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Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

Right now, Guard are 'locked' to one special weapon per squad and one heavy weapon team per squad. The 8 points per model Guardsmen would have to be something more than what they are now.

That's why I made the statement I did. Because the squad size right now(10) is static, same as the options.

Infantry Squads are always 9 Guardsmen and 1 Sergeant.
The 9 Guardsmen can, as squad options, take:
-1 Special Weapon(Sniper Rifle, Plasma Gun, Meltagun, Flamer, or Grenade Launcher)
-2 models form a Heavy Weapons Team(Lascannon, Heavy Bolter, Rocket Launcher, Mortar, and Autocannon)
-1 Voxcaster which doesn't change out their weapon

The Sergeant gets:
-1x Laspistol(Standard)
--Can replace their Laspistol with something from the Ranged Weapons list(Bolt Pistol, Boltgun, or Plasma Pistol)
-Can take a Power Sword or Chainsword

If you want more than 10 Guardsmen in an Infantry Squad? You have to use a Stratagem(Combined Squads) to do it, or take Conscripts which get literally none of those options and start at 20 models going to 30.

I am more excited to see what happens to non-Space Marine armies. You know, armies like Daemons, Eldar, Tau? The "forgotten" armies of 40k?

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Really they should cost the same as a cultist despite having a better statline?
Guard should be 8 points each in the new 9th edition points.

I can't see how you can value guardsmen at 8 points compared to comparable units.

I don't really know what to do with cultists. I don't have anything against them per se - but GW clearly does. Tbh I think they and conscripts should probably just go to legends.

Truthfully, Conscripts and Cultists have one big issue that is the same in both armies:
They were being used as cheap replacements for what the army is, fluffwise, built around.

All they need to do is "These units do not count as a mandatory Troops choice slot in your Detachments".
Also, Conscripts need to go to a 6+ save if Guardsmen stay at 5+.

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Really they should cost the same as a cultist despite having a better statline?
Guard should be 8 points each in the new 9th edition points.

I can't see how you can value guardsmen at 8 points compared to comparable units.

I don't really know what to do with cultists. I don't have anything against them per se - but GW clearly does. Tbh I think they and conscripts should probably just go to legends.

8 point Guardsman vs 9 point Kabalite warrior.

Go.

(not saying Guardsman should be 8 points, but neither should kabalites be 9).

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

It's why so many units like Devastators and Purgation squads were bad until 5th. They paid considerably more for their weapons just because they could take a couple more. It's bad design.

Tyel wrote:

Ice_can wrote:
Really they should cost the same as a cultist despite having a better statline?
Guard should be 8 points each in the new 9th edition points.

I can't see how you can value guardsmen at 8 points compared to comparable units.

I don't really know what to do with cultists. I don't have anything against them per se - but GW clearly does. Tbh I think they and conscripts should probably just go to legends.

Kabalite, Guardians and FW all being 9 PPM says 5PPM guardsmen is pants on head wrong.

 Ordana wrote:
8 point Guardsman vs 9 point Kabalite warrior.

Go.

(not saying Guardsman should be 8 points, but neither should kabalites be 9).

If it pleases the jury I think Kabs should be 7. Guardian defenders should probably be about that too.
But Kabalites are definitely *better* than guardsmen. They have BS3+. While I know some people don't like a splinter rifle because they always seem to be shooting T3 enemies (or worse, grots) - against any tougher non-vehicle its a better gun - sometimes considerably better.

Even if the whole game system was balanced around kabalites, and they were 9 points forever, I wouldn't put guardsmen at 8.

Tyel wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
8 point Guardsman vs 9 point Kabalite warrior.

Go.

(not saying Guardsman should be 8 points, but neither should kabalites be 9).

If it pleases the jury I think Kabs should be 7. Guardian defenders should probably be about that too.
But Kabalites are definitely *better* than guardsmen. They have BS3+. While I know some people don't like a splinter rifle because they always seem to be shooting T3 enemies (or worse, grots) - against any tougher non-vehicle its a better gun - sometimes considerably better.

Even if the whole game system was balanced around kabalites, and they were 9 points forever, I wouldn't put guardsmen at 8.

Well a Grot is 5PPM Cultists are 6PPM, Conscripts are better than cultists so 7PPM Guardsmen end up at 8PPM by default.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

It's why so many units like Devastators and Purgation squads were bad until 5th. They paid considerably more for their weapons just because they could take a couple more. It's bad design.

Mmmm, no. It's recognizing the value of concentrated weapons in a paradigm where units can only engage one target. 1 Heavy in 10 guys is worth less when you give up shooting with every other model when firing it at a tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
I am more excited to see what happens to non-Space Marine armies. You know, armies like Daemons, Eldar, Tau? The "forgotten" armies of 40k?

This is going to be where the rubber hits the road, but having seen some Necron stuff I'm less enthused. Warriors and Immortals should be at 2W, Imo.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

It's why so many units like Devastators and Purgation squads were bad until 5th. They paid considerably more for their weapons just because they could take a couple more. It's bad design.

Mmmm, no. It's recognizing the value of concentrated weapons in a paradigm where units can only engage one target. 1 Heavy in 10 guys is worth less when you give up shooting with every other model when firing it at a tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tamwulf wrote:
I am more excited to see what happens to non-Space Marine armies. You know, armies like Daemons, Eldar, Tau? The "forgotten" armies of 40k?

This is going to be where the rubber hits the road, but having seen some Necron stuff I'm less enthused. Warriors and Immortals should be at 2W, Imo.

Except it never worked that way. You'd have to buy 3+ heavy weapons to make your point true, otherwise you are just better off freeing up a few more points to buy an extra squad of Tacticals carrying a Lascannon.

I know my friend from high school who has played Necron since 3rd edition is overjoyed that his Immortals are back to T5. He doesn't care that the marines got 2 wounds. He says he will easily deal with the overcosted marines with his new 30 inch range they gave Immortals. It is his opinion, as a long time Necron player, that the 30 inch range on Immortals was the biggest buff they could have ever received. A good player will certainly use it to his advantage.

I would like to change my answer from indifferent to seething hatred. Mostly because my Rubrics will to go from 18 points to probably 25 points. Which means 2 10 man squads of Rubrics and 1 10 man SOT will cost 1000 points.

 Crusaderobr wrote:
I know my friend from high school who has played Necron since 3rd edition is overjoyed that his Immortals are back to T5. He doesn't care that the marines got 2 wounds. He says he will easily deal with the overcosted marines with his new 30 inch range they gave Immortals. It is his opinion, as a long time Necron player, that the 30 inch range on Immortals was the biggest buff they could have ever received. A good player will certainly use it to his advantage.

Not following the specific logic on 30" being the 'biggest buff.' If enemy weapons were 24", I could see some merit in it. But in the world of bolt rifles, stalker bolter rifles and even common bolters going to 30" and being able to double tap at max range thanks to Bolter discipline and tactical doctrine on top of that... Just not sure that works out in the gauss blaster's favor. Yes, blasters are S5 and have a good AP, but they're getting shot twice as much by a unit that has roughly the same point cost.
At best its a bad attrition fight. (which might work out if RP gets overhauled, but even then its not good)

Necron players would probably be better off dropping off Sautekh dynasty warriors with the new gauss reapers and relying on cheaper firepower at 14".

I'm okay with it.

As long as all the models are getting a 20% or so points increase to go with it, and a real increase not a we increased the base model points but made their wargear really cheap nonsense.

Marines in the lore are tougher, make it that way in the game, but they are also less numerous, so make it that way in the game as well. This change reflects that.

Yeah your 10 model unit went up, but you can use 5 model units and have the same wounds as the 10 model unit for less points, albeit you are getting less shooting/assault too.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

It's why so many units like Devastators and Purgation squads were bad until 5th. They paid considerably more for their weapons just because they could take a couple more. It's bad design.

Mmmm, no. It's recognizing the value of concentrated weapons in a paradigm where units can only engage one target. 1 Heavy in 10 guys is worth less when you give up shooting with every other model when firing it at a tank.

Except it never worked that way. You'd have to buy 3+ heavy weapons to make your point true, otherwise you are just better off freeing up a few more points to buy an extra squad of Tacticals carrying a Lascannon.

It did work that way, and it worked fine. People stil play those editions because they were good editions.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

It's why so many units like Devastators and Purgation squads were bad until 5th. They paid considerably more for their weapons just because they could take a couple more. It's bad design.

Mmmm, no. It's recognizing the value of concentrated weapons in a paradigm where units can only engage one target. 1 Heavy in 10 guys is worth less when you give up shooting with every other model when firing it at a tank.

Except it never worked that way. You'd have to buy 3+ heavy weapons to make your point true, otherwise you are just better off freeing up a few more points to buy an extra squad of Tacticals carrying a Lascannon.

It did work that way, and it worked fine. People stil play those editions because they were good editions.

The people that play them have Rose tinted glasses and don't acknowledge those editions are jut as broken and continue to live on in denial. Hell there's people that still actively play Rogue Trader which already pokes a hole in that argument alone. That was NOT a good game.

blaktoof wrote:
I'm okay with it.

As long as all the models are getting a 20% or so points increase to go with it, and a real increase not a we increased the base model points but made their wargear really cheap nonsense.

Marines in the lore are tougher, make it that way in the game, but they are also less numerous, so make it that way in the game as well. This change reflects that.

Yeah your 10 model unit went up, but you can use 5 model units and have the same wounds as the 10 model unit for less points, albeit you are getting less shooting/assault too.

Yeah but that's the problem. Units that are built around a specific idea, like shooting, get shut down for 4 turns because you got charged by a 10 man squad of chaff that costs half the points or less. And it also means mortal wounds become hyper efficient.

 Ordana wrote:
Xenos are told to play in the kiddie pool for 2 years until their codex comes out that may make them playable.

Two years is it? I thought the new Necron book was coming out in two months.

For all we know, the very next book after the Marine/Necron 'Dexes could be Eldar, or Tau, or Tyranids, or Chaos Daemons.

Acting like it's just the Marines that will get everything whilst everyone else will languish for years is silly.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The people that play them have Rose tinted glasses and don't acknowledge those editions are jut as broken and continue to live on in denial. Hell there's people that still actively play Rogue Trader which already pokes a hole in that argument alone. That was NOT a good game.

I don't want to burst your bubble but

A: People can like different things than you
And
B: You're not an authority on "good design".

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:
I would like to change my answer from indifferent to seething hatred. Mostly because my Rubrics will to go from 18 points to probably 25 points. Which means 2 10 man squads of Rubrics and 1 10 man SOT will cost 1000 points.

Seething hatred? Really?

In any case it will probably more like 22. Death Guard on the other hand...they'll be 25+.

The issue is that Rubrics were already weak to D2 and took a lot of heat from those weapons as a result. Being D2 doesn't get them much unless I face a lot of D1 - then they're beast mode. It wouldn't hurt to see the All is Dust rule lose its restriction.

Yet another reason that rushing updates out is a bad idea.

Rihgu wrote:
Why would a model pay points for the privilege to pay points to get a weapon? Are there existing units that pay for the privilege to get special weapons? Every unit I can think of (GK Purifiers, CSM Chosen, SM veterans + devastators, retributors, dominions) have extra rules/stats that make up the points difference between their regular counterpoints, so they aren't paying for the privilege.

Scions in command squads. Or maybe they pay for the privilege of not having 6 other Scions at their backs when they can take four special weapons. Some crap as in Killteam.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
Xenos are told to play in the kiddie pool for 2 years until their codex comes out that may make them playable.

Two years is it? I thought the new Necron book was coming out in two months.

For all we know, the very next book after the Marine/Necron 'Dexes could be Eldar, or Tau, or Tyranids, or Chaos Daemons.

Acting like it's just the Marines that will get everything whilst everyone else will languish for years is silly.

Why? Its repeated history at this point.
Sure not everyone has to wait 2 years, some a few months, some a year, some longer. But don't pretend like GW is likely to pump out a dozen xeno's books in quick succession to help them recover.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Guard can be 8 points when they're a 4+ save, everyone has a Lasgun, and they get access to more special weapon options per squad.

Because that's getting into Skitarii points territory, which are 4+/6++ with Canticles(always on across the whole army), 3x special weapons in 10 model squads, and no mandatory weirdly equipped unit leader.

I actually wouldn't mind the old carapace armor upgrade guardsmen squad becoming the baseline.

Guardsmen should be somewhere between where they are now and how scions are.

Still waiting for any guard player to explain how their unit is correctly priced when they are significantly better in every way compared to a Grot but only cost 1pt more.

And lets not even get into the fact that a Boy is now 8ppm but is only slightly more durable than a guardsman and in a sandbox loses to a similar points value of guardsmen.

GW doesn't care about unit cost effectiveness, they care about armies looking like GW wants them to look. Cultists are objectively worse than guardsmen in every single way yet cost a point more. GW isn't so stupid that they think cultists are better than guardsmen, they just don't care, because they want armies of guardsmen but they don't want armies of cultists.

Once you realize that GW literally does not care if one unit is more points efficient than another, what GW does starts to make slightly more sense. It's stupid from the point of view of competitive play, but you start to understand there is at least some method to the madness, if not the method you might want.

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW doesn't care about unit cost effectiveness, they care about armies looking like GW wants them to look. Cultists are objectively worse than guardsmen in every single way yet cost a point more. GW isn't so stupid that they think cultists are better than guardsmen, they just don't care, because they want armies of guardsmen but they don't want armies of cultists.

Once you realize that GW literally does not care if one unit is more points efficient than another, what GW does starts to make slightly more sense. It's stupid from the point of view of competitive play, but you start to understand there is at least some method to the madness, if not the method you might want.

Mind sharing a source for this one, buddy?

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

The people that play them have Rose tinted glasses and don't acknowledge those editions are jut as broken and continue to live on in denial. Hell there's people that still actively play Rogue Trader which already pokes a hole in that argument alone. That was NOT a good game.

I don't want to burst your bubble but

A: People can like different things than you
And
B: You're not an authority on "good design".

Then by all means get all the Rogue Trader players to help defend their game system as though it were good, I insist.

a_typical_hero wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW doesn't care about unit cost effectiveness, they care about armies looking like GW wants them to look. Cultists are objectively worse than guardsmen in every single way yet cost a point more. GW isn't so stupid that they think cultists are better than guardsmen, they just don't care, because they want armies of guardsmen but they don't want armies of cultists.

Once you realize that GW literally does not care if one unit is more points efficient than another, what GW does starts to make slightly more sense. It's stupid from the point of view of competitive play, but you start to understand there is at least some method to the madness, if not the method you might want.

Mind sharing a source for this one, buddy?

I can't remember off the top of my head, but there was a source (either podcast or whc post) that talked about the rationale behind the point changes for 9th ed. It was said that point changes reflect the kind/size of army they want portrayed on the tabletop, more so than aiming for balance issues.

 skchsan wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Guard can be 8 points when they're a 4+ save, everyone has a Lasgun, and they get access to more special weapon options per squad.

Because that's getting into Skitarii points territory, which are 4+/6++ with Canticles(always on across the whole army), 3x special weapons in 10 model squads, and no mandatory weirdly equipped unit leader.

I actually wouldn't mind the old carapace armor upgrade guardsmen squad becoming the baseline.

Guardsmen should be somewhere between where they are now and how scions are.

I'm really not sure what your basis for this is. Guardsmen are significantly undervalued for what they currently have, and several of their special and heavy weapons are getting buffs.

I'm not sure what the space between guardsmen and scions even is. They can't really go to BS 3.5 and save 4.5 anyway, and nothing comes to mind as justifying stat improvements anyway. As is they need to go up in points without stat improvements,

Voss wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Guard can be 8 points when they're a 4+ save, everyone has a Lasgun, and they get access to more special weapon options per squad.

Because that's getting into Skitarii points territory, which are 4+/6++ with Canticles(always on across the whole army), 3x special weapons in 10 model squads, and no mandatory weirdly equipped unit leader.

I actually wouldn't mind the old carapace armor upgrade guardsmen squad becoming the baseline.

Guardsmen should be somewhere between where they are now and how scions are.

I'm really not sure what your basis for this is. Guardsmen are significantly undervalued for what they currently have, and several of their special and heavy weapons are getting buffs.

I'm not sure what the space between guardsmen and scions even is. They can't really go to BS 3.5 and save 4.5 anyway, and nothing comes to mind as justifying stat improvements anyway. As is they need to go up in points without stat improvements,

Well, adjusting from 5+ Sv to 4+ Sv is more or less negligible due to proliferation of AP on weapons and the overwhelming lethality currently present in the game.

So if that's what it's going to take hardcore 'guardsmen guards' to admit guardsmen are grossly undercosted, so be it. BS/WS 5+, T/S 3, 1W, 4+ Sv, 8 ppm guardsmen sounds pretty fair to me.

Leave the 5+ Sv to the conscripts and keep them at 5 ppm. (Actually, just haul them out by invoking the 'no-model-no-rule' policy. Technically there are no models for 'conscripts'. They're just infantry squad painted with white helmets.)