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Spoletta wrote:


Agree.
You said that your problem is not quality but quantity.
You can field 180 conscripts in a single battalion, which is one of the highest among the game factions. You don't get to say that they are not as efficient as IS. Your own point that you were trying to make precludes that.

So you’re saying Orks are fine with Boys limited to 10 and Grots limited to 20 and their special rule only working on a 4+? Remember Conscripts get no options or upgrades.

And my “problem” - or the flaw with guard I noticed - was both quantity AND quality. More or less squishy remember? I didn’t say more and more squishy.

24W in the current damage system seems about appropriate for the larger side of regular tanks. It'd be better at T9 (much like the Land Raider should be), but I'm not seeing how this is LOW-worthy.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
It'd be nice if the Platoon structure for Guard came back. That was a defining feature of that army for such a long time. Failing that, put our commanders back in their command squads please.

What was that two squads and a command squad? Not bad, make it two squads and a heavy weapon squad for current rules and that wouldn’t suck, would close the penalty Guard are paying for all the other imperium armies raiding their codex for CP soup.

Yeah, min Command Squad + 2 Infantry Squads. Max of 5 Infantry squads. My whole Guard army is structured around that as a concept (6 45-man platoons, 2 Cadian, 2 old Cadian, 1 Mordian, 1 Tallarn). And then the "Command HQ Platoon" had attached Heavy Weapon and/or Special Weapon squads.

I wouldn't be opposed to making the min requirement the same as it was + 1 HW squad. It's not like Guard are durable in any fashion, so having loads of extra super-squishy heavy weapons is hardly going to be a big deal.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
24W in the current damage system seems about appropriate for the larger side of regular tanks. It'd be better at T9 (much like the Land Raider should be), but I'm not seeing how this is LOW-worthy.

T9 would help, but not much.. What are you affecting? Las, Lances, Kraks, and Melta for 16%,? Any of the S5-S7 accidental tank killers don’t care and still perform the same accidentally killing your monolith/land raider. The big “tanks” especially the ones pushing knight prices need an invuln in a world where people make armies while worried about seeing a knight or more show up.

Just an invuln wouldn't really help either a Monolith or LR against the accidental tanks killers though. Although against melta yes and this is why Monolith's should have been given QS.

Or give it 30+ wounds. Or no degredation. Or reduce incoming damage by 1 (this is what many people expected). Instead they gave it...nothing. And made it a LoW.

Yeah there were things they could have done, like lower the ap of any weapon by 1 with "coherent matter armor" maybe.

Cynista wrote:
Just an invuln wouldn't really help either a Monolith or LR against the accidental tanks killers though. Although against melta yes and this is why Monolith's should have been given QS.

Or give it 30+ wounds. Or no degredation. Or reduce incoming damage by 1 (this is what many people expected). Instead they gave it...nothing. And made it a LoW.

Vehicles, especially the large ones are just in a bad place right now.

Breton wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Because the more that your ability to win hinges on your army construction, and the more they change what units are viable, the more you think about and buy models.

It's literally what the entire game is fundamentally designed around.

You're statement is correct, but for the wrong reasons, imho.

They're not picking winners or losers. They're certainly disturbing the meta and that's not always a bad thing, because stale lists make for a stale game. Should GW ever achieve excellent balance then all units are equally viable. The meta will still shake as GW is essentially required to continue to produce new models every year. New armies will appear as well as new tools and people will naturally gravitate to them.

In a fictionally perfectly balanced game, the meta will change itself as people get bored with this list, and buy a couple kits to turn it into that list. In this fictional perfectly balanced game there won't be a meta because Bob will be playing Assaulty Ultramarines because he likes blue and chainswords, while Joe will be playing Greenwing because he likes robes and plasma.

You're missing the underlying point of my half assed comment.

Obviously 40k will never be truly "balanced", nor would i want it to be. However since I started (in early 2014) I have seen a pattern of behavior, and a shift in the philosophy of the game itself during the advent of 8th. That pattern of behavior being that newer models tend to be better, and units that were good last edition always get shifted or replaced by another unit in the codex. I also know that GW is perfectly capable of making a more balanced game, as seen in ANY of their specialist games, and the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game. They could do a linear regression model on all of their gak to make sure that there are no ridiculous outliers as well (if it's easy enough for one of our local nerds to do that, it's easy enough for a multi million dollar international corporation). Now, they could do all of this and make a more balanced game, but why don't they? To answer that question we have to look at design philosophy.

40k as I have known it (6th and up) has always had a heavy emphasis on list building, with target priority, and finally positioning being the keys to victory in descending order. It has never really been a game about exploiting angles and maneuver, but it did have a small element of that in previous editions. With the advent of 8th, everything became about command points, stratagems, character auras, busted units and individualized special rules for nearly EVERY SINGLE UNIT IN THE GAME. In 8th your job as the commander was now to maximize your auras, buffs, and special rules to their greatest efficiency, while killing your enemies buffs and stratagems. None of these kinds of game interactions are dependent on the PLAYER to make them work. They pretty much just happen automatically, or you spend a command point. There is no maneuvering around cover to flank an enemy while your MG team suppresses your oppositions support assets. Either you have the right unit with the right auras, or you don't. What you do with them is largely inconsequential, and even if there is a rare situation where positioning and tactics may win the day, the unit special rules pretty much tell you how to play with that unit anyway.

So now you have a system where it intimately requires you to think about each units capabilities and how they work with your other ones. It consistently has you thinking about how your army works together, what buffs what, how many command points you have, and what stratagems to use. The emphasis is not on the battle, or the terrain, or how to maneuver through it, it's what you bring to it. This game design keeps you thinking about army comps by design. Change the meta, the viability of units, points, etc and you have people thinking more and more about comps.

Just look at this thread it's people talking all about 3+ saves, point values, wounds, and army special rules. None of this would matter if the game itself rewarded play rather than construction.

I've stopped playing 40k, but I so wish I could like it

 Sledgehammer wrote:


So now you have a system where it intimately requires you to think about each units capabilities and how they work with your other ones. It consistently has you thinking about how your army works together, what buffs what, how many command points you have, and what stratagems to use. The emphasis is not on the battle, or the terrain, or how to maneuver through it, it's what you bring to it. This game design keeps you thinking about army comps by design. Change the meta, the viability of units, points, etc and you have people thinking more and more about comps.

Just look at this thread it's people talking all about 3+ saves, point values, wounds, and army special rules. None of this would matter if the game itself rewarded play rather than construction.

I've stopped playing 40k, but I so wish I could like it

I’ve been playing since 2nd and it’s always been like this. List building is also a significant portion of the fun for me at least. And it absolutely does transition to being about the battle terrain etc. I build lists taking a little of everything, with everything having a couple or more different jobs, and units they’re slated to pair/partner with. The rest of the fun is putting them on the table and fixing whatever broke in the “plan” after it’s been applied to terrain, tables, and opponent plans.

Breton wrote:

Spoletta wrote:


Agree.
You said that your problem is not quality but quantity.
You can field 180 conscripts in a single battalion, which is one of the highest among the game factions. You don't get to say that they are not as efficient as IS. Your own point that you were trying to make precludes that.

So you’re saying Orks are fine with Boys limited to 10 and Grots limited to 20 and their special rule only working on a 4+? Remember Conscripts get no options or upgrades.

And my “problem” - or the flaw with guard I noticed - was both quantity AND quality. More or less squishy remember? I didn’t say more and more squishy.

Do you ever get tired of moving those goal posts? You just went from Guard having an issue because unlike other horde factions they can't take as many troops to now being on a spiel about how Orkz need to limit their max squad size because they have to follow IG rules. Also, Conscripts can be taken in squads of 30 still. And even at 5ppm and only getting their special rule on a 4+ they are still significantly better than those grots As far as "Squishy" 10 guardsmen at 5ppm T3 with a 5+ save require about 35 bolter shots to kill. 48pts of Boyz require 36 bolter shots to kill You guys are almost exactly as durable as boyz.

So Imperial Guard can have Quantity, for 900pts they can field 180 Conscripts, you could go nuts and go for 1800pts and 360 or they can have a middle ground of quantity/quality with guardsmen, 300pts nets you 60 Guardsmen or 600pts in a brigade for 120. Or you can go elite with Tempestus Scions and get 60 for 540 or 120 for 1080. The best part? you can grab some of each if you really wanted to So grab a couple of blobs to stick on objectives, backed up by some Guardsmen nearby as fire support and have some Scions running around backfield. So what is your real complaint?

SemperMortis wrote:


Do you ever get tired of moving those goal posts? You just went from Guard having an issue because unlike other horde factions they can't take as many troops to now being on a spiel about how Orkz need to limit their max squad size because they have to follow IG rules.

No, because I know you wouldn't agree to being so limited yourself in the name of balance

I don't even play guard, but I can see and admit they have an issue there. Awful generous of you though to decide Guard can have their crappiest troop in number, or their typical, iconic and basic troop the army and its mechanics are built around in ridiculously insufficient numbers.

Breton wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:


Do you ever get tired of moving those goal posts? You just went from Guard having an issue because unlike other horde factions they can't take as many troops to now being on a spiel about how Orkz need to limit their max squad size because they have to follow IG rules.

No, because I know you wouldn't agree to being so limited yourself in the name of balance

I don't even play guard, but I can see and admit they have an issue there. Awful generous of you though to decide Guard can have their crappiest troop in number, or their typical, iconic and basic troop the army and its mechanics are built around in ridiculously insufficient numbers.

LMAO, yep you got me, I am actually a GW rules writer and I specifically said guard squads HAD to be 10 in size and the crappier conscripts squads had to be 20-30 in size.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, min Command Squad + 2 Infantry Squads. Max of 5 Infantry squads. My whole Guard army is structured around that as a concept (6 45-man platoons, 2 Cadian, 2 old Cadian, 1 Mordian, 1 Tallarn). And then the "Command HQ Platoon" had attached Heavy Weapon and/or Special Weapon squads.

I wouldn't be opposed to making the min requirement the same as it was + 1 HW squad. It's not like Guard are durable in any fashion, so having loads of extra super-squishy heavy weapons is hardly going to be a big deal.

Any platoon could take in 5e-7e:
1-1 Platoon Command Squad
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Conscript Squad
0-5 Heavy Weapons Squad
0-1 Special Weapons Squad


I don't understand what you mean about command platoons, Command Squads were a PCS that could issue more orders, take regimental advisors, and shoot better. They didn't have attached units or anything.


Anyway, I too think Platoons, Command Squads, and etc. should return. Commanders going solo shouldn't be a thing [and of course, the game does in fact support units of characters so like it's not like it doesn't work mechanically] and if lascannons in character units are a problem [which they are] remove the CCS and PCS Heavy Weapons Team Upgrade options and also let whoever writes the rule that lets a dreadnought with 4 lascannons become a untargetable character know.



As for Guard having an issue, I think Guard's issue is actually that they're basically everything the edition hates scoring wise and have nothing to show for it. They give up a ton of points for both Bring it Down and either Thin Their Ranks or Grind Them Down and do so simultaneously. While the numbers show that you can get by if you give up one easy secondary, you can't if you give up two, and there aren't any secondaries that score against elite infantry units [and you're very limited in what board control secondaries you can take]

Then to make matters worse, they're not actually good at the rest of the game, because they're light shooting infantry with pretty piss melee stats, while the game is by and large decided by being able to push the enemy off objectives in close quarters combat and then hold them against enemy attempts to do the same, which hits guard double-hard. They're not resilient enough to keep any number of units on a point, and aren't able fight well enough to take it for themselves.

The best they can do is try to repeatedly shoot the enemy away to keep both scores low, and when this happens they lose on secondaries.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, min Command Squad + 2 Infantry Squads. Max of 5 Infantry squads. My whole Guard army is structured around that as a concept (6 45-man platoons, 2 Cadian, 2 old Cadian, 1 Mordian, 1 Tallarn). And then the "Command HQ Platoon" had attached Heavy Weapon and/or Special Weapon squads.

I wouldn't be opposed to making the min requirement the same as it was + 1 HW squad. It's not like Guard are durable in any fashion, so having loads of extra super-squishy heavy weapons is hardly going to be a big deal.

Any platoon could take in 5e-7e:
1-1 Platoon Command Squad
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Conscript Squad
0-5 Heavy Weapons Squad
0-1 Special Weapons Squad


I don't understand what you mean about command platoons, Command Squads were a PCS that could issue more orders, take regimental advisors, and shoot better. They didn't have attached units or anything.


Anyway, I too think Platoons, Command Squads, and etc. should return. Commanders going solo shouldn't be a thing [and of course, the game does in fact support units of characters so like it's not like it doesn't work mechanically] and if lascannons in character units are a problem [which they are] remove the CCS and PCS Heavy Weapons Team Upgrade options and also let whoever writes the rule that lets a dreadnought with 4 lascannons become a untargetable character know.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that so much. 2 Infantry Squads to get 5 Heavy Weapon Squads - Loyal 32 with 6,000 Autocannon and Heavy Bolters is just begging GW to punish guard again for soup players abusing their list - without using a HS choice might be a little squirmy. But if you made it 2 Infantry Squads, and One Heavy Weapon Squad per Troop Choice Maybe 3 Infantry, 1 HW. At that point you're floating around 200 points (depending on Wargear) per Troop FOC for sitting on an objective

Breton wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah, min Command Squad + 2 Infantry Squads. Max of 5 Infantry squads. My whole Guard army is structured around that as a concept (6 45-man platoons, 2 Cadian, 2 old Cadian, 1 Mordian, 1 Tallarn). And then the "Command HQ Platoon" had attached Heavy Weapon and/or Special Weapon squads.

I wouldn't be opposed to making the min requirement the same as it was + 1 HW squad. It's not like Guard are durable in any fashion, so having loads of extra super-squishy heavy weapons is hardly going to be a big deal.

Any platoon could take in 5e-7e:
1-1 Platoon Command Squad
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Conscript Squad
0-5 Heavy Weapons Squad
0-1 Special Weapons Squad


I don't understand what you mean about command platoons, Command Squads were a PCS that could issue more orders, take regimental advisors, and shoot better. They didn't have attached units or anything.


Anyway, I too think Platoons, Command Squads, and etc. should return. Commanders going solo shouldn't be a thing [and of course, the game does in fact support units of characters so like it's not like it doesn't work mechanically] and if lascannons in character units are a problem [which they are] remove the CCS and PCS Heavy Weapons Team Upgrade options and also let whoever writes the rule that lets a dreadnought with 4 lascannons become a untargetable character know.

Yeah, I wouldn't do that so much. 2 Infantry Squads to get 5 Heavy Weapon Squads - Loyal 32 with 6,000 Autocannon and Heavy Bolters is just begging GW to punish guard again for soup players abusing their list - without using a HS choice might be a little squirmy. But if you made it 2 Infantry Squads, and One Heavy Weapon Squad per Troop Choice Maybe 3 Infantry, 1 HW. At that point you're floating around 200 points (depending on Wargear) per Troop FOC for sitting on an objective

I agree that the Heavy Weapons should be reduced in the platoon, but for a different reason. HWS are f****** terrible with anything except for mortars because mortars are NLoS and really really cheap, so I don't think spamming a bunch of heavy bolter teams will get you far. They're not even glass cannons, they don't hit that hard either, are very fragile, and fairly expensive. A single aggressor kills the entire section, while the section barely manages to dent one in reverse.

More importantly, a platoon with more support sections than infantry is just a silly concept. Like, an Infantry Platoon is conventionally formed of a Command Squad, lead by a lieutenant, 3 Squads of Infantry, and a Weapons Squad that has support weapons. An IG platoon should reflect that, with some customizability.



Were I to perform this rearrangement:
HQ - Company Command Squad, replacing Company Commander with Company Commander +4 upgradable Veterans, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade.

Troops:
Infantry Platoon
1-1 Platoon Command Squad [replaces Platoon Commander with PC+4 upgradable infantry, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade]
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Heavy Weapons Squad [moved from Heavy Support]
0-1 Special Weapons Squad [moved from Elites]

Veterans Squad [moved from Elites]

Stormtrooper Squad

Elites:
Conscripts, reduced in cost to maybe 3 or 4 and losing access to Doctrines as well [since after all, they're Conscripts and not trained in the regiment's doctrine]

Maybe you should think about playing onslaught if +200 pt units are a problem for you.

Typically that same ability will tell you it cant be used twice on the same unit. For different abilities it would mention specifically what abilities can't be used on the same unit. I was a little skeptical too but I don't see any wording that prevents it.

 skchsan wrote:
Maybe you should think about playing onslaught if +200 pt units are a problem for you.

That solves nothing.

Its still more effective and efficient to bring better units that don't cost as much. They do more and you have more of them.
Scaling the game upwards actually makes the problem worse, not better.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:




Were I to perform this rearrangement:
HQ - Company Command Squad, replacing Company Commander with Company Commander +4 upgradable Veterans, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade.

Troops:
Infantry Platoon
1-1 Platoon Command Squad [replaces Platoon Commander with PC+4 upgradable infantry, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade]
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Heavy Weapons Squad [moved from Heavy Support]
0-1 Special Weapons Squad [moved from Elites]

Veterans Squad [moved from Elites]

Stormtrooper Squad

Elites:
Conscripts, reduced in cost to maybe 3 or 4 and losing access to Doctrines as well [since after all, they're Conscripts and not trained in the regiment's doctrine]

I don't think Conscripts are going down in price, I think Guardsmen are going up. 5ppm for Guardsmen is pretty low. Scouts were pretty similar and almost triple. Boys are pretty similar (sort of) and about 50% more. Guardsmen should probably be closer to boys than Grots in price. Probably jump to 7ish or so points. Half the cost of scouts while -1 S/T, and Flashlights instead of bolt X's would probably still be a bargain but in the ballpark. .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


I agree that the Heavy Weapons should be reduced in the platoon, but for a different reason. HWS are f****** terrible with anything except for mortars because mortars are NLoS and really really cheap

I don't know. I mean yeah the mortar is still probably a better choice, but D2 Heavy Bolters en masse might not suck with the new changes.

vs t4 3+, 9 shots, 4.5 hits, 3 wounds, 1.5 failed saves, 3 damage doing rough math per roughly 60 point 3 team squad team squad thing.

Voss wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Maybe you should think about playing onslaught if +200 pt units are a problem for you.

That solves nothing.

Its still more effective and efficient to bring better units that don't cost as much. They do more and you have more of them.
Scaling the game upwards actually makes the problem worse, not better.

Then why don't we price everything so all army lists across all factions fits comfortably in combat patrol? That'll make better pool of 'effective and efficient' units that more or less cost the same.

The fact of matter is, there is economy of scale in this game as well. Certain units do better in smaller games while certain units do better in larger games. It's always about critical mass. In onslaught, it's always about bigger and badder units because of the sheer amount of firepower present in larger games mean usefulness of expendable fodder = 0. Also, with rule of 3 in place, that means you can't spam more of the most OP units you are abusing at strike force games. So no, scaling the game upwards does not make room for more "effective and efficient... units that don't cost as much" which 'does more and have more' of.

Stop arguing that your toys don't fit in a uhaul medium sized box. If it doesn't fit you need to get the uhaul large box.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't think we could have gotten the stats we want for a Monolith without going to LOW status. As it stands. For the Price it's better than any Imperial knight. Titan killer weapons are going to murder it - standard AT like lascannons are going to struggle to kill it.

Lets just go over how much healing you can get outta this puppy.
It is <Dynasty> and has command protocols - So if Szarekhan it can get a plus 1 to it's living metal - so 2 turns of 2 Wounds (Szar warlord trait) healed at the start of the turn.

Plus you can roll with a technomancer with canoptic cloak (admitably you want the control node but this can do fine) to heal another d3 every turn

Plus you can roll with a canoptek spider with fabricator claw to heal another d3.

So if you so plan - you can heal for 8 - 16 wounds for the first 2 turns.

I don't believe any stratagems can enhance this but we are talking some serious healing here. A knight can't do that. Knights don't have 2+ saves ether. So while knights can get a 4++ / which they can't have in melee. The 2+ is always on. Most the time you will be getting a 5+ from that 2+ anyways for the most part.

As long as you can build an army to make use of those 2 support units in other ways - I think that could be quite effective.

You make a good case, sir. Still you're talking a lot of points to keep a cryptek and spyder near it. OTOh the monolith is so...monolithic in size you can hide them behind it.

Not having read the dex yet why would this only work for 2 turns? Those new protocol rules? And I see it could get 8 wounds back, 2 +2d3, but how does that double to 16? Something in the dex i haven't seen yet? Aoso your cryptek would need a couple murderbuckets with him to deal with those pesky snipers...

Yeah one of the new protocols is 2 wounds from Living metal and a Szarken trick lets you use that protocol twice.

I think he's saying a potential of 4 wounds back from living metal + 2d3 over 2 turns (if you magically got max rolls) = 4 + 12 = 16

But Re. the scarab and technomancer healing the monolith - isn't there some wording about preventing a vehicle from being repaired twice in the same turn? Or is it only if it's the exact same ability name??

Typically that same ability will tell you it cant be used twice on the same unit. For different abilities it would mention specifically what abilities can't be used on the same unit. I was a little skeptical too but I don't see any wording that prevents it.

Genuine question, which may or may not be a silly one - does this combo work if the Monolith is sat in a SHA detachment?

 Dysartes wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't think we could have gotten the stats we want for a Monolith without going to LOW status. As it stands. For the Price it's better than any Imperial knight. Titan killer weapons are going to murder it - standard AT like lascannons are going to struggle to kill it.

Lets just go over how much healing you can get outta this puppy.
It is <Dynasty> and has command protocols - So if Szarekhan it can get a plus 1 to it's living metal - so 2 turns of 2 Wounds (Szar warlord trait) healed at the start of the turn.

Plus you can roll with a technomancer with canoptic cloak (admitably you want the control node but this can do fine) to heal another d3 every turn

Plus you can roll with a canoptek spider with fabricator claw to heal another d3.

So if you so plan - you can heal for 8 - 16 wounds for the first 2 turns.

I don't believe any stratagems can enhance this but we are talking some serious healing here. A knight can't do that. Knights don't have 2+ saves ether. So while knights can get a 4++ / which they can't have in melee. The 2+ is always on. Most the time you will be getting a 5+ from that 2+ anyways for the most part.

As long as you can build an army to make use of those 2 support units in other ways - I think that could be quite effective.

You make a good case, sir. Still you're talking a lot of points to keep a cryptek and spyder near it. OTOh the monolith is so...monolithic in size you can hide them behind it.

Not having read the dex yet why would this only work for 2 turns? Those new protocol rules? And I see it could get 8 wounds back, 2 +2d3, but how does that double to 16? Something in the dex i haven't seen yet? Aoso your cryptek would need a couple murderbuckets with him to deal with those pesky snipers...

Yeah one of the new protocols is 2 wounds from Living metal and a Szarken trick lets you use that protocol twice.

I think he's saying a potential of 4 wounds back from living metal + 2d3 over 2 turns (if you magically got max rolls) = 4 + 12 = 16

But Re. the scarab and technomancer healing the monolith - isn't there some wording about preventing a vehicle from being repaired twice in the same turn? Or is it only if it's the exact same ability name??

Typically that same ability will tell you it cant be used twice on the same unit. For different abilities it would mention specifically what abilities can't be used on the same unit. I was a little skeptical too but I don't see any wording that prevents it.

Genuine question, which may or may not be a silly one - does this combo work if the Monolith is sat in a SHA detachment?

It does. It just means you have 4 less CP to start the game. NVM. I thought necrons got the stratagem to give traits to super heavy like IG.

 skchsan wrote:

Voss wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
Maybe you should think about playing onslaught if +200 pt units are a problem for you.

That solves nothing.

Its still more effective and efficient to bring better units that don't cost as much. They do more and you have more of them.
Scaling the game upwards actually makes the problem worse, not better.

Then why don't we price everything so all army lists across all factions fits comfortably in combat patrol? That'll make better pool of 'effective and efficient' units that more or less cost the same.

The fact of matter is, there is economy of scale in this game as well. Certain units do better in smaller games while certain units do better in larger games. It's always about critical mass. In onslaught, it's always about bigger and badder units because of the sheer amount of firepower present in larger games mean usefulness of expendable fodder = 0. Also, with rule of 3 in place, that means you can't spam more of the most OP units you are abusing at strike force games. So no, scaling the game upwards does not make room for more "effective and efficient... units that don't cost as much" which 'does more and have more' of.

Stop arguing that your toys don't fit in a uhaul medium sized box. If it doesn't fit you need to get the uhaul large box.

I don't think you understand the argument. It isn't that they 'don't fit' because of points. Its that their _rules are bad_. They are garbage units, and, on an unrelated note, they happen to cost a lot. There is no reason to field them at all- it does not matter what their points are, if you increase game size you still just take units that are better. The list of options is never so small (except for a few extreme cases like harlequins), that you run out of choices or have to take garbage 'because rule of 3.'

The place where these models potentially could dominate is small points games, where opponents don't necessarily have enough tools to deal with them. But that is bad for the game as well, as it doesn't create fun gameplay for both players (in general, anyway, but I don't really care about players who get their fun from clubbing baby seals or climbing every mountain)

Breton wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:




Were I to perform this rearrangement:
HQ - Company Command Squad, replacing Company Commander with Company Commander +4 upgradable Veterans, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade.

Troops:
Infantry Platoon
1-1 Platoon Command Squad [replaces Platoon Commander with PC+4 upgradable infantry, only one of which can take a weapon upgrade]
2-5 Infantry Squad
0-1 Heavy Weapons Squad [moved from Heavy Support]
0-1 Special Weapons Squad [moved from Elites]

Veterans Squad [moved from Elites]

Stormtrooper Squad

Elites:
Conscripts, reduced in cost to maybe 3 or 4 and losing access to Doctrines as well [since after all, they're Conscripts and not trained in the regiment's doctrine]

I don't think Conscripts are going down in price, I think Guardsmen are going up. 5ppm for Guardsmen is pretty low. Scouts were pretty similar and almost triple. Boys are pretty similar (sort of) and about 50% more. Guardsmen should probably be closer to boys than Grots in price. Probably jump to 7ish or so points. Half the cost of scouts while -1 S/T, and Flashlights instead of bolt X's would probably still be a bargain but in the ballpark. .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:


I agree that the Heavy Weapons should be reduced in the platoon, but for a different reason. HWS are f****** terrible with anything except for mortars because mortars are NLoS and really really cheap

I don't know. I mean yeah the mortar is still probably a better choice, but D2 Heavy Bolters en masse might not suck with the new changes.

vs t4 3+, 9 shots, 4.5 hits, 3 wounds, 1.5 failed saves, 3 damage doing rough math per roughly 60 point 3 team squad team squad thing.

I don't think they need to go up in cost. They're already underperforming. For reference:
Guardsman, 5 points [FRF-SRF]: 4 shots, 2 hits, 0.66 wounds, 0.22 damage. Followed by 1 attack, 0.5 hits, 0.17 wounds, 0.06 damage. Collective, 0.28 damage to MEQ-class targets.
Ork, 8 points [large section]: 1 shot, 0.39 hits, .2 wounds, 0.07 damage. Followed by 4 attacks, 2.7 hits, 1.35 wounds, 0.45 damage. Collective, 0.53 damage to MEQ class targets. Almost twice as much.
Intercessor, 21 points [Auraed, Tactical Doctrine]: 2 shots, 1.6 hits, 1 wound, 0.6 damage. Followed by 3 attacks, 2.3 hits, 1.8 wounds, 0.7 damage. Collective, 1.3 damage

In resilience:
Guardsmen and Orks are a wash:
2/3*2/3 = 0.44 versus 1/2*5/6 = 0.42
Intercessors are 1/2*1/3 = 0.16, and have 2 wounds, so really they're like more than 4 times as resilient as either.

We normalize those numbers by price, we've got:
0.056 damage per point for Guardsmen
0.066 damage per point for Orks
0.062 damage per point for Intercessors

2.2 lost points per hit for Guardsmen
3.3 lost points per hit for Orks
1.6 lost points per hit for Space Marines


This shows that while Space Marines are really out there mostly in survivability, Guardsmen and Orks are pretty close, with Guardsmen being still generally worse than Orks per point actually, and that's before getting into the relative greater value of melee than short ranged shooting because of the way things are scored.

In addition, as they lose buffs, the Space Marines about a quarter of their performance, Orks lose a about a quarter of their performance, and Guardsmen lose a whole half of their performance.


For this, Guard are at least better off than Tau.
One the outbound, fully buffed with a fireblade and 5 markerlights, Tau average 0.049 damage per point and taking fire take 3 lost points per hit.



Also, 1 dead marine per 60 points HWT isn't a great rate. It's actually pretty bad. Guardsmen do that, and they at least are obsec and have 4 more wounds

Posting HWT's up there, that's 0.05 damage per point, worse than Guardsmen, and also less resilient at 4.4 points lost per hit.



So, my 2c on infantry:
Infantry are okay at 5 points
Orks are probably good at 8 points.
Fire Warriors need to come down, probably to 7 points.
Intercessors need to be more. Probably about 33% more or so.




Back to vehicles, yeah, vehicles all suck, but I've said my piece on them many times.
Light/Medium/Heavy should not be T6/T7/T8 and should be T7/T8/T9, or even T8/T9/T10. Vehicle Armor Saves should be less than 1, because AT weapons also all have AP2, 3 or 4 which effectively translates to them not getting their armor saves and it being irrelevant.
Second, tank guns need to be appreciably better than anything man portable. Seriously, 2 recoilless rifles bolted together isn't an armament worth having on a main battle tank. GW is afraid of having a single shot gun do more than d6 damage [or I guess d6+2 now, or just feth that Eradicators], but is perfectly happy to have things fire a ton of shots for 2 or 3 damage.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoiler:

Cryptek of Awesome wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
I don't think we could have gotten the stats we want for a Monolith without going to LOW status. As it stands. For the Price it's better than any Imperial knight. Titan killer weapons are going to murder it - standard AT like lascannons are going to struggle to kill it.

Lets just go over how much healing you can get outta this puppy.
It is <Dynasty> and has command protocols - So if Szarekhan it can get a plus 1 to it's living metal - so 2 turns of 2 Wounds (Szar warlord trait) healed at the start of the turn.

Plus you can roll with a technomancer with canoptic cloak (admitably you want the control node but this can do fine) to heal another d3 every turn

Plus you can roll with a canoptek spider with fabricator claw to heal another d3.

So if you so plan - you can heal for 8 - 16 wounds for the first 2 turns.

I don't believe any stratagems can enhance this but we are talking some serious healing here. A knight can't do that. Knights don't have 2+ saves ether. So while knights can get a 4++ / which they can't have in melee. The 2+ is always on. Most the time you will be getting a 5+ from that 2+ anyways for the most part.

As long as you can build an army to make use of those 2 support units in other ways - I think that could be quite effective.

You make a good case, sir. Still you're talking a lot of points to keep a cryptek and spyder near it. OTOh the monolith is so...monolithic in size you can hide them behind it.

Not having read the dex yet why would this only work for 2 turns? Those new protocol rules? And I see it could get 8 wounds back, 2 +2d3, but how does that double to 16? Something in the dex i haven't seen yet? Aoso your cryptek would need a couple murderbuckets with him to deal with those pesky snipers...

Yeah one of the new protocols is 2 wounds from Living metal and a Szarken trick lets you use that protocol twice.

I think he's saying a potential of 4 wounds back from living metal + 2d3 over 2 turns (if you magically got max rolls) = 4 + 12 = 16

But Re. the scarab and technomancer healing the monolith - isn't there some wording about preventing a vehicle from being repaired twice in the same turn? Or is it only if it's the exact same ability name??

Typically that same ability will tell you it cant be used twice on the same unit. For different abilities it would mention specifically what abilities can't be used on the same unit. I was a little skeptical too but I don't see any wording that prevents it.

Genuine question, which may or may not be a silly one - does this combo work if the Monolith is sat in a SHA detachment?

I think so. The abilities only require <dynasty> and <vehicle> keywords. So they will still work. I want to have codex in hand so I can read into the larger groups of text which aren't so clear in my PDF. It's possible there are some rules here that I am missing involving different detachments.

Voss wrote:
I don't think you understand the argument. It isn't that they 'don't fit' because of points. Its that their _rules are bad_. They are garbage units, and, on an unrelated note, they happen to cost a lot. There is no reason to field them at all- it does not matter what their points are, if you increase game size you still just take units that are better. The list of options is never so small (except for a few extreme cases like harlequins), that you run out of choices or have to take garbage 'because rule of 3.'

That's not the issue and you know it. If a model can be useful in a vacuum simulation (i.e. guardsmen vs a landraider, 500 pt combat patrol), then it can be made useful under right circumstances. The problem you have is that "these models that cost X doesn't do X amount of worth of damage, therefore it's useless" and "so and so units dakka moar and killz moarz for less points, therefore this model is garbage".

Not all units can be priced according to its offensive capacity. You just have to play your units right.

Units that cost ~250 pts or more are liability because there's not enough threat distribution. How do you expect these units to survive if it has a huge bullseye on it? You just have to give your opponent more targets that are equally as juicy, which onslaught can provide the pts room for. OR, you could use that concept of shifting liability to one unit so that your other units can survive the turn unscathed.

~200 pt units are only a problem when it constitutes +10% of your total army. It is less of a liability if its only worth ~+7% of your army.

You can't win in chess without losing any pieces. You can't win in 40k without losing any units (unless of course you set your battlefield for maximum carnage, aka napoleonic standoff).

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Because the more that your ability to win hinges on your army construction, and the more they change what units are viable, the more you think about and buy models.

It's literally what the entire game is fundamentally designed around.

Yup. Come play a different game where skill on the table actually matters.

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
24W in the current damage system seems about appropriate for the larger side of regular tanks. It'd be better at T9 (much like the Land Raider should be), but I'm not seeing how this is LOW-worthy.

T9 would help, but not much.. What are you affecting? Las, Lances, Kraks, and Melta for 16%,? Any of the S5-S7 accidental tank killers don’t care and still perform the same accidentally killing your monolith/land raider. The big “tanks” especially the ones pushing knight prices need an invuln in a world where people make armies while worried about seeing a knight or more show up.

Respectfully disagree. Remember, we're talking T9 with a 2+ save. That means most of those "accidental tank killers" would only be pushing the Monolith onto a 3+ or 4+ save as they are mostly AP-1 or AP-2, while most of the stuff with AP-3 or AP-4 is S8 and would be wounding on 5s instead of 4s. Most LOWs should have the T9 2+ defensive stat line without an invul, including knights. That would help against the "accidental" anti-tank weapons while making the real anti-tank weapons more desirable against them. More standard MBTs, like Leman Russes, should be T9 with a 3+, that way meltas really want to get in close for that extra oomph to make up for wounding on 5s.

Edit: Probably a good idea to give those T9 MBTs and LOWs a rule that reduces AP-1 and possibly Ap-2 to 0 as well to help against all those HROF S5, 6, and 7 weapons. Those things should chew through light armour but not the heavy stuff.

Hecaton wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Because the more that your ability to win hinges on your army construction, and the more they change what units are viable, the more you think about and buy models.

It's literally what the entire game is fundamentally designed around.

Yup. Come play a different game where skill on the table actually matters.

I'll go join all zero of the players making up the local community for other wargames.