Problem with 30K Militia

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

I have used two Leman Russes in my second HH 2.0 battle (1000 points). One was equipped with a battle cannon and the other with a demolisher turret. I changed both templates to

5´´ and given to both weapons the Brutal (3) perk. Maybe the demolisher gun has this perk by default but I don´t remember right now. This should be enough to threaten infantry in the open without killing them outright. However Heavy troops shouldn´t be able to reroll their armour saves against such strong barrage weapons.

 

In regards to the battle report shown in the video:

I don´t like how cramped the environment are for the tanks. No tank commander worth his salt would drive by his own initiative in such a situation. In addition it reminds me woefully of 5th 40K where you had parking lots of tanks bristling with template weapons. It just reeks of cheesy gaminess. 

 

Thinking about the predicament of the Militia it might help to charge SM Legions for their traits. This way a SM army would be smaller and the Militia are faced with less opposing firepower thus negating the need of filling your army up with battle tanks to have an interesting game.

[TheTrans]

Oh 100%, 2.0 was written by two teams, then they just combined it... like look at so much of it, everything is so 'stacked'.

We need to make Lascannos better:
Team 1: Cheaper!
Team 2: Sunder!
Release: Both

Anuj: I don't like having to pick up my marines by the handful when they are in the open! Fix it!
Team 1: Make Blasts Smaller.
Team 2: Lower Blast AP
Anuj: Add Heavy to many of the Marine Mainstay units! 
Release: All 3!

Militia shouldn't be as good as marines...
Team 1: Make them auto-break if they fall back
Team 2: Make their Vehicles count glances as pens!
Team 1a: Split many of the useful Provencnes into 3 diffferent ones
Team 2a: Give their Super Heavies inferior stats and 3rd line!
Rules Design Changes: Nerf Blasts (but Nerfed Blasts still pick up handfuls of Militia/SA), WS Chart Change, Leadership Drop Across the Board, GW's Inherent Dislike of Non 'Named box unit' Armies, running being Initiative based, Drops in Cover Saves, no Going to Ground, Sniper Rilfes, Dreadnoughts etc etc.
 
Result: An army that cannot compete in the game in any reasonable sense at all. Outside of leveraging 2-3 good units that are that.. good. Marine and Custodes lists have a core of 'Good' units, with a smattering of 'Great' and 'OP' units with some 'Underperformers'.

Militia has a few 'Good' Units, with the rest generally underperformers or unusable. 

But you bring any of this up and cop the 'oh but its about marines rah rah'. Like I have no issues Marines punching down into Militia, thats cool and fluffy, but Militia need something to assist them to actually make them playable from a gameplay perspective. In 1.0 you could rely on blasts going down range to pick up marines, or lean into some fearless horde blobs and what not. They were never an unbeatable faction, but had avenues to play that where pretty broad. Now... take these X units and you may hold your own, probably lose, but hold your own... which is terrible balance. 

[Brother Sutek]

I can't argue with a lot of that as I feel the same for the most part. My biggest gripe is that in 1.0 I would see my friends use a ton of flamers in their lists and I could take models off the board by the dozen. This is correct and fluffy and I have no issue with it. If I take lots of toys that will melt basic marine armour saves and take them off by the dozen it was also correct and fluffy. I had numbers and they had quality, but I still had the tools to win. Now the lists I see are take tons of vanquishers, rapier and I'm sure most everything else is meh. I want variety and sadly I see more of the same stuff and to be honest no one takes the army anymore. I have so many ways I can play my Death Guard, I just build a terminator command squad after being lazy and sticking out the insane cost of Death Shroud. I want that excitement for militia and Solar Auxilia. I also want my Vendetta on the list but I'm a dreamer not delusional.

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

Maybe it would be wise to accept the fact that HH has an INTENDED tier system just like in Blood Bowl with the difference that the devs are vocal about it in the latter case:

 

Tiers in Blood Bowl (Living Rulebook):

1. Elves & Humans

2. The Rest

3. Stunty Teams

 

Tiers in HH 2.0:

1. IF & IH

2. Remaining Legions

3. Militia

 

You can of course argue that more Legions may be part of the HH 2.0 top tier system although to make it work you need to dig more deeply into special units and rules interactions. With the aforementioned IF & IH you receive a flat passive bonus which is always active in many situations and very good at the same time.

[Mandragola]

I don’t believe there’s an intended tier system. However, clearly Militia can’t be expected to compete with legions. I’ve seen scores of militia killed by their own exploding vehicles and an absolute massacre inflicted by my own RG tacticals. Shooting lasguns at marines, who then react with bolters, is just absurd unfortunately.

 

Militia are clearly a bit of a problem for the specialist game team, as they don’t use their models. Best case we use Cadians or something, but lots of people use third parties or printed models. Nothing gets added to the specialist games column of the spreadsheet in either case. 
 

Daemons are almost as bad but they do actually make some daemons, which I imagine they’ll want to carry on selling. So I wouldn’t expect to see those dropped any time soon. 

[Djangomatic82]

Just make the Unending Hordes provenance a baseline ability of Militia and have Industrial Stronghold/Forge Remnants provenances use up both selections.

Personally it feels appropriate, lore wise, that the I.M's would be the local planetary mooks conscripted and left behind to maintain the imperiums claim on the world. They are under trained, under equipped and under lead. The only real thing they have going for them is numbers. 

There should almost be an informal narrative rule, whatever game you are playing, I.M. are that planets inhabitants. They are never the Forces logistics are wasted on to move off world. You are against them because you are on their world. They suck, but there's a LOT of them and from planet to planet, they each have their own little perks, quirks and variation. Some have more tin can tanks, some are made up of gene enhanced puffs with nicer guns; and some are made up of feral abhuman Horse-Man berserkers that are rounded up and just thrown at the invaders.

Considering Unending Hordes only applies to Levies and Infantry, i don't think it would skew too much in lists and armies, they still fold like a wet noodle. You still want other toys, so you probably wont opt for all 450 Levies and 120 Infantry.

 

[Mandragola]

Unfortunately the maths just goes really wrong for militiamen against legionaries. On average it takes 18 BS3 lasgun shots to wound a 3+ save legionary. 18 bolter shots from BS4 legionaries kill 8 militia on average. Tactical marines fire their bolters more times than militia, thanks to fury of the legion - which they always benefit from when they react. 

 

In melee it's even worse for the militia as they will tend to hit on 5s. So now it requires 27 bayonet attacks to do a wound, while that many return attacks kill 12 militia. Maybe you've got a militia squad with melee weapons and they have more attacks than the Legionaries, but do they have 12x as many attacks? Even if so, they die to overwatch so it's irrelevant.

 

Militia would need to cost 1 or maybe 2 points to compete with legionaries. But then you'd hit a new problem that you couldn't physically deploy your army on a table. You wouldn't be able to have any meaningful strategy except to do your best to move your army forwards and attack if you could. Blasts, flamers and your own exploding vehicles would cause carnage.

[Gorgoff]

1 hour ago, Mandragola said:

Unfortunately the maths just goes really wrong for militiamen against legionaries. On average it takes 18 BS3 lasgun shots to wound a 3+ save legionary. 18 bolter shots from BS4 legionaries kill 8 militia on average. Tactical marines fire their bolters more times than militia, thanks to fury of the legion - which they always benefit from when they react. 

 

In melee it's even worse for the militia as they will tend to hit on 5s. So now it requires 27 bayonet attacks to do a wound, while that many return attacks kill 12 militia. Maybe you've got a militia squad with melee weapons and they have more attacks than the Legionaries, but do they have 12x as many attacks? Even if so, they die to overwatch so it's irrelevant.

 

Militia would need to cost 1 or maybe 2 points to compete with legionaries. But then you'd hit a new problem that you couldn't physically deploy your army on a table. You wouldn't be able to have any meaningful strategy except to do your best to move your army forwards and attack if you could. Blasts, flamers and your own exploding vehicles would cause carnage.

Their tanks must get better again, their guns must be cheaper. Stuff like their weapon teams etc. 

 

[Brother Sutek]

IG codex from 6th or 7th with changes for 30k main rules and the 30k vehicles. Actual platoon rules that they removed in 8th + so you can't just buy chaff. With the caveat that certain doctrine allow for unending hordes etc. Also the vulture, Vendetta and Valkyrie...