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This should give just under 45" of safe chaining to a unit of 30. it's not the 74" it used to be, but over half the length of the board is still pretty decent.

Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

Tyel wrote:

nfe wrote:
The Tabletop Tactics guys explicitly said that they got involved in play testing too late for 9th core rules but have been playtesting new codices.

Unless its in a new video, I think they said they were involved in play testing points for the new edition rather than new codexes. Which doesn't mean they are not doing codexes - but we are going to get a quasi universal Index in a few weeks time, and it would be nice if it isn't horribly broken on release.

It's in the old one, they mention working on the upcoming codsx and suggest they've been done together.


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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

Has that been confirmed somewhere?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

AFAIK that isn't a thing, not even the Vindicare can do it anymore. The closest you get is the Death Jester can choose which model flees when a unit fails a morale test.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

AFAIK that isn't a thing, not even the Vindicare can do it anymore. The closest you get is the Death Jester can choose which model flees when a unit fails a morale test.

To be fair, that's pretty amazing if someone is daisy chaining. Taking out a specific model in the morale phase could kill half the unit.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
This should give just under 45" of safe chaining to a unit of 30. it's not the 74" it used to be, but over half the length of the board is still pretty decent.

Spoiler:

My own excel simulations get roughly a 48” long line for a unit of 30 models on 25mm bases.

Likewise, a unit of 30 models on 32mm bases, in 2 ranks, can reach roughly 50” across the table with every model bar 2 being in range of 3 other models. (48” if you don’t count the offset 2nd rank).

If I wanted to screen the length of the table, I’d be happy to use 3 squads of 10 guardsmen, with 4”s of gap between the table edge and each side unit, and then 2”s between the 3 squads. It isn’t a “perfect full length line”, but it is likely all you need to block most things.
Likewise, 3 units of 10 models on 32mm bases, in 2 offset ranks, is more than enough to create a line across the entire length of the table.

Just because it isn’t possible to line the entire table with a single unit anymore, doesn’t mean that is a bad change.

A block of 30 Gaunts (for example) setup as a block, has a total depth of 12” and a width of 16”. If you want to do nothing but hold a lot of table space, having a couple of units of these is more than adequate. And again, 28 of the 30 models would be in range of 3 other models so pulling yourself out of coherency would be a conscious choice.

HOWEVER, the biggest thing to consider here, is that everything so far has been talked about in a world of “planet bowling ball”. Terrain will mess up these “perfect” blocks, and so will deployment zones. With the table size change you are losing a LOT of space. 60, 32mm, bases setup at the best table spanning size in a new Dawn of War map is going to mean that basically every other unit is going to be crammed together and you’ll not have space for more than 1 or 2 tanks (maybe 3) etc.

If I wanted to, I can still use a 30-man cultist unit to screen my characters. Or I could use a couple of squads of Guardsmen. Kroot works, any unit previously used as a min sized squad of 5 still works. Screening with Marines mid table still works etc etc.

The only place where the coherency rules do start to fall down a little is when you have units of >5 models that are on bases larger than 50mm. 50mm is the point where you can place your models in a line and base-to-base and retain the 2 model coherency rule. But, at the end of the day those units are very few and far between and are almost always considered to be an elite unit rather than a “chaff screening unit”.
The other downside to all this, is when you multi charge. Model placement will require some thought now, as oppose to being able to string out and tag as much as you possibly can. But, again, this isn’t necessarily a bad change. The only army, fluff wise, that tends to fight more as individuals than as units, is Custodes, and they won’t really be affected by this as they probably won’t run units of 6+ models outside of bikes – which you can get around with due to the bases anyway.

Uhhuh the eradicators in salamander are fun. Fire 3 shots, salamander rerolls, shoot twice so rerolls for second salvo.

I like the Eradicator rules. They're finally a melta unit that can actually seriously threaten vehicles again. However, they seem crazy under-costed.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

AFAIK that isn't a thing, not even the Vindicare can do it anymore. The closest you get is the Death Jester can choose which model flees when a unit fails a morale test.

Fair enough. Not especially up on 40k!

Overall I’m liking the new coherency rule. It doesn’t prevent daisy chaining as you illustrated, but it does reduce crazy usage.

Though speaking of casualty removal as a whole, have we seen anything on how it works in 9th? If there have been changes (example, you can only remove models I’m in melee range of during combat, or they have to come from that first), that’s a big risk to run for daisy chainring.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Just beware of Snipers that can nominate targets, I guess?

AFAIK that isn't a thing, not even the Vindicare can do it anymore. The closest you get is the Death Jester can choose which model flees when a unit fails a morale test.

Fair enough. Not especially up on 40k!

Overall I’m liking the new coherency rule. It doesn’t prevent daisy chaining as you illustrated, but it does reduce crazy usage.

Though speaking of casualty removal as a whole, have we seen anything on how it works in 9th? If there have been changes (example, you can only remove models I’m in melee range of during combat, or they have to come from that first), that’s a big risk to run for daisy chainring.

No change that we know of. Would be pretty wild to change it given the new coherency rules that basically require you to be the one in control of who dies.

Personally, I'm curious whether anything was done to improve the Transports rule in 9th. I'm guessing no, but open to being pleasantly surprised.

Side question.....didn’t 40k used to have a challenge option in combat, where Characters and Squad leaders could call each other out for a punch up?

I know WHFB did, but 40k memory is hazy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Side question.....didn’t 40k used to have a challenge option in combat, where Characters and Squad leaders could call each other out for a punch up?

I know WHFB did, but 40k memory is hazy.

It did, they removed it for 8th I think? There was much rejoice

The crusader I cannot answer as there was a typo on point cost for knight in test packet. Had it listed for 3950pts base..lol. That said a Paladin is 310pts base, 10pts for 2 stubbers, 100pts for battlecannon, then 30 for chainsword. So 450pts total

Well if this guy is legit, then they probably know who he is now.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Cultists saw a 50% hike, but Necron Warriors only saw a 9% one despite them both being horde type units. It's only that -any- shift ot Cultists points was going to seem unreasonable when moving them up from 4ppm.

There are a TON of units between Cultists and Necrons, and most of them are currently or would be utterly unusable if they were to receive a 2-point bump becoming vastly more expensive in relation to the current dominant meta army. Most factions' baseline troops are significantly cheaper than Necron Warriors. If GW just shrugs and goes "Welp, percentages be damned, I guess we're gonna have 5pt gretchins and 10pt ork boyz and 8pt skitarii and 7pt neophytes!" then the situation you're going to have is exactly the situation you'd have now if cheap units didn't generate CPs: They'll be absolute garbage, because 8th's level of firepower makes the vast stat gulf between a gretchin and an Eldar Guardian largely meaningless. When a single aggressor can gak out a handful of dice and just nuke a whole squad of whatever light infantry unit, you might as well just race to the bottom and have them all be 1PPM for all their stats matter.

Unit coherency only punishes specific builds that people collectively hated: the daisy chain for buffs, around corners, ect. Yes, you can still do it, but not like before. It also punishes people for pulling from the middle as mentioned in a post above.

Well, guess we didn't need "Screening" as a use for light infantry - let's make units that can take 5-man squads best at that. So, what are light infantry units good at? Can they slug it out in a protracted firefight against elites? No. Can they threaten tanks in the same way elites can? No, guess not. Are they better at claiming and holding cover?

Cover is seeing a lot of improvements across the board. Yes, a +1 to your save from light/heavy cover helps models with lower number saves more, but the -1 to hit cap and 6s always hitting benefit low BS models more.

-1 to hit and +1 to save are the two main cover rules, both of those benefit having high base stats. If the -1 to hit cap is all you've got, A, that's not the terrain system, and B, that's a pretty low bar, and one that really only came up much against specific opponents like eldar. Not, for example, the current meta dominant army, the one that really ought to be seeing nerfs with these changes, and that specifically isn't and is getting a whole passel of ridiculously OP new units.

CP generation in 8th was garbage. Stop trying to defend it. You're not being shackled to spamming low cost units to maximize your CP freeing up points for other options. With other buffs in play stuff like Deff Dreads look like a good investment, for example, over you're 5th or 6th Grot squad.

"Stop saying horde units are bad, start saying that everything ELSE is BETTER than horde units! Look at the POSITIVE!!"

Max hits =/= max wounds. It's still a dice game, and upping the number of hits only ups the average wounds a bit. Let's use the Leman Russ Battlecannon versus Orks with no buffs or cover as an example: 6 shots, 3 hit, 2.5 wounds go through = 2.5 dead Orks. Currently it averages 1.46 dead Orks, so it's better, but not breaking any heads in. I get it, dice can be swingy, but we're also not shooting on a bowling ball either. Stuff is going to be messing with those rolls. Even a -1 can drastically mess with a unit's number of successful wounds that get through.

Right, after all it's only a ~30% firepower increase when you take your 11th squad member, I'm sure that won't make hardly any difference at all. Hey you still want that gun platform on your min guardian squad?

How do the missions benefit MSU? Actions require units to still be alive to score. Killing 5 dudes is easier to do than killing 30, and if you're focusing down 30 dudes you're not shooting the other units elsewhere that are also performing actions. And other than 2 patrol missions (which are 500 point game missions), we've seen one mission that plays at 2k and I don't know how that benefits MSU more, but I can always be wrong.

Yeah you have to stay alive...until the end of YOUR TURN. that's sure going to be tough to achieve with min size units

I'm not sure about that last one, but if it's about not being able to drag your opponent's entire army into melee via massed charges, that was a stupid mechanic that hurt vehicle heavy armies more than any one else. Glad to see it gone.

Scratch off another use for light infantry then. So what are they good at? What do they do? It's weird that that's the main question I asked, and you just basically responded to the first part of my post, and half the things I brought up you just...agreed with and said it was good they were gone. So are you agreeing with my overall premise, that on launch basically no light infantry unit is going to be worth using, and they'll just spend the edition spiraling down the point cost drain again until we end up right back at 2ppm and 3ppm models whose stats can be totally different but it won't matter because Buckets O Boltguns make you scoop 'em up a squad at a time anyway?

I was initially really fething psyched by the idea of point hikes across the board, tbh, I REALLY wanted to not have to spend 2 hours painting a model to sigh, look at it, and say "6 points down, 200 more to go." But what we've seen here isn't a fix, it's just throwing everything currently <10ppm into the trash can until you get around to making them even CHEAPER than they are right now. And that sucks, I'm sorry.

I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for point changes, we'll have to wait and see how GW handles that since they finally acknowledged that only moving points down was hurting the game.

I'm pretty much in the camp of light inf looming pretty pointless at this point.

They can still screen yes, but MSU (5) units can actually screen wider if you take a couple of units of them.

Light infantry are basically from the looks of things the equivalent of when you set a board up adding lichen and odd barrels/tank traps - terrain that is there but you might as well not have it.

As ahs been said there have only been negatives for light infantry and any bonuses are shared by eliter models.

This is the MSU/mech/vehicles edition, its pretty obvious GW have taken 'too much' tournament feedback on board for quicker games

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.

well intercessors can do the exact same thing and still threaten stuff und are hard to remove. I get it. you are a marine player, all this stuff doesnt have an impact on you. but please believe us non marine players.... i rarely used ork boys in late 8th, i wont anymore in 9th (if not for some hardcore changes)
big mobs are dead. to time consuming to move around, cant effectivly multicharge anymore, cant trap units in CC, dont get as much benefits from new terrain rules and get blasted off the table cause of all the auto 6 shots of blast weapons. yeah i can strat em up real good... with what now exactly?! what strat did you use before on 20-30man mobs? fight again?! double shoot?! normally strats are used forspecialist units with high damage output not for chaff...

you are right that chaff still have its uses, and will still be effective. i think i'll be moving to gretchin as troops 100% now. even with a major point increase (even 1 point would be 30%) WHY? because i dont care if grots die. i dont have to overthink the position of every goddamn git because i dont expect them to do actually something, well beside to stand in the way or grab objectives

Ironically I suspect those blast weapons that are supposedly going to see point increases will get no benifit as 9th will be exclusively Marine MSU edition. Also the one army that doesn't have many weapons likely to picj up the blast tag and see points increases.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Seriously, as a R&H player which is a faction defined by it's bloody infantry, go take a hike . It's not just spamming them for utility, that was a mostly IoM thing, it's also because you rarely got an option to bypass these units. Not only that but i inherently can't avoid blast weapons due to squad layout.
That is fair how excactly? Also, feth everyone that want's to run an inf AM regiment because reasons i guess?

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

Again, if you have naught but light infantry, to do the job, the same as above applies, and yes the coherency rule crippled the last workable playstyle pretty hard.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.

oohhh excuse me for having absolute abhorrent special rules that cripple my army instantly form the get go that i'd want to actually get worth out of the only units i have access to. Especially considering that all firepower, including other light infantry , can absolutely shred my units. It is therefore fine that even by 8th standards my mainline can't kill an intercissor for equal pts and allready has morale issues to deal with at the same pts level for 1 intercissor. Greatly designed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for point changes, we'll have to wait and see how GW handles that since they finally acknowledged that only moving points down was hurting the game.

If the leaks are true and tacs and scouts go up by that much and intercissors just don't , with the baggage associated with these units thanks to PA and suplments carrying over then good fething night to anything NOT primaris. because there is no way in hell a tac is going to be worth 3/4 of a intercissor.

I was a Sisters player for a lot longer than I have ever been a Marine player actually. My avatar isn't an army I play, but one of a few models I painted I am kind of proud of.

Before Sisters I played Nids a lot too. Loved me some Endless Swarm play even though people said it was bad.

I get that at launch it's not looking especially great for some light infantry units. But we can't claim that 9th will be an MSU edition from that as the utility of those units beyond "hold so I can score" loops back to ths codex their from and what that codex gives them go make them more useful.

Points are never the entire story and I feel that we may be missing somethings that will take actual games to suss out. Not to mention see if GW threw the armies any bones in the erratas.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for point changes, we'll have to wait and see how GW handles that since they finally acknowledged that only moving points down was hurting the game.

sure, I can take a 30pt unit of gretchin and have them perform actions every turn standing next to my mek gunz.

.....OR, I can take a 30pt mek, who is UNTARGETABLE as long as he's next to my mek gunz, and I can have him perform actions! Oh look, it's way more effective, that's weird. It's almost like GW has never had a role for light infantry units in their ever-escalating game beyond "I dunno, they're mandatory I guess?"

What you're going to see in 9th is what you've seen in every edition: Players will take the minimum number, of minimum sized squads, of the lightest infantry their faction can field. Juuuust enough to unlock their battalion or brigade troop slots, and then their real army will be, as it always has been, elites and big toys.

Unless they can play a faction that doesn't need to take light infantry, in which case they'll gladly skip them, like every army has for every edition.

Beyond a couple of specific meta moments like brimstone spam in index era and 3ppm conscript spam pre double nerf, light infantry has always been crap, because it can't fight anything tougher than it pound for pound and it can never efficiently fight a vehicle, because crappo units pay the same prices to bring heavy and special weapons that elites and tanks do.

I was really hoping that the opportunity to heavily redesign terrain in 9th might give GW an opportunity to make cheap infantry "The guys you want holding terrain" again, but it seems they'd rather just forget about them for an edition. And we get another three years of everything smaller than an Intercessor slowly, steadily sliding down the points toilet until we get 4ppm kabalites and 2ppm guardsmen and 1ppm gretchin, and anyone who doesn't play space marines has to pay 1,500$ for a 2,000 point army.

@Not Online: you're lashing out over R&H whose issues are far deeper than any issue brought about by this edition change. I mean unless GW's Forge World rewrites bring back the Seige of Vraks list entirely it's going to stay pretty well dead. Taking it out on me isn't going to change that.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
@Not Online: you're lashing out over R&H whose issues are far deeper than any issue brought about by this edition change. I mean unless GW's Forge World rewrites bring back the Seige of Vraks list entirely it's going to stay pretty well dead. Taking it out on me isn't going to change that.

Sure bud, except no, the points still stand, you can replace R&H pretty much with most xeno factions, which got addmitetly better rules yet for their majority avoid fielding light units like the plague unless they can throw them at enemies.

Heck in late 8th you even considered for some lists CSM over Cultists thanks to the nerfs galore thrown at cultists and the incessant dropping off pts for CSM.

Well, I guess the Szeras rules do provide another example on why you would want to take large units, along the same vein as the stratagem efficiency already mentioned. I still think 6-model units are kinda boned, it's either 5 models or max size.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I was a Sisters player for a lot longer than I have ever been a Marine player actually. My avatar isn't an army I play, but one of a few models I painted I am kind of proud of.

Before Sisters I played Nids a lot too. Loved me some Endless Swarm play even though people said it was bad.

I get that at launch it's not looking especially great for some light infantry units. But we can't claim that 9th will be an MSU edition from that as the utility of those units beyond "hold so I can score" loops back to ths codex their from and what that codex gives them go make them more useful.

Points are never the entire story and I feel that we may be missing somethings that will take actual games to suss out. Not to mention see if GW threw the armies any bones in the erratas.

Oh no, absolutely, they could just say "lol whoops" in CA and bring the point costs of light infantry way down. but that's not a good thing.

From the rules we know so far, light infantry units would need to be CHEAPER than they are in 8th to be usable. Possibly the same price, if everything else bumped up 20%.

That's not what anyone wants. Nobody likes buying a 40$ infantry box and getting 40 points of models. To make a basic 500pt army out of GSC, they had to add a 35$ character and 2 boxes of Purestrains - 200$ with a discount box just to get to the most basic combat patrol game. Meanwhile, getting a space marine army to 2k is cheaper than it ever has been.

People don't want their rules to be garbage and then get buffed by becoming cheap garbage. I'm sorry you don't think <10ppm should ever be worth anything in game than a little token that you then just take off the board when your opponent targets it with a shooting attack. If a 100pt unit of 3 space marines with meltaguns gets to shoot a tank off the board with ease, a 100pt unit of 20 cultists or 10 fully loaded kabalites should be able to pull off cool gak too.

the_scotsman wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for point changes, we'll have to wait and see how GW handles that since they finally acknowledged that only moving points down was hurting the game.

sure, I can take a 30pt unit of gretchin and have them perform actions every turn standing next to my mek gunz.

.....OR, I can take a 30pt mek, who is UNTARGETABLE as long as he's next to my mek gunz, and I can have him perform actions! Oh look, it's way more effective, that's weird. It's almost like GW has never had a role for light infantry units in their ever-escalating game beyond "I dunno, they're mandatory I guess?"

What you're going to see in 9th is what you've seen in every edition: Players will take the minimum number, of minimum sized squads, of the lightest infantry their faction can field. Juuuust enough to unlock their battalion or brigade troop slots, and then their real army will be, as it always has been, elites and big toys.

Unless they can play a faction that doesn't need to take light infantry, in which case they'll gladly skip them, like every army has for every edition.

Beyond a couple of specific meta moments like brimstone spam in index era and 3ppm conscript spam pre double nerf, light infantry has always been crap, because it can't fight anything tougher than it pound for pound and it can never efficiently fight a vehicle, because crappo units pay the same prices to bring heavy and special weapons that elites and tanks do.

I was really hoping that the opportunity to heavily redesign terrain in 9th might give GW an opportunity to make cheap infantry "The guys you want holding terrain" again, but it seems they'd rather just forget about them for an edition. And we get another three years of everything smaller than an Intercessor slowly, steadily sliding down the points toilet until we get 4ppm kabalites and 2ppm guardsmen and 1ppm gretchin, and anyone who doesn't play space marines has to pay 1,500$ for a 2,000 point army.

Fair points. I think the issue has to do with army rules more than it does the core rules, but you make fair points even if we split the hair on where the issue is.

And it's my sincere hope that points hikes dominate 9th's pricing policy over points drops. We need to keep adding more design space into the game so we have room to let light infantry actually have a role in the game beyond being what they currently are: space fillers.

And I can safely say if we get a meta with cheap characters doing actions, then we'll get a sniper meta within days, if not weeks, just to balance it out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I was a Sisters player for a lot longer than I have ever been a Marine player actually. My avatar isn't an army I play, but one of a few models I painted I am kind of proud of.

Before Sisters I played Nids a lot too. Loved me some Endless Swarm play even though people said it was bad.

I get that at launch it's not looking especially great for some light infantry units. But we can't claim that 9th will be an MSU edition from that as the utility of those units beyond "hold so I can score" loops back to ths codex their from and what that codex gives them go make them more useful.

Points are never the entire story and I feel that we may be missing somethings that will take actual games to suss out. Not to mention see if GW threw the armies any bones in the erratas.

Oh no, absolutely, they could just say "lol whoops" in CA and bring the point costs of light infantry way down. but that's not a good thing.

From the rules we know so far, light infantry units would need to be CHEAPER than they are in 8th to be usable. Possibly the same price, if everything else bumped up 20%.

That's not what anyone wants. Nobody likes buying a 40$ infantry box and getting 40 points of models. To make a basic 500pt army out of GSC, they had to add a 35$ character and 2 boxes of Purestrains - 200$ with a discount box just to get to the most basic combat patrol game. Meanwhile, getting a space marine army to 2k is cheaper than it ever has been.

People don't want their rules to be garbage and then get buffed by becoming cheap garbage. I'm sorry you don't think <10ppm should ever be worth anything in game than a little token that you then just take off the board when your opponent targets it with a shooting attack. If a 100pt unit of 3 space marines with meltaguns gets to shoot a tank off the board with ease, a 100pt unit of 20 cultists or 10 fully loaded kabalites should be able to pull off cool gak too.

I don't think that models that cost less than 10ppm should be setting the world on fire, but I also don't feel we should have many, if any, models be that cheap. Points continuing to go down is one of the things I feel has hurt the game as it has continually removed design space for things and adding in stacks of rules for unreasonably low ampunts of points.

Cheapest model in the game should be 10ppm in my book, and everything else should go up from there.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
I'm not going to try and respond point by point (also red, really? Shouldn't that be left to mods?) but let's talk about light infantry in general since you feel they're useless.

Even with points hikes they're the cheapest units in the game. Sure you'll take less of them, but spamming them in 8th was done less for utility in most lists and more for unlocking CP. That was crap and I can't see the change as anything but positive. Take stuff to fulfill a job, not as a tax to gain resources for other parts of.your army.

Light infantry can still screen. Light infantry can still block off large sections of the board and does so better than MSU pr 10 man units can thanks to new coherency rules. Light infantry ia usually mediocre in shooting and melee (sure weight of dice is a thing but it doesn't solve every problem efficiently) so give up less from an opportunity cost to perform actions. Morale hurts them less now too so they need less babysitting to do their job too.

I get that light infantry doesn't have a lot going for it, but honestly should models that cost single digits ppm be packing a lot to the table? I really can't think so. If you're under 10ppm and have a ton of special rules, killer wargear or other stuff going on, chances are you shouldn't be so cheap.


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As for point changes, we'll have to wait and see how GW handles that since they finally acknowledged that only moving points down was hurting the game.

sure, I can take a 30pt unit of gretchin and have them perform actions every turn standing next to my mek gunz.

.....OR, I can take a 30pt mek, who is UNTARGETABLE as long as he's next to my mek gunz, and I can have him perform actions! Oh look, it's way more effective, that's weird. It's almost like GW has never had a role for light infantry units in their ever-escalating game beyond "I dunno, they're mandatory I guess?"

What you're going to see in 9th is what you've seen in every edition: Players will take the minimum number, of minimum sized squads, of the lightest infantry their faction can field. Juuuust enough to unlock their battalion or brigade troop slots, and then their real army will be, as it always has been, elites and big toys.

Unless they can play a faction that doesn't need to take light infantry, in which case they'll gladly skip them, like every army has for every edition.

Beyond a couple of specific meta moments like brimstone spam in index era and 3ppm conscript spam pre double nerf, light infantry has always been crap, because it can't fight anything tougher than it pound for pound and it can never efficiently fight a vehicle, because crappo units pay the same prices to bring heavy and special weapons that elites and tanks do.

I was really hoping that the opportunity to heavily redesign terrain in 9th might give GW an opportunity to make cheap infantry "The guys you want holding terrain" again, but it seems they'd rather just forget about them for an edition. And we get another three years of everything smaller than an Intercessor slowly, steadily sliding down the points toilet until we get 4ppm kabalites and 2ppm guardsmen and 1ppm gretchin, and anyone who doesn't play space marines has to pay 1,500$ for a 2,000 point army.

Fair points. I think the issue has to do with army rules more than it does the core rules, but you make fair points even if we split the hair on where the issue is.

And it's my sincere hope that points hikes dominate 9th's pricing policy over points drops. We need to keep adding more design space into the game so we have room to let light infantry actually have a role in the game beyond being what they currently are: space fillers.

And I can safely say if we get a meta with cheap characters doing actions, then we'll get a sniper meta within days, if not weeks, just to balance it out.

I doubt that last point. Snipers and Assassins are pretty much perpetually underpowered in any kind of game space (whether that be a video game, a board game or a wargame) because people just hate losin' their special dudes. You will never get a more negative reaction from any fanbase than when you introduce a character killer unit that's actually worth their points.

40k is a wargame in which 10 elves with sniper rifles can combine their firepower and shoot a basic marine captain in the face, and it takes them 3 full turns of uninterrupted fire to bring him down.

 Oaka wrote:
Well, I guess the Szeras rules do provide another example on why you would want to take large units, along the same vein as the stratagem efficiency already mentioned. I still think 6-model units are kinda boned, it's either 5 models or max size.

what magical strats did you ever used on large units before??? i can only think of two examples for orks... that would be autopass morale and kill the unit to bring em back full size

i cant really think of any strat that would be useful on chaff... but maybe its my limited perspective, i really would like to know

RedNoak wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
Well, I guess the Szeras rules do provide another example on why you would want to take large units, along the same vein as the stratagem efficiency already mentioned. I still think 6-model units are kinda boned, it's either 5 models or max size.

what magical strats did you ever used on large units before??? i can only think of two examples for orks... that would be autopass morale and kill the unit to bring em back full size

i cant really think of any strat that would be useful on chaff... but maybe its my limited perspective, i really would like to know

Well, I guess off the top of my head...

...several large units like guardian blobs, acolyte blobs, pink horror blobs, bloodletter blobs etc used limited deep strike strats + offensive strats when they arrived to guarantee they get their full firepower off on a target.

You also had some folks using fearless blobs of stuff like wyches conscripts prenerf and cultists that could very efficiently be made fearless or effectively fearless, but that was more defined by their being totally immune to morale and thus very durable than their effectiveness using stratagems.

You'd throw like VOTLW on cultists, but it was much more about the full reroll to hit from yabbadabbadon than the +1 to wound that made those strong.

Or the new Cut them Down stratagem, lol, I can't say that with a straight face.