand scheme of things. They're not what I'm afraid of, that would be the Repulsors and Aggressors.

Also again with the bad Mathhammer and you come out by comparing Custodes footslogging from across the board at shooting from outside of melee range. I mean, what? A Custodes player is going to be using the deepstrike strategem. If they're on top of you in turn 2 with 2 units of Custodes, that's when they're an immediate threat that I have to deal with, when Intercessors can have their potshots all they like before I begin to care on turn 3. Again, you've completely forgotten that context is a thing.

I haven't. I also haven't forgotten that for 1CP, you can turn your Manticore into a Heavy 2D6 S10 AP-2 D3 weapon - and you're saying Intercessors are going to be a pile of ash? Ig have access to multiple ideal weapon profiles for fighting custode targets - high strength, AP-2, damage within the 3-D3 range.

My point overall is that even IF the custodes show up immediately 9" away and even IF they manage to get into combat (not guaranteed) the gap in efficiency between your guardsmen even before orders and his custode squads is incredibly slim in terms of points return percentages. The only reason you felt like it was more is A) you got the points for intercessors wrong and B) you added morale support to your calculations for the custodes and not the intercessors, as if you're fighting 1 custode and 1 intercessor at a time, instead of running the exact same TAC guard list against both. Whatever % of your budget you put towards useless commissars (and they really are just so useless in every situation...) you're putting the same % fighting custodes or fighting intercessors.

Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs custodes. Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs most units - it's definitely their best quality, they're 4ppm models with a 5+ save and decent morale compared to other troops in that point zone. Just compare them to gretchin pound for pound.

The other point of context your missing is buffs. Guardsmen can be multiplied in effectiveness by 1.5 using orders in shooting, and given rerolls and + to hit and + to wound through several other sources. Custodes can reroll 1s to hit, by much, MUCH more expensive HQs. They don't get any benefit for cover vs Ap- weaponry. Even though the efficiency of custodes killing guard vs guard killing custodes is a slight disadvantage in a vacuum - 27% vs 21% - you can easily tilt that in your favor if you want to run an infantry based army into custodes, and they have very few ways to actually make themselves more efficient at killing GEQ, particularly if youre smart about feeding him one squad at a time.

Guard wrecked custodes even during metas where custodes were extremely strong. Remove marines from the equation, they'd do exactly the same thing now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Grey40k wrote:Wel, that's the thing being discussed here. The fact that marine troops are right now too point efficient for generalist troops.

The question then becomes which way does one go about doing that - making them more expensive in points, or weaker in power?

The fluff idea that a marine is 10 normal troops 100 (or whatever this has been inflated to throughout the years) is completely impractical in the tabletop. Why? Because to achieve this and not obliterate the possibility of the other armies being played (no, hundreds of guardsmen are not feasible), then what ends up happening is that the marine needs to be more point efficient. Once that happens, balance disappears.

Well, not unless every other army's elite forces are made equally as efficient.

Marines being point efficient is fine. Everyone else being point inefficient isn't.

Basically, I propose making specialist units more powerful, or making Marines more expensive, instead of making Marines weaker or everyone else cheaper.

I'd rather see Marines stay as an elite army than see Tacticals and Intercessors treated like a horde.

If you gave me complete executive power, I'd probably ditch bolter discipline and limit doctrines (probably to Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3 you must switch then they go away after that) and replace them with "Marine infantry ignore AP-1, Marine Vehicles move and fire heavy weapons")

The biggest issue I have with the buffs are that they MASSIVELY spiked marine killiness while rewarding uninteractive play (Squatting in devastator doctrine and not moving your infantry to get Bolter Drill) and did nothing to address the most legitimate complaint of marine players, their fragility.

A marine should be a defensively skewed model. Their most defining characteristic is their power armor, and they've always been billed as a "lightning strike force". A huge blob of dudes standing still and shooting 30" across the table is hardly most players idea of the "Space marine gameplay fantasy".

the_scotsman wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Ahhh, bad mathhammer comparisons, my white whale!

Point 1: you are muddying the waters by adding commanders and support elements into the mix, for starters lets just look at raw durability.

36 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 17-point intercessor. 2.11 shots per point.

108 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 49-point custode. 2.20 shots per point.

So, as you pointed out, custodes are more mathematically inefficient when shooting at them with guardsmen versus shooting at them with intercessors. The reason that most people are going to view intercessors as more threatening comes more on the offense side of things.

Let's round down: 8 intercessors vs 3 custodes. We're giving the custodes 11 points for free. What do these guys do vs guardsmen?

Well, the intercessor squad can remove 6 GEQ per turn, anywhere 30" away, which is very nearly a squad per turn. Rounding down to an average of 8 casualties per turn, they return 23.5% just from shooting.

The custode squad can take out 9 guardsmen, if and only if they get within 12", rapid fire their guns, and successfully charge into melee. It's worth noting that if you put the intercessors in a similar situation, they'd pretty handily wipe 2 squads out. A custode squad whacking an infantry squad in an ideal turn is a 27% return.


At 12" range with no charge, the custodes kill 2.8 guardsmen. At 24" range, 1.4.

With both units, once they're optimally engaging with you, you're mathmatically on the losing end of the exchange. Guardsmen pumping shots into custodes at 12" range is a 22% return, and into Intercessors is 23.6%.

But Intercessors can start doing that from 30" range, and custodes have to move across the whole battlefield with their 6" moves to get in range.

I'm not doing anything to muddy the waters by including IG support units. When you're taking multiple squads, they're a mandatory extra limb that you will have around unless you're a muppet or they get sniped. And even then, I was making the exact point that the Guard vs Custodes projection was based on ideal circumstances. If anything, the fact that the support characters could get sniped out by a Vindicare supports my argument on the futility of using Guardsmen as anything other than a blocker against Custodes.

As I said on the last page, Intercessors are not a great threat to a Guard army. If they're 30'' away and killing a few handfuls of 4 pt guardsmen a turn I couldn't care less. That's tuesday for the Guard. Any game where I don't lose handfuls of Guardsmen on T1 and T2 is a weird one. I'm going to be switching soon to trying out minimal mechanized Guardsmen soon as they work better at this point in time in the meta than footsloggers from what I've heard.

You talk about bad Mathhammer and then go on about Intercessors killing Guardsmen at long range. It doesn't matter how many "points-per-shot" Intercessors get if they're a smoking pile of ash from getting obliterated by tanks at the end of turn 2, having only killed half my Guardsmen.

If I only went by points per shot, I wouldn't bother with artillery as a Guard player and would only use Leman Russes since they get more hits out of the gate. But what would you know, when I did take 8 Leman Russes to one tournament I had my worst tournament performance in 8th on that day because every board involved a significant amount of LOS blocking terrain. A Leman Russ that you can't shoot with is little more than an expensive brick, and half of them couldn't shoot in 2/3 games. That's why now I'm mixing up artillery with Russes because Mathhammer so often ceases to be important when context comes into play.

Equally, it doesn't matter if Intercessors have an impressive points-per-shot if they're walking target practice in the grand scheme of things. They're not what I'm afraid of, that would be the Repulsors and Aggressors.

Also again with the bad Mathhammer and you come out by comparing Custodes footslogging from across the board at shooting from outside of melee range. I mean, what? A Custodes player is going to be using the deepstrike strategem. If they're on top of you in turn 2 with 2 units of Custodes, that's when they're an immediate threat that I have to deal with, when Intercessors can have their potshots all they like before I begin to care on turn 3. Again, you've completely forgotten that context is a thing.

I haven't. I also haven't forgotten that for 1CP, you can turn your Manticore into a Heavy 2D6 S10 AP-2 D3 weapon - and you're saying Intercessors are going to be a pile of ash? Ig have access to multiple ideal weapon profiles for fighting custode targets - high strength, AP-2, damage within the 3-D3 range.

My point overall is that even IF the custodes show up immediately 9" away and even IF they manage to get into combat (not guaranteed) the gap in efficiency between your guardsmen even before orders and his custode squads is incredibly slim in terms of points return percentages. The only reason you felt like it was more is A) you got the points for intercessors wrong and B) you added morale support to your calculations for the custodes and not the intercessors, as if you're fighting 1 custode and 1 intercessor at a time, instead of running the exact same TAC guard list against both. Whatever % of your budget you put towards useless commissars (and they really are just so useless in every situation...) you're putting the same % fighting custodes or fighting intercessors.

Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs custodes. Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs most units - it's definitely their best quality, they're 4ppm models with a 5+ save and decent morale compared to other troops in that point zone. Just compare them to gretchin pound for pound.

The other point of context your missing is buffs. Guardsmen can be multiplied in effectiveness by 1.5 using orders in shooting, and given rerolls and + to hit and + to wound through several other sources. Custodes can reroll 1s to hit, by much, MUCH more expensive HQs. They don't get any benefit for cover vs Ap- weaponry. Even though the efficiency of custodes killing guard vs guard killing custodes is a slight disadvantage in a vacuum - 27% vs 21% - you can easily tilt that in your favor if you want to run an infantry based army into custodes, and they have very few ways to actually make themselves more efficient at killing GEQ, particularly if youre smart about feeding him one squad at a time.

Guard wrecked custodes even during metas where custodes were extremely strong. Remove marines from the equation, they'd do exactly the same thing now.

The Manticore gimmick is brand new and I haven't even tried it yet. But again, still reinforces my point - you're winning because heavy support spam is the way to do it. Which is how it is anyway.

The Intercessor points drop doesn't make a significant strategic difference. It doesn't stop Guardsmen from being able to contribute meaningfully at their price point. All of the same arguments still apply, it just means that my opponent has 45-60 more points to play with. I did add morale support into my calculations, though I probably shouldn't have since I just copied the argument further up the page, but I added a meagre 16 pts on to demonstrate what a minimum sized IG infantry battlegroup would look like. If you're taking multiple squads of infantry with damage dealing in mind, you're taking morale support. And you're right, the LD8 Commissar is pretty bad, but I didn't want to strain my argument by lobbing on the ideal and far more expensive morale support alternatives that you would realistically take just to inflate the numbers. I don't need to.

How efficient Custodes are isn't relevant when the only thing that matters when Custodes drop in next to a gunline is whether they break through the Guardsmen or not and tie up multiple vehicles. At that point the game is over. Checkmate, end of story, period. Intercessors can't checkmate your gunline outside of niche Deathwatch builds to my knowledge and that's why they can be ignored where Custodes can't. All they can do is take potshots and chip away at models you took knowing were going to get removed anyway. It doesn't make any difference whether Custodes efficiently killed their points in or absorbed their shot-per-point worth from Guardsmen if the Custodes player wins because the Guard player has a breached defensive line. Again, context. In that moment the Guard player wins or loses purely based on whether they can eliminate the Grav Tanks, Jetbike Captain and deepstrikers in a timely enough order without one of them getting an oppurtunity to cripple you.

I made the efficiency comparison to demonstrate that on a strategic level when writing a list and before playing the game, it makes no sense to have a build where every infantry buff or support element is worthless if you end up playing Custodes and you lose just because you couldn't kill one of the big threats fast enough. So writing a Guard list is about how much you can spam high strength high damage guns and get cheap blockers and little else. That's fun.

Yes, Guard probably do wreck Custodes when the top meta lists are compared. But by not by using builds that put emphasis on infantry. And I'm not always talking about top ITC tournaments, I'm talking about a ladder rung down with far more common and typical local competitive tournaments and environments.

the_scotsman wrote:
If you gave me complete executive power, I'd probably ditch bolter discipline and limit doctrines (probably to Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3 you must switch then they go away after that) and replace them with "Marine infantry ignore AP-1, Marine Vehicles move and fire heavy weapons")

The biggest issue I have with the buffs are that they MASSIVELY spiked marine killiness while rewarding uninteractive play (Squatting in devastator doctrine and not moving your infantry to get Bolter Drill) and did nothing to address the most legitimate complaint of marine players, their fragility.

I don't think Marine fragility is a legitimate complaint, at least not when stated so broadly.

A single S4, AP0 hit takes out an average of 1.78 points of Guardsmen.
Or 2.22 points of Termagants.
Or 2.92 points of Boyz.
Or 2.33 points of Fire Warriors.
Or 2.0 points of Tacticals.
But it only eliminates 1.41 points of Intercessors.

Intercessors are point-for-point some of the most durable basic infantry in the game against the fire of other infantry, but have an Achilles' heel to high-AP, Dam2 weapons. Marine players don't complain about Primaris fragility because they're getting hosed down by regular bolters or massed lasguns, it's the plasma guns that splatter them- but nobody has those as their basic weapon; and a big part of the reason players spam those high-AP, Dam2 weapons is specifically because they're the only effective way to kill Primaris.

A Primaris army is, mechanically, not too dissimilar from a vehicle-heavy skew list. You're less vulnerable to lasguns and bolters, more vulnerable to plasma guns and lascannons. The issue is that if the game's meta were 50+% vehicle-heavy lists, then the meta would also be to build lists around anti-tank, and suddenly those tanks wouldn't feel so durable anymore. So now all those tank players feel like their vehicles are too easily to kill, plus throw in the random horde list that exploits this meta, and things start to become rather un-fun for everyone.

Giving Marines the ability to ignore AP-1 just means light weapons become increasingly useless, Autocannons become mildly less painful, and plasma/Disintegrator/Exocrine/etc spam will continue to be the only viable counter.

I hate to say it, but if you really need to give Marines a modest buff against high-power weaponry, something like a 5++ is the way to go. But given how, as you've pointed out, Marines on the table feel nothing like Marines in the fluff, I'd rather see rules play to their in-lore strengths. They shouldn't be tanking lascannon fire, they should be sufficiently coordinated and mobile to avoid getting shot with lascannons in the first place. Optimally I think the game would really benefit from a C&C mechanic, but failing that, better ability to move and fire in lieu of 30" Bolter Discipline castling might make them play a bit more fluffy.

the_scotsman wrote:
If you gave me complete executive power, I'd probably ditch bolter discipline and limit doctrines (probably to Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3 you must switch then they go away after that) and replace them with "Marine infantry ignore AP-1, Marine Vehicles move and fire heavy weapons")

I'd definitely remove doctrines. Bolter discipline I'm indifferent on, I really like their extra attack on the first round of combat though - that feels suitable.

Ignoring AP-1 I think would go some way on making Marines feel that more durable, but it's really weight of fire AP0 stuff that I find most jarring.

A marine should be a defensively skewed model. Their most defining characteristic is their power armor, and they've always been billed as a "lightning strike force". A huge blob of dudes standing still and shooting 30" across the table is hardly most players idea of the "Space marine gameplay fantasy".

Yeah, castling isn't what I'd call Space Marine-esque.

To me, they're mobile, flexible, and unrelenting, fast and tough as nails. Their weakness is how few of them there are, which is why they need good target priority. Instead, it almost feels that they're too fragile.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Mr.Omega wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Ahhh, bad mathhammer comparisons, my white whale!

Point 1: you are muddying the waters by adding commanders and support elements into the mix, for starters lets just look at raw durability.

36 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 17-point intercessor. 2.11 shots per point.

108 BS4 lasgun shots to down a 49-point custode. 2.20 shots per point.

So, as you pointed out, custodes are more mathematically inefficient when shooting at them with guardsmen versus shooting at them with intercessors. The reason that most people are going to view intercessors as more threatening comes more on the offense side of things.

Let's round down: 8 intercessors vs 3 custodes. We're giving the custodes 11 points for free. What do these guys do vs guardsmen?

Well, the intercessor squad can remove 6 GEQ per turn, anywhere 30" away, which is very nearly a squad per turn. Rounding down to an average of 8 casualties per turn, they return 23.5% just from shooting.

The custode squad can take out 9 guardsmen, if and only if they get within 12", rapid fire their guns, and successfully charge into melee. It's worth noting that if you put the intercessors in a similar situation, they'd pretty handily wipe 2 squads out. A custode squad whacking an infantry squad in an ideal turn is a 27% return.


At 12" range with no charge, the custodes kill 2.8 guardsmen. At 24" range, 1.4.

With both units, once they're optimally engaging with you, you're mathmatically on the losing end of the exchange. Guardsmen pumping shots into custodes at 12" range is a 22% return, and into Intercessors is 23.6%.

But Intercessors can start doing that from 30" range, and custodes have to move across the whole battlefield with their 6" moves to get in range.

I'm not doing anything to muddy the waters by including IG support units. When you're taking multiple squads, they're a mandatory extra limb that you will have around unless you're a muppet or they get sniped. And even then, I was making the exact point that the Guard vs Custodes projection was based on ideal circumstances. If anything, the fact that the support characters could get sniped out by a Vindicare supports my argument on the futility of using Guardsmen as anything other than a blocker against Custodes.

As I said on the last page, Intercessors are not a great threat to a Guard army. If they're 30'' away and killing a few handfuls of 4 pt guardsmen a turn I couldn't care less. That's tuesday for the Guard. Any game where I don't lose handfuls of Guardsmen on T1 and T2 is a weird one. I'm going to be switching soon to trying out minimal mechanized Guardsmen soon as they work better at this point in time in the meta than footsloggers from what I've heard.

You talk about bad Mathhammer and then go on about Intercessors killing Guardsmen at long range. It doesn't matter how many "points-per-shot" Intercessors get if they're a smoking pile of ash from getting obliterated by tanks at the end of turn 2, having only killed half my Guardsmen.

If I only went by points per shot, I wouldn't bother with artillery as a Guard player and would only use Leman Russes since they get more hits out of the gate. But what would you know, when I did take 8 Leman Russes to one tournament I had my worst tournament performance in 8th on that day because every board involved a significant amount of LOS blocking terrain. A Leman Russ that you can't shoot with is little more than an expensive brick, and half of them couldn't shoot in 2/3 games. That's why now I'm mixing up artillery with Russes because Mathhammer so often ceases to be important when context comes into play.

Equally, it doesn't matter if Intercessors have an impressive points-per-shot if they're walking target practice in the grand scheme of things. They're not what I'm afraid of, that would be the Repulsors and Aggressors.

Also again with the bad Mathhammer and you come out by comparing Custodes footslogging from across the board at shooting from outside of melee range. I mean, what? A Custodes player is going to be using the deepstrike strategem. If they're on top of you in turn 2 with 2 units of Custodes, that's when they're an immediate threat that I have to deal with, when Intercessors can have their potshots all they like before I begin to care on turn 3. Again, you've completely forgotten that context is a thing.

I haven't. I also haven't forgotten that for 1CP, you can turn your Manticore into a Heavy 2D6 S10 AP-2 D3 weapon - and you're saying Intercessors are going to be a pile of ash? Ig have access to multiple ideal weapon profiles for fighting custode targets - high strength, AP-2, damage within the 3-D3 range.

My point overall is that even IF the custodes show up immediately 9" away and even IF they manage to get into combat (not guaranteed) the gap in efficiency between your guardsmen even before orders and his custode squads is incredibly slim in terms of points return percentages. The only reason you felt like it was more is A) you got the points for intercessors wrong and B) you added morale support to your calculations for the custodes and not the intercessors, as if you're fighting 1 custode and 1 intercessor at a time, instead of running the exact same TAC guard list against both. Whatever % of your budget you put towards useless commissars (and they really are just so useless in every situation...) you're putting the same % fighting custodes or fighting intercessors.

Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs custodes. Guardsmen are mostly blockers vs most units - it's definitely their best quality, they're 4ppm models with a 5+ save and decent morale compared to other troops in that point zone. Just compare them to gretchin pound for pound.

The other point of context your missing is buffs. Guardsmen can be multiplied in effectiveness by 1.5 using orders in shooting, and given rerolls and + to hit and + to wound through several other sources. Custodes can reroll 1s to hit, by much, MUCH more expensive HQs. They don't get any benefit for cover vs Ap- weaponry. Even though the efficiency of custodes killing guard vs guard killing custodes is a slight disadvantage in a vacuum - 27% vs 21% - you can easily tilt that in your favor if you want to run an infantry based army into custodes, and they have very few ways to actually make themselves more efficient at killing GEQ, particularly if youre smart about feeding him one squad at a time.

Guard wrecked custodes even during metas where custodes were extremely strong. Remove marines from the equation, they'd do exactly the same thing now.

The Manticore gimmick is brand new and I haven't even tried it yet. But again, still reinforces my point - you're winning because heavy support spam is the way to do it. Which is how it is anyway.

The Intercessor points drop doesn't make a significant strategic difference. It doesn't stop Guardsmen from being able to contribute meaningfully at their price point. All of the same arguments still apply, it just means that my opponent has 45-60 more points to play with. I didn't add morale support into my calculations, I probably shouldn't have since I just copied the argument further up the page, but I added a meagre 16 pts on to demonstrate what a minimum sized IG infantry battlegroup would look like. If you're taking multiple squads of infantry with damage dealing in mind, you're taking morale support. And you're right, the LD8 Commissar is pretty bad, but I didn't want to strain my argument by lobbing on the ideal and far more expensive morale support alternatives that you would realistically take just to inflate the numbers. I don't need to.

How efficient Custodes are isn't relevant when the only thing that matters when Custodes drop in next to a gunline is whether they break through the Guardsmen or not and tie up multiple vehicles. At that point the game is over. Checkmate, end of story, period. Intercessors can't checkmate your gunline outside of niche Deathwatch builds to my knowledge and that's why they can be ignored where Custodes can't. All they can do is take potshots and chip away at models you took knowing were going to get removed anyway. It doesn't make any difference whether Custodes efficiently killed their points in or absorbed their shot-per-point worth from Guardsmen if the Custodes player wins because the Guard player has a breached defensive line. Again, context. In that moment the Guard player wins or loses purely based on whether they can eliminate the Grav Tanks, Jetbike Captain and deepstrikers in a timely enough order without one of them getting an oppurtunity to cripple you.

I made the efficiency comparison to demonstrate that on a strategic level when writing a list and before playing the game, it makes no sense to have a build where every infantry buff or support element is worthless if you end up playing Custodes and you lose just because you couldn't kill one of the big threats fast enough. So writing a Guard list is about how much you can spam high strength high damage guns and get cheap blockers and little else. That's fun.

Yes, Guard probably do wreck Custodes when the top meta lists are compared. But by not by using builds that put emphasis on infantry. And I'm not always talking about top ITC tournaments, I'm talking about a ladder rung down with far more common and typical local competitive tournaments and environments.

I am extremely confused as to how you believe custodes deep striking in 9" away from your guard screen creates any kind of "Checkmate."

Like, fundamentally. Custodes are a hair better at returning their points by carving through guardsmen than guardsmen are at carving through custodes. So....check..mate?

In my eyes, the only way this could be a checkmate situation is if you DO spam HS rather than having a large number of GEQ screening your tanks. if you have, say, a brigade's worth of GEQ, you'd lose an absolutely minimal number of guardsmen, just fall back, shoot them with your fall back and shoot order, and shoot them with your artillery.

What can the custode player teleport in, 2 squads of 5? So that's 490 points that teleports in turn 2, kills all of 9 guardsmen with their shooting. Statistically 1 of those 2 squads makes the charge roll, and depending on your spacing kills either 1 more squad or 1.5 more squads.

Sure, you're in trouble at that point if you brought 30 guardsmen to screen with and that's it, but you're talking about an infantry focused list here. That's a drop in the damn bucket. My friend's infantry focused list has like 250 models, we're talking about losing 30 guys tops.

I understand competitive lists don't mean much, but I'm honestly just kind of baffled how in a casual setting you are actually having more trouble with custodes as guard than marines. Are you just taking tons of tanks, minimal screens, and getting tied up by deep strikers/bikes?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
If you gave me complete executive power, I'd probably ditch bolter discipline and limit doctrines (probably to Turn 1, Turn 2, Turn 3 you must switch then they go away after that) and replace them with "Marine infantry ignore AP-1, Marine Vehicles move and fire heavy weapons")

I'd definitely remove doctrines. Bolter discipline I'm indifferent on, I really like their extra attack on the first round of combat though - that feels suitable.

Ignoring AP-1 I think would go some way on making Marines feel that more durable, but it's really weight of fire AP0 stuff that I find most jarring.

A marine should be a defensively skewed model. Their most defining characteristic is their power armor, and they've always been billed as a "lightning strike force". A huge blob of dudes standing still and shooting 30" across the table is hardly most players idea of the "Space marine gameplay fantasy".

Yeah, castling isn't what I'd call Space Marine-esque.

To me, they're mobile, flexible, and unrelenting, fast and tough as nails. Their weakness is how few of them there are, which is why they need good target priority. Instead, it almost feels that they're too fragile.

having now played against Grey Knights perma-cover and as Thousand Sons, I think marines having a 2+ armor base makes them a tad bit less interesting. You basically go from being the army that benefits the most from smart use of cover to an army where cover may as well not be on the board.

Getting into smack down drag out gunfights with expendable guard and ork squads isn't really meant to be a marine's MO - those are the kinds of targets they either gun down at range or drop in and alpha strike before they hit back. I'm personally OK with marines being on the losing end of straight up gunfights with the more expendable factions.

They are too fragile. They are still glass cannons because of costing and AP. GW's "fixes" are just obnoxious.

the_scotsman wrote:


I am extremely confused as to how you believe custodes deep striking in 9" away from your guard screen creates any kind of "Checkmate."

Like, fundamentally. Custodes are a hair better at returning their points by carving through guardsmen than guardsmen are at carving through custodes. So....check..mate?

In my eyes, the only way this could be a checkmate situation is if you DO spam HS rather than having a large number of GEQ screening your tanks. if you have, say, a brigade's worth of GEQ, you'd lose an absolutely minimal number of guardsmen, just fall back, shoot them with your fall back and shoot order, and shoot them with your artillery.

And here you are, making the assumption that the Custodes player hasn't accounted for killing lots of Guardsmen in reasonable time and that my Guardsmen will just be fresh and perfectly positioned to have something resembling firepower, which they won't.

The act of deepstriking isn't a checkmate, breaking through and tying up all your vehicles is the checkmate situation. It doesn't matter how many points Custodes return by killing Guardsmen. You can't just think about it in terms of math. Custodes straight up win if they make the breakthrough taking into account every other tool, strategem and unit the Custodes player has it has disposal, between a second deepstriking unit, attacking twice a turn in the assault phase and using Grav Tank secondary weapons to thin out Guardsmen in that first turn.

And no I don't think it makes Custodes overpowered, I think it puts me in a situation where my list building is one-dimensional. In much the same way that the introduction of Riptides made me have to reconsider every single list I wrote in 6th and 7th edition after they appeared because of their unique durability profile with multiple 2+ save wounds at toughness 6, being basically invulnerable to a lot of common fire support units, basic Russes and Basilisks included. And no, Riptides also didn't end up as permanent top tier ITC stompers in every year of 6th and 7th, but it didn't mean that they didn't have a significant influence on limiting what you could work with.

When I'm thinking about playing against Marines in 8th, I'm thinking about working around Aggressors, Leviathans and Repulsors, not Intercessors.

I don't quite understand how foot slogging low model count armies can do anything vs IG. They'll never get through the sea of bodies. I can't get through them with jump troops most of the time. They are too deep. The big guns behind the wall of infantry doing the real damage is how IG works. Although some squads with some special weapons aren't crazy.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't quite understand how foot slogging low model count armies can do anything vs IG. They'll never get through the sea of bodies. I can't get through them with jump troops most of the time. They are too deep. The big guns behind the wall of infantry doing the real damage is how IG works. Although some squads with some special weapons aren't crazy.

Take Auto Bolt Rifles or Aggressors. In Tactical doctrine, a trio of Aggressors double-firing, with re-rolling 1s to hit and to wound, comfortably wipe three full squads. Two such squads make for a solid hole-clearing firebase for just 11% of your army's points total.

As I recall, you've stated in other threads that you play melee-heavy Marines. So, you're playing a melee army with a low model count against probably the best army at meatshield defense-in-depth- you need a real investment in anti-chaff or of course you're going to struggle.

 Mr.Omega wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:


I am extremely confused as to how you believe custodes deep striking in 9" away from your guard screen creates any kind of "Checkmate."

Like, fundamentally. Custodes are a hair better at returning their points by carving through guardsmen than guardsmen are at carving through custodes. So....check..mate?

In my eyes, the only way this could be a checkmate situation is if you DO spam HS rather than having a large number of GEQ screening your tanks. if you have, say, a brigade's worth of GEQ, you'd lose an absolutely minimal number of guardsmen, just fall back, shoot them with your fall back and shoot order, and shoot them with your artillery.

And here you are, making the assumption that the Custodes player hasn't accounted for killing lots of Guardsmen in reasonable time and that my Guardsmen will just be fresh and perfectly positioned to have something resembling firepower, which they won't.

The act of deepstriking isn't a checkmate, breaking through and tying up all your vehicles is the checkmate situation. It doesn't matter how many points Custodes return by killing Guardsmen. You can't just think about it in terms of math. Custodes straight up win if they make the breakthrough taking into account every other tool, strategem and unit the Custodes player has it has disposal, between a second deepstriking unit, attacking twice a turn in the assault phase and using Grav Tank secondary weapons to thin out Guardsmen in that first turn.

And no I don't think it makes Custodes overpowered, I think it puts me in a situation where my list building is one-dimensional. In much the same way that the introduction of Riptides made me have to reconsider every single list I wrote in 6th and 7th edition after they appeared because of their unique durability profile with multiple 2+ save wounds at toughness 6, being basically invulnerable to a lot of common fire support units, basic Russes and Basilisks included. And no, Riptides also didn't end up as permanent top tier ITC stompers in every year of 6th and 7th, but it didn't mean that they didn't have a significant influence on limiting what you could work with.

When I'm thinking about playing against Marines in 8th, I'm thinking about working around Aggressors, Leviathans and Repulsors, not Intercessors.

But how is that fundamentally different from any assault oriented army doing the exact same thing, but much, much better?

As Orks, for example, I can teleport 30 ork boyz at you turn 1, which are MUCH more efficient at getting thru guardsmen, can fight twice, and are much better at getting in from the deep strike with Ere We Go and Evil Sunz.

Anything breaking through your lines and getting into b2b with all your tanks is effectively gg - outside of a few vehicles like hellhounds and baneblades and whatnot.

At first I thought we were talking about custodes making your anti-infantry firepower inefficient because they're all T5 2+ W3, but custodes are only the tiniest hair less efficient to shoot with guardsmen than marines, as I showed. and they come with the drawback of being incredibly inefficient killing your stuff. Actually, all custode weapons are super inefficient at killing GEQ, even hurricane bikes. "Bold of you to assume I have any guardsmen LEFT by turn 2" is equally bizarre to me. what are they screen clearing with? Those 90pt bikes with one hurricane bolter on them? the ones that kill 4 guardsmen in a turn?

Also, how do they fight twice? I'm not seeing that anywhere as a stratagem. There are plenty of armies that CAN fight twice at you, and that's a problem for screening your tanks...but custodes don't seem to be one of them.

Certain weapons in the guard arsenal aren't particularly effective against custodes, that's for sure. I don't see how they warp your listbuilding choices any more than, say, knights do, or the potential that you could bring a basilisk or two and face an ork horde.

Is mathematically impossible as a Custodes player to eliminate a heavy infantry army of IG in less than two turns. A IG player can have 200 boots on the ground and have many, many points to spare for heavy artillery and other components.

A Custodes List literally doesn't has enough shoots to clear that, even spamming bikes and biker captains. A squad of 3 custodian guards with misericordia will kill at MAXIMUM 18 guardsmen. 6 for shooting and 12 for meele. Thats 150 aprox points killing 72 points assuming shooting from rapidfire range, meele, and literally failing 0 attacks.
And Custodian Guards are troops without deepstrike or transport (A land raider lol) that walk 6" a turn.

I'm sorry but as a Custodes Player to see a Imperial Guard player complaining about fething custodian guards?

 Galas wrote:
Is mathematically impossible as a Custodes player to eliminate a heavy infantry army of IG in less than two turns. A IG player can have 200 boots on the ground and have many, many points to spare for heavy artillery and other components.

A Custodes List literally doesn't has enough shoots to clear that, even spamming bikes and biker captains. A squad of 3 custodian guards with misericordia will kill at MAXIMUM 18 guardsmen. 6 for shooting and 12 for meele. Thats 150 aprox points killing 72 points assuming shooting from rapidfire range, meele, and literally failing 0 attacks.
And Custodian Guards are troops without deepstrike or transport (A land raider lol) that walk 6" a turn.

I don't think anyone disputes that Custodes take FW units to function as an army.

 Mr.Omega wrote:


When I'm thinking about playing against Marines in 8th, I'm thinking about working around Aggressors, Leviathans and Repulsors, not Intercessors.

I am aware at this point we are theory crafting, but I just wanted to point something out.

If the enemy troops are more point efficient than yours, this means that they already won one battle.
If all the unit types in one army are more point efficient overall than yours, it means you lose the war.

Primaris marine troops are possibly the most point efficient troops across armies at many of the relevant roles (perhaps not at carpeting the board). In particular, they trade very well both with the vast majority of enemy troops, and even with some specialists from other factions (many examples of melee given earlier in the thread).

More point efficient troops means that they can deploy a lesser investment and out trade enemy troops (and sometimes even specialists).

Telling us that heavy detachments kill primaris intercessors is meaningless. Marines also have answers against heavy detachments, and for sure you won't kill those marine heavies with lasgun guards. This effectively means that your non troop types are on double duty, i.e. killing enemy troops and killing enemy specialists. This means that specialist guard (and other armies) troops have to be more point efficient than marine specialists in order to recuperate the advantage lost by the less point efficient troops.

Currently, marine Iron Hands firepower through heavy support is more point efficient than guard heavy support (the whole levies with bubbles and so on), and sure as heck marine troops are more point efficient than IG troops. This means that IH outtrade IG in all departments and that is why they have a freaking 75% win rate against astra militarum.

This is my old returning take on the current meta anyway.

 Galas wrote:
Is mathematically impossible as a Custodes player to eliminate a heavy infantry army of IG in less than two turns. A IG player can have 200 boots on the ground and have many, many points to spare for heavy artillery and other components.

A Custodes List literally doesn't has enough shoots to clear that, even spamming bikes and biker captains. A squad of 3 custodian guards with misericordia will kill at MAXIMUM 18 guardsmen. 6 for shooting and 12 for meele. Thats 150 aprox points killing 72 points assuming shooting from rapidfire range, meele, and literally failing 0 attacks.
And Custodian Guards are troops without deepstrike or transport (A land raider lol) that walk 6" a turn.

I'm sorry but as a Custodes Player to see a Imperial Guard player complaining about fething custodian guards?

Custodes aren't a very good army as a whole, but they are really irritating with their 2+ saves, 2+ rerolls to hit, counter-intercepting shield captains, etc. As Tyranids it's irritating that I can shoot 90 devourer shots and only remove 1 infantry model.

The IH things is debateably an ITC thing not just rules thing. Also the key thing that bugs me about this whole arguement is you can;t compare Intercessors to guard line. They aren't the same troops. Intercessors are not the base marine troops. They are primaris marine troops. Bigger better stronger than normal marines.

If you want to compare base line marine troops to base line guard troops. Compare scouts.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:


If you want to compare base line marine troops to base line guard troops. Compare scouts.

Why? If intercessors are more point efficient, I will take them. They are troops all the same, the fluff stating they are war gods means little once they put their foot on the table.