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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No idea, and i personally really dislike how extreme GW has gone with 9th to discourage soup (deathguard losing their fething contagions if they ally nurgle demons, WTF)

This is an example of GW's extreme overbalancing.

They fix problems by swinging the pendulum so hard that it ends up being the complete opposite level of bad.

We're basing this on the perception of what people take, but there are a few who have been successful using soup. Is it badly done, do people have hang ups, or are they just enticed more by the extra rules?

There's still people complaining about meltas on the forums, but those guns are so damned rare right now. Perception doesn't always match reality.

Ok... but I don't see what bearing that has on GW's penchant for overbalancing (the Nurgle Daemons breaking a Deathguard army being the key example).

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No idea, and i personally really dislike how extreme GW has gone with 9th to discourage soup (deathguard losing their fething contagions if they ally nurgle demons, WTF)

This is an example of GW's extreme overbalancing.

They fix problems by swinging the pendulum so hard that it ends up being the complete opposite level of bad.

We're basing this on the perception of what people take, but there are a few who have been successful using soup. Is it badly done, do people have hang ups, or are they just enticed more by the extra rules?

There's still people complaining about meltas on the forums, but those guns are so damned rare right now. Perception doesn't always match reality.

They might be rare in your tournaments Daed, but that doesn't mean they're rare everywhere. You're looking at everything with your "competitive glasses" on again.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They might be rare in your tournaments Daed, but that doesn't mean they're rare everywhere. You're looking at everything with your "competitive glasses" on again.

Yes, guilty, but it's the only data I have. If you look at bottom lists you might find many with lots of MM and others succeed despite their existence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Ok... but I don't see what bearing that has on GW's penchant for overbalancing (the Nurgle Daemons breaking a Deathguard army being the key example).

That's likely a thing where GW will sell another book ( yaaaaay ) that gives an army of renown for that archetype.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They might be rare in your tournaments Daed, but that doesn't mean they're rare everywhere. You're looking at everything with your "competitive glasses" on again.

Yes, guilty, but it's the only data I have. If you look at bottom lists you might find many with lots of MM and others succeed despite their existence.

Sure, but how many of those that are "succeeding" are doing it with tanks? I can deal with it, but just because my 26W T8 2+ tank with an available -1 to be hit that I can slap a 5+++ on with a Sorcerer is "OK", doesn't mean someone trying to run some Leman Russes is.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They might be rare in your tournaments Daed, but that doesn't mean they're rare everywhere. You're looking at everything with your "competitive glasses" on again.

Yes, guilty, but it's the only data I have. If you look at bottom lists you might find many with lots of MM and others succeed despite their existence.

Sure, but how many of those that are "succeeding" are doing it with tanks? I can deal with it, but just because my 26W T8 2+ tank with an available -1 to be hit that I can slap a 5+++ on with a Sorcerer is "OK", doesn't mean someone trying to run some Leman Russes is.

Yea things are not simple in superheavy land. I don't know why they took away T9. Likes others have said they need to use that range.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
They might be rare in your tournaments Daed, but that doesn't mean they're rare everywhere. You're looking at everything with your "competitive glasses" on again.

Yes, guilty, but it's the only data I have. If you look at bottom lists you might find many with lots of MM and others succeed despite their existence.

Sure, but how many of those that are "succeeding" are doing it with tanks? I can deal with it, but just because my 26W T8 2+ tank with an available -1 to be hit that I can slap a 5+++ on with a Sorcerer is "OK", doesn't mean someone trying to run some Leman Russes is.

Yea things are not simple in superheavy land. I don't know why they took away T9. Likes others have said they need to use that range.

Um, no, the Fellblade is fine. My point was, if it takes a Fellblade with Delightful Agonies on it to be "OK", how are tanks that are less ridiculous supposed to survive? It's a giant tank, covered in S10+ guns, backed up by a character with one of the best psychic disciplines in the game. Most people aren't running something like that.

 jeff white wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
What's the beef with soup?

In 2nd and 3rd 40K had an ally system that allowed to include a small amount of specific troops from certain other codices to be included in your force. No one was screaming bloody murder back then like they do now when the word "ally" is dropped in forums.

You know, I remember that my eldar could include harlies as these were eldar. I remember that orks might be found alongside chaos marines or bloodaxes with imperial guard, even! But I remember these sorts of "allies" only as anecdotes, from descriptions in the old ork books and so on. I have to say that I never actually saw anything like that on a tabletop. Orks were orks, though one buddy had ogryns which might have been part of his ork army sometimes. marines were marines... I don't remember anyone ever including imp guard in a marine army, unless we were lined up with two armies and two players on each side of an 8x4 foot table. But, in such instances, those we treated as separate armies. Anyways, it has been a long time, and I was relatively new to the scene, so I might not remember well and I certainly didn;t know everything about the game, but I have to say here that IF there were anything like "allies" in 2nd, these were such a small part of the game that I have no memory of the possbility. Frankly, I liked things better that way. I mean, why not return to that way of doing things. If one wanted to use two different factions, produce two separate forces employing dedicated (faction specific, per HBMC) FOCs within the total points limit agreed upon by both player/sides. No marines riding tau transports, no tau deployed closer to a marine hq than a tau hq, something like that i.e. with limitations. Simple.

The ally system was introduced back then to allow hobbyists buying small amounts of models of an additional faction and STILL use them in their 40K games together with their main faction.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:
What's the beef with soup?

In 2nd and 3rd 40K had an ally system that allowed to include a small amount of specific troops from certain other codices to be included in your force. No one was screaming bloody murder back then like they do now when the word "ally" is dropped in forums.

From a balance perspective the Loyal 32 in 8th were so powerful they became effectively mandatory for playing Imperium lists, even when people didn't really want to buy Guardsmen, so they got annoyed at feeling like they were being upsold Guardsmen they didn't want.

The term Loyal 32 is meaningless to me. What does it stand for?

Loyal 32 was a minimum-sized Astra Militarum Battalion of 32 models. Folks took them in 8th Ed for the CP plus the Warlord Trait and Relic that regenerated CPs. Provided the CPs to “power” certain CP hungry Imperium lists like Knights.

Was nerfed by changes to CP regeneration and then disappeared with 9th.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No idea, and i personally really dislike how extreme GW has gone with 9th to discourage soup (deathguard losing their fething contagions if they ally nurgle demons, WTF)

This is an example of GW's extreme overbalancing.

They fix problems by swinging the pendulum so hard that it ends up being the complete opposite level of bad.

You say this as if it isnt completely, obviously and blatantly 100% intentional. Come on. GW might as well have come out at the launch of 9th and announced "OK YALL NEW EDITION TIME, HORDES ARE GONNA SUCK, ELITE INFANTRY IS GOING TO BE THE WAY TO GO! REBUY YOUR ARMIES NOW, TOURNEY PLAYERS!"

How can you say that when people consistently shoot down the "GW don't change/boost units for sales purposes!".

I so much as imply that and it's "More conspiracy theories!" or "Stop being a whiny hater who hates everything ever!".

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Loyal 32 was a minimum-sized Astra Militarum Battalion of 32 models. Folks took them in 8th Ed for the CP plus the Warlord Trait and Relic that regenerated CPs. Provided the CPs to “power” certain CP hungry Imperium lists like Knights.

Was nerfed by changes to CP regeneration and then disappeared with 9th.

Okay, so during 8th it was a no-brainer to use them. Edition change invalidated these units and now they collect dust on someone's shelf.

Reminds me of the time when formations were introduced and GW were looking for gullible folks who would buy X amount of models, which they would have NEVER bought on their own, to receive some sort of buff. All those buffs were eliminated in the next edition too.

This happens when you let marketing people write rules for a game. It just degenerates into a shameless money grab.

Hmmm. Its The Scotsman's thing - but I will say at least in my experience "the Loyal 32" was way more of an internet thing than reality.

In part because yes, on paper, plug and play in every imperial list for a bunch of cheap CP. In practice, because of how good *Guard* were in this era, having started down this line, why stop? If you were competitive it was by putting more of them on the table, not just 32, and stripping out everything except BA Smash Captains, Custodes Biker Captains and/or a Castellan.

The 2 BA captains, 15 scouts, 1 Castellan and 1k(ish) points of Guard lists are gathering dust - but realistically, anyone acquiring that should have realised it was going to have a use-by date.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No idea, and i personally really dislike how extreme GW has gone with 9th to discourage soup (deathguard losing their fething contagions if they ally nurgle demons, WTF)

This is an example of GW's extreme overbalancing.

They fix problems by swinging the pendulum so hard that it ends up being the complete opposite level of bad.

You say this as if it isnt completely, obviously and blatantly 100% intentional. Come on. GW might as well have come out at the launch of 9th and announced "OK YALL NEW EDITION TIME, HORDES ARE GONNA SUCK, ELITE INFANTRY IS GOING TO BE THE WAY TO GO! REBUY YOUR ARMIES NOW, TOURNEY PLAYERS!"

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I have a lot I critisize GW over but when it comes to rules, I never assume they do anything maliciously, because if they did the game would be very, very different.

 Strg Alt wrote:


This happens when you let marketing people write rules for a game. It just degenerates into a shameless money grab.

No, this happens when you chase the flavour of the month. All the armies that used the Loyal 32 on regular basis were 100% fine even without the 5CPs and cheap allied force provided by that combo in any casual to semi-competitive meta. With the Loyal 32 those imperium based armies, including the most common Space Marines, had the tools to compete with the top tiers, and one list even became the most oppressive list available for a while.

I, with my SW, was absolutely fine using 9-10 CPs, never felt the need to add the cheap (not in terms of money ) AM dudes to play with 14-15. Pretty much every competitive SW build had those though.

 Sim-Life wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
No idea, and i personally really dislike how extreme GW has gone with 9th to discourage soup (deathguard losing their fething contagions if they ally nurgle demons, WTF)

This is an example of GW's extreme overbalancing.

They fix problems by swinging the pendulum so hard that it ends up being the complete opposite level of bad.

You say this as if it isnt completely, obviously and blatantly 100% intentional. Come on. GW might as well have come out at the launch of 9th and announced "OK YALL NEW EDITION TIME, HORDES ARE GONNA SUCK, ELITE INFANTRY IS GOING TO BE THE WAY TO GO! REBUY YOUR ARMIES NOW, TOURNEY PLAYERS!"

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

I have a lot I critisize GW over but when it comes to rules, I never assume they do anything maliciously, because if they did the game would be very, very different.

To be fair, they could just be incompetent in their attempts at malice.

 vipoid wrote:
To be fair, they could just be incompetent in their attempts at malice.

There should be a second line to Hanlon's Razor:

Never assume competency when malice is involved.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Um, no, the Fellblade is fine. My point was, if it takes a Fellblade with Delightful Agonies on it to be "OK", how are tanks that are less ridiculous supposed to survive? It's a giant tank, covered in S10+ guns, backed up by a character with one of the best psychic disciplines in the game. Most people aren't running something like that.

Most should do fine...as long as you don't bring a whole bunch of them. The bigger "problem" vehicles are things like Predator Annihilators and relying on D6 damage to carry the day. Some days they're amazing and others they are not.

There seems to be this pervasive idea that if you bring something then it must be worth taking multiples of it otherwise it isn't worth it at all...and I find that pretty silly.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Um, no, the Fellblade is fine. My point was, if it takes a Fellblade with Delightful Agonies on it to be "OK", how are tanks that are less ridiculous supposed to survive? It's a giant tank, covered in S10+ guns, backed up by a character with one of the best psychic disciplines in the game. Most people aren't running something like that.

Most should do fine...as long as you don't bring a whole bunch of them. The bigger "problem" vehicles are things like Predator Annihilators and relying on D6 damage to carry the day. Some days they're amazing and others they are not.

There seems to be this pervasive idea that if you bring something then it must be worth taking multiples of it otherwise it isn't worth it at all...and I find that pretty silly.

Depends. If you have brought only one giant to your WHFB games it usually ate a cannonball and died before it got into hth combat. Therefore you needed to take two in order get something out of them.
Keyword is redundancy here. Same principle applies to certain big units in 40K which act like fire magnets due to their impressive size.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Um, no, the Fellblade is fine. My point was, if it takes a Fellblade with Delightful Agonies on it to be "OK", how are tanks that are less ridiculous supposed to survive? It's a giant tank, covered in S10+ guns, backed up by a character with one of the best psychic disciplines in the game. Most people aren't running something like that.

Most should do fine...as long as you don't bring a whole bunch of them. The bigger "problem" vehicles are things like Predator Annihilators and relying on D6 damage to carry the day. Some days they're amazing and others they are not.

There seems to be this pervasive idea that if you bring something then it must be worth taking multiples of it otherwise it isn't worth it at all...and I find that pretty silly.

D6 damage vehicles just don't work, especially when they have low firerate on top. Rolling a 1 for damage will really set you back usually. ALL D6 (for number of shots and damage) in the game shouldve been changed to D3+3.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Troops that aren't cheap, durable, or killy enough to be desirable should be made desirable by making them support units for the rest of your army; the sort of unit that you want to spread out across your forces. So maybe some troops have the ability to intercept (shoot at) enemy units when they arrive from reserves or the ability to charge an enemy unit before it can pull off its own charge (thus keeping your more expensive units from getting charged). Maybe you introduce a crossfire mechanic, and having troops spread around the table naturally makes it easier to catch the enemy in a crossfire. Maybe you make certain strats cheap or free when used by certain troops representing the idea that your army is most accustomed to having troops pull off that maneuver.

I was alluding to this earlier when I summarized how other games use basic troops- if you have mechanics like crossfire as you said, or reaction systems, or activation mechanics, then that gives any unit some inherent value no matter how weak it is. I'm not so keen on giving special abilities to just Troops (basic Infantry Squads can shoot enemies arriving from reserves, but Veterans or Scions can't?), but game-wide mechanics that incentivize maneuver and allow basic units to contribute just by being on the board is a plus in my book.

In a lot of ways the problem with Troops boils down to the core rules being about an inch deep. There's nothing for Troops to do that isn't explicitly provided within their own codex. So maybe the solution will have to come from that direction, giving each faction a reason to value their Troops choices.

 catbarf wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Troops that aren't cheap, durable, or killy enough to be desirable should be made desirable by making them support units for the rest of your army; the sort of unit that you want to spread out across your forces. So maybe some troops have the ability to intercept (shoot at) enemy units when they arrive from reserves or the ability to charge an enemy unit before it can pull off its own charge (thus keeping your more expensive units from getting charged). Maybe you introduce a crossfire mechanic, and having troops spread around the table naturally makes it easier to catch the enemy in a crossfire. Maybe you make certain strats cheap or free when used by certain troops representing the idea that your army is most accustomed to having troops pull off that maneuver.

I was alluding to this earlier when I summarized how other games use basic troops- if you have mechanics like crossfire as you said, or reaction systems, or activation mechanics, then that gives any unit some inherent value no matter how weak it is. I'm not so keen on giving special abilities to just Troops (basic Infantry Squads can shoot enemies arriving from reserves, but Veterans or Scions can't?), but game-wide mechanics that incentivize maneuver and allow basic units to contribute just by being on the board is a plus in my book.

In a lot of ways the problem with Troops boils down to the core rules being about an inch deep. There's nothing for Troops to do that isn't explicitly provided within their own codex. So maybe the solution will have to come from that direction, giving each faction a reason to value their Troops choices.

I think the Troops thing is really just a matter of bringing value, and that certain armies will just hit that value tradeoff in different ways. The recent near-disappearance of Ork Boyz from lists should illustrate this value proposition. The fact that Tyranids, afaik, seem to have an easy time finding value for their troops should also tell us something. Tbh I'm wondering if this is primarily coming from a Marine standpoint. Marines have a long history of bringing minimum troops, and these days Marines have so many units to choose from that it seems like basic probability would dictate that players might find more value in units elsewhere in the FOC.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Um, no, the Fellblade is fine. My point was, if it takes a Fellblade with Delightful Agonies on it to be "OK", how are tanks that are less ridiculous supposed to survive? It's a giant tank, covered in S10+ guns, backed up by a character with one of the best psychic disciplines in the game. Most people aren't running something like that.

Most should do fine...as long as you don't bring a whole bunch of them. The bigger "problem" vehicles are things like Predator Annihilators and relying on D6 damage to carry the day. Some days they're amazing and others they are not.

There seems to be this pervasive idea that if you bring something then it must be worth taking multiples of it otherwise it isn't worth it at all...and I find that pretty silly.

Depends. If you have brought only one giant to your WHFB games it usually ate a cannonball and died before it got into hth combat. Therefore you needed to take two in order get something out of them.
Keyword is redundancy here. Same principle applies to certain big units in 40K which act like fire magnets due to their impressive size.

In fairness that was more to do with cannons being OP than the monsters being weak.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
How can you say that when people consistently shoot down the "GW don't change/boost units for sales purposes!".

I so much as imply that and it's "More conspiracy theories!" or "Stop being a whiny hater who hates everything ever!".

That's not what The GW Conspiracy typically is, though. The GW Conspiracy is "GW purposefully makes new units OP in order to push their sales".

THAT is purely an exercise in the standard "Remember the Hits, Forget the Misses" thinking that actually is common among adherents to conspiracy theories.

It entirely relies on peoples' natural tendency to, to use a recent example, remember

-Warboss on Squigosaur
-Kill Rig
-new Deffcopta kit

and forget about

-Beast Snagga Boyz
-New Boyz kit
-Named runtherd
-Nob on Smasha Squig
-New Mega-Armor boss

GW's new releases are basically all over the competitive map. GW using new editions to make sure that unit types and army types that were competitively dominant in the prior edition are less powerful in the new edition, and army types which were absent in the prior edition are dominant in the new edition is literally a thing that they say they do openly, and is consistent across every edition of the game.
-


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Strg Alt wrote:

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Loyal 32 was a minimum-sized Astra Militarum Battalion of 32 models. Folks took them in 8th Ed for the CP plus the Warlord Trait and Relic that regenerated CPs. Provided the CPs to “power” certain CP hungry Imperium lists like Knights.

Was nerfed by changes to CP regeneration and then disappeared with 9th.

Okay, so during 8th it was a no-brainer to use them. Edition change invalidated these units and now they collect dust on someone's shelf.

Reminds me of the time when formations were introduced and GW were looking for gullible folks who would buy X amount of models, which they would have NEVER bought on their own, to receive some sort of buff. All those buffs were eliminated in the next edition too.

This happens when you let marketing people write rules for a game. It just degenerates into a shameless money grab.

It's weird though, I was told that the profit motive was always the best way to get the best thing in any category!

Are you telling me that the most profitable video games arent the best video games, the most profitable movies arent the best movies, and the most profitable music isnt the best music?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Troops that aren't cheap, durable, or killy enough to be desirable should be made desirable by making them support units for the rest of your army; the sort of unit that you want to spread out across your forces. So maybe some troops have the ability to intercept (shoot at) enemy units when they arrive from reserves or the ability to charge an enemy unit before it can pull off its own charge (thus keeping your more expensive units from getting charged). Maybe you introduce a crossfire mechanic, and having troops spread around the table naturally makes it easier to catch the enemy in a crossfire. Maybe you make certain strats cheap or free when used by certain troops representing the idea that your army is most accustomed to having troops pull off that maneuver.

I was alluding to this earlier when I summarized how other games use basic troops- if you have mechanics like crossfire as you said, or reaction systems, or activation mechanics, then that gives any unit some inherent value no matter how weak it is. I'm not so keen on giving special abilities to just Troops (basic Infantry Squads can shoot enemies arriving from reserves, but Veterans or Scions can't?), but game-wide mechanics that incentivize maneuver and allow basic units to contribute just by being on the board is a plus in my book.

In a lot of ways the problem with Troops boils down to the core rules being about an inch deep. There's nothing for Troops to do that isn't explicitly provided within their own codex. So maybe the solution will have to come from that direction, giving each faction a reason to value their Troops choices.

I think the Troops thing is really just a matter of bringing value, and that certain armies will just hit that value tradeoff in different ways. The recent near-disappearance of Ork Boyz from lists should illustrate this value proposition. The fact that Tyranids, afaik, seem to have an easy time finding value for their troops should also tell us something. Tbh I'm wondering if this is primarily coming from a Marine standpoint. Marines have a long history of bringing minimum troops, and these days Marines have so many units to choose from that it seems like basic probability would dictate that players might find more value in units elsewhere in the FOC.

Who do Tyranids find value from their Troops? Because the amount of actual competitive units is very limited and something has to sit on objectives.
The moment you were to give Nids units that can actually survive sitting on an objective getting shot at while contributing to the game (Like correctly prices and tough gun Carnifexes) you will see Troops disappear from their lists, because outside of a devilgaunt bomb those Troop units contribute nothing in damage.

When the codex originally dropped, pretty much all the troops had at least some degree of value.

These days only the Tyranid Warriors, Ripper Swarms and Devilgaunts have any value, but it is a 4 year old codex.

I was just reading about how Fleshborer gants remained key for some lists being valuable for filling up space as movement blockers as well. Hormagaunts just the same but faster for a little extra cost. Genestealers were used for a long time as well, even if not as much recently.

The key point I think is that it's easy to see how each of those units would have clear roles, and the only reason they may not be competetive is thruough slight point tweaks or simple fixes. The distance to travel from where they are to being more commonly used is probably very small. And back in their heyday, people took lots of them. "Min troops" Tyranids is just not something I've seen a lot of.


Comparing that to a long history of "Min Scouts" Space Marine lists prior to Primaris says something about internal balance (or percieved internal balance) I think.

Non-troop Space Marine units are more or less just the same units as the Troops, just betterer either at a specific thing (Vanguard), or at everything (Sternguard), which makes the troops themselves less inspiring and appear less valuable*. The Tyranid troop roles on the other hand are harder to replace with non-troop Tyranids.


*Personally I've always found the Tactical Squad valuable, and taken lots of them, but I speak about a common community perception.

 catbarf wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
Troops that aren't cheap, durable, or killy enough to be desirable should be made desirable by making them support units for the rest of your army; the sort of unit that you want to spread out across your forces. So maybe some troops have the ability to intercept (shoot at) enemy units when they arrive from reserves or the ability to charge an enemy unit before it can pull off its own charge (thus keeping your more expensive units from getting charged). Maybe you introduce a crossfire mechanic, and having troops spread around the table naturally makes it easier to catch the enemy in a crossfire. Maybe you make certain strats cheap or free when used by certain troops representing the idea that your army is most accustomed to having troops pull off that maneuver.

I was alluding to this earlier when I summarized how other games use basic troops- if you have mechanics like crossfire as you said, or reaction systems, or activation mechanics, then that gives any unit some inherent value no matter how weak it is. I'm not so keen on giving special abilities to just Troops (basic Infantry Squads can shoot enemies arriving from reserves, but Veterans or Scions can't?), but game-wide mechanics that incentivize maneuver and allow basic units to contribute just by being on the board is a plus in my book.

Fair point regarding the weirdness more skilled/veteran troops not being able to do the same things the basic troops can. If I were to try and justify it, I'd maybesay something like, "Oh, well the rank and file guys are drilled on how to secure the area more frequently than the scions; the scions are too busy looking for optimal targets for their special guns." Or some such thing. But you're right, it is slightly weird.

In a lot of ways the problem with Troops boils down to the core rules being about an inch deep. There's nothing for Troops to do that isn't explicitly provided within their own codex. So maybe the solution will have to come from that direction, giving each faction a reason to value their Troops choices.

I think you're probably right, although I think you could reasonably reuse a lot of troop incentives between factions. For instance, infiltrators have that wargear option that lets them prevent deepstriking within 12". That's the sort of utility I'd expect to see out of a lot of troops, and you could probably reasonably give a similar rule to something like guardian defenders; maybe tie it to the heavy platform guy with his special visor. Or having troops intercept charges, though powerful, seems like it could be reasonably given to a lot of units like dire avengers, storm guardians, hormagaunts, kroot, etc. Or, and this is kind of ham-fisted, maybe some troops can put a "supporting fire token" on enemies if they don't split fire, and other units can spend those tokens to reroll failed to-hit/wound rolls. I could see that rule being given to basically any troop that needs some help and sports a conventional rifle-like weapon.

Basically, I think you could come up with a handful of abilities that would be useful to a number of armies and then give specific troops access to some number of those abilities. So rather than needing a bespoke rule to fix every lacklustre troop in the game, you could hand out some combination of the rules spitballed above.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I was just reading about how Fleshborer gants remained key for some lists being valuable for filling up space as movement blockers as well. Hormagaunts just the same but faster for a little extra cost. Genestealers were used for a long time as well, even if not as much recently.

The key point I think is that it's easy to see how each of those units would have clear roles, and the only reason they may not be competetive is thruough slight point tweaks or simple fixes. The distance to travel from where they are to being more commonly used is probably very small. And back in their heyday, people took lots of them. "Min troops" Tyranids is just not something I've seen a lot of.


Comparing that to a long history of "Min Scouts" Space Marine lists prior to Primaris says something about internal balance (or percieved internal balance) I think.

Non-troop Space Marine units are more or less just the same units as the Troops, just betterer either at a specific thing (Vanguard), or at everything (Sternguard), which makes the troops themselves less inspiring and appear less valuable*. The Tyranid troop roles on the other hand are harder to replace with non-troop Tyranids.


*Personally I've always found the Tactical Squad valuable, and taken lots of them, but I speak about a common community perception.

Basically this. In Tyranids you don't have anything else that can do what troops do for you because troops are your small bugs. In Marines as you say, all the army are just marines with slighly different wargear + vehicles.

Other armies that work like Tyranids are Necrons or Dark Eldar were your troops are 90% of your infantry and do stuff nothing else can actually do.

But armies like Orks were the boyz have to compete with boyz+ like stormboyz or kommandok is very easy for one or the others to be the most optimal choice. Imperial guard, like Tyranids, they can play mechanised or infantry based but if they want to go infantry they need to go troop heavy or bust.

 Galas wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
I was just reading about how Fleshborer gants remained key for some lists being valuable for filling up space as movement blockers as well. Hormagaunts just the same but faster for a little extra cost. Genestealers were used for a long time as well, even if not as much recently.

The key point I think is that it's easy to see how each of those units would have clear roles, and the only reason they may not be competetive is thruough slight point tweaks or simple fixes. The distance to travel from where they are to being more commonly used is probably very small. And back in their heyday, people took lots of them. "Min troops" Tyranids is just not something I've seen a lot of.


Comparing that to a long history of "Min Scouts" Space Marine lists prior to Primaris says something about internal balance (or percieved internal balance) I think.

Non-troop Space Marine units are more or less just the same units as the Troops, just betterer either at a specific thing (Vanguard), or at everything (Sternguard), which makes the troops themselves less inspiring and appear less valuable*. The Tyranid troop roles on the other hand are harder to replace with non-troop Tyranids.


*Personally I've always found the Tactical Squad valuable, and taken lots of them, but I speak about a common community perception.

Basically this. In Tyranids you don't have anything else that can do what troops do for you because troops are your small bugs. In Marines as you say, all the army are just marines with slighly different wargear + vehicles.

Other armies that work like Tyranids are Necrons or Dark Eldar were your troops are 90% of your infantry and do stuff nothing else can actually do.

But armies like Orks were the boyz have to compete with boyz+ like stormboyz or kommandok is very easy for one or the others to be the most optimal choice. Imperial guard, like Tyranids, they can play mechanised or infantry based but if they want to go infantry they need to go troop heavy or bust.

Definitely agree. It's all about giving each unit its own niche. That can be tricky though. Using dire avengers as an example again, their niche is, theoretically, being a pretty good anti-infantry shooting unit. But they live in the same codex as things like swooping hawks and warp spiders who both probably do that job a little bit better. I'm okay with there being some overlap in roles there, but it does mean that you have to give avengers more of a niche than just "anti-infantry shooting unit." OR you have to buff avengers to the point that they're the best at anti-infantry shooting, but the hawks and spiders have their own (probably mobility-related) tricks to make up the difference. But then we're wandering into power creep territory, and you have to make sure guardians aren't just worse avengers and so on and so forth.

I think that's why I like the idea of giving troops their own unique tricks so much. It adds value without increasing lethality.