Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

1st turn tablings were not uncommon in 2nd, though. GW has always had this problem.

 Jimbotron wrote:
Given the lethality of 8th edition, would it be better served going to a 4 turn game like 2nd Edition?

Would a shorter game force the incentive to play more optimized armies knowing that you only have 4 turns to win the game?

Also, losing on turn 2 or 3 might not feel as bad knowing that you only have 4 turns vs 5,6 or 7? Sometimes there is that embarrassment factor of getting tabled when you still have 5 turns to play vs 2.

Almost all the missions I design for events are 4-turn. It seems to work pretty well.

Well, my last game was on TTS and it came down to, literally, the last dice rolls. Very end of turn six, if I killed his chaplain I'd get a point for headhunter. My autarch got four wounds through with his laser Lance, he had his 4++ and no CP, he made two, I got my headhunter point resulting in a 27 point draw.
If not for the terrain it would have been turn two, maybe three. We were forced to be cautious because we both could output a lot of damage and we couldn't afford to just rush out.

The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

Martel732 wrote:
1st turn tablings were not uncommon in 2nd, though. GW has always had this problem.

Virus Bombs anyone?

Not just that. Noise marines and eldar were notorious for causing turn 1 tablings.

 iGuy91 wrote:
The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

I agree and with that it makes unit choices more enjoyable instead of needing to field tons of redundancy as insurance that you can actually use that interesting unit instead of it being wiped off the board turn 1 or damaged so badly that it's practically useless for its original purpose. With that it allows for smaller point games that still have variety because again you don't need to spam as much redundancy to be able to play the unit combo you want in your list.

 Vankraken wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

I agree and with that it makes unit choices more enjoyable instead of needing to field tons of redundancy as insurance that you can actually use that interesting unit instead of it being wiped off the board turn 1 or damaged so badly that it's practically useless for its original purpose. With that it allows for smaller point games that still have variety because again you don't need to spam as much redundancy to be able to play the unit combo you want in your list.

Well, let's throw some ideas around. I can give you some that I've used, to pretty good effect.

1) Bring back "Dawn Fight" rules where turn 1 everyone starts with a blanket -1 to hit. Simple, easy, helps curb some early-game power

2) play with obscurement in addition to regular cover (from Cities of Death). I.e. if all models in a unit are obscured with respect to the firing unit, the firing unit suffers -1 to hit.

3) play on a larger board/more restrictive deployment zones. Obviously, this one primarily works if the problem you're having is units slamming into one another too fast, rather than gigantic artillery gunparks

4) Give each player a number of "reinforcement points" they get to spend each turn bringing back units that were destroyed. Spend 'em or lose 'em at the top of each turn, the units you bring back must be legal sized and can't be named characters/other Unique units. I've played a nids vs guard stalingrad-style mission taking place in a manufactorum map, and frankly it was a blast.

5) I've played with one once that we called "Temporary Injuries" - all infantry units at the beginning of the player's turn were allowed to heal 1 wound, or bring 1 model back with 1 wound remaining, and vehicles were allowed to regenerate 1 wound. This was specifically a 2k game with necrons when they were bottom-tier, so we also allowed destroyed squads to bring 1 model back if it was the first time the unit was destroyed (Therefore allowing the unit to roll Res Protocols even if it got wiped)

6) Vehicles/Monsters may move and fire heavy weapons without penalty, but must target things in their front 180 degree arc, and non-vehicle/monsters suffer -1 to hit if they're targeting something that isn't the closest enemy target. We did this one to give players a little more agency in what gets shot, and also to make vehicle maneuvering a little more interesting.

^note that all of these suggestions I am NOT PROPOSING AS UNIVERSAL SOLUTIONS. Obviously, for each one, there are some units that could be taken to abuse them. When implementing them, we had a general idea of what we wanted to bring in our lists, so we were able to look at that and say "OK, this seems like a good adjustment to reduce deadliness and let us play a satisfying 4-5 hour game that goes to the end of turn 6-7."

Martel732 wrote:
1st turn tablings were not uncommon in 2nd, though. GW has always had this problem.

I recall 2nd being much more of a grind. Slower movement (4" typical), shorter range, fewer models, almost nobody had FW stuff. Heck, I remember getting a "land raider" kit from GW mailorder which was two other tank hulls and bits (from which I built a couple of marvelous tanks as "predator" variants) and that was late... the point is that that there was no landraider. Yeah, some assassins were a pain and scratch built ork trucks and battlewagons loaded with boys sucked. My eldar lost most every game to a friend's orks, for about 5 years I think.. one guy even went so far as to buy more than 30 dark reapers to try to beat the green rush plus blood angels and space worlves were popular in that group. Anyways, I don't remember a single 1st turn tabling but that was 30 years ago, so maybe it happened but not often enough for me to remember it as a thing that happened.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 iGuy91 wrote:
The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

absolutely this ^^
I do not understand the fast game fetish, as if three bad games is better than one good one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1st turn tablings were not uncommon in 2nd, though. GW has always had this problem.

Virus Bombs anyone?

Who used that card? srsly...

 jeff white wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1st turn tablings were not uncommon in 2nd, though. GW has always had this problem.

Virus Bombs anyone?

Who used that card? srsly...

You really have to ask here?

the_scotsman, I would also suggest as two more possibilities:

1. Add the long range to-hit modifier from Kill Team. Combined with obscurement, it would be much easier to avoid heavy attrition on turn 1. The problem, though, is that anything impacting to-hit penalties disproportionately impacts armies with poor BS to begin with, while armies with high BS and easy access to re-rolls are hardly affected, so this would mean some major rebalancing would be needed. Ork shooting would be in the toilet, Marines wouldn't really care.

2. AoS-style gradual accrual of CP, rather than the all-up-front allocation, would make turn 1 much less of a maximum-damage CP blowout.

I'd start at 2CP/turn base plus 1CP extra for each Battalion/3CP for each Brigade, making Battalions/Brigades less critical to generating CP than they are currently. Stratagems that are used before the game starts could just reduce from your turn 1 starting value, or even create a multi-turn deficit if you really spent a lot.

That would make stratagems more of a trade-off against each other (eg if I take two extra relics for 3CP, I might not be able to shoot-twice on the first turn), which I think would make for a more interesting play experience on top of reducing the lethality of the first two turns.

As far as other ways to reduce the negative qualities of alpha strike, I remain a big fan of Bolt Action-style alternating activation. It provides more decision points since you can be constantly reacting to your opponent, and all but guarantees that your shiny toy will be able to act before getting wiped off the board. Apocalypse and Kill Team both did something similar with a phased alternating activation mechanic, and I really enjoy the greater opportunity for counterplay it provides over IGOUGO.

 catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman, I would also suggest as two more possibilities:

1. Add the long range to-hit modifier from Kill Team. Combined with obscurement, it would be much easier to avoid heavy attrition on turn 1. The problem, though, is that anything impacting to-hit penalties disproportionately impacts armies with poor BS to begin with, while armies with high BS and easy access to re-rolls are hardly affected, so this would mean some major rebalancing would be needed. Ork shooting would be in the toilet, Marines wouldn't really care.

2. AoS-style gradual accrual of CP, rather than the all-up-front allocation, would make turn 1 much less of a maximum-damage CP blowout.

I'd start at 2CP/turn base plus 1CP extra for each Battalion/3CP for each Brigade, making Battalions/Brigades less critical to generating CP than they are currently. Stratagems that are used before the game starts could just reduce from your turn 1 starting value, or even create a multi-turn deficit if you really spent a lot.

That would make stratagems more of a trade-off against each other (eg if I take two extra relics for 3CP, I might not be able to shoot-twice on the first turn), which I think would make for a more interesting play experience on top of reducing the lethality of the first two turns.

As far as other ways to reduce the negative qualities of alpha strike, I remain a big fan of Bolt Action-style alternating activation. It provides more decision points since you can be constantly reacting to your opponent, and all but guarantees that your shiny toy will be able to act before getting wiped off the board. Apocalypse and Kill Team both did something similar with a phased alternating activation mechanic, and I really enjoy the greater opportunity for counterplay it provides over IGOUGO.

Denied, too many armies need a lot of CP for pregame strats to make some units/detachments viable (GSC, Orks come to mind), therefore you can't arbitrarily kill some armies just because you don't like current CP allocation

The biggest fundamental problem is scale. GW wants its whole universe to be playable and represented under the same ruleset, no matter how ludicrous. We get a game where ICBM's, bayonets, divisional or corps-level artillery, simple handguns, automatic rifles, and fusion powered energy cannons bigger than battle tanks are all portrayed in the same design space, often attempting to portray each individual gunshot or blade stroke or to differentiate between different blade types of close combat weapon. We have creatures like Grots (the size of household pets) being portrayed as individual distinct elements in the same battle space as tank companies and Titans, and have armies that may numbers as few as five models or as many as a couple hundred.

There's a reason most games don't try to do this. In order to get all that stuff to work together in a game that can be played in a couple of hours, you have to abstract most mechanics to their simplest possible form and you end up with a game where balance and unit capability is almost entirely valued on an attritional basis (e.g. how many points of stuff will this thing kill on average for the points invested in it) and incentivizes extreme lethality to fit that allotted timeframe.

Other games don't try to do everything at every scale. If you look at something like say, Heavy Gear or Dropzone Commander or Infinity, where armies are typically going to be 10-15 models, and 20 models is a true horde that's very difficult to construct, we get a lot more depth of design space and play, and substantially less emphasis on obliterating everything turn 1. These games pick a scale and stick with it, and as a result can abstract the small stuff, ignore the bigger stuff, and focus on delivering deep(er) tactical gameplay. For example, in HG, instead of getting rerolls just for being within 6" of a commander, the commander actually has to specify a specific target and actively do something to give rerolls to their squad (spend an action) and an opponent with ECM can attempt to jam those communications. Likewise, your big artillery unit in the backfield isn't worth squat if there's no forward observers to direct fire, and an enemy player with an ECM equipped unit can likewise jam forward observer attempts to relay targeting data. 40k generally doesn't attempt anything like this as a result of the scale, or when it does, it comes off as gimmicky and awkward and often unintended (e.g. Tripointing).

KurtAngle2 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
the_scotsman, I would also suggest as two more possibilities:

1. Add the long range to-hit modifier from Kill Team. Combined with obscurement, it would be much easier to avoid heavy attrition on turn 1. The problem, though, is that anything impacting to-hit penalties disproportionately impacts armies with poor BS to begin with, while armies with high BS and easy access to re-rolls are hardly affected, so this would mean some major rebalancing would be needed. Ork shooting would be in the toilet, Marines wouldn't really care.

2. AoS-style gradual accrual of CP, rather than the all-up-front allocation, would make turn 1 much less of a maximum-damage CP blowout.

I'd start at 2CP/turn base plus 1CP extra for each Battalion/3CP for each Brigade, making Battalions/Brigades less critical to generating CP than they are currently. Stratagems that are used before the game starts could just reduce from your turn 1 starting value, or even create a multi-turn deficit if you really spent a lot.

That would make stratagems more of a trade-off against each other (eg if I take two extra relics for 3CP, I might not be able to shoot-twice on the first turn), which I think would make for a more interesting play experience on top of reducing the lethality of the first two turns.

As far as other ways to reduce the negative qualities of alpha strike, I remain a big fan of Bolt Action-style alternating activation. It provides more decision points since you can be constantly reacting to your opponent, and all but guarantees that your shiny toy will be able to act before getting wiped off the board. Apocalypse and Kill Team both did something similar with a phased alternating activation mechanic, and I really enjoy the greater opportunity for counterplay it provides over IGOUGO.

Denied, too many armies need a lot of CP for pregame strats to make some units/detachments viable (GSC, Orks come to mind), therefore you can't arbitrarily kill some armies just because you don't like current CP allocation

tbh, I think the problems that create the game's Deadliness Problem run too deep for an easy, single-rule fix to universally fix all problems in all situations.

however, when coming up with a one-time rule to make a single game more fun, a single rule CAN do that in some situations.

my all-grot ork army would definitely be hamstrung by a turn-by-turn CP allocation system. Most of my units can't actually spend CP in game, so i rely on being able to blow most of my pool on pre-game buffs and upgrades like extra relics, kustom jobs and other stuff like that. other armies I have would be perfectly fine with that and I'd probably have more fun with that stricture in place.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The biggest fundamental problem is scale. GW wants its whole universe to be playable and represented under the same ruleset, no matter how ludicrous. We get a game where ICBM's, bayonets, divisional or corps-level artillery, simple handguns, automatic rifles, and fusion powered energy cannons bigger than battle tanks are all portrayed in the same design space, often attempting to portray each individual gunshot or blade stroke or to differentiate between different blade types of close combat weapon. We have creatures like Grots (the size of household pets) being portrayed as individual distinct elements in the same battle space as tank companies and Titans, and have armies that may numbers as few as five models or as many as a couple hundred.

There's a reason most games don't try to do this. In order to get all that stuff to work together in a game that can be played in a couple of hours, you have to abstract most mechanics to their simplest possible form and you end up with a game where balance and unit capability is almost entirely valued on an attritional basis (e.g. how many points of stuff will this thing kill on average for the points invested in it) and incentivizes extreme lethality to fit that allotted timeframe.

Other games don't try to do everything at every scale. If you look at something like say, Heavy Gear or Dropzone Commander or Infinity, where armies are typically going to be 10-15 models, and 20 models is a true horde that's very difficult to construct, we get a lot more depth of design space and play, and substantially less emphasis on obliterating everything turn 1. These games pick a scale and stick with it, and as a result can abstract the small stuff, ignore the bigger stuff, and focus on delivering deep(er) tactical gameplay. For example, in HG, instead of getting rerolls just for being within 6" of a commander, the commander actually has to specify a specific target and actively do something to give rerolls to their squad (spend an action) and an opponent with ECM can attempt to jam those communications. Likewise, your big artillery unit in the backfield isn't worth squat if there's no forward observers to direct fire, and an enemy player with an ECM equipped unit can likewise jam forward observer attempts to relay targeting data. 40k generally doesn't attempt anything like this as a result of the scale, or when it does, it comes off as gimmicky and awkward and often unintended (e.g. Tripointing).

Yeah, it's...one of the reasons I really like playing 40k, honestly In more contained games, I tend to find the "different" factions too similar and the strategies available too static. I kind of find myself drawn to games that are absolute unbalanceable dumpster fires because you get the benefit of no two army setups being identical.

"I recall 2nd being much more of a grind. Slower movement (4" typical), shorter range, fewer models, almost nobody had FW stuff. Heck, I remember getting a "land raider" kit from GW mailorder which was two other tank hulls and bits (from which I built a couple of marvelous tanks as "predator" variants) and that was late... the point is that that there was no landraider. Yeah, some assassins were a pain and scratch built ork trucks and battlewagons loaded with boys sucked. My eldar lost most every game to a friend's orks, for about 5 years I think.. one guy even went so far as to buy more than 30 dark reapers to try to beat the green rush plus blood angels and space worlves were popular in that group. Anyways, I don't remember a single 1st turn tabling but that was 30 years ago, so maybe it happened but not often enough for me to remember it as a thing that happened."

You had to build for it. Lots of -2 weapons made gak die really fast in 2nd.

 Vankraken wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

I agree and with that it makes unit choices more enjoyable instead of needing to field tons of redundancy as insurance that you can actually use that interesting unit instead of it being wiped off the board turn 1 or damaged so badly that it's practically useless for its original purpose. With that it allows for smaller point games that still have variety because again you don't need to spam as much redundancy to be able to play the unit combo you want in your list.

I feel like that's kind of what makes a wargame versus an RPG.

The game isn't about a single unit, it's about the collective force as an army working together. And if you have something that needs to be done, have multiple ways to do it, because the enemy is going to try to suppress your capability.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
The goal should be extending the life of games, and making the game more about the experience, not encouraging people to run better lists.

I agree and with that it makes unit choices more enjoyable instead of needing to field tons of redundancy as insurance that you can actually use that interesting unit instead of it being wiped off the board turn 1 or damaged so badly that it's practically useless for its original purpose. With that it allows for smaller point games that still have variety because again you don't need to spam as much redundancy to be able to play the unit combo you want in your list.

Well, let's throw some ideas around. I can give you some that I've used, to pretty good effect.

1) Bring back "Dawn Fight" rules where turn 1 everyone starts with a blanket -1 to hit. Simple, easy, helps curb some early-game power

2) play with obscurement in addition to regular cover (from Cities of Death). I.e. if all models in a unit are obscured with respect to the firing unit, the firing unit suffers -1 to hit.

3) play on a larger board/more restrictive deployment zones. Obviously, this one primarily works if the problem you're having is units slamming into one another too fast, rather than gigantic artillery gunparks

4) Give each player a number of "reinforcement points" they get to spend each turn bringing back units that were destroyed. Spend 'em or lose 'em at the top of each turn, the units you bring back must be legal sized and can't be named characters/other Unique units. I've played a nids vs guard stalingrad-style mission taking place in a manufactorum map, and frankly it was a blast.

5) I've played with one once that we called "Temporary Injuries" - all infantry units at the beginning of the player's turn were allowed to heal 1 wound, or bring 1 model back with 1 wound remaining, and vehicles were allowed to regenerate 1 wound. This was specifically a 2k game with necrons when they were bottom-tier, so we also allowed destroyed squads to bring 1 model back if it was the first time the unit was destroyed (Therefore allowing the unit to roll Res Protocols even if it got wiped)

6) Vehicles/Monsters may move and fire heavy weapons without penalty, but must target things in their front 180 degree arc, and non-vehicle/monsters suffer -1 to hit if they're targeting something that isn't the closest enemy target. We did this one to give players a little more agency in what gets shot, and also to make vehicle maneuvering a little more interesting.

^note that all of these suggestions I am NOT PROPOSING AS UNIVERSAL SOLUTIONS. Obviously, for each one, there are some units that could be taken to abuse them. When implementing them, we had a general idea of what we wanted to bring in our lists, so we were able to look at that and say "OK, this seems like a good adjustment to reduce deadliness and let us play a satisfying 4-5 hour game that goes to the end of turn 6-7."

When GW insists on pointing weapons in BS skills having a situation where you spend more than 50% of the game either unable to shoot as -1, -1 and -1 means BS4+ can't hit full stop and BS 3+ units are hitting on 6's.
A 6's always hit just makes the pointing being BS based more broken.

It would be better if external hit modifiers got capped to +/- 1, so at most you'll be -2 to hit by Moving and Firing heavy weapons vs a hard to hit unit.

Or missions that require a drip-feed of units onto the table.

KurtAngle2 wrote:


Denied, too many armies need a lot of CP for pregame strats to make some units/detachments viable (GSC, Orks come to mind), therefore you can't arbitrarily kill some armies just because you don't like current CP allocation

If armies need stratagems to be good, then stratagems are the problem, and it further emphasizes the need to downgrade them game-wide, or supress them altogether.

Then again, stratagems are also a way to "fix" units without touching their datasheets, but if you need a special action to make a unit good, then there is still a flaw somewhere.

Siegfriedfr wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:


Denied, too many armies need a lot of CP for pregame strats to make some units/detachments viable (GSC, Orks come to mind), therefore you can't arbitrarily kill some armies just because you don't like current CP allocation

If armies need stratagems to be good, then stratagems are the problem, and it further emphasizes the need to downgrade them game-wide, or supress them altogether.

Then again, stratagems are also a way to "fix" units without touching their datasheets, but if you need a special action to make a unit good, then there is still a flaw somewhere.

I'm in actually in favor of making some Stratagems literally baseline for the relevant units (most of the pre-game stratagems that buff specific characters should be baseline or back to being appropriately point costed), but as lon as they don't do that I cannot endorse any different CP allocation that would screw half the armies in the game currently.

My memory of second edition was shooting most of an army into a Carnifex and it not dying.

Have to say I don't like these options - mainly because I think they just add further skews to the game. If you want less lethality, GW has to put it into the base unit interactions.

Maybe its too canned, or too formulaic - but I think "jack of all trades" (so most troops) should do about 20% of their points in shooting in close range to similar units. You would then have units which get say 40% returns on their optimal targets - but only 10% returns against suboptimal ones. So the game becomes getting your right units into their right units, while trying to avoid the opponent doing the same to you. I feel there was a brief window in the indexes when this was about right - before people realised you could optimise a list, and/or spam turn one DS and the codexes rapidly shot it out of the water.

Assault would need to be a bit more lethal - but really, if we are doing a wish list, charging should probably be changed. Give every single unit in the game roll 3d6 and pick the highest? Go back to fixed charge distances? This is more generic balance issue than making the game less lethal though. Its about keeping your (flying) castles a bit more honest.

As for game time being short/long - really it comes down to what the game "is". There is a fundamental difference between say a tournament game - or a random pick up game - that can be done and dusted in about 2-2.5 hours (including setting up the board+armies) and, at the opposite extreme, a long, sprawling game that somehow eats up an entire Saturday because neither player is being especially quick and nothing is dying so every unit is getting to move and act. I'm not really sure there is a right answer here.

Maybe its just that I don't think 8th is that bad - and I'm concerned about making it worse.

Right. You couldn't one turn the Nids. Most one turn tablings were some kind of marine or bad eldar lists.

Martel732 wrote:
Fortunately IG get infinite dudes for free to stand in the way. Not quite, I know but it sure seems like it.

It’s gotten to the point where I can recognise your posts from the content before I’ve even looked at who posted them. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen to have this difficulty dealing with mono Guard screens.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Fortunately IG get infinite dudes for free to stand in the way. Not quite, I know but it sure seems like it.

It’s gotten to the point where I can recognise your posts from the content before I’ve even looked at who posted them. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen to have this difficulty dealing with mono Guard screens.

Yeah, we all have our quirks. I'm interested in what list he's coming up against that he can't beat with BA. Unfortunately, I don't have BA or a BA codex, but if I did then I'd be eager to find out and see if I can succeed where he can't. I'm not best-of-the-best remotely, but I often feel from his descriptions that he must be doing something wrong. Same with karol, but I do play Grey Knights and haven't particularly felt too bad about it.

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Fortunately IG get infinite dudes for free to stand in the way. Not quite, I know but it sure seems like it.

It’s gotten to the point where I can recognise your posts from the content before I’ve even looked at who posted them. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen to have this difficulty dealing with mono Guard screens.

I can introduce you to some more. They're really good, even if you don't think they are. The only real play for me is tripointing. Anything else and I die miserably. That's why I hate them so much.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Fortunately IG get infinite dudes for free to stand in the way. Not quite, I know but it sure seems like it.

It’s gotten to the point where I can recognise your posts from the content before I’ve even looked at who posted them. You’re the only person I’ve ever seen to have this difficulty dealing with mono Guard screens.

Yeah, we all have our quirks. I'm interested in what list he's coming up against that he can't beat with BA. Unfortunately, I don't have BA or a BA codex, but if I did then I'd be eager to find out and see if I can succeed where he can't. I'm not best-of-the-best remotely, but I often feel from his descriptions that he must be doing something wrong. Same with karol, but I do play Grey Knights and haven't particularly felt too bad about it.

I can beat them now. I just want to cut myself after the game. I had to accept that I was playing codex: tripoint, not an actual balanced force. At least my IG opponents get to be miserable as I am as I cheese them off the table. "You can't shoot me. Because reasons. Isn't this game great?"

For the flip side, I never play my IG competitively.

I feel like digging myself out of the 8 point hole and going on to win is needlessly difficult when I'm aiming for definitive wins and could be playing Sisters of Battle, or even Space Wolves, and have a much easier time of it.


Here's my take on IG:
With all the striking power in tanks and the essential necessity of having more than 80 infantry models, you're automatically giving up Reaper and Big Game Hunter. None of your things are hard to kill, and you can actually fully give up Reaper and Big Game hunter and still have a ton of your army left. Comparatively, enemy forces like Space Marines give essentially no credit on kill objectives, and if they do, you only really get that credit when they're near tabled. You've got to score 4 on Recon or Behind Enemy Lines or something which will often put your units out of position and happen slower than somebody zonking off 80 of your infantry.
With so many easy to kill units, you can give better than you get in points and strategic situation and still lose Kill More incredibly easily. It's just trivial to wipe a couple of Infantry squad out or blow away a cheap tank to score some easy VP's while you're clawing your way through a unit of Aggressors that can be only wounded on a 4+ despite having S10 guns.
With infantry that's overwhelmingly fragile and crud in melee, taking the center can be really tough if you have the first turn, and thus it's pretty easy to lose on Hold More too. Taking the second play is better in this regard, if you're willing to trade casualties which might be counting against Kill More, since you can swarm a point after their play and right before scoring, but you often need to have the first play to avoid getting completely hemmed in and unable to even get to the middle.

So, when I'm planning what I'm going to play in League or in a tournament, I'm always like "I should play IG. They're my original army, and probably my favorite.... Eh. I'll play Sisters and get my wins."

BA give reaper real easy now. Reaper is wounds now, not models.

Also, IG get a lot of stroke back with CA 2019 missions, which are the coming rage. Or so I'm told.

Russes, for the cost, are moderately hard to kill. Cheap T8 is actually pretty good.

Martel732 wrote:
BA give reaper real easy now. Reaper is wounds now, not models.

Also, IG get a lot of stroke back with CA 2019 missions, which are the coming rage. Or so I'm told.

Russes, for the cost, are moderately hard to kill. Cheap T8 is actually pretty good.

You're saying house rules make an army worse? Say it aint so!

IT also makes some armies better. Like BA. It's different, not worse than GW's crap. Although personally, the way top BA player abuse the ITC system, and yes, it is ABUSE, makes me pretty ill. I can't quite get over SG engineers.