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With the post Dataslate winrates coming out after multiple tournaments as seen below.

- https://www.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/ubi8pr/meta_monday_42422_new_dataslate_in_the_house/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Imperial Guard / Astra Militarum are still sitting at a 26% winrate after their buffs. Hammer of the Emperor is underwhelming it should be considered a reliability buff (in that it simply brings up the average damage rather than greatly increases it) and a dice rolling buff (when under a chess clock) as well as the free wargear not doing anything to actually fix the Infantry Squads main problem, durability. The free wargear is also counterintuitive to what Infantry Squads need to do to win and that's MMM to secure and hold primary objectives, instead players are tempted to hold back and fire their free weapons.

What I've done is a massive balance update that compromises addition abilities to improve the thematic play, customisation of lists, and increase options in list building. As well as provide my own MFM for both the Codex and FW units. There is also an Errata and FAQ section. In total it's 6 pages to fix the Astra Militarum in its entirety without being a new 9th edition in itself, just an addon to the current codex.

Here it is if you're interested:
- https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sWyXhpYNt8JsV8kvHWYmcTKMzdhDTEN6o8KIDlz0UYs/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know what you think. Also if you want me to add any additional Errata and FAQ sections to the document.

Can you but it here and spoiler it? I can't access google docs.

Personally I would favour...

1) Make the damn thing simpler, strip away the strats, the ones that are always used bake into the units, bin the rest. Build on the speed aspects (so stuff like FRFSRF instead of doubling shots auto hits, other effects give fixed boosts/skip stages, all to make the army playable by the average human in a reasonable time).

2) Then sadly as well as the unit rebalancing you will need something extra. Personally I would go for a special rule like 'combined arms'. Represents infantry using armour for cover and armour using infantry to supress and disrupt enemy MANPAD/heavy weapon attacks. 'Combined arms' goes in as a keyword (stuff like hellhounds put infantry off and they wouldn't get it). Below is a badly written example.

If an infantry unit with combined arms comes under fire and are within 3" of a vehicle with 'combined arms' that is not engaged, take a LD test for the infantry. If successful the infantry use the tank for cover and the vehicle uses its weapons to distract the enemy and draw fire onto it. For any hits scored against the infantry roll to wound against the vehicle and any unsaved hits cause damage to it not the infantry.

If a vehicle with combined arms comes under attack and an infantry unit with combined arms is within 12" of the firing unit and has LoS to the firing unit, the infantry unit may take a LD test. If passed make any wound rolls against the infantry squad as they valiantly draw fire onto themselves and supress the enemy weapons.

3) A bunch of other thematic changes, but that is for style/flavour, not balance.

@ Grinding advance: That is strange, I could have sworn that the Malcadors also got grinding advance in one of the last FAQs. But looking through them I can't find a trace of that. Mandela effect I guess... Anyway, I think they should get it. But one would have to look at the formulation of what is a turret weapon because it interacts kind of strangely with them as Defender and Annihilator can take Demolishers in their hull.

Maybe like this:

The following weapons are turret weapons: battle cannon; eradicator nova cannon; exterminator autocannon; vanquisher battle cannon; demolisher cannon; executioner plasma cannon; punisher gatling cannon, Malcador Twin Lascannon, Defender heavy Bolter.

Change the datasheet of the Malcador Annihilator:

This model is armed with hull demolisher cannon, 2 heavy bolters, Malcador Twin Lascannon

Change the datasheet of the Malcador Defender

This model is armed with hull demolisher cannon, 2 heavy bolters, 5 Defender Heavy Bolters (same stats as a heavy bolter)

They had grinding advance, but IAC removed it. The Russ is likely to lose it too.

Anecdotal s heck, but oftentimes the Guard winrate will drop after new dexes are released and this balance patch shook up the meta at least as much as that. Especially after the influx of folks who want to try out the Emperor's finest after the HoE buff, it's not surprising to see a drop. I didn't expect that much of one, granted. Given enough time I think the winrate will approach the high 40's. We just have to adapt and learn to deal with the new threats.

There is no way given the current list the win rate will change that much to approach the 40% mark. That is just a function of the current tournament game and how the IG ill fit into it.

Here is your guard quick fixs

All units that have the astra militarum key word gain the following

Any weapon with xd6 number of shots, when rolling for number of shots double results of 1 and 2.
Any weapon with xd3 number of shots, when rolling for number of shots double the results of 1

Any vehicle with the tank key word, if hit received by a weapon whos strength is less then this units toughness, has its rend characteristics reduced by 2



Guards primary problem in current edition is that they were designed originally through 3ed to 7th around the idea of templates, which did not need to roll to hit if something was under it. Guard had poor shooting, but could amass large amounts of templates for relatively cheap and they usually were high str and good AP. However because of the removal of templates, the amount of die rolls that have to be made in order to land a hit with guard are far to great. You must roll for number of shots, then roll to hit, then to wound, then deal with armor saves.
Previously it was simply roll to scatter which base already head a 33% chance to directly hit, and could actually result in not scattering at all even with an arrow result, at that point you never needed to roll to hit, it just hit.

Vehicles and tanks in general need to above buff, across the baord for all vehicles not just guard. The generous amount of AP handed out in the game make tanks worthless.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
Here is your guard quick fixs

All units that have the astra militarum key word gain the following

Any weapon with xd6 number of shots, when rolling for number of shots double results of 1 and 2.
Any weapon with xd3 number of shots, when rolling for number of shots double the results of 1

That's more of an issue with blast than an issue with Guard. Blast could easily be changed to be more reliable. Just change it to:

- Each D3 is minimum 2 shots against units with 5-10 models. Each D3 is maximum 3 shots against units with 11+ models.
- Each D6 is minimum 3 shots against units with 5-10 models. Each D6 is maximum shots against units with 11+ models.

This means each dice has a minimum value, rather than being done per weapon. For example a 4D3 weapon has no benefit from minimum blast as it's minimum 4 shots already. However, that same 4D3 weapon would now be minimum 8 shots against a unit with 5-10 models.

Changing it to 5 models from 6 also means it has a benefit against the most common, and largest MSU targets.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Any vehicle with the tank key word, if hit received by a weapon whos strength is less then this units toughness, has its rend characteristics reduced by 2

While I do agree Guard have a vehicle durability problem, with the point costs I proposed that would make many of them fairly durable for their points. Leman Russ tanks for example are about equal to a Dunecrawler in terms of durability. So dropping their points to match the Dunecrawler justifies it's current durability. The intention of this isn't to drastically change every datasheet, but do some changes similar to the Balance Dataslate and MFM.

 Backspacehacker wrote:

Guards primary problem in current edition is that they were designed originally through 3ed to 7th around the idea of templates, which did not need to roll to hit if something was under it. Guard had poor shooting, but could amass large amounts of templates for relatively cheap and they usually were high str and good AP. However because of the removal of templates, the amount of die rolls that have to be made in order to land a hit with guard are far to great. You must roll for number of shots, then roll to hit, then to wound, then deal with armor saves.

Previously it was simply roll to scatter which base already head a 33% chance to directly hit, and could actually result in not scattering at all even with an arrow result, at that point you never needed to roll to hit, it just hit.

Yes, but as you mentioned, old template weapons scattered. Which is drastically different to an autohit. Those vehicles had a BS5+ for a direct hit and a smaller chance of rolling a low number on the distance dice themselves. You basically had another 8% chance to roll a 3 or less on the distance dice for the direct hit. Otherwise it was all or nothing, the scattering of the template itself was completely random and uncontrollable. Which is difficult to quantify directly.

The issue is, issues with blasts ARE a guard issue, because they basically lived off the template.

If they had greater number of shot consistancy with templates it would be better.

If you look back at scatter, it was much much easier to hit an intented target. Guard were BS3, a large blast was 5inchs, assuming you scatter a full d6, you would still land a hit on the target you indented if you rolled a 1 or 2, and even a 3 if the target was large.
If you were scattering on a 2d6-bs, you still would hit the target the majority of the time.

Guard need to be able to land hits thats their issue, they cant right now because of random number of shots. Fix that and you fix guard.

As for tanks in general thye just need to be better, current vehicles in 9th suck way to much.

I like it, but it's a band-aid on a bullet hole. Until we address playing the 9th edition game, a few points tweaks just aren't enough.

Guard has fundamentally 2 problems in 9th:

1 - We have no melee, especially tanks. So Guard relies on cheap screens to prevent tanks from being touched. But 9th is so lethal that Guard cheap screens can't screen anymore, so there's nothing preventing the tanks from being touched and taken out of the fight. Falling back is pointless, because a LRBT only moves 10", which is a 4" charge after the opponent closes the gap by moving 6". Even Tau want to melee with Guard because they can fall back and shoot, and Guard is just out of the fight.
2 - Guard output and durability isn't enough to make up for the lack of melee. The problem isn't the lack of templates, it's the total volume of shots compared to other 9th edition armies. We're around half of the output of other armies for more points and less durability. Combine that with the BS of 4, and the volume of shots Guard needs is absolutely ridiculous just to keep up with non-meta units.

Now, the HotE did help infantry, but the tanks took a major hit, along with AdMech, so while the Onager used to be a middle-of-the-road unit, now it's just gak, and we're trying to get Guard "showcase" units up to a gak level. Those 2 problems also show why LRBTs getting a 2+ save did absolutely nothing for us.

So what does Guard need:

To Start we need some kind of fall back and shoot mechanism for the tanks. I would do something like

TANK units can move out of engagement range of INFANTRY units without penalty, and may ignore enemy INFANTRY units while moving. However, TANK units may not stop within 1" of any enemy models during it's move. This rule does not apply if there are any MONSTROUS CREATURE or TITANIC units within engagment range.

Secondly, some kind of boost to output. Like infantry, TANKs should come with most of the gubbinz for free. HBs/HFs, HK missiles, Track Guards, etc. They're way overcosted right now, so that makes up a bunch of the costs. While we're at it, drop the cost of the LRBT turret cannons Exterminator & Punisher cannons back down to zero (keep the DC, PC & MM at 5-10 points).

Now this drops the cost of chimeras to 65 points, so we can put 20W on an objective for 125 points. Now opponents have to put anti-tank AND anti-infantry to take an objective, freeing up Guard tanks and artillery. A LRBT is overcosted, but not utter gak, and with 3 heavy flamers it is a real threat to most armies and an actual decision if you want to charge it or now. A 3-Plasma Cannon LRBT is an even bigger threat, but one that is cheap enough to have a spare for. Hellhounds with a MM & HK missile become a HUGE threat. Then combine that with #3 (below)...

Thirdly, drop the cost of most of the in-game strats by 1CP (not the new ones, just the ones from PA and the codex), and change pre-game strats that affect MODELs to affect UNITs. Now Guard can have 3 FP Basilisks, or a squadron of veteran LRBTs. A full squadron of Basilisks still only kills 4ish models, probably 5 (for 300+ points), which is enough to be a threat anywhere on the board, with free gubbins and a 6-damage HK Missile, and opens combos like dropping in Scions near an objective and having the basilisks clear the objective for MMM!. Overlapping Fields of Fire is now 1 CP, but gives Guard +1 to hit on a key target (like the one that just got baked by the 2 HFs on a Chimera or 3 HFs off the LRBT). Even AERIAL SPOTTER now has a use.

Now, in a CP-hungry army, we just freed up a bunch of CP. This boosts output and defensive capability (Take Cover! for 0CP, and Cadia Stands for 1CP...). We're not solely reliant on TCs, because we've brought other units up to an acceptable level. Tanks aren't just touched-and-out-of-the-fight and essentially destroyed by being touched by a grot. We freed up a bunch of points for chimeras, adding durability to infantry (Guard only need 1 model to survive to hold an objective, if we can kill whatever the enemy puts on that objective).

Then we can get into fine-tuning like Jarms48 suggests. I think most of his points costs are just about right, but as-of right now, they don't address the fundamental problems that keeps the Guard out of the game.

Much of this is simply what the new codex would bring. This is different, it’s a basic document intended to work with the current codex to make Guard in general more viable.

The second round of tournament results came out last weekend and we’ve managed to claw out a 41% winrate, so perhaps the 26% we first saw was more of an adjustment period. I do think the true results are likely somewhere in the middle.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

brainpsyk wrote:
I like it, but it's a band-aid on a bullet hole. Until we address playing the 9th edition game, a few points tweaks just aren't enough.

It’s not just a few point tweaks, many of the FW vehicles were dropped massively. Baneblades for example dropped 100 points, and their sponson upgrade dropped 30 points.

Guard has fundamentally 2 problems in 9th:

1 - We have no melee, especially tanks. So Guard relies on cheap screens to prevent tanks from being touched. But 9th is so lethal that Guard cheap screens can't screen anymore, so there's nothing preventing the tanks from being touched and taken out of the fight. Falling back is pointless, because a LRBT only moves 10", which is a 4" charge after the opponent closes the gap by moving 6". Even Tau want to melee with Guard because they can fall back and shoot, and Guard is just out of the fight.

Whilst I do agree, I have dropped points for both Crusaders and Bullgryns. Crusaders are now the same cost as those found in codex Adeptas Sororitas and still have the old 8th edition Acts of Faith. Bullgryns meanwhile their melee output still isn’t fantastic against the new Armour of Contempt they should at least be cheap enough to absorb charges.

Seeing as tanks as a whole are cheaper, that indirectly lessens the impact of them being tided up. As you’re losing a smaller percentage of your firepower compared to your list as a whole, the non-blast Russes are also much cheaper. Their base costs dropping around 30 - 35 points, giving them some advantage over the other variants by being able to shoot into combat. Sponson weapons are also cheaper, being dropped by 10 across the board. So a triple heavy flamer Punisher only costs 150 points now. Which is much more respectable.

2 - Guard output and durability isn't enough to make up for the lack of melee. The problem isn't the lack of templates, it's the total volume of shots compared to other 9th edition armies. We're around half of the output of other armies for more points and less durability. Combine that with the BS of 4, and the volume of shots Guard needs is absolutely ridiculous just to keep up with non-meta units.

Output has been increased in 2 ways here, any named regiment may take a custom doctrine, which could be something like Gunnery Experts, which makes our random shot weapons more reliable and increases the average. The next way is, again, points cost. Now there’s more points to either take more units or take more upgrades for those units. Plasma cannons and multi-meltas might be the go to weapons on Russes now thanks to their AP.

Now, the HotE did help infantry, but the tanks took a major hit, along with AdMech, so while the Onager used to be a middle-of-the-road unit, now it's just gak, and we're trying to get Guard "showcase" units up to a gak level. Those 2 problems also show why LRBTs getting a 2+ save did absolutely nothing for us.

I also gave Hammer to Scions, which should make their pure lists more viable. Not just from hotshots, but also gatling Taurox’s.

So what does Guard need:

To Start we need some kind of fall back and shoot mechanism for the tanks. I would do something like TANK units can move out of engagement range of INFANTRY units without penalty, and may ignore enemy INFANTRY units while moving. However, TANK units may not stop within 1" of any enemy models during it's move. This rule does not apply if there are any MONSTROUS CREATURE or TITANIC units within engagment range.

This is too transformative for what my intention is.

Secondly, some kind of boost to output. Like infantry, TANKs should come with most of the gubbinz for free. HBs/HFs, HK missiles, Track Guards, etc. They're way overcosted right now, so that makes up a bunch of the costs. While we're at it, drop the cost of the LRBT turret cannons Exterminator & Punisher cannons back down to zero (keep the DC, PC & MM at 5-10 points).

I hate the premise of free upgrades, it brings the game more towards PL than points. That’s why I opted to drop the points of said upgrades.

[quite]Now this drops the cost of chimeras to 65 points, so we can put 20W on an objective for 125 points. Now opponents have to put anti-tank AND anti-infantry to take an objective, freeing up Guard tanks and artillery. A LRBT is overcosted, but not utter gak, and with 3 heavy flamers it is a real threat to most armies and an actual decision if you want to charge it or now. A 3-Plasma Cannon LRBT is an even bigger threat, but one that is cheap enough to have a spare for. Hellhounds with a MM & HK missile become a HUGE threat. Then combine that with #3 (below)...

Well, new weekly results are in. With Nids dropping officially Guard are back to 29% winrate.

Update, made some slight changes to some stratagems in the Errata section after feedback. Changes are below.



Aerial Spotter is now more inclusive of FW indirect fire units. I also changed the wording from model to unit, which means something like a unit of 3 heavy mortars now all benefit from the stratagem instead of just a single model.



Direct Onslaught has had a similar change, but also affects direct fire FW artillery units. Such as the Rapier and Tarantula.



I’ve also expanded Hail of Fire to work on other tank units, mainly the Malcadors, Thunders, and Hellhounds. As well as expanded it to work on Monsters.



Small change to Up-armoured, might not be amazing but at least it's no longer useless.