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Games Workshop just released a new FAQ. I did not read all of it but there is several nerf to Astra Militarum.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/

Commissars now give you reroll with Summary Execution instead auto success. This will hit conscript spam really hard. I wonder how this will affect
the use of conscripts. Without auto success, they will be useless. Player will start to lose conscripts to moral then to shooting or close combat.
I don't play Astra Militarum, but I think this is too harsh of nerf. I think it would be better if they said Summary Execution gave you ld 10 for the moral
phase. This is going to be a huge shake-up for the tournaments. I do like how Games Workshop is taking balance seriously.

I read the other threads discussing the topic and understand people's concern.

Speaking as someone who has fought against conscripts since the start of 8th edition, the nerf was necessary and probably did not go far enough. There were too many games where the first 2 turns were only spent dealing with conscripts while IG guns were tearing up the rest of my army. There were too many games where I charged a conscript squad with Berzerkers and lost 5 of them to overwatch. There were too many games where I shot up 25 of them and the rest of the unit was unphased by morale.

I don't think IG players can appreciate how awful it was to play against this particular unit. They needed to be squishier, the question is whether or not it was enough.

It's an overreach, but it's probably here to stay.

There's also, like, four other threads this is being discussed in.

It sounds actually like a reasonable change.
Do not forget that a commissar provides a LD 9 6" bubble. That is above veteran SM levels of LD.
You can protect infantry squads pretty well with that. You can also reroll that effing , and unless you roll ANOTHER , you at least break even.

Remember how people complained that Fear was useless in 40k? Because everyone ignored that basic rule?
Commissars were exactly that for the entirety of guard.
If I can loose SM or hyped up indoctrinated Skitarii units, I expect Guard to flee too.

 Thairne wrote:
It sounds actually like a reasonable change.
Do not forget that a commissar provides a LD 9 6" bubble. That is above veteran SM levels of LD.
You can protect infantry squads pretty well with that. You can also reroll that effing , and unless you roll ANOTHER , you at least break even.

Of course if you roll you are losing more guys unless you roll again...And with negative modifiers you are pretty much quaranteed to blam your own guy every time.

tneva82 wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
It sounds actually like a reasonable change.
Do not forget that a commissar provides a LD 9 6" bubble. That is above veteran SM levels of LD.
You can protect infantry squads pretty well with that. You can also reroll that effing , and unless you roll ANOTHER , you at least break even.

Of course if you roll you are losing more guys unless you roll again...And with negative modifiers you are pretty much quaranteed to blam your own guy every time.

I mean, good? That's what negative modifiers are for. It's great that Night Lords can actually do something against Guard now.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
It sounds actually like a reasonable change.
Do not forget that a commissar provides a LD 9 6" bubble. That is above veteran SM levels of LD.
You can protect infantry squads pretty well with that. You can also reroll that effing , and unless you roll ANOTHER , you at least break even.

Of course if you roll you are losing more guys unless you roll again...And with negative modifiers you are pretty much quaranteed to blam your own guy every time.

I mean, good? That's what negative modifiers are for. It's great that Night Lords can actually do something against Guard now.

Yes but it's pretty silly special rule that's supposed to be beneficitial to you to with a cost is only negative one. It basically makes conscripts more cowardly. Special rule that's supposed to make people stand around making them flee more is silly.

They should have balanced conscripts with logical solution. Not this way. Also hasn't GW been getting rid of purely negative special rules for their owners? Rather than hindrances they give various bonuses instead. This goes against that with special rule that's hindrance rather than benefit.

There is more in it than just the re-roll. Now, Summary Execution can only be used the first time a unit fail a morale test

So, it's a one time re-roll that cost you a model instead of a CP that you will probably use at the beginning of the battle and that could end up killing more models than if you did not use it at all

 Garion wrote:
There is more in it than just the re-roll. Now, Summary Execution can only be used the first time a unit fail a morale test

So, it's a one time re-roll that cost you a model instead of a CP that you will probably use at the beginning of the battle and that could end up killing more models than if you did not use it at all

Yes it's to prevent commisar from blamming all conscripts when they cannot possibly pass the roll. It's reroll every phase though.

I'm sure IG players would be happy to play it like once per game only as commisar without that special rule would be just bonus IG player doesn't WANT that special rule so if it would be only once per game it would be better than current blam one guy per morale phase.

tneva82 wrote:


Yes it's to prevent commisar from blamming all conscripts when they cannot possibly pass the roll. It's reroll every phase though.

I'm sure IG players would be happy to play it like once per game only as commisar without that special rule would be just bonus IG player doesn't WANT that special rule so if it would be only once per game it would be better than current blam one guy per morale phase.

I'm not sure It's a reroll for every phase. I think that the "The first time an Astra Militarum unit fails a Morale test" bit it's not there to stop you using the ability multiple times in the same Morale phase because.. it's a re-roll

 Garion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


Yes it's to prevent commisar from blamming all conscripts when they cannot possibly pass the roll. It's reroll every phase though.

I'm sure IG players would be happy to play it like once per game only as commisar without that special rule would be just bonus IG player doesn't WANT that special rule so if it would be only once per game it would be better than current blam one guy per morale phase.

I'm not sure It's a reroll for every phase. I think that the "The first time an Astra Militarum unit fails a Morale test" bit it's not there to stop you using the ability multiple times in the same Morale phase because.. it's a re-roll

If that rule would not be there it would go:

Conscripts take casualties. IG player rolls for morale. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Repeat until ALL conscripts are dead. Whether you roll 1 or 6 doesn't matter. You fail the roll so would be forced to reroll it again.

Now if you are playing against IG and want to arque that ability is once per game then I'm sure IG player is happy to oblige(assuming he even bothered with commisars) as it's only a bonus for him Free buff for his army!

Conscripts.

Cheap. Plentiful. But purposefully a bit rubbish. Their entire role is to make a cheap nuisance of themselves - interpose their soft, squishy bodies between your better stuff and your opponents top murderers.

They're there to sit on an objective, and make your opponent work that little harder for it.

They're not there to be an impenetrable barrier just because Commissar Grumpy McGrumpypants shot Dave, Bob, Barry, Nige and Ginger (in that exact order).

Now? Well, having a Commissar with them is a partial mitigation. Doubles their Ld, meaning it's that little bit harder to send them packing.

Or you can treat them like the cheapo meatshields they are, and have always meant to be. If you've got any left at the end of the battle, have you even used your Conscripts right?

Valhallan relic ensures that nothing changes for soup lists. I swear 90% of the people in this thread don't even know the relic exists.

This is a hilariously bad nerf. Not only does it make Commissars so bad (you have to re-roll the test, it's not a choice, even if you roll the best roll possible you need to reroll) that nobody would ever use them in any situation, it doesn't address the concern for anything except the most absurd lists with hundreds of Conscripts and multiple Commissars.

Those lists however that used 30-90 just as bubble wrap from a single Commissar don't need to change anything except their regiment keyword.

tneva82 wrote:


If that rule would not be there it would go:

Conscripts take casualties. IG player rolls for morale. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Repeat until ALL conscripts are dead. Whether you roll 1 or 6 doesn't matter. You fail the roll so would be forced to reroll it again.

Now if you are playing against IG and want to arque that ability is once per game then I'm sure IG player is happy to oblige(assuming he even bothered with commisars) as it's only a bonus for him Free buff for his army!

You can never re-roll a re-roll so you will not kill all the unit models if that rule was not there ^^;

 Garion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


If that rule would not be there it would go:

Conscripts take casualties. IG player rolls for morale. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Repeat until ALL conscripts are dead. Whether you roll 1 or 6 doesn't matter. You fail the roll so would be forced to reroll it again.

Now if you are playing against IG and want to arque that ability is once per game then I'm sure IG player is happy to oblige(assuming he even bothered with commisars) as it's only a bonus for him Free buff for his army!

You can never re-roll a re-roll so you will not kill all the unit models if that rule was not there ^^;

Has the codex trumps basic rules rule gone then?

tneva82 wrote:

 Garion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


If that rule would not be there it would go:

Conscripts take casualties. IG player rolls for morale. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Fail. Blam. Reroll. Repeat until ALL conscripts are dead. Whether you roll 1 or 6 doesn't matter. You fail the roll so would be forced to reroll it again.

Now if you are playing against IG and want to arque that ability is once per game then I'm sure IG player is happy to oblige(assuming he even bothered with commisars) as it's only a bonus for him Free buff for his army!

You can never re-roll a re-roll so you will not kill all the unit models if that rule was not there ^^;

Has the codex trumps basic rules rule gone then?

I'd say that unless a codex rule specifically overrules a basic rule, then the basic rule stands. I.e. if a Codex rule says: you can reroll X twice, then it overrules the basic rule. If it just says: reroll when failed, without explicitly mentioning anything about rerolling rerolls, then the basic rule stands.

tneva82 wrote:

Has the codex trumps basic rules rule gone then?

No, but the codex (or FAQ in this case) it's not overruling the "no re-rolls for re-rolls" rule. It's just giving you the re-roll. It's like the Space Marine Captain "re-roll 1s to hit": it's not allowing to re-roll the 1s you rolled the second time around

The fix was needed but they did it wrong. Commissars weren't broken - conscripts were. They should have nerfed conscripts, not commissars.

And the execution was wrong too. At least they should have made it optional.

And weirdly there's a relic with the same rule that they haven't changed. People can carry on using exactly the same tactic if they just use a Valhallan character.

 Therion wrote:
Valhallan relic ensures that nothing changes for soup lists. I swear 90% of the people in this thread don't even know the relic exists.

This is a hilariously bad nerf. Not only does it make Commissars so bad (you have to re-roll the test, it's not a choice, even if you roll the best roll possible you need to reroll) that nobody would ever use them in any situation, it doesn't address the concern for anything except the most absurd lists with hundreds of Conscripts and multiple Commissars.

Those lists however that used 30-90 just as bubble wrap from a single Commissar don't need to change anything except their regiment keyword.

Having to use a specific regiment to get morale immunity is a bigger deal than you're letting on. Iron Warriors armies aren't making huge waves in Chaos circles with morale immune cultists, people are running Alpha Legion and taking the morale tests on the nose because Alpha Legion is better.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Therion wrote:
Valhallan relic ensures that nothing changes for soup lists. I swear 90% of the people in this thread don't even know the relic exists.

This is a hilariously bad nerf. Not only does it make Commissars so bad (you have to re-roll the test, it's not a choice, even if you roll the best roll possible you need to reroll) that nobody would ever use them in any situation, it doesn't address the concern for anything except the most absurd lists with hundreds of Conscripts and multiple Commissars.

Those lists however that used 30-90 just as bubble wrap from a single Commissar don't need to change anything except their regiment keyword.

Having to use a specific regiment to get morale immunity is a bigger deal than you're letting on. Iron Warriors armies aren't making huge waves in Chaos circles with morale immune cultists, people are running Alpha Legion and taking the morale tests on the nose because Alpha Legion is better.

Sure, because it's a different army. Conscripts will have a tank company and/or a bunch of heavy weapon squads behind them. Cultists will have some chaos marines who are less shooty and less worried about bad guys beating them up.

I have AM and I don't see the problem. They are still useful as they are still cheap 1-2 turn barriers.

They can still bubble wrap your backline so your mass of tanks cant get deepstriked for a turn or two and still block them from being in melee right away from say, orks and what have you.

Yea, they will die in droves, but that's their point, not to sit there forever.

I also think it will be less of an issue than people think.

If you have a very large unit of conscripts that does take serious damage to make moral impassable yet remains big and strategically important enough you want to keep it around, you can still 2 CP it (with a 50+% chance of getting at least 1 back, if you're using that relic everyone's using with Guard).

For Turn 2 or less crucial cases, the commissar is a useful re-roll.

Most 8th Edition games, especially competitive, are over turn 3 anyways (or at the very least the part where you worry about bubble wrap is).


In retrospect, with codexes out, commissar execution probably could've been a 1 CP Strategem for Guard. Half the CP cost of other armies' ignore moral strategem, but you lose a conscript (guardsman, etc..) and need to have a commissar on the battlefield.

Leave the interaction between commisars and the rest of the list alone. Deny the fact that the theme here is immovable conscripts , not commisars relation to ANY other unit in the codex. So nerf conscripts relation to summary execution already and leave my commisars alone.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
It sounds actually like a reasonable change.
Do not forget that a commissar provides a LD 9 6" bubble. That is above veteran SM levels of LD.
You can protect infantry squads pretty well with that. You can also reroll that effing , and unless you roll ANOTHER , you at least break even.

Of course if you roll you are losing more guys unless you roll again...And with negative modifiers you are pretty much quaranteed to blam your own guy every time.

I mean, good? That's what negative modifiers are for. It's great that Night Lords can actually do something against Guard now.

Right, because "Guard" equals "Conscript Spam lists".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wonderwolf wrote:
I also think it will be less of an issue than people think.

If you have a very large unit of conscripts that does take serious damage to make moral impassable yet remains big and strategically important enough you want to keep it around, you can still 2 CP it (with a 50+% chance of getting at least 1 back, if you're using that relic everyone's using with Guard).

For Turn 2 or less crucial cases, the commissar is a useful re-roll.

Most 8th Edition games, especially competitive, are over turn 3 anyways (or at the very least the part where you worry about bubble wrap is).


In retrospect, with codexes out, commissar execution probably could've been a 1 CP Strategem for Guard. Half the CP cost of other armies' ignore moral strategem, but you lose a conscript (guardsman, etc..) and need to have a commissar on the battlefield.

The problem with this idea is that the "very large unit of Conscripts" does not exist anymore.

They were reduced from 50 models to 30 models as a cap. That's the size of an Ork Mob.

It just seems odd that most of the time, having a commisar nearby is worse. And it doesn't sound like the re-roll is optional. So having a commisar near your units is actually bad.

 Albino Squirrel wrote:
It just seems odd that most of the time, having a commisar nearby is worse. And it doesn't sound like the re-roll is optional. So having a commisar near your units is actually bad.

Rerolls should not be optional here. Shooting their own soldiers for cowardice is what Commissars do, the game just wouldn't feel right to me without it.

Just trying to put the outrage about nerfing Commissars into perspective.

Was there ever a time, in previous editions, when Commissars were able to buff conscripts as effectively as they did at the start of 8th edition?

I honestly don't know, I played IG for a short time but never even looked into conscripts. Can't remember ever seeing them on the table before 8th edition.

I get the idea that a lot of people based their 8th edition lists around Conscript spam and this change is a setback for those armies. But GW promised to actively maintain balance this edition. It feels like everyone was forewarned this could happen, it was heavily rumored this would happen, and now it has happened.

But it doesn't feel like this is something that affects people who had 7th edition armies that were already built that way. Pardon me if I am assuming too much, but was this really some backbreaking nerf that destroys years worth of work? It feels like it's a mechanic that was tested at the outset of a new edition and adjusted based on actual playtesting.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Just trying to put the outrage about nerfing Commissars into perspective.

Was there ever a time, in previous editions, when Commissars were able to buff conscripts as effectively as they did at the start of 8th edition?

I honestly don't know, I played IG for a short time but never even looked into conscripts. Can't remember ever seeing them on the table before 8th edition.

I get the idea that a lot of people based their 8th edition lists around Conscript spam and this change is a setback for those armies. But GW promised to actively maintain balance this edition. It feels like everyone was forewarned this could happen, it was heavily rumored this would happen, and now it has happened.

But it doesn't feel like this is something that affects people who had 7th edition armies that were already built that way. Pardon me if I am assuming too much, but was this really some backbreaking nerf that destroys years worth of work? It feels like it's a mechanic that was tested at the outset of a new edition and adjusted based on actual playtesting.

I'm saying this as someone who despises Commissars and Conscripts both(I really think that Commissars' Summary Execution ability is fluffy but it isn't a thing that works for all Regiments--Commissars executing Cadians or Catachans ends up more often than not with a dead Commissar than it does with troops not breaking):
Even if this nerf was justifiable (I think that the reduction on sizes of Conscripts was a good start and things should have been left alone a bit longer to really see how things shake out now that we have a Codex. Additionally we could have seen something like the Command Squad "nerf" which requires an Officer to be fielded in Matched Play where Infantry Squads are required for the Conscript Squads), the optics on it are pretty shoddy. This comes a week after an official GW Grand Tournament and unceasing whining/complaining about Conscripts+Commissars...where Conscripts+Commissars didn't actually appear to be the winning list?

Additionally, this is the first edition where Conscripts can realistically be taken without being part of a Platoon. There were more balancing factors in play in the past where there were "tax" units(Platoons mandated a Platoon Command Squad and 2x Infantry Squads) that existed to prevent Conscripts from being fielded solo. There's a big reason why they weren't really popular in previous editions:

Why take a Conscript Squad when you could just do Combined Squads of Guardsmen?

 clodax66 wrote:
Games Workshop just released a new FAQ. I did not read all of it but there is several nerf to Astra Militarum.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/10/22/new-faqs-and-errata-for-the-astra-militarum-and-beyond-oct-22gw-homepage-post-1/

Commissars now give you reroll with Summary Execution instead auto success. This will hit conscript spam really hard. I wonder how this will affect
the use of conscripts. Without auto success, they will be useless. Player will start to lose conscripts to moral then to shooting or close combat.
I don't play Astra Militarum, but I think this is too harsh of nerf. I think it would be better if they said Summary Execution gave you ld 10 for the moral
phase. This is going to be a huge shake-up for the tournaments. I do like how Games Workshop is taking balance seriously.

Its also one use only, judging by the "first time" clause
I think they went overboard, really, like they did with res orbs. What's the point of paying points for a once use only reroll?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Garion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:


Yes it's to prevent commisar from blamming all conscripts when they cannot possibly pass the roll. It's reroll every phase though.

I'm sure IG players would be happy to play it like once per game only as commisar without that special rule would be just bonus IG player doesn't WANT that special rule so if it would be only once per game it would be better than current blam one guy per morale phase.

I'm not sure It's a reroll for every phase. I think that the "The first time an Astra Militarum unit fails a Morale test" bit it's not there to stop you using the ability multiple times in the same Morale phase because.. it's a re-roll

Isn't the morale test something that happens once every phase anyway though? the "first time" really makes sounds like a one time thing only to me. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting it and they mean that you can't use the commissar's ability to reroll a failed reroll that was caused by the commissar's ability.

The Valhallan pistol only works on Valhallans, so it means they aren't Cadian or Catachan.

Seems fine.