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So I got in a discussion the other day at my flgs. I personally think GW is missing a balancing lever against taking giant sized units. While I think part of this is the fact that for pretty much every army that can vomit up a 30 man unit a corresponding ignore morale boost seems to exist, but part of it is I still don't see templates working quite right. While I don't see the game being in a bad state now I think that the lack of a counterbalance here makes the equilibrium much less stable. My proposal is +1 hit/ 10 men in target unit for templates and +1 shot / 10 men in target unit for blasts. This puts a negative on taking massive blobs of things. Thoughts?

Darkagl1 wrote:
So I got in a discussion the other day at my flgs. I personally think GW is missing a balancing lever against taking giant sized units. While I think part of this is the fact that for pretty much every army that can vomit up a 30 man unit a corresponding ignore morale boost seems to exist, but part of it is I still don't see templates working quite right. While I don't see the game being in a bad state now I think that the lack of a counterbalance here makes the equilibrium much less stable. My proposal is +1 hit/ 10 men in target unit for templates and +1 shot / 10 men in target unit for blasts. This puts a negative on taking massive blobs of things. Thoughts?

I'm not sure I entirely agree with your premise. When I think of hordes, I think...

* Conscripts: Are broken and need to be fixed. This is best done by addressing the problem unit rather than making sweeping changes.

*Horma/termagaunts: Not broken at all right now. They have to hang out near synapse to avoid taking heavy losses to morale checks. The only synapse creatures that can't be targeted are the tyranid prime (slowish and expensive) and the malanthrope (slow). And those models being slow means you might end up having an extra turn to shoot the swarms if they're dependent on the prime/malanthrope for synapse.

*Daemons: Are subject to standard morale rules as far as I'm aware. Brimstones are a thing, but see conscripts.

*Ork Boyz: Can kind of mitigate morale, but honestly, orks are fighting an uphill battle already. I don't see the need to punish the guys that are already on the low end of the power curve.

As for your +1 hit/shot per 10 models suggestion, I don't feel like it would make enough of a difference to warrant convincing everyone to use and remember it in your local group. One extra flamer hit against a mob of orkz is only going to wound half the time. So against a twenty-something mob, you're basically killing one extra ork. Against conscripts, you'll wound a couple of times, but they'll make 1/3rd of their saves, so again, only 1 or 2 more dead conscripts. You run into a similar issue with blasts. Sure, lots of "blasts" have higher strength and better AP, but you're still not looking at much improvement once you factor in to-hit rolls, to-wound rolls, and possibly saves. And even if all your bonus shots manage to hit and wound and get through saves, you're still only looking at a couple extra dead models.

Basically, if the enemy having tons of models is a problem, then shaving off an extra model here and there probably isn't going to be the answer. If you have enough "blasts" and flamers to make this sort of change meaningful, then you probably have enough blasts and flamers to deal with most hordes anyway.

Out of curiosity, what hordes seem to be giving you trouble?

yeah, pretty much what he said. What hordes are causing you so many problems that you need a buff to kill more of them?

The problem is hordes are traditionally low-morale units that currently are able to avoid morale almost completely. Conscripts are good own their own (due to pricing), but add a commissar and they're good + ignore morale. Orks need fixing, don't get me wrong, but their rules let them ignore morale (which is part of why green tide is the effective build). Tyranids have low morale but synapse, which again.... lets them ignore morale. Tyranids are more of an edge case though, since that's effectively always been their thing: kill the leadership beasts, and the mooks will fall apart on their own.

Ironically, it's the high leadership armies right now that are most susceptible to morale. Marines, which have always been the poster boys for high morale, aren't recommended to take more than msu. Because even with their high leadership and reroll, will likely get wiped out to decent shooting + morale aftereffects. So i would say, it's not hordes that are the problem here, but morale.

Hordes should be improved IMHO, not nerfed.

They have a bad reputation because of AM and imperial soups. Not that conscripts are that broken, but the combination of those cheap soldiers and other broken units makes the army overpowered. People remember that hordes of conscripts were almost unkillable, but forget about what really made them lose the game: the spam of cheap weapons.

Orks, daemons and tyranids can use blobs as well but they're far from being overpowered. Even necrons can field tons of infantries and they're mid tiers at most.

And I'd rather enjoy a game with 150+ infantry models than herohammer.

The best say to fix template weapons is to start using templates again.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:
So I got in a discussion the other day at my flgs. I personally think GW is missing a balancing lever against taking giant sized units. While I think part of this is the fact that for pretty much every army that can vomit up a 30 man unit a corresponding ignore morale boost seems to exist, but part of it is I still don't see templates working quite right. While I don't see the game being in a bad state now I think that the lack of a counterbalance here makes the equilibrium much less stable. My proposal is +1 hit/ 10 men in target unit for templates and +1 shot / 10 men in target unit for blasts. This puts a negative on taking massive blobs of things. Thoughts?

I'm not sure I entirely agree with your premise. When I think of hordes, I think...

* Conscripts: Are broken and need to be fixed. This is best done by addressing the problem unit rather than making sweeping changes.

*Horma/termagaunts: Not broken at all right now. They have to hang out near synapse to avoid taking heavy losses to morale checks. The only synapse creatures that can't be targeted are the tyranid prime (slowish and expensive) and the malanthrope (slow). And those models being slow means you might end up having an extra turn to shoot the swarms if they're dependent on the prime/malanthrope for synapse.

*Daemons: Are subject to standard morale rules as far as I'm aware. Brimstones are a thing, but see conscripts.

*Ork Boyz: Can kind of mitigate morale, but honestly, orks are fighting an uphill battle already. I don't see the need to punish the guys that are already on the low end of the power curve.

As for your +1 hit/shot per 10 models suggestion, I don't feel like it would make enough of a difference to warrant convincing everyone to use and remember it in your local group. One extra flamer hit against a mob of orkz is only going to wound half the time. So against a twenty-something mob, you're basically killing one extra ork. Against conscripts, you'll wound a couple of times, but they'll make 1/3rd of their saves, so again, only 1 or 2 more dead conscripts. You run into a similar issue with blasts. Sure, lots of "blasts" have higher strength and better AP, but you're still not looking at much improvement once you factor in to-hit rolls, to-wound rolls, and possibly saves. And even if all your bonus shots manage to hit and wound and get through saves, you're still only looking at a couple extra dead models.

Basically, if the enemy having tons of models is a problem, then shaving off an extra model here and there probably isn't going to be the answer. If you have enough "blasts" and flamers to make this sort of change meaningful, then you probably have enough blasts and flamers to deal with most hordes anyway.

Out of curiosity, what hordes seem to be giving you trouble?

Nothing in particular is giving me trouble and honestly after the conscript nerf I'm not super concerned about them (i personally think the issue lies more with earthshaker carriages and elysians, and perhaps mortars than with conscripts). My thought process more goes well if I were to run into someone who wants to spam blobs what would I take to be more effective. And as near as I can tell the best thing is just to try to spam my own blob, and maybe bring snipers. So then I thought well everything else has a weapon that seems to be suited for fighting against this thing, but blobs don't and their old anti weapons don't really work at that anymore.

I don't think buffing the blasts and templates would make them tremendously more effective, and that wasn't my goal. It would however mean there is now a class of weapon that is the correct choice against someone building blobs and having a clear counter weapon to stock up on seems like a good idea to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem is hordes are traditionally low-morale units that currently are able to avoid morale almost completely. Conscripts are good own their own (due to pricing), but add a commissar and they're good + ignore morale. Orks need fixing, don't get me wrong, but their rules let them ignore morale (which is part of why green tide is the effective build). Tyranids have low morale but synapse, which again.... lets them ignore morale. Tyranids are more of an edge case though, since that's effectively always been their thing: kill the leadership beasts, and the mooks will fall apart on their own.

Ironically, it's the high leadership armies right now that are most susceptible to morale. Marines, which have always been the poster boys for high morale, aren't recommended to take more than msu. Because even with their high leadership and reroll, will likely get wiped out to decent shooting + morale aftereffects. So i would say, it's not hordes that are the problem here, but morale.

This is a large part of the issue. Unfortunately without the morale mitigation people wouldn't bring the hordes at all. And while I like the character rules the snipers available don't seem to output enough damage for sniper the morale protection shoot the blob to really work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:
Hordes should be improved IMHO, not nerfed.

They have a bad reputation because of AM and imperial soups. Not that conscripts are that broken, but the combination of those cheap soldiers and other broken units makes the army overpowered. People remember that hordes of conscripts were almost unkillable, but forget about what really made them lose the game: the spam of cheap weapons.

Orks, daemons and tyranids can use blobs as well but they're far from being overpowered. Even necrons can field tons of infantries and they're mid tiers at most.

And I'd rather enjoy a game with 150+ infantry models than herohammer.

It's not that I don't want horses to exist. I think every type of unit being viable is a positive thing. I just don't want to get to the point where there isn't a counter available. As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

Darkagl1 wrote:


As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

To kill all those dudes? Probably not. But you need to score more points than the opponent, not to table him to win the game. Cheap dudes usually don't score tons of points, only AM ones are overpowered. Everything other horde army is mid tier at most.

 Blackie wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:


As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

To kill all those dudes? Probably not. But you need to score more points than the opponent, not to table him to win the game. Cheap dudes usually don't score tons of points, only AM ones are overpowered. Everything other horde army is mid tier at most.

Yes playing for objectives matter and I do acknowledge that as of now the other hordes aren't a huge issue (though I more think that's people just focusing on the "best" horde of the moment). The thing I'm advocating for is that every choice that player A can take should have a choice that player B can take that works better against them. As of now the best anti conscript (or grot or horror) is the unit itself. As far as I can tell literally nothing kills them on a more point efficient basis than they kill themselves. This is especially damaging for elite armies because without a cost effective way to remove chaff it's tough to compete and conscripts obsec just as good as everyone else. I think by adding the lever I propose in the game picks up a clear choice that works well against a type of unit that doesn't have a good weapon to fight it with. As far as I can tell it's the only choice where there isn't an effective counter weapon available.

Well the idea that the best counter to any horde unit is that specific unit is simply untrue. Conscripts counter gretchin far better than gretchin do.

But in general what you are speaking to is the fact that right now there is no weapon that is better at killing hordes than it is at killing more expensive units. For most of these units what needs to exist is high rate rate of fire weapons that get more shots when a unit has more models.


So something like

Heavy 2D6 S3 AP 0 D1 - This weapon gets an additional D6 shots for every 5 models in the unit (so 0-5 2D6, 6-10 3D6, 11-15 4D6 etc). So against a unit of 30 models it would have 7D6 shots. So 24-25 shots on average wounding on 4s. Individually it would kill say 4 conscripts in a large squad (assuming hitting on a 4+, but against say 5 marines you are doing 0.38 wounds. If they hit on a 3+ it would be 5 conscripts, but only 0.5 marines. So if these were say weapons for marine devestators a unit of 4 would be putting out 28D6 shots against a large squad, and killing 22 conscripts in a shooting phase (so that might be too effective, it would depend on cost), but only killing 2 marines.

But in general that is what needs to happen on some level. Right now the closest that gets is a few weapons getting say D6 instead of D3 shots if a unit has more than 10 models. That isn't really enough.

Breng77 wrote:
Well the idea that the best counter to any horde unit is that specific unit is simply untrue. Conscripts counter gretchin far better than gretchin do.

But in general what you are speaking to is the fact that right now there is no weapon that is better at killing hordes than it is at killing more expensive units. For most of these units what needs to exist is high rate rate of fire weapons that get more shots when a unit has more models.


So something like

Heavy 2D6 S3 AP 0 D1 - This weapon gets an additional D6 shots for every 5 models in the unit (so 0-5 2D6, 6-10 3D6, 11-15 4D6 etc). So against a unit of 30 models it would have 7D6 shots. So 24-25 shots on average wounding on 4s. Individually it would kill say 4 conscripts in a large squad (assuming hitting on a 4+, but against say 5 marines you are doing 0.38 wounds. If they hit on a 3+ it would be 5 conscripts, but only 0.5 marines. So if these were say weapons for marine devestators a unit of 4 would be putting out 28D6 shots against a large squad, and killing 22 conscripts in a shooting phase (so that might be too effective, it would depend on cost), but only killing 2 marines.

But in general that is what needs to happen on some level. Right now the closest that gets is a few weapons getting say D6 instead of D3 shots if a unit has more than 10 models. That isn't really enough.

Exactly. The most elegant solution I came up with was what I proposed. It's not huge, but flamers for instance start doing an extra 1.5 wounds against a full squad of conscripts. It's fluffy, it's effective, and it allows elite armies to fight against hordes.

I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

Breng77 wrote:
I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

It doesn't necessarily have to be for every blast and template, but it seems a good place to start. As for going far enough, I guess the next step would be +d6 (or maybe d3) per 10 guys, but I don't think we want to whipsaw too far in the other direction and completely destroy hordes as an option.

7th edition was plagued by a grotesque amount of MSU play. There was almost never any reason to do anything but bring the bare minimum sized units.

Most "horde" armies have rules that promote taking the largest sized units for bonuses.

You want to penalize that decision and bring the game back to MSU spam?

 Lance845 wrote:
7th edition was plagued by a grotesque amount of MSU play. There was almost never any reason to do anything but bring the bare minimum sized units.

Most "horde" armies have rules that promote taking the largest sized units for bonuses.

You want to penalize that decision and bring the game back to MSU spam?

No I want there to be a downside to hordes that corresponds with their upside. That's why I'm not advocating for something as extreme as +d6 shots. If they had a well-defined weakness to a certain weapon then that opens up counterplay to the hordes and the horde army has options to try to focus down weapons that are particularly effective against them. For instance I want tanks to be good, but it's also good that there are solid antitank weapons (like lascannons). As a person with tanks I then can either keep them away from lascannon or focus lascannon down to allow my tanks more opportunity to operate safely. As of now the most cost effective anti horde is a corresponding horde. This leaves the game in a state where hordes by default must be in a binary state either they're good enough in which case spam to be effective or they aren't in which case don't use. Under my proposal there is a new equilibrium where hordes are good enough to use but they can be countered by bringing additional flamers, which has an opportunity cost in that they're less effective against say tanks.

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

It doesn't necessarily have to be for every blast and template, but it seems a good place to start. As for going far enough, I guess the next step would be +d6 (or maybe d3) per 10 guys, but I don't think we want to whipsaw too far in the other direction and completely destroy hordes as an option.

What I am suggesting though is creating weapons with the +d6 for 5 or 10 model increments, on weapons that essentially will only be good against chaff, but not so good (cost benefit wise) as to be an I take 3 of these cheap units and delete all chaff models. So you make these no all comers type units that will force you to be less able to deal with some other type of target. The problem right now is anything decent at killing chaff is better at killing elite infantry point for point. If you made spamming such options cost prohibitive (in that they will make you less able to deal with vehicles, elite infantry etc.) then at some level it will force the game into balance.

Breng77 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

It doesn't necessarily have to be for every blast and template, but it seems a good place to start. As for going far enough, I guess the next step would be +d6 (or maybe d3) per 10 guys, but I don't think we want to whipsaw too far in the other direction and completely destroy hordes as an option.

What I am suggesting though is creating weapons with the +d6 for 5 or 10 model increments, on weapons that essentially will only be good against chaff, but not so good (cost benefit wise) as to be an I take 3 of these cheap units and delete all chaff models. So you make these no all comers type units that will force you to be less able to deal with some other type of target. The problem right now is anything decent at killing chaff is better at killing elite infantry point for point. If you made spamming such options cost prohibitive (in that they will make you less able to deal with vehicles, elite infantry etc.) then at some level it will force the game into balance.

I follow you. My concern is essentially that while now I think antichaff is nonexistent, flamers with +d6/10 may be too much for chaff to exist at all. For instance now flamer is 3.5 hits against everyone. With my proposal it's 3.5 against combat squad marines, 4.5 against guard infantry, and 6.5 against conscripts (or grots or whatever). Your proposal would be 3.5 against marines, 7 against infantry squads and 14 against conscripts (assuming per 10, per 5 would be 7, 10.5, and 24.5). Even the +d6/10 gets you a weapon that kills about 8 conscripts a turn which is really effective.

Darkagl1 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem is hordes are traditionally low-morale units that currently are able to avoid morale almost completely. Conscripts are good own their own (due to pricing), but add a commissar and they're good + ignore morale. Orks need fixing, don't get me wrong, but their rules let them ignore morale (which is part of why green tide is the effective build). Tyranids have low morale but synapse, which again.... lets them ignore morale. Tyranids are more of an edge case though, since that's effectively always been their thing: kill the leadership beasts, and the mooks will fall apart on their own.

Ironically, it's the high leadership armies right now that are most susceptible to morale. Marines, which have always been the poster boys for high morale, aren't recommended to take more than msu. Because even with their high leadership and reroll, will likely get wiped out to decent shooting + morale aftereffects. So i would say, it's not hordes that are the problem here, but morale.

This is a large part of the issue. Unfortunately without the morale mitigation people wouldn't bring the hordes at all. And while I like the character rules the snipers available don't seem to output enough damage for sniper the morale protection shoot the blob to really work.

Well, the problem i see with morale mitigation is it's all or nothing. There's no sliding scale. The more i think on it, the more i think the issue is morale just isn't a good system - Taking casualties because you took casualties. How would people feel if hordes had average to low morale and no way to ignore it, but failing a morale test meant you lost control of the unit for the next turn (it just stood there, panicking basically)? With maybe taking casualties reserved for broken morale units currently engaged in melee?

While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

 Torga_DW wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem is hordes are traditionally low-morale units that currently are able to avoid morale almost completely. Conscripts are good own their own (due to pricing), but add a commissar and they're good + ignore morale. Orks need fixing, don't get me wrong, but their rules let them ignore morale (which is part of why green tide is the effective build). Tyranids have low morale but synapse, which again.... lets them ignore morale. Tyranids are more of an edge case though, since that's effectively always been their thing: kill the leadership beasts, and the mooks will fall apart on their own.

Ironically, it's the high leadership armies right now that are most susceptible to morale. Marines, which have always been the poster boys for high morale, aren't recommended to take more than msu. Because even with their high leadership and reroll, will likely get wiped out to decent shooting + morale aftereffects. So i would say, it's not hordes that are the problem here, but morale.

This is a large part of the issue. Unfortunately without the morale mitigation people wouldn't bring the hordes at all. And while I like the character rules the snipers available don't seem to output enough damage for sniper the morale protection shoot the blob to really work.

Well, the problem i see with morale mitigation is it's all or nothing. There's no sliding scale. The more i think on it, the more i think the issue is morale just isn't a good system - Taking casualties because you took casualties. How would people feel if hordes had average to low morale and no way to ignore it, but failing a morale test meant you lost control of the unit for the next turn (it just stood there, panicking basically)? With maybe taking casualties reserved for broken morale units currently engaged in melee?

See conceptually I like how morale works. I think its an elegant way to represent guys fleeing and losing guys to poor discipline. But like you said the mitigation is largely in the form of all or nothing. Like not a long term solution because it's so random and specific, but if conscripts lost d6 guys to a commissar or lost half as many as they're supposed to morale would serve as the counter in their case. The irony is because of special rules the guys with morale problems are high leadership things like marines because they're the ones without a just ignore it rule. Unfortunately due to the way morale works any solution to mitigation I think largely ends up as very binary. Either the mitigation is good enough and people use the hordes or it isn't and they don't.

 Torga_DW wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Torga_DW wrote:
The problem is hordes are traditionally low-morale units that currently are able to avoid morale almost completely. Conscripts are good own their own (due to pricing), but add a commissar and they're good + ignore morale. Orks need fixing, don't get me wrong, but their rules let them ignore morale (which is part of why green tide is the effective build). Tyranids have low morale but synapse, which again.... lets them ignore morale. Tyranids are more of an edge case though, since that's effectively always been their thing: kill the leadership beasts, and the mooks will fall apart on their own.

Ironically, it's the high leadership armies right now that are most susceptible to morale. Marines, which have always been the poster boys for high morale, aren't recommended to take more than msu. Because even with their high leadership and reroll, will likely get wiped out to decent shooting + morale aftereffects. So i would say, it's not hordes that are the problem here, but morale.

This is a large part of the issue. Unfortunately without the morale mitigation people wouldn't bring the hordes at all. And while I like the character rules the snipers available don't seem to output enough damage for sniper the morale protection shoot the blob to really work.

Well, the problem i see with morale mitigation is it's all or nothing. There's no sliding scale. The more i think on it, the more i think the issue is morale just isn't a good system - Taking casualties because you took casualties. How would people feel if hordes had average to low morale and no way to ignore it, but failing a morale test meant you lost control of the unit for the next turn (it just stood there, panicking basically)? With maybe taking casualties reserved for broken morale units currently engaged in melee?

I would worry that you'd potentially spend a lot of the game "stun locked" by an alpha striking, shooting-heavy opponent.

Question: Do people really find themselves having trouble with morale mitigation in general? Are warbosses and the Avatar of Khaine interfering with the enjoyment of games? Honest question. With the exception of conscripts and maybe some sheannigans with cultists in recent chaos lists, I haven't really seen "fearless" units being that big of a deal. Orks are meh. 'Nids can have their synapse killed, etc. It doesn't seem like something that needs fixed, for the most part.

Wyldhunt wrote:
While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

So even if hordes weren't a problem at all I think that every unit or strat should have a counter, it makes for a system that you can better balance in the long term. That said several hordes have been problems already this edition and have been nerfed only to have the next most efficient show up as a problem. If conscripts were fixed tomorrow I would expect the next horde to step up and be an issue. In my local meta we have a larger ork horde issue (something like 10 weirdboys in a 2k list). It's not hard to come up with a similar list to the guard list that's good now, they aren't an issue because they aren't as good as the guard list.

Darkagl1 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

So even if hordes weren't a problem at all I think that every unit or strat should have a counter, it makes for a system that you can better balance in the long term. That said several hordes have been problems already this edition and have been nerfed only to have the next most efficient show up as a problem. If conscripts were fixed tomorrow I would expect the next horde to step up and be an issue. In my local meta we have a larger ork horde issue (something like 10 weirdboys in a 2k list). It's not hard to come up with a similar list to the guard list that's good now, they aren't an issue because they aren't as good as the guard list.

But I mean... Based on what you're describing, some hordes are more powerful (read: "more broken") than others. So if we nerfed any hordes that were deemed too significantly efficient compared to the average of other units in the game.

"Oh no. Don't bother saving me from this tiger that's mauling me. You'll just give the mice biting my toes a chance to step into the spotlight. Oh no. Don't chase off the mice. Now you'll just give my minor headcold a chance to make me miserable."

What am I missing? If ork boyz are OP (and really, I don't think they are), but are less OP than conscripts spam, then nerfing conscript spam still means that we'd end up with a healthier meta overall. And if we then nerfed these hypothetically OP ork boyz, we'd be even better off.

As for having a counter to every strategy... is that counter not simply to take a reasonable amount of dedicated anti-infantry weaponry? I'm just not convinced that we need to make any special adjustments to the game to tone down hordes. With a couple notable exceptions that can be dealt with more effectively by nerfing specific problem units, hordes are not that hard to take down.
I'm totally willing to revise my opinion when termagaunts and ork boyz start dominating the top spots at tournaments, but you're suggesting we rebalance things that are arguably already balanced. And rebalancing something isn't imbalanced is potentially just... imbalancing it.

"Good news! I got you a pet mongoose to help fight off any cobras that keep getting into your house."
"But I've never had any cobras in my house."
"And now you won't have to worry about ever having them. By the way, the mongoose will poop all over your carpet and occassionally bite you in your sleep. You're welcome."

Don't take medicine if you're not sick.

P.S. What hordes have been a problem and then been nerfed this edition? I know that conscripts got a "nerf" in the new codex, but it doesn't do much to fix them. I'm not aware of any other hordes that have been severely nerfed or of any hordes that were deemed suboptimal and then stepped into the spotlight. Perhaps I'm oblivious to some huge trends in the meta?

Wyldhunt wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

So even if hordes weren't a problem at all I think that every unit or strat should have a counter, it makes for a system that you can better balance in the long term. That said several hordes have been problems already this edition and have been nerfed only to have the next most efficient show up as a problem. If conscripts were fixed tomorrow I would expect the next horde to step up and be an issue. In my local meta we have a larger ork horde issue (something like 10 weirdboys in a 2k list). It's not hard to come up with a similar list to the guard list that's good now, they aren't an issue because they aren't as good as the guard list.

But I mean... Based on what you're describing, some hordes are more powerful (read: "more broken") than others. So if we nerfed any hordes that were deemed too significantly efficient compared to the average of other units in the game.

"Oh no. Don't bother saving me from this tiger that's mauling me. You'll just give the mice biting my toes a chance to step into the spotlight. Oh no. Don't chase off the mice. Now you'll just give my minor headcold a chance to make me miserable."

What am I missing? If ork boyz are OP (and really, I don't think they are), but are less OP than conscripts spam, then nerfing conscript spam still means that we'd end up with a healthier meta overall. And if we then nerfed these hypothetically OP ork boyz, we'd be even better off.

As for having a counter to every strategy... is that counter not simply to take a reasonable amount of dedicated anti-infantry weaponry? I'm just not convinced that we need to make any special adjustments to the game to tone down hordes. With a couple notable exceptions that can be dealt with more effectively by nerfing specific problem units, hordes are not that hard to take down.
I'm totally willing to revise my opinion when termagaunts and ork boyz start dominating the top spots at tournaments, but you're suggesting we rebalance things that are arguably already balanced. And rebalancing something isn't imbalanced is potentially just... imbalancing it.

"Good news! I got you a pet mongoose to help fight off any cobras that keep getting into your house."
"But I've never had any cobras in my house."
"And now you won't have to worry about ever having them. By the way, the mongoose will poop all over your carpet and occassionally bite you in your sleep. You're welcome."

Don't take medicine if you're not sick.

P.S. What hordes have been a problem and then been nerfed this edition? I know that conscripts got a "nerf" in the new codex, but it doesn't do much to fix them. I'm not aware of any other hordes that have been severely nerfed or of any hordes that were deemed suboptimal and then stepped into the spotlight. Perhaps I'm oblivious to some huge trends in the meta?

There were already significant nerf to razorwing flocks and horrors. Both dominated significantly worse than conscripts did so they got fixed harder.

My point on hordes is they all are an issue imo, you just aren't seeing the other ones since people who want waac will use the most broken version of a unit. The issue with taking just more anti infantry is any anti infantry works better against nom horde infantry than it does against hordes. The single most cost effective thing to kill conscripts is conscripts, then grots, then termegamts. Honestly the reason conscripts are seem as the worst isn't even conscripts it's elysians command squads and earthshaker carriages.

The issue i see with just hitting the problem unit is you never get to a better place. It's like killing spiders when you have a fly infestation. Any unit that there isn't an effective counter for must by definition exist in a state of broken or useless, because either it's cost effective enough to overwhelm generalists counters or it can't and it sucks. That said if we implement the proposed change I won't say that further rebalamving won't be necessary but a true balance can be found. It's the difference between a ball being balanced at the top of a hill and in a valley. At the top any perturbation knocks the system out of whack. At the bottom forces naturally push it back to the bottom.

Darkagl1 wrote:

There were already significant nerf to razorwing flocks and horrors. Both dominated significantly worse than conscripts did so they got fixed harder.

My point on hordes is they all are an issue imo, you just aren't seeing the other ones since people who want waac will use the most broken version of a unit. The issue with taking just more anti infantry is any anti infantry works better against nom horde infantry than it does against hordes. The single most cost effective thing to kill conscripts is conscripts, then grots, then termegamts. Honestly the reason conscripts are seem as the worst isn't even conscripts it's elysians command squads and earthshaker carriages.

The issue i see with just hitting the problem unit is you never get to a better place. It's like killing spiders when you have a fly infestation. Any unit that there isn't an effective counter for must by definition exist in a state of broken or useless, because either it's cost effective enough to overwhelm generalists counters or it can't and it sucks. That said if we implement the proposed change I won't say that further rebalamving won't be necessary but a true balance can be found. It's the difference between a ball being balanced at the top of a hill and in a valley. At the top any perturbation knocks the system out of whack. At the bottom forces naturally push it back to the bottom.

I disagree with you entirely.

The WAAC player isn't changing armys after every rule adjustment. I play nids. My hormagaunts and termagants are not broken and don't need any nerfs or buffs against them. In fact, the could use some slight adjustments and tweaks to give some smidgen of improvements.

Nids weren't broken in 7th because flyrants were good. Space Marines weren't broken because they had one OP formation. Horde units are not broken because conscripts.

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

It doesn't necessarily have to be for every blast and template, but it seems a good place to start. As for going far enough, I guess the next step would be +d6 (or maybe d3) per 10 guys, but I don't think we want to whipsaw too far in the other direction and completely destroy hordes as an option.

What I am suggesting though is creating weapons with the +d6 for 5 or 10 model increments, on weapons that essentially will only be good against chaff, but not so good (cost benefit wise) as to be an I take 3 of these cheap units and delete all chaff models. So you make these no all comers type units that will force you to be less able to deal with some other type of target. The problem right now is anything decent at killing chaff is better at killing elite infantry point for point. If you made spamming such options cost prohibitive (in that they will make you less able to deal with vehicles, elite infantry etc.) then at some level it will force the game into balance.

I follow you. My concern is essentially that while now I think antichaff is nonexistent, flamers with +d6/10 may be too much for chaff to exist at all. For instance now flamer is 3.5 hits against everyone. With my proposal it's 3.5 against combat squad marines, 4.5 against guard infantry, and 6.5 against conscripts (or grots or whatever). Your proposal would be 3.5 against marines, 7 against infantry squads and 14 against conscripts (assuming per 10, per 5 would be 7, 10.5, and 24.5). Even the +d6/10 gets you a weapon that kills about 8 conscripts a turn which is really effective.

That comes down to weapon design though, what if it were a S2 flamer, if it were +D6 per 5 models it would do hits as you suggest, and would kill ~5 conscripts per turn. But be terrible against things like marines (against 10 marines it would average 0.38 wounds). We don't do it necessarily for existing weapons, and it could be different for different weapons. Maybe current flamers should be 2D3 hits, and get an extra D3 per 5 or 10 models. I think that is where we differ you are trying to tack rules on to existing weapons. I'm suggesting creating weapons that don't exist that specifically are good at dealing with chaff, but not very good at dealing with anything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

I would say yes we do, the key is making it a meaningful choice as to whether to take it. Cost it such that it is competing on price with say a lascannon for instance and people aren't just going to spam it like crazy.

As for ork boyz, what if the weapon were S2, it would not be all that great at killing boyz, beyond that for things like termagaunts if someone is spending a ton killing termagaunts at the cost of being able to deal effectively with big bugs, I'd be ok with that. It is about forcing meaningful choices in list building. Unfortunately right now it is often too easy for some armies to take all the answers they need with little sacrifice.

 Blackie wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:


As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

To kill all those dudes? Probably not. But you need to score more points than the opponent, not to table him to win the game. Cheap dudes usually don't score tons of points, only AM ones are overpowered. Everything other horde army is mid tier at most.

I object. Remember that tabling is autowin in matched play.

If you don't have any chance to table an opponent with a horde army, but the horde army still has a good chance to do so, this is a significant imbalance. I don't know about your games, but in my group like half of the games end with one player getting tabled (or would end that way if we played till the end).
We will start using more terrain soon, so that percentage might drop, but tabling will still be a thing in 20-30% of our games as soon as the players adapt.

So if you are not able to table your opponent but he is, you 'automatically' lose a certain percentage of your games against that person. Even if it was just 10% of the games that you get tabled, and win half of the other games, the win rate is 55:45. IMO that is significantly too much.

Trollbert wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:


As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

To kill all those dudes? Probably not. But you need to score more points than the opponent, not to table him to win the game. Cheap dudes usually don't score tons of points, only AM ones are overpowered. Everything other horde army is mid tier at most.

I object. Remember that tabling is autowin in matched play.

If you don't have any chance to table an opponent with a horde army, but the horde army still has a good chance to do so, this is a significant imbalance. I don't know about your games, but in my group like half of the games end with one player getting tabled (or would end that way if we played till the end).
We will start using more terrain soon, so that percentage might drop, but tabling will still be a thing in 20-30% of our games as soon as the players adapt.

So if you are not able to table your opponent but he is, you 'automatically' lose a certain percentage of your games against that person. Even if it was just 10% of the games that you get tabled, and win half of the other games, the win rate is 55:45. IMO that is significantly too much.

I don't think you have much experience with and against hordes. The only competitive built for orks is the green tide, and it's very unlikely that a green tide is able to table another decent built. AM can do that but that's because of that many cheap guns they have, certainly not because of conscripts. Actually armies like orks are going to getting table every game against competitive lists unless they bring a full horde list, and even with that tabling the greenskins is not even that difficult.

Hordes armies in general can't table anyone, they mostly rely on their ability to survive rather than killing stuff by shooting or effective close combat. Many armies can't table anyone, unless the opponent really can't play or bring a list that doesn't make any sense. Overall only AM hordes are really competitive, other armies can be mid tiers at most. Which means that is irrelevant if they're difficult to get tabled, their chance to win the game is not higher than other builts overall. I think hordes (not AM of course) should be improved to be honest, not nerfed or countered.

 Lance845 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

There were already significant nerf to razorwing flocks and horrors. Both dominated significantly worse than conscripts did so they got fixed harder.

My point on hordes is they all are an issue imo, you just aren't seeing the other ones since people who want waac will use the most broken version of a unit. The issue with taking just more anti infantry is any anti infantry works better against nom horde infantry than it does against hordes. The single most cost effective thing to kill conscripts is conscripts, then grots, then termegamts. Honestly the reason conscripts are seem as the worst isn't even conscripts it's elysians command squads and earthshaker carriages.

The issue i see with just hitting the problem unit is you never get to a better place. It's like killing spiders when you have a fly infestation. Any unit that there isn't an effective counter for must by definition exist in a state of broken or useless, because either it's cost effective enough to overwhelm generalists counters or it can't and it sucks. That said if we implement the proposed change I won't say that further rebalamving won't be necessary but a true balance can be found. It's the difference between a ball being balanced at the top of a hill and in a valley. At the top any perturbation knocks the system out of whack. At the bottom forces naturally push it back to the bottom.

I disagree with you entirely.

The WAAC player isn't changing armys after every rule adjustment. I play nids. My hormagaunts and termagants are not broken and don't need any nerfs or buffs against them. In fact, the could use some slight adjustments and tweaks to give some smidgen of improvements.

Nids weren't broken in 7th because flyrants were good. Space Marines weren't broken because they had one OP formation. Horde units are not broken because conscripts.

Um yes they do, they switch to whatever the most likely to win list is. It's why the tourney scene went from razorwing to stormraven to the new imperial soup we're seeing. If you don't think nid hordes are broken that's your opinion and your entitled to it. That said even saying x unit isnt broken doesn't explain why a game shouldn't have effective counter strategies in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
I think you don't go far enough, and that it should only be for certain specific weapons, not all blasts and templates.

It doesn't necessarily have to be for every blast and template, but it seems a good place to start. As for going far enough, I guess the next step would be +d6 (or maybe d3) per 10 guys, but I don't think we want to whipsaw too far in the other direction and completely destroy hordes as an option.

What I am suggesting though is creating weapons with the +d6 for 5 or 10 model increments, on weapons that essentially will only be good against chaff, but not so good (cost benefit wise) as to be an I take 3 of these cheap units and delete all chaff models. So you make these no all comers type units that will force you to be less able to deal with some other type of target. The problem right now is anything decent at killing chaff is better at killing elite infantry point for point. If you made spamming such options cost prohibitive (in that they will make you less able to deal with vehicles, elite infantry etc.) then at some level it will force the game into balance.

I follow you. My concern is essentially that while now I think antichaff is nonexistent, flamers with +d6/10 may be too much for chaff to exist at all. For instance now flamer is 3.5 hits against everyone. With my proposal it's 3.5 against combat squad marines, 4.5 against guard infantry, and 6.5 against conscripts (or grots or whatever). Your proposal would be 3.5 against marines, 7 against infantry squads and 14 against conscripts (assuming per 10, per 5 would be 7, 10.5, and 24.5). Even the +d6/10 gets you a weapon that kills about 8 conscripts a turn which is really effective.

That comes down to weapon design though, what if it were a S2 flamer, if it were +D6 per 5 models it would do hits as you suggest, and would kill ~5 conscripts per turn. But be terrible against things like marines (against 10 marines it would average 0.38 wounds). We don't do it necessarily for existing weapons, and it could be different for different weapons. Maybe current flamers should be 2D3 hits, and get an extra D3 per 5 or 10 models. I think that is where we differ you are trying to tack rules on to existing weapons. I'm suggesting creating weapons that don't exist that specifically are good at dealing with chaff, but not very good at dealing with anything else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wyldhunt wrote:
While it's true that there aren't really any weapons that are more effective against marines than guardsmen, I think it's also fair to say that most horde units aren't really a big deal right now. So excepting the handful of problematic horde units (mostly conscripts) which need to be nerfed anyway, you're kind of proposing buffing anti-horde options for the sake of a mechanical niche rather than actual gameplay impact.

If we can all agree that certain units (again, conscripts) need to be nerfed, then consider what improving anti-horde firepower does to every other horde unit in the game. Do we really need to make people better at killing ork boyz? Are termagaunts really a unit that should be worse (by virtue of being killed more easily) than they are now? I appreciate the desire to make a weapon that is actually more efficient at killing X than Y, but do we have a practical need for such a weapon right now?

I would say yes we do, the key is making it a meaningful choice as to whether to take it. Cost it such that it is competing on price with say a lascannon for instance and people aren't just going to spam it like crazy.

As for ork boyz, what if the weapon were S2, it would not be all that great at killing boyz, beyond that for things like termagaunts if someone is spending a ton killing termagaunts at the cost of being able to deal effectively with big bugs, I'd be ok with that. It is about forcing meaningful choices in list building. Unfortunately right now it is often too easy for some armies to take all the answers they need with little sacrifice.

If you want to have a brand new weapon that could work. To me the most logical weapon to being doing stuff like this is the flamer though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

Trollbert wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:


As of now if you tell me you're bringing 250 of any cheap dude there is literally nothing that is a proper choice to bring in response.

To kill all those dudes? Probably not. But you need to score more points than the opponent, not to table him to win the game. Cheap dudes usually don't score tons of points, only AM ones are overpowered. Everything other horde army is mid tier at most.

I object. Remember that tabling is autowin in matched play.

If you don't have any chance to table an opponent with a horde army, but the horde army still has a good chance to do so, this is a significant imbalance. I don't know about your games, but in my group like half of the games end with one player getting tabled (or would end that way if we played till the end).
We will start using more terrain soon, so that percentage might drop, but tabling will still be a thing in 20-30% of our games as soon as the players adapt.

So if you are not able to table your opponent but he is, you 'automatically' lose a certain percentage of your games against that person. Even if it was just 10% of the games that you get tabled, and win half of the other games, the win rate is 55:45. IMO that is significantly too much.

I don't think you have much experience with and against hordes. The only competitive built for orks is the green tide, and it's very unlikely that a green tide is able to table another decent built. AM can do that but that's because of that many cheap guns they have, certainly not because of conscripts. Actually armies like orks are going to getting table every game against competitive lists unless they bring a full horde list, and even with that tabling the greenskins is not even that difficult.

Hordes armies in general can't table anyone, they mostly rely on their ability to survive rather than killing stuff by shooting or effective close combat. Many armies can't table anyone, unless the opponent really can't play or bring a list that doesn't make any sense. Overall only AM hordes are really competitive, other armies can be mid tiers at most. Which means that is irrelevant if they're difficult to get tabled, their chance to win the game is not higher than other builts overall. I think hordes (not AM of course) should be improved to be honest, not nerfed or countered.

I know in my meta there is an ork list that tables people constantly, and I at least haven't been able to find any effective defense. The logical fallacy I think you're showing though is that only AM hordes are competitive. They're the current best certainly, but I think the others are just waiting to step up. Regardless of that the real question is should there be strats without counters. Yes implementing the change may require follow on balancing to help some horde units out, but the original point isn't holy gak hordes are broken (i don't even think conscripts are the problem with the AM list I think its earthshaker carriages, elysian command squads, and mortar teams). The point is any time you create a unit or a strat where the rules provide no relevant counter you create an inherently unstable system, where the units or strat in question is either OP or gak, because there is no counter to it. In this case our "counter" is either the very thing that we are trying to counter or general anti infantry weapons. The issue with relying on anti infantry to fill the role is, it's all more cost effective against non horde infantry, so if it's balanced to deal with hordes it will gak on the non horde infantry.

I am not talking about Orks. Their index sucks.

I don't know if this thread is supposed to be focused on hyper-competitive lists, in which case basically any discussion is futile because of how many factors determine what list will win tournaments.

But AM, Daemons with tons of brimstones and Tyranids (at least if their upcoming codex will handle buffs and nerfs similar to the Marine codices) should be able to table an equally-competitive army while bringing 100 wounds of chaff.


From a semi-competitive palyers point of view, the problem with conscripts and pre-nerf brimstones was their damage output compared to their point cost.
Pre-nerf brimstones dealt 2/3 mortal wound per 23 points and you had to kill the unit to reduce that damage. They were more or less immune to morale due to their low numbers.
And conscripts are not that different. After all buffs, they just deal to much damage for their 3 (+ whatever the buffs cost per model, so probably 4) points/wound.
If thats not cheap guns, I don't know what is.

From a highly competitive players point of view, hordes are not that strong but that's because of Guilliman and whatever he buffs.

What pisses me off personally is how horde armies are the best counter to horde armies. And because conscripts are too good, any other horde unit suffers.