Too much 3+ BS?

[9x19 Parabellum]

So Votann (Squats) get teased and I see yet another army with BS/WS 3+

Now I started feeling this way when Nids got to 3+ BS, and this was the final headscratcher, which has led me to the conclusion that there is way too much WS/BS 3+ in 40k.

So let me do a breakdown so we have it all in front of us. And by the way, for the purpose of this, I'm looking at the statline of the basic/iconic/ubiquitous type models for that codex, not the specialty/outlier/gimicky units.

5+ BS Codexes:

Orks

4+ BS Codexes:

Astra Militarum (Guard)

Tau

Tzeentch Daemons

Nurgle Daemons

AdMech: Cult Mechanicus

Genestealer Cults

3+ BS Codexes:

Astra Militarum (Scions)

Votann

Craftworlds

Drukhari

Harlequins

Space Marines

Chaos Space Marines

Death Guard

Thousand Sons

Sisters of Battle

AdMech: Skitarri

Khorne Daemons

Imperial Knights

Chaos Imperial Knights

Necrons

Tyranids (kinda? All the things that you actually are going to rely on to shoot are BS3+)

2+ BS Codexes:

Custodes

So we see that the 3+ BS category is packed full. And the problem with this as it is now (and has been for a while) the "norm" for BS in the game. If you don't have BS3+, you probably feel that your codex has been done wrong, and may be salty about it. It certainly doesn't feel like your army type is "elite" when almost every single other army in the game, and certainly the most popular ones, all share the 3+ BS Category with you. BS4+ is seen as a punishment, when it should be the norm. BS5+ is a badge of meme honor worn only by Orks, and only works because of the myriad other rules they have.

Suggestion:

Orks move to BS4+ and the 5+ paradigm effectively disappears.

Astartes (chaos and imperium, barring scouts which can stay at 3+) move to 2+

Custodes change to 1+ (effectively ignoring the first -1 penalty to hit modifier)

Khorne Daemons go to 4+ (supposed to be melee centric anyway)

Votann moves to 4+ (because dwarves have always been traditionally presented as more melee centric also)

Nids also go back to 4+ because you don't get to be the best melee army and the best psychic army and also be optimal in shooting.

The goal would be to have something like this:

I realize my solution is far from perfect...but a solution notwithstanding (it's not going to happen anyway), does anyone else agree that the 3+ BS paradigm is in and of itself problematic?

Edited April 30, 2022 by 9x19 Parabellum

[WrathOfTheLion]

How many shooting units do Khorne Daemons even have? Just the Skull Cannon? I don't have the 8E codex to check, but it sounds odd to even be considering them as an issue given that.

Edited April 30, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion

[9x19 Parabellum]

How many shooting units do Khorne Daemons even have? Just the Skull Cannon? I don't have the 8E codex to check, but it sounds odd to even be considering them as an issue given that.

 

I mean that's kind of the point though isn't it?  Why does an army that never trains, practices or actually makes war with guns have BS3+? (regardless of their actual in-game efficacy...)

[Viridovix]

Ad mech have many tricks to bring that 4+ to 3+ and also add +1 Strength, speaking about BS.

[Schlitzaf]

Move Skitarii and Aeldari factions back to Bs4+ base except for special elite units would be my fix/chanhe

[LameBeard]

BS inflation will make things worse. Dialling back is better. What’s the point in rolling dice if it’s just not that random?

 

Votann should have been 4+ and probably on WS as well - what in their abhuman evolution made them better shots?

[Noserenda]

The huge gaping flaw in your assumption is that all aliens are created equal, Orks and Tau natively are particularly poor shots (But Tau train) but even Eldar militia have excellent BS, comparable with elite humans. Just ignoreing all but Tyranid shooter specialists is super misleading, of course the hive mind, noted fan of specialist evolution can produce excellent shots when its important, similarly most Khorne daemons dont shoot, just weapon specialists. Trying to force brackets by army list is misleading because over half the armies in the game are the same thing essentially in Space marines, (At least regards average marksmanship) so really once you strim that out too you have:
 

5+ BS Codexes, Bad shots, dont care:

Orks

 

4+ BS Codexes:

Trained Humans and Tau

Daemons 

 

3+ BS Codexes:

Human Elites (Marines, Scions, SoB, SoS, Knights etc etc)

Votann

Eldar

Necrons

 

 

2+ BS Codexes:

Custodes


Which is a lot tighter. I think moving marines especially to 2+ BS is a giant, mistake, because there is nowhere to go from there, you are already pretty much at the wall with accuracy, and having their elites and leaders effectively ignore modifiers just feels like bad design.

[Karhedron]

Votann should have been 4+ and probably on WS as well - what in their abhuman evolution made them better shots?

In the old fluff, Squats were longer lived than baseline humans. That could translate into more experienced, better trained soldiers.

[LameBeard]

 

Votann should have been 4+ and probably on WS as well - what in their abhuman evolution made them better shots?

In the old fluff, Squats were longer lived than baseline humans. That could translate into more experienced, better trained soldiers.

Good point. But in the Fantasy fluff, dwarves are longer-lived than humans, but still weren’t better shots. So either could be justified, I just have a slight suspicion there is a “we need the new range to sell, we’d better give them a good stat line” going on here - which, if true, is a little patronising to the customers. What do I know, maybe they ran a focus group?

[Noserenda]

We dont know the Votann infantry fluff yet, maybe all their newbies serve as ship/vehicle crews for a hundred years so their infantry is all veterans? Maybe the initial squad is some Zone mortalis boarding specialists and similarly elite? Maybe they have the equivalent of targeters on every model which boosts their BS stat or ai guided targeting? Maybe it just turns out their abhuman strain is just particularly good shots? It could be any number of things tbh but all we can do is wait and see.

I wouldnt take the old Warhammer dwarf statline as a benchmark either really, things were all a bit arbitrary in ye olde days sometimes. Im pretty sure i remember the similarly long lived elves getting their higher skill stats justified for exactly that reason for example.

[spessmarine]

yeah, basically everything crowds into 3+ is how I feel

if 6's are reserved for snapshot style stuff, and 1's always fail, you only have 4 numbers left on that D6 in a sense

the old system at the least let you wave around a bigger number than others by trying to effectively map a D10 to a D6

 

if we want to spread things out a bit, some things are going to need to get knocked down to a 4+, 5+ even maybe, but not everything needs to have one accuracy faction-wide

as well, are custodes really that much better shots to hog that 2+?

[Dusktiger]

[snip]

5+ BS Codexes:

Orks

 

4+ BS Codexes:

Astra Militarum (Guard)

Tau

Tzeentch Daemons

Nurgle Daemons

AdMech: Cult Mechanicus

Genestealer Cults

 

3+ BS Codexes:

Astra Militarum (Scions)

Votann

Craftworlds

Drukhari

Harlequins

Space Marines

Chaos Space Marines

Death Guard

Thousand Sons

Sisters of Battle

AdMech: Skitarii

Khorne Daemons

Imperial Knights

Chaos Imperial Knights

Necrons

Tyranids (kinda? All the things that you actually are going to rely on to shoot are BS3+)

 

2+ BS Codexes:

Custodes

[snip]

so my thoughts on it, in regards to the number of armies in these categories in along these lines;

i agree that it seems like there's a few that shouldn't be where they are, just looking at it as a whole. 

Khorne Daemons, for starters, should've been a 4+ to keep them in line with the other Daemons; If any of the 3 should've gotten a 3+, it should've been Tzeentch, not the other way around.

Tyranids i also agree should've kept to a 4+, because if genestealer cults are a 4+, it feels like they should be as well, just for consistency.

 

As for the rest, they all have reasonable explanations in their fluff to be there; using guardsmen as the baseline stat that other factions are compared to, Astartes of all flavors are genetic super-soldiers, so clearly, should be a 3+.  Aeldari of all flavors, are faster in reflexes and agility, so naturally the 3+ reflects that too.  Skitarii and Necrons have so much cybernetics in them that it's silly to think of them as anything less than a 3+.  Sisters are essentially female marines without gene-seed, so they make sense.  And Scions are so well trained and equipped, that makes sense too.  The Knights, well, when shooting bullets the size of Escalades, the concept of hitting "close enough" to your target and still killing them is well reflected with the 3+.

 

Custodes i've yet to ever face, so im surprised their baseline units are a 2+.

 

As for the Votann, we're dealing with a new faction being brought back from the lore after a very long time and many editions.  There could be a wealth of explanations in the fluff that will explain the 3+, but until we see the book, its hard to argue if they should or shouldn't be a 3+.  And i won't even attempt to use any logic based on the AoS range to try to argue for or against a 3+ on them, as that's a flawed line of logic; they're not the same, so the arguments for one to have something have nothing to do with the other.

[Iron Lord]

 

Tyranids i also agree should've kept to a 4+, because if genestealer cults are a 4+, it feels like they should be as well, just for consistency.

 

 

Little shooty bugs (Gargoyle, Termagant) are still BS 4+ - it's only big bugs (Tyranid Warriors, Ravenors etc) that are T 3+ . And not all of those (the Screamer-Killer is BS 4+ and has no Enhanced Senses upgrade option the way the other Carnifex variants do).

[MARK0SIAN]

Out of all of them, the only ones that particularly stand out as not being in the right bracket are the Tyranids. They really should be 4+.

 

Votann I’m not sure about. I have to admit when they previewed their stat line I was a bit worried. They look closer to marines than regular humans. It remains to be seen what kind of army they’re going to be in terms of playstyle but my gut reaction is that they shouldn’t have both BS 3+ and WS 3+. There’s not enough known about them but it seems strange they would be better shots than Tau and as good in a fight as a marine.

 

Overall though I think I’d sum up my feelings on it as this. Pretty much all the armies in the BS 3+ bracket should definitely be there however, that is also too many factions in that bracket. As with much else in the game, I think we’ve hit a ceiling for what can be done using a D6 and there isn’t really a satisfactory solution without moving to to something like D10 or D12.

[The Neverborn]

Almost everything can get either a +1 or a re-roll (at least 1s)

 

Someone in my local club came up with the hypothesis that it's a symptom of GW  looking to make 40k an esport and hardcore players not wanting to use randomness as they move the game from skill based to luck based.

[Toxichobbit]

Tyranids are not a BS3+ Codex. They're a mixed BS Codex, like Adeptus Mechanicus (but more so). They have 14 BS 3+ or better ranged datasheets, and 26 BS 4+ or worse/no ranged datasheets.

 

BS 2+ - Hive Tyrant*, Flying Hive Tyrant*.

BS 3+ - Tyranid Prime*, Tervigon*, Trygon Prime*, Tyranid Warriors, Toxicrene*, Haruspex*, Raveners, Exocrine*, Hive Guard, Tyrannofex*, Hive Crone*, Harpy*.

BS 4+ - Termagants, Gargoyles, Biovores, Carnifex, Screamer Killer, Thornback.

BS 5+ - Ripper Swarms, Tyrannocyte, Sporocyst*.

BS irrelevant - The Swarmlord, Old One Eye, Broodlord, Neurothrope, Hormagaunts, Tyrant Guard, Lictor, Deathleaper, Maleceptor, Pyrovores, Venomthropes, Zoanthropes, Genestealers, Parasite of Mortrex, Mawloc, Mucolid Spores, Spore Mines, 

 

* you're unlikely to see more than one or two of these in a list.

Red denotes primarily melee units with some shooting.

 

If you eliminate the characters (which you really should with anything like this because they artificially inflate the BS of any army while in game making up a small percentage of firepower) and the units that are melee with a bit of shooting, you end up with a more balanced view of Tyranid BS. You've got Warriors, Exocrine, Hive Guard, Tyrannofex, Harpy and Crone making up the BS 3+ category, while Termagants, Gargoyles, Biovores, Carnifex and Thornback make up the BS 4+ category. Looking at these units, the only ones that tend to be used en-masse are Warriors, Termagants and Gargoyles. So a 66% / 33% split in favour of BS4+. The more powerful ranged units used in lesser numbers are the Tyrannofex, Exocrine, Hive Guard, Biovores, Carnifex, Thornback, Hive Crone and Harpy, which is again a 63% / 33% split, this time in favour of BS 3+. 

 

It's also worth noting that most of the BS 4+ shooting comes from the Heavy Support battlefield role. So out of your main BS 3+ shooting (Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard, Tyrannofex, Exocrine, Hive Crones and Harpies) the Warriors are in Troops, the Guard, Tyrannofex and Exocrine are in heavy support and the Crone and Harpy are in Aircraft. That makes it harder to spam mass BS 3+ shooting when compared to armies like Astartes (all types), Sororitas, Mechanicus, Aeldari (all types) and Necrons who have multiple BS 3+ Troops and BS 3+ dedicated ranged in most other slots.

 

So as a general rule of thumb, the mass firepower is BS 4+ and the less common but more powerful firepower is BS 3+, with the largest BS category being the units that have no ranged weapon (or in the case of the Pyrovore and auto-hitting weapon meaning BS is irrelevant). Seems like they fit into a mixed BS category to me (say 3+ & 4+), not as a BS3+ Codex.

 

 

what in their abhuman evolution made them better shots?

 

That's the reason Ratlings are snipers. Is there any reason it couldn't be similar for the Leagues?

[Noserenda]

Thats a great breakdown Toxichobbit :) 

I think its also worth mentioning one of the overarching features of the Tyranids is that they literally design their troops for specific roles from the DNA up, the worse BS units trend to be either the expendable chaff creatures (And im pretty sure Carnifexes are at a genetic level just much bigger gaunts) or melee beasts where the shooting is kinda incidental. Creatures built around a shooting weapon, or high value synapse creatures have correspondingly better BS, which makes perfect sense.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Similarly, that's my point on some of the Daemon stuff. If there's only one datasheet, like for Khorne Daemons, then there's no distribution to actually have a 'read' on.

[LameBeard]

 

 

what in their abhuman evolution made them better shots?

That's the reason Ratlings are snipers. Is there any reason it couldn't be similar for the Leagues?

No reason at all. The lore could easily support it, or support BS4+. GW could make either plausible.

 

All I’m trying to say is there seems a background drift up in stats: marines went to 2 wounds and attacks not long ago, some orks went to T5, now chaos going to 2 wounds and 3 attacks. In aggregate, is it improving the game?

 

This may be a sensible reaction to the trend to play with bigger models on smaller tables: just have smaller armies, then it’s ok then for every model to be a bit tougher, and a bit shootier is ok if everyone’s tougher. It just needs me to change my mindset I guess.

Edited May 1, 2022 by LameBeard

[Noserenda]

 

 

No reason at all. The lore could easily support it, or support BS4+. GW could make either plausible.

 

All I’m trying to say is there seems a background drift up in stats: marines went to 2 wounds and attacks not long ago, some orks went to T5, now chaos going to 2 wounds and 3 attacks. In aggregate, is it improving the game?

 

This may be a sensible reaction to the trend to play with bigger models on smaller tables: just have smaller armies, then it’s ok then for every model to be a bit tougher, and a bit shootier is ok if everyone’s tougher. It just needs me to change my mindset I guess.

 

They were fairly open at the start of 9th that they wanted to broaden the stats of units and weapons in the game to get a bit more granularity, which makes sense, though i wish they would make better use of higher toughness in line with strength its been quite good at moving nearly all basic troops in the game away from a statline of 3/4 or 1 for all their stats :) 

 

 

[Antarius]

Almost everything can get either a +1 or a re-roll (at least 1s)

 

Someone in my local club came up with the hypothesis that it's a symptom of GW  looking to make 40k an esport and hardcore players not wanting to use randomness as they move the game from skill based to luck based.

I definitely think it is a function of them listening (too much?) to competitive players, whether or not they want Warhammer 40.000 to be esport-like I don't know, but the amount of rerolls is something I definitely see as a solution to the "problem" of randomness.

[Kallas]

9th Edition has reduced widely applicable rerolls for many armies. Some armies have greater access than others (eg, Marines have many <CORE> units) but even still, the volume and applicability of rerolls, particularly auras, has been decreased.

[The Neverborn]

 

Almost everything can get either a +1 or a re-roll (at least 1s)

 

Someone in my local club came up with the hypothesis that it's a symptom of GW  looking to make 40k an esport and hardcore players not wanting to use randomness as they move the game from skill based to luck based.

I definitely think it is a function of them listening (too much?) to competitive players, whether or not they want Warhammer 40.000 to be esport-like I don't know, but the amount of rerolls is something I definitely see as a solution to the "problem" of randomness.

 

My notation should have said "from luck based to skill based".

 

I'm easily distracted.

 

40k has it's routes in DnD. It's moved very far away from that now. Competitive tournament play gets the most media coverage/promotion. A lot of players I know who've been around the hobby but not regular players like he idea of fielding an "unbeatable" army. They don't however understand the reality and cost of it. I spoke to one recently, once I informed him that the cost of having "the best" army at any given time is going to cost between of £500 or £1000 per year of investment. His response was "oh!?".

[Noserenda]

Heh, wargaming is considerably older than D&D! Though its all a cycle anyway, D&D started as a wargame and warhammer started as an rpg. System mechanics are usually exactly as bastardised as setting is in the sci fi/fantasy genre, so there is probably a whole book in "where did 40k come from".

Regardless, i find it bizarre that some people dont consider risk management a skill, its what separates a wargame from something like a worker placement eurogame mechanically, simulation is chaos and warfare is the most chaotic simulation of all after all.

[spessmarine]

 

 

No reason at all. The lore could easily support it, or support BS4+. GW could make either plausible.

 

All I’m trying to say is there seems a background drift up in stats: marines went to 2 wounds and attacks not long ago, some orks went to T5, now chaos going to 2 wounds and 3 attacks. In aggregate, is it improving the game?

 

This may be a sensible reaction to the trend to play with bigger models on smaller tables: just have smaller armies, then it’s ok then for every model to be a bit tougher, and a bit shootier is ok if everyone’s tougher. It just needs me to change my mindset I guess.

 

They were fairly open at the start of 9th that they wanted to broaden the stats of units and weapons in the game to get a bit more granularity, which makes sense, though i wish they would make better use of higher toughness in line with strength its been quite good at moving nearly all basic troops in the game away from a statline of 3/4 or 1 for all their stats

 

 

Str burst past 10, wounds vary immensely, Ld hits 11. I don't understand why T9 is forbidden