Are the Astra Militarum really overpowered?

[Stormxlr]

Guard player complaining he doesnt get enough cp? I play Ravenwing/Deathwing at 2000 points I can at most get 5 CP, I literally do burn through all my CP in 1 or two turns.

Damn guard gets to shoot twice for free any time every time. My super badass Deathwing Terminators can only do it once for 3 CP and only on deep strike. Guard players have no right to complain.

 

Not even bringing up how good and cheap Guard Super heavies are.

[Major_Gilbear]

@ The Unseen:

 

You use the word anecdote, but duz_ was asking for examples of in-game experience relating to specific things. I do not believe those are the same thing at all; maths-hammer is useful, but it cannot account for tactics, terrain/model placement, opportunities that come in up in games, etc.

 

Yet, these are all things that are critically relevant to every wargame I've ever played on the last 25 or so years.

 

Take Command Points for example - how can you analyse how people use them during a game if you don't look at how people use them in games they play? Dice probability isn't exactly going to help you here.

 

 

I play Ravenwing/Deathwing at 2000 points I can at most get 5 CP, I literally do burn through all my CP in 1 or two turns.

Damn guard gets to shoot twice for free any time every time. My super badass Deathwing Terminators can only do it once for 3 CP and only on deep strike.

 

So because specific elements of the Dark Angels don't work as you'd like them to, that's a problem because the Guard do work as they should?

 

That sounds like you're unhappy at the wrong thing, which is quite different from Guard being overpowered.

[Colonel Cross]

@Claws and Effect

 

Except Marines can get into melee far more safely than guardsmen. Marines have the ability to have far more attacks and with close combat weapons. They're more resilient. My Catachans rarely get into combat with the full squad still in tact. And for me to be able to issue orders to fight again requires them to survive at least 1 fight round, which is rare. Then I have to have an officer around to issue it. When most times I'd just rather pull back and shoot anyway. My 10 man guard squad at full health gets 12 attacks with a chainsword armed SGT. Hitting on 4s at S4. If I include Straken and a Priest it becomes viable. But that's ONLY for Catachans and ONLY with a special character and an elite choice assisting. And even then, they're only T3 with a 5+. So don't act like that capability is anything but a gimmick that is usually just fun and rarely viable.

 

And my guard FRFSRF rarely kill as much stuff as people in here are claiming. You know how easy it is for a 5 man tac squad to get a cover save? You know how many lasgun shots it takes to kill a T4 SV2+ model? I don't know either because it so rarely happens lol. 4+ to hit, 5+ to wound, 2+ save = very little damage gets through.

[our_baz]

Wasn't to bite on this....oh well.

As a guard player are we OP no, strong yes.

In our favour: Our armour is brutal (can get pricey, for a IG army), artillery is very good (reigned in a touch by Chapter Approved. Bassies need a points hike IMHO). We can access CP's easily and farm them via relics and Warlord traits. Basic troops are cheap with access to varying builds. Bullgryns are the bomb.

 

Against us: Other than one unit and regiment we suck in CC, we die to a light breeze in shooting. The basic weapon for our troops is only S3AP0. Characters are squishy. Flyers are meh and only one Fast attack choice is worth using. Anti aircraft is also lacking. We miss 50% of our shots/hits.

 

Granted we have some good and strong options, but these are not OP/auto win by any stretch. As with anything in this game there is a counter to whatever your opponent throws at you. I believe the challenge is to find it

 

NB I haven't mentioned Scions mainly as mine both suck and blow at the same time, so they are dead to me.

[depthcharge12]

Guard player complaining he doesnt get enough cp? I play Ravenwing/Deathwing at 2000 points I can at most get 5 CP, I literally do burn through all my CP in 1 or two turns.

Damn guard gets to shoot twice for free any time every time. My super badass Deathwing Terminators can only do it once for 3 CP and only on deep strike. Guard players have no right to complain.

 

Not even bringing up how good and cheap Guard Super heavies are.

3 CPs for a 10 man squad firing 80 storm Bolter shots and 4 krak missiles on bs3+ possibly with rerolls of Belial (oh and you can do the first round of shooting to move back the 9” bubble before deep striking another unit closer). Nope totally the same thing as firing a bunch of S3 lasguns at BS4+ with the occasional plasma gun shots.

 

Come on man, even you know that’s silly :P

 

Captains, lieutenants, Ravenwing speeder dude, etc give rerolls for 1’s to hit and/or wound for ANY <chapter> units within 6”.

[Kilofix]

I play regularly against Guard. Guard is tough for those that use lists with mostly homogeneous weapons. The trick is combined arms.

 

Have a melta / lascannon heavy list to deal with armor and you’ll struggle against Guard hoard.

 

Have an assault cannon / flamer heavy list to deal with horde and you’ll struggle against Guard armor.

 

If you have a combined arms list AND can match the right weapon to the right Guard target, then Guard isn’t any tougher than say a Tyranid list that has a mix of Genestealers and Carnifexes.

 

Cheap Conscript bodies on an Objective can get cleaned out easy by a squad of Aggressors or Inceptors.

 

All that though does require a little bit more planning and thinking than simply spamming one unit.

[Colonel Cross]

Well said. I play guard and the close games occur against opponents with TAC lists, humorously.

 

I find my opponents who keep OBJs in mind and can correctly prioritize their targets do fairly well. The thing with my list is, it's partially designed to create difficult choices for my opponent and the ones who get confused by my smokescreen are the ones easily defeated.

 

Guard have the ability for redundancy to be easily built into their lists. Many other factions don't have that capability. For instance, my best friends Primaris list has few options for redundancy and therefore I can easily figure out what key units need to be taken out first and then it's game over. I think the problem is not necessarily with Guard, but the fact that the game has fundamentally changed in 8th edition and not everyone has recovered from this shake up, to include GW rules writers and game designers.

[Morticon]

lots of reports of great successes, could you gents share lists please! Would be really helpful for context/

[Melete]

lots of reports of great successes, could you gents share lists please! Would be really helpful for context/

You talking top table competitive play, or weekend game store play? Really different mentality between handling the two.

[Stormxlr]

 

Guard player complaining he doesnt get enough cp? I play Ravenwing/Deathwing at 2000 points I can at most get 5 CP, I literally do burn through all my CP in 1 or two turns.

Damn guard gets to shoot twice for free any time every time. My super badass Deathwing Terminators can only do it once for 3 CP and only on deep strike. Guard players have no right to complain.

 

Not even bringing up how good and cheap Guard Super heavies are.

3 CPs for a 10 man squad firing 80 storm Bolter shots and 4 krak missiles on bs3+ possibly with rerolls of Belial (oh and you can do the first round of shooting to move back the 9” bubble before deep striking another unit closer). Nope totally the same thing as firing a bunch of S3 lasguns at BS4+ with the occasional plasma gun shots.

 

Come on man, even you know that’s silly

 

Captains, lieutenants, Ravenwing speeder dude, etc give rerolls for 1’s to hit and/or wound for ANY <chapter> units within 6”.

 

Ye except you didnt do point calculations on this 10 dudes with Belial. Thats 642 points for 25 wounds of MEQ or 11 models. That is equivalent of 160 guardsmen models and you still got 2 points spare.  80 bolter shots with rerolls only kill 20 guardsmen (not in cover) on average, Thats not even putting a dent in average guard numbers. Now flip that, and 160 guardsmen shooting 11 Terminator will wipe them off the floor in a single turn just due to number of shots. If they all do FRFSRF thats 640 shots.  And for 750 points you can easily build a brigade and have 9cp while for 750 ill have a vanguard with 4 cp.

[Claws and Effect]

 

 

Scions took a rightful hit.

 

I think guardsmen need to be 5pts each. That should help in addressing their overall value. Conscripts remain at 4.

the point is it makes those tournament lists/wins irrelevant when talking about guard.

 

Also, no one took meltas before, increasing the costs of melta was a terrible idea.

 

I also disagree that Guardsmen should be 5 pts. I kill a squad a turn with a single unit. My Dominions currently get 40+ pts back a turn versus guard, and it's crazy to me that space Marine players don't follow that lead when building to fight guardsmen.

 

8 bolters, stormbolter and heavy Bolter with a reroll should do the same, and then bam! 40+ pts a turn and really, how many infantry squads does guard take?

 

But instead we sit here and argue that Guardsmen do too much damage, even though they die to a stiff breeze.

So what if you kill a squad a turn? That's currently 40 points.

 

That's the point, even at 5 points they are still great value.

Who cares how many points it was?

 

The relevant question is what did killing that squad accomplish?

 

If killing that squad let you capture the objective they were sitting on, thereby winning you the game, do you care that your expensive unit "only" killed 40 points worth of dudes?

 

The context is important. You can't say that killing 40 points worth of guys is poor value if it's what won you the game.

[NatBrannigan]

This is part of the problem I think, people do selective math and come up with numbers that have no basis in reality.

 

In the example above the 160 Guardsman are the same points as Belial and a squad of Terminators. Agreed of course. Now how did all 160 Guardsmen (who haven't taken any casualties as they get into position of course) get into rapid fire range with enough officers to give them ALL FRFSRF? I'm not convinced that's actually possible, is there enough room to fit 160 Guard in a 12" circle around the squad? And the points for those many many officers  required (8 Company commanders...) haven't been accounted for? And 10 of those guardsmen are in fact Sargent's so don't have lasguns. And you even mention cover, that's 160 guardsmen in cover which again, will never actually happen.

 

17 wounds they would do killing all the Terminators as you say, assuming it ever happens. But it's not possible in the real world (well tabletop real, you know what I mean!)

[Ishagu]

You absolutely must consider the points.

 

If I was the guard player and the game hinged on a certain objective I wouldn't send 10 guys to hold it. I'd send 40. And a tank or a further elite unit.

 

So yeah, I can commit 40 guys to one objective- that's only 160 points.

[NatBrannigan]

Ishagu,

 

Would you be content if Guard were 5 points each? That's still 4 squads for 200 points. I don't think it would put me off taking Infantry squads, I'd probably drop the grenade launchers to find the points in my normal list so that could be a decent solution? I suspect that it wouldn't help with the moaning though. Not that I think you specifically are moaning by the way, always impartial on these forums.

 

Is it actually the humble Guardsmen that, for want of a better word, concerns people? Or is it the Artillery (don't take any myself due to lack of models)? Is it the Bullgryns which I think are our best unit? Just the abundance of CP's? No-one has mentioned Leman Russ tanks now firing twice, are they the real culprit?

 

I do know that when I take my Marines as allies (Mainly Tactical squads because I like them for some reason) my army gets noticeably worse. Clearly Marines, or at least some of their more basic units, need a boost. That I suspect is the real issue.

[MrZakalwe]

I do know that when I take my Marines as allies (Mainly Tactical squads because I like them for some reason) my army gets noticeably worse. Clearly Marines, or at least some of their more basic units, need a boost. That I suspect is the real issue.

That's exactly the issue- folks still only tend to take the minimum number of guard squads a detachment requires so they obviously aren't good enough to compete with other units directly but they are better than the trash troops options other armies have to deal with.

 

The big question then is why do troops options have to be trash?

[spafe]

I wasn't going to jummp in here but I figure I might as well, purely from a casual perspective, I've not found my guard overpowered. I've only played a few games, and to be fair, I have won them all, but the 2 that stick in my head are against a blood angels at 1000 points, where he couldnt wipe out my entire army to win... He would have, if he had another turn though. And against a nid list, that was also close to wiping me, but I won on the amount of VP's I'd managed to acrue before that happened.

 

In both my guardsmen  killed lots, hit fairly hard... then the surving stuff returned fire and my numbers dropped far faster than his. for the record I run mainly inf, 1 unit of 10 stormies, and agains thte nids I had a bassie. The inf themselves were likely point for point more efficient at putting down damage, but also point for point far far less sticking power. The blood angels was pre nerfs... alhtough I dont run concsripts at all, and only had 2 commisars, and the nids was post nerfs... and my commisar did more in that game than the 2 against the blood angels.

 

I found I ran out of command points first in both, and orders... I used FRFSRF a lot, but I also used the re roll to hits a lot, and the regroup one after pulling back. They were my go-to orders and honestly, without them I'd have not put down enough damage to even come close to it being an even game. 

 

But this was all casual setting, so I couldnt comment on how abusable the list is if you have a mind to

[Charlo]

Another thing.

Orders were something Guard should've kept, absolutely. It's been integral to their codex since 5th.

 

But they should have been made into Strategems, just like everyone elses old special rules were.

Guard now get to "double dip" effectively, with lots of CPs to spend on strategems, and a whole other mechanic that's also super easy to spam (officers) granting abilities similar in power to said strategems at no further cost.

 

Should've made orders strategems that rely on officers being close to the target unit.

Suddenly rule of one limits FRSRF, and Guard are limited by CP to break the rules just like everyone else. They would still have more CP than anyone else, but they would also spend them faster to buff their units.

 

How is it fair that Guard can fight again at the cost of a single auto-pass order, but for marines it cost 3 CP, just as an example?

 

So make the Guard player spend CP and have an officer within range, and then, as is more thematically appropriate, having an officer nearby allows guard to perform the same as other factions (have strategems used on them) ,rather than an officer with maybe a few decades of experience being a better force multiplier than commanders with centuries or millenia of experience.

 

Would give guard commanders a small aura buff so they wouldn't be totally worthless without cp to spend, say +1 leadership or something?

 

This is really prudent and a great way of looking at it.

 

Guard can bring so many CPs that their orders could all become 1/2CP and they'd be very effective still.

[Claws and Effect]

You absolutely must consider the points.

 

If I was the guard player and the game hinged on a certain objective I wouldn't send 10 guys to hold it. I'd send 40. And a tank or a further elite unit.

 

So yeah, I can commit 40 guys to one objective- that's only 160 points.

But what if I've already killed off all but that one squad?

 

Should I lose the game on principle because shooting that 40 point unit with a 250 point unit is a "bad return"? I can't call that anything but stupid.

 

Also, assuming you're running a Brigade and have 6 Infantry squads, you'd really send 4 to 1 objective and leave only 2 to cover the other 5?

 

Besides, my scenario had nothing to do with what a Guard player would do. It simply presented 1 squad on an objective I need to win. Why there is only one squad there is completely irrelevant because there are dozens of possible ways that could happen.

 

I don't really give a poop about Guard point costs. It's the way Orders work that do it for me.

 

Since I play Marines I can really only speak on them. We have at least 3 Strategems that used to be inherent rules that only required us to have the relevant units. Now we STILL need the relevant units and it costs us CP on top of that.

 

Guard used to have a special rule that only required the relevant unit.....and still only need the relevant unit. A unit that only costs 30 points and likely can't be killed by anything without the Sniper rule until the unit screening them has been killed (at which point they are useless anyway).

 

I'm sorry, but I can't consider it fair that everyone else got their useful special rules stripped away and turned into Strategems while Guard got to keep theirs and got useful Strategems on top of it.

[MrZakalwe]

This is really prudent and a great way of looking at it.

 

 

Guard can bring so many CPs that their orders could all become 1/2CP and they'd be very effective still.

Currently a guard player making a competitive list will bring the minimum number of infantry squads required to fill out detachments and no more. If there's an issue with Guard it's not in the infantry.

 

I suppose it could work if you cut the points cost of other guard units.

 

 

The guard had three problems; underpriced conscripts, underpriced stormtrooper plasma (7pts?), and overeffective commissars. Since chapter approved the first and last are certainly not true and the middle one is debatable.

[NatBrannigan]

I think that would cripple Guard Infantry myself. Using a CP on a 10 man Marine squad is a much much better use than spending a CP on a 10 man Guard squad. I get it's frustrating that what used to be inherent rules for Marines are now straegems, but wouldn't fixing Marines be better than making Guard Infantry just as poor a choice? Make orders just another Strategem and I think you end the usefulness of Guard Infantry. Conscripts are already pointless now they cost as much as normal Infantry. That would in turn make all the HQ's pretty much worthless except maybe Yarrick for his bubble of re-roll 1's. Veterans are now an awful unit so suddenly all our Infantry (not troops, Infantry) are appalling...

 

Edit: Except Scions that are an issue I agree. Need to be even more expensive (not the special weapons because Veterans still need cheap special weapons).

[Claws and Effect]

I think that would cripple Guard Infantry myself. Using a CP on a 10 man Marine squad is a much much better use than spending a CP on a 10 man Guard squad. I get it's frustrating that what used to be inherent rules for Marines are now straegems, but wouldn't fixing Marines be better than making Guard Infantry just as poor a choice? Make orders just another Strategem and I think you end the usefulness of Guard Infantry. Conscripts are already pointless now they cost as much as normal Infantry. That would in turn make all the HQ's pretty much worthless except maybe Yarrick for his bubble of re-roll 1's. Veterans are now an awful unit so suddenly all our Infantry (not troops, Infantry) are appalling...

 

Edit: Except Scions that are an issue I agree. Need to be even more expensive (not the special weapons because Veterans still need cheap special weapons).

Guard can rock a double Brigade at 1500 points. Since most games nowadays are at 2000, that still gives you 500 points to play with to take tanks and such.

 

I threw together a list that did exactly that and added a Stormlord in a Supreme Command detachment. I took my 9 mortar teams and stuck them all in the Stormlord. All of them still got to shoot without needing LOS and you have to kill the Stormlord to get to them.

 

That doesn't even consider the 12 Infantry squads and 9 HQ that can give them Orders. For Fast Attack I took 3 Armored Sentinels with lascannons in each Brigade, and for Elites I took Sgt Harker and a combination of Officers of the Fleet and Masters of Ordinance.

 

All for 1995 points and it gave me 22 CP, with the ability to get them refunded via the Warlord Trait which I stuck on a random Company Commander. And if the Warlord Trait still functions while he's embarked in a vehicle I could stick him in the Stormlord too.

 

With 22 CP and the ability to have them refunded, you could use them all game to give Orders and probably not run out, since you'd effectively have more like 28 or 29 if you figure you'd get a third back on average.

[spafe]

even allowing for 28-30 CPs... if you have 12 inf squads... thats 2 turns of orders... not going t olast the entire game by any stretch, and thats only on orders... you still have then no other strats used, and those guard will still die to a stiff breeze (so actually you might be right, and you would end with CPs left, because units have died so quickly you cant issue the orders quick enough!)

[Mileposter]

Perhaps you could point me straight, but I'm not aware of any other army core mechanics that were turned into stratagems... So why make the guard core mechanic Stratagem-dependent?

 

Even if Orders are indeed an issue, making them into Stratagems seems silly if there's not significant precedent. Stratagems are supposed to be additive to armies, not mandatory for showing up.

[NatBrannigan]

Well that's one way to build an army I suppose...  Would it be churlish to suggest you could just take loads of small Scout Squads to get CP's for a Marine Army? Not everyone, or even most peoples, cup of tea I would suggest. If I run only Infantry squads then the cheapest Fast Attack, Elite, Heavy Support etc options I could get lots of CP's yes, and I agree Guard get them slightly to easily (although I've never seen anyone else get 22 CP's for a 2000pt game, not even close). Then as spafe mentioned with my obscene number of CP's I could order my 12 (!) Infantry Squad for 2 turns and run out...

 

I really don't think Infantry getting orders is an issue. It hasn't been when I've played against Guard and it doesn't seem to be when I use my own. I just can't understand it. The math does show that Guard Infantry are strong but the math being used? It's just not really that relevant... 160 Guard in rapid fire range with 16 FRFSRF orders being used on them can put 17 wounds on terminators yes, but you must see how silly that is to contemplate? And then the fact those those terminators have deep strike, easy access to re-rolling 1's to hit and wound (almost like imperial Guard orders that are on all the time without usng CP's...) high damage close combat weapons, multiple attacks etc.

 

Even firing at different targets you'd still need 16 Infantry squads and 8 Company Commanders to do that. And Guardsmen are flimsy so die quickly unless you take nothing but Lascannons so how are they all getting within rapid fire range?

 

Matnicores and Basilisks seem strong for the points. I'm not sure Leman Russ tanks should be cheaper AND get to fire twice. The super heavies seem underpriced for what they do. Perhaps Bullgryns could do with a little increase. Scions need to be more expensive and Veterans cheaper (the special weapon increase for BS4+ models didn't go far enough for one and made a bad choice even worse for the other) and we get to many CP's, gaining yet more during the game with frustrating ease. Conscripts are already dead as a viable choice.

 

Surely all those tweaks would be enough to being Guard down a notch without trying to kill off the most fluffy of choices in the humble Infantry Squad? I'll even give you changing FRFSRF to a flat additional shot per lasgun (grudgingly). The problem just can't be Infantry Squads, surely!?

[Claws and Effect]

Okay, how about making them not autopass anymore?

 

With better rolls to pass based on the rank of the officer.

 

Conscripts already pass on a 4+, so make 3+ the base roll for regular Infantry squads, with higher ranked officers bumping that up to a 2+. And maybe give named characters the ability to reroll failed orders.