Kyrt, aAll good points and well presented.

One of the other reasons that "pop-corn" lists do not do so well in tournaments is the high number of activations which takes significantly longer to play and need some extra 'thinking' time to play against. This makes them more prone than "normal" lists to draws or losses in the time we usually have at our disposal.

I now agree this sort of approach to list building could be an issue, and am posting it here in this thread rather than in the more recent SM threads to prevent the topic leaking out into other discussions

In particular, an Adeptus Astartes scout list has the potential to be better than a Space Marine army based on actual Space Marines, simply because Scouts are much better value for points and feature some of the game's best rules, and because the activation count can be driven up so high while still being pretty resilient and covering so much of the table.

I'd imagine the majority of players either don't think scouts are OP or don't think it's much of an issue if they are since they don't get spammed in their metagame. Where I play SM are virtually all air-assault, so scouts and their alleged balance-issues are not seen as a hot-button topic.

Have any practical solutions been considered or suggested, eg dropping Infiltrate from the scout's special rule list as a minor nerf, 0-5 restrictions, formations of 5 scouts instead of 4 (and price adjusted for the extra member) etc?

I would be happy to seeing Scouts go to 175, I argued for it back when we were discussing the 2012 marine changes.

Or (better but unlikely to happen) loose the option for Scouts having Rhinos and Razorbacks entirely (which outside of Epic have never been available to Scouts as transports) and give them the option of taking 4 Land Speeder Storms as transport, the dedicated Scout transport speeder (armed with a Heavy Bolter and a short ranged blind-grenade launcher that'd give disrupt to it's small arms attack). Having 150 foot sloggers and having to pay 250 to have mobile Scouts would limit them a fair bit more.

Restricting them to footslogging would certainly make scouts much more like the archetypal, well, scout. Rather than the "mechanised infantry that can start halfway up the board" they currently are. Also lower model count makes them more brittle, which again is a common weakness of scout formations. Chances of it happening in the codex list, probably close to zero I guess it could be done in a separate "modern" list including LS storms, new flyers etc.

Please no disrupt on a FF weapon though, I really don't want to have to deal with that headache, nor set that precedent:

I really don't see how grenades significantly disrupt the command and control of a formation any more than being fired upon in general. They're useful for creating a short-term advantage in the actual fighting, which is very different.

I'm a firm believer in giving a unit/weapon an ability because you want to represent a specific effect in the game, not because the name of the ability sounds vaguely suitable.

There's no natural way for disrupt to work in an engagement, so it's basically yet another special rule to represent something that can just as easily be incorporated into a FF or CC value.

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I was referring to the Cerberus Grenade Launcher, not to throwing actual grenades into a fight, which would obviously be irrelevant. Like the Tornado the Storm has a secondary underslung gun, in it's case the Cerberus, which covers a large area with "anti-sensory munitions that blind and disorient the foe." In 40k it has range 18", a large blast template with a negligible strength of 2 and the 'blind' special rule. Blinding and disorientating sounds like disrupt to me and seems appropriate for Scouts.

It could work by adding the following to their unit note: "If their formation looses an assault apply one blast marker for each firefight hit from a Land Speeder Storm instead of for each kill they cause." If they win their opponent just breaks and this wouldn't be relevant.

Or, it would be more conventional, if a bit more powerful, to make it a 15cm AP6+ disrupt attack.

I would think +100 for 4 Storms, so the formation would become a fair bit costlier.

I'd imagine it'd be best simulated by providing a first strike FF attack

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2+ init. does solve all the problems without affecting unit composition (long standed painted armies), nor point cost (activation count), nor usefulness.

It just gives a solid reason to field tacticals instead for the core of your army.

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It would preserve army size / points. It doesn't make them necessarily attractive to a player in the same way thus causing reorganization of the army. However it is likely the least onerous change.

I disagree that it will cause more tactical formations. I'd allot more for Devastators.

If I was to write a Codex Marines Redux alternative list, the tactical formation would unlock additional access to additional formations. For instance, a tactical formation then allows a devastator or assault formation from the core.

anyways I am getting off topic.

I think what might be easier is simply allowing one scout formation per tactical or devastator taken. This seems on the surface to be about the rough ratio non-beardy lists seem to take at max. Most people it seems have 1 or 2 at 3k.

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Whether the weapon is hand grenades or a grenade launcher isn't really relevant to what I was saying. My point is that if it is a weapon that is only useful in firefight, it shouldn't have disrupt because disrupt is about an effect on command and control. It is not an actual fighting mechanic, and shouldn't be added just because a weapon "sounds like disrupt". Obvoiously there are plenty of disrupt weapons already, none of which translate to a disrupt effect in FF.


Sounds like a right pain, and I genuinely don't see why the fact that you got blinded during the fight would have any lasting effects afterwards, but surviving being shot wouldn't. I really think you are missing something in between "hey, blind grenades sound disrupty" and the actual effect of disrupt in the game that you are outlining here with this wording. Assaults are not about "this unit whacked that one over the head and now it is dead", they are very abstracted.

Much preferred IMO, if indeed the weapon needs to be represented in Epic's shooting mechanic (I don't play 40K so I can't comment). I don't see why having a decent firefight score isn't enough though (or first strike if necessary).

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IMO this is a non-topic until somebody actually shows scout spamming is a problem, I've very rarely seen more than 2 formations at 3k and those that have had more have done very poorly. If there was a problem a points increase would just reduce tacticals as players would save points by moving to devastators.

As it is though all we have is conjecture as a problem has never been shown to be present. Like with so many other issues - decimators, subjugators, scouts, thawks show the problem with playtests or drop it if you can't or won't.

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Dobbsy stated he wanted tournament wins from a list before anything would be considered an issue.

So playtests are worthless for pointing out abuses of the SM list.

With regards to the Chaos issues you mention, the problem is altogether different, and I refer you to the numerous posts in the Chaos section.

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Well I'd love to help you illustrate the issue, but Scout spam isn't a problem in my area and is very unlikely to be become popular unless someone wins a tournament with it.
So attempting to fix the problem here would cause the problem here. Catch 22

It sounds interesting and I hate popcorn armies so I'm going to try a few games using this monstrosity if I can fit them in. Also it sounds like a good chance to actually use a Warlord at 3K.

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I believe you must be paraphrasing here because I don't recall using that sentence....

What exactly did I say?

SM lists - rubbish I'm sure if play testing illustrated a problem rather than conjecture Dobbsy would look at it

Chaos lists - exactly the same issue occurred, repeated hijacking of threads, shouting about issues etc but no playtesting to ever back it up.

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