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So maybe this is a strange thing to say. I do play dark eldar. However I find light infantry hordes like guardsmen and similar becoming more and more irrelevant. Perhaps it's just my current list i built for dark eldar. I just noticed as I was making the list a lot of anti infantry attacks weren't that big a deal most of the time. Space marines or custodes can be a bit scary as can monsters, vehicles, some characters and hive guard sized infantry. That said I don't look at a horde of infantry and think to myself "I have to destroy that right away!". None of the weapons or attacks they have hurt higher toughness and armor or inv. Saves. For that reason I kind of just focused on tough bikes and vehicles and avoided a lot of infantry normally reserved for CP boosts meant for stratagems since dark eldar needs to spread it's firepower out among units making stratagems more useless.

Overall I still think basic infantry suck though. Vehicles and monsters got really tough. Suicide anti tank light infantry also suck. A lot of money spent on scourge im never getting back.

I apologize if this is old news for most. I'm most likely behind the curve tactically. If this belongs it 40k tactics please re-direct as I wasn't sure.

The game does appear to have made the short brutal life of the t3 low save grunt even shorter as the lethality increases

Fingers crossed they get a rule tweak to give them some point other than being argumentative terrain maybe give obsec a vp bump for objective holding or something

also for elfs made of evil glitter and wickedtissue paper hide in the transports and bring blasters and pistols

Hordes have definitely become weaker over the course of the edition. I think initially GW completely underestimated how resilient something like a basic Guardsman was now that many fewer weapons wounded on 2s and they still got some kind of save against most anti-infantry weapons. Combine that with their cheap cost and they were probably too survivable on average.

It's very different now. 8th edition has seen a steady rise in lethality and that's mainly been through a ridiculous increase in volume of fire, AP and re-rolls for everyone which makes the increased number of shots even more accurate. When a basic 5-man Intercessor unit can get 7-8 wounds against horde infantry from 30" away it's very difficult for those units to survive or contribute much to the game. Guardsman are probably just about cheap enough to do OK but things like basic Eldar or DE troops struggle in the face of that sort of firepower because they cost just a little too much.

It's pretty ironic that unless something gets adjusted the only way to make eldar infantry viable is to turn them into cheap horde units which doesn't exactly match the fluff!

Slipspace wrote:
Hordes have definitely become weaker over the course of the edition. I think initially GW completely underestimated how resilient something like a basic Guardsman was now that many fewer weapons wounded on 2s and they still got some kind of save against most anti-infantry weapons. Combine that with their cheap cost and they were probably too survivable on average.

It's very different now. 8th edition has seen a steady rise in lethality and that's mainly been through a ridiculous increase in volume of fire, AP and re-rolls for everyone which makes the increased number of shots even more accurate. When a basic 5-man Intercessor unit can get 7-8 wounds against horde infantry from 30" away it's very difficult for those units to survive or contribute much to the game. Guardsman are probably just about cheap enough to do OK but things like basic Eldar or DE troops struggle in the face of that sort of firepower because they cost just a little too much.

Agree with this. The game cranked up anti-infantry weapons to be able to gun down guardsmen efficiently, but those guns now just plow through any infantry that has a similar durability, but pays extra points for actually being able to fight and/or shoot.

Depends really.

In the current situation:
I think ITC rules are very hard on light infantry (whether horde or MSU), because yes they tend to just die in droves and give up points. On the other hand, while bad examples exist, they are often cheap wounds and provide reasonably cheap low S/low AP shooting.

Obviously in 9th we don't know exactly what will happen. A world where every *blast* weapon does max damage to hordes and they can't prevent tanks/monsters shooting could be bad - but again *bad in the context of what?*

Ignoring the financial implications - hormagaunts are bad now, and may become worse. But if they were say just 2 points, and ignoring the issues of giving up points in things like ITC, they could have a place.

Scourge I'm afraid have been quite bad all edition, and I don't think that's due to increased firepower. Its just that dropping down, shooting a few blasters/haywires/whatever, probably half-killing a Rhino, and then immediately being cleared off by someone looking at them funny doesn't cut it when you are paying not too far off the points of a Ravager/Jetfighter.

I found the role of "horde" infantry was seriously diminished when the various "ground attack" fliers came in, single or twin hurricane bolters, when one unit is chucking out 24 dice with one of its typically multiple weapon systems and there isn't a lot you can do to stop/avoid it you just face up to needing three units to do the job of one and hoping the one thats left is in the right place

Yes. Throw all your Orks in the bin.

 Corrode wrote:
Yes. Throw all your Orks in the bin.

or stick them on the shelf for when the game inverts, again

I can stick them next to the 221st Infantry regiment

and the shelf above hive fleet Turnip

Blast weapons will not break hordes - getting 6 shots instead of d6 or 12 instead of 2d6 shots is not that much more models killed, especially considering that people won't suddenly start pointing battlecannons or earthshakers at boyz just because they get slightly more shots.
In my opinion the biggest gain from this is making big guns work against different targets than all those gatling/auto-cannon style weapons.

What is going to decide the fate of horde units is how terrain and cover is implemented, everything else is secondary to that.

There are loads of other elements of the rules changing, GW has only sneaked us a small portion of them. We've also not seen them in action - theory is one thing, practice is another. It's far too early to start panicking.

unless hordes have a way to mitigate a 3+ to hit shot against them from rate of fire how much! weapons on highly mobile platforms that have enough range to be essentially impossible to avoid they will stay low value.

agree the terrain rules are the key here, the ability to gain cover and not have it removed because one model has a toe outside the crater etc is useful

The game is effectively split into two camps currently though, those who can kill hordes and those who get killed by hordes

Marines 2.0 who are dripping in AP and hence murder hordes easily
Alot of this could also be to do with the points drop upon points drop a lot of primaris got before being buffed into the stratosphere but without points having been rebalanced since.

Horders fighting hordes where volume over quality gets the job done.

Guard, cheap enough to be able to build in redundancy units.

Get killed
Everyone else, Admech, Tau who just can't hang either way

Foot eldar I can't say I've seen much other than rangers and 1 webway blob.

Choas is just well I'll let a choas play try and explain how their codex works.

What armies can't handle horde though?

The only ones I can think of are DG, custodes and knights.

 Jidmah wrote:
What armies can't handle horde though?

The only ones I can think of are DG, custodes and knights.

Tau certaibly don't do well at it especially troop for troop and Admech unless they have brought the bots.
The issue is marines rather hard counter hordes well.

Ice_can wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What armies can't handle horde though?

The only ones I can think of are DG, custodes and knights.

Tau certaibly don't do well at it especially troop for troop and Admech unless they have brought the bots.
The issue is marines rather hard counter hordes well.

Tau can handle Hordes fine - its just difficult with your triptides+40+ drones+usual HQs.
I feel Ad Mech are in a similar boat.

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What armies can't handle horde though?

The only ones I can think of are DG, custodes and knights.

Tau certaibly don't do well at it especially troop for troop and Admech unless they have brought the bots.
The issue is marines rather hard counter hordes well.

Tau can handle Hordes fine - its just difficult with your triptides+40+ drones+usual HQs.
I feel Ad Mech are in a similar boat.

Funny that's not the lists I play and yet lacking reroll hits and being BS4 base rather makes -1to hit hordes unkillable, in a reasonable time to actually achieve any mission scoring.

Ice_can wrote:
Funny that's not the lists I play and yet lacking reroll hits and being BS4 base rather makes -1to hit hordes unkillable, in a reasonable time to actually achieve any mission scoring.

I guess this is becoming *guess the situation* - but what are we talking about? Plaguebearer spam? Tyranids under a Malanthrope? Cultists with a buff on them for -1 to hit?

One of the things revealed for 9th Ed is changes to morale. They said combat attrition will be a factor, and there will be more modifiers.

So for all we know now, the trade-off will be that hordes are more vulnerable to blast weapons but much more resilient to morale damage, while minimum-sized squads might be regularly wiped out after losing half their number.

It's still too early to speculate. We need concrete info.

There's a new edition round the corner.

For now, all bets are off.

Ice_can wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
What armies can't handle horde though?

The only ones I can think of are DG, custodes and knights.

Tau certaibly don't do well at it especially troop for troop and Admech unless they have brought the bots.
The issue is marines rather hard counter hordes well.

Tau can handle Hordes fine - its just difficult with your triptides+40+ drones+usual HQs.
I feel Ad Mech are in a similar boat.

Funny that's not the lists I play and yet lacking reroll hits and being BS4 base rather makes -1to hit hordes unkillable, in a reasonable time to actually achieve any mission scoring.

The vast majority of horde units don't have -1 to hit.

Ergo, hordes are not your problem.

My point is more guardsmen level infantry but fire warriors may count too. It depends. Like even genestealers or orks don't scare me too much. Maybe it's because I can just fly over them and still shoot with all my vehicles. Perhaps they can hold objectives with objective secured. That said they usually aren't super scary if you don't have infantry on the field. If the shooting is beyond half the range of light infantry they generally suck that much harder. If they're in combat in large enough groups and they're guardsmen going against my bikes I just don't care and I could fly away at will. Most bikes are also -1 to be hit from shooting.

Another issue with horde infantry is stratagems are wasted helping them or msu since it generally targets one unit therefore helping a really elite and powerful squad more. As dark eldar I actually found stratagems probably don't help me all that much overall and I'm probably better off without too much infantry or other vulnerable units. Maybe staying in transports and using it as a firing platform could be good but otherwise infantry just take up points and are too easily killed.

Anything that is in combat with infantry that can fly can and will just fly away. At best things with heavy armor, good toughness, good invulnerable saves or multiple wounds just get bogged down or laugh them off.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
My point is more guardsmen level infantry but fire warriors may count too. It depends. Like even genestealers or orks don't scare me too much. Maybe it's because I can just fly over them and still shoot with all my vehicles. Perhaps they can hold objectives with objective secured. That said they usually aren't super scary if you don't have infantry on the field. If the shooting is beyond half the range of light infantry they generally suck that much harder. If they're in combat in large enough groups and they're guardsmen going against my bikes I just don't care and I could fly away at will. Most bikes are also -1 to be hit from shooting.

Some blobs can work reasonably well. Spamming deepstriking orks, for instance, can put a dark reaper castle craftworlder list in a tight spot because craftworlders don't have much in the way of cheap screening units. So even though I can fall back and shoot with my flying units, two or three giant boyz squads landing in my face can make it really hard to assert board control and might force me to use resources protecting my dark reapers that I'd normally spend elsewhere.

And speaking of craftworlders, blobs of guardians can work extremely well if you opt to deepstrike them. 20 guardians with 2 weapon platforms (to tank incoming shots) can be surprisingly tough with the use of a stratagem or two, and they put out a daunting amount of firepower. They're also a great example of a unit that you don't mind spending offensive strats or psychic powers on.

Blobs of pox walkers and plague bearers are kind of a solved problem, but they're still tough enough to force your oppponent to deal with them. Genestealer and hormagaunts blobs don't have a ton of offensive bite, but they have ridiculous mobility if you build around it. My tyranid buddy has had success rushing them out and tying up a half dozen targets at once, not really killing much but paralyzing a big chunk of the enemy army while he asserts board control.

Necron warriors aren't great, but I've had limited success running three 20 man squads and a fearless aura warlord. The larger squad size makes it harder for my opponent to remove them entirely, and that means I'm more likely to get some use out of my Reanimation Protocols.

tldr; some hordes can work pretty well if you build to support them. Plenty of units that can be taken in large squads shouldn't be, but there are counter-examples.

Another issue with horde infantry is stratagems are wasted helping them or msu since it generally targets one unit therefore helping a really elite and powerful squad more. As dark eldar I actually found stratagems probably don't help me all that much overall and I'm probably better off without too much infantry or other vulnerable units. Maybe staying in transports and using it as a firing platform could be good but otherwise infantry just take up points and are too easily killed.

Dark eldar are one of my main armies. Generally speaking, you want to be running msu infantry rather than hordes, and you're right that msu drukhari don't get a ton out of stratagems. BUT! We do have a few horde options that can actually work pretty well.

I run a 20 girl horde of Cursed Blade wyches pretty often. I generally give them the +1 strength drug and drop them in via the webway. This means that they're rerolling charges out of deepstrike, wound marines on 3's and knights on 5s, and never lose more than a single model to morale. Plus, they have good odds of taking a squad hostage once they make a charge, and then they generally have the numbers to wipe those hostages out on my opponent's turn. They're still squishy, especially if you fail the charge, but they work pretty well. They're so different from the rest of my conventional army that people don't always know what to do about them. This is also a squad that you might want to use hyperstimm backlash (double your drugs' effects) or Cruel Deception on.

Something sub-optimal but cute is a maxed out horde of kabalite warriors. You can fit a surprising amount of strength 8 into such a squad, and it's packing a lot of poison in one place. If you go Poisoned Tongue (not a popular choice, I know), you can make that blob of poison a bit more deadly as well. Alternatively, go Obsidian Rose to up your range and make it easier for your blasters to reach past screens and for your splinter weapons to be in rapid fire range. Like the wyches, they can reroll charges which means you might be able to keep them safe by charging a non-stabby enemy unit, though you might need to use Cruel Deception to reliably extricate them on your following turn.

Also, Hunt From the Shadows(?) means you can give them a 3+ save if you happen to be able to drop them all in terrain when they arrive. That plus turn 4 fearless means that they can become hard to shift if your opponent doesn't deal with them soon enough. Hunt From the Shadows is also great for a single squad of 10 scourges. The 4 guys with special weapons are your heavy lifters, and the rest of your dudes become ablative wounds with a 2+ save in cover.

But yeah. You don't want to try footslogging big squads of drukhari infantry unless you're planning on supporting them with some sort of gimmick.

Anything that is in combat with infantry that can fly can and will just fly away. At best things with heavy armor, good toughness, good invulnerable saves or multiple wounds just get bogged down or laugh them off.

That all kind of depends. Your venoms can shoot after they fall back, but a squad of ork boyz is pretty likely to kill you before you can fall back. Durable units might not be afraid of getting killed by some hordes, but a lot of those units don't like being tied up either. My tyranid buddy mentioned above will gladly tie up several such units at once without much hope of killing any of them if it means those units aren't shooting or charging one of his killy shooty units.

Everything might change next month. I wouldn't get too hung up on what is or isn't good right now.

Ice_can wrote:


Choas is just well I'll let a choas play try and explain how their codex works.

Chaos is a jack of all trades, master of none. It's literally Chaos. It only works well allied internally. We can do some 'interesting' horde units (ie. A massive blob of cultists with -1 to hit, a feel no pain and/or invulnerable save, immune to moral and doing other things such as re-spawning elsewhere on the board and re-rolling misses).