Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm not on the stealing bandwagon. Such logic, to me, is nonsense.

 gwarsh41 wrote:


There is a trifecta of codex, it is the BA, SW and CSM codex. They are the assault books. Every time a new one is released, or one gets an update, the others start to play "count as" and proxy using the new ones rules. Every book gets a one up on the last book. You complain that wulfen are better than DC, while CSM complain that DC are better than berserkers. At the EXACT SAME TIME CSM complain that wulfen are better than posessed.


Ever single time a new marine book comes out, an older marine army will complain about it. This is nothing new.

Back in my day, SW were an outflank/sneaky army that were pretty good in CC. Now they are this giant hairy frozen hammer of doom that will destroy anything they touch... and can re-roll outflank that they don't have practical access to.

BA were not the first army, by your logic, they stole from some other codex.

The main reason why some of the marine armies that exist should just be rolled back into the sm book.

Martel,
The twice or more was about anything S6+ but not AP3. Scatter Lasers only kill Guard twice as fast, but Autocannons, for instance, kill them even faster.

Bharring wrote:
Martel,
The twice or more was about anything S6+ but not AP3. Scatter Lasers only kill Guard twice as fast, but Autocannons, for instance, kill them even faster.

Good thing autocannons are in second-rate lists for the most part. In general, standard Imperial heavy weapons are a non-sequitur in 7th ed. They are stuck in the 90s and can't kill enough before they are neutralized.

Because Autocannons are nowhere, but are Scatter Lasers more common than Bolt guns/pistols, Gauss weapons, Shuriken weapons, Pulse weapons, Lasguns, and Shootas?

Autocannons were just an example. For the vast majority of shots in this game, Marines are at least twice as durable. Often much, much more.

Bharring wrote:
Because Autocannons are nowhere, but are Scatter Lasers more common than Bolt guns/pistols, Gauss weapons, Shuriken weapons, Pulse weapons, Lasguns, and Shootas?

Autocannons were just an example. For the vast majority of shots in this game, Marines are at least twice as durable. Often much, much more.

And it's still not nearly, nearly enough. And there are a growing number of cases where they are no more durable at all, which is a straight up disaster for them. Guardsmen can't have disasters because there's nothing invested in them to begin with. At this point, we are almost better off with the cheapest model possible in 7th ed. Because everything dies in droves unless you are the chosen few units or MCs/GMCs.

"For the vast majority of shots in this game, Marines are at least twice as durable"

I'm not so sure this is true anymore in the games I play. Even if it were, being exactly twice as durable is actually being more fragile. Which basically means the marines are done.

Martel732 wrote:
You mean misfortune them, and then assault with DC?

Yep. Pretty much anything with volume of attacks and a lot of bodies synergizes well with Divination. Sanctic in particular for BA would help after that, buff that 4++ to 3++ (or 2++ for certain characters ) and add +2 Str on top of Furious Charge.

You can get 8x MLs in a dual CAD but it's horribly awkward compared to a Lib Conclave.

Martel732 wrote:

 Slaphead wrote:
Some really good points made by everyone. Fair doo's Chaos have had it a lot worse than BA's.

Hopefully Chaos players will have something good to use when the new codex FINALLY becomes released. Maybe GW are taking so long in bringing it out because there is a ton of work they need to do in updating it.

I think BA are worse than CSM at this exact moment. BA can't even drop units as durable as mutilators as we discussed in the other thread. BA are literally eclipsed by vanilla in every phase of the game.

Well, we had some similar discussion in our local club. There's gona be a blood orkangels vs white scar match some time later. I think DC and sanguinary guards are still good. Sang priests are great. The idea currently is to run msu DC with a fist, sang guard with cheap sang priest, some rhino marines for blos and bottlenecking, a bunch of min grav bikes cause BA still need range support and, well, you know, grav bikes. Also, some scouts to get on objectivest and to try to deny scout moves and infiltrations. VSG is a must in such a list, i think. There's likely gona be a melta drop in face of assault marines or tacticals. It's not outstanding but handy in such a list. We'll see how it goes.

I have some hesitation about ba chapter master. He's strong in combat, has H&R and has a potent warlord trait but he alone costs like a squad of sang guards+sang priest and it's hard to say what's better. He's probably great if you plan to DS a lot of stuff or have a lot of reserves otherwise.

Martel732 wrote:
"For the vast majority of shots in this game, Marines are at least twice as durable"

I'm not so sure this is true anymore in the games I play. Even if it were, being exactly twice as durable is actually being more fragile. Which basically means the marines are done.

The question is, twice as durable against what? If you're fighting a horde of Orks with shootas, for sure. But all the things that are scary in the game, they die like all the other things in the game that aren't scary.

True durability in the 40k comes down to models which die instantly to any number of attacks like D-Weapons, Instant Death, Stomps and all the killy SRs that are everywhere now -- and models which can survive a large percentage of these attacks. The durable models are the ones with invulnerable saves, automatic cover rolls, invisibility, or immunity from instant deletion. Preferably a whole bunch of those durable SRs. Generally, that comes down to heroes, great elites, and monstrous creatures.

Bharring still considers small arms a thing in this game, even though actual games show they really aren't.

Or, perhaps, I listed an example of something, and you took it to be categorical. Under that discussion, I was just pointing out that there exist things -seen in most games - where an SM has at least twice the per-body survivability.

Two points here, that you keep arguing against:
1) For most armies, the majority of the dakka kills Guard at least twice as fast.
What are the common armies in this game likely to have? More Scatter Lasers for Eldar than Wraith Cannons? Certainly. More Boltguns per Gladius than Grav? Almost certainly. More Tesla in a Decurion than Death marks(?)? Again, certainly.

2) Weapons *such as* Scatter Lasers that don't AP Marines include at least some weapons that can ki Guard at faster than twice as fast as Marines. I don't know how their existence is debatable.

You're reading further into things.

Even if something does AP the guard, does it matter? Cover is generally a 5+, so guard will often still roll the same save they paid for. Not so the marine.

Isn't "ignore cover everywhere"? =D

Martel732 wrote:

 Slaphead wrote:
Some really good points made by everyone. Fair doo's Chaos have had it a lot worse than BA's.

Hopefully Chaos players will have something good to use when the new codex FINALLY becomes released. Maybe GW are taking so long in bringing it out because there is a ton of work they need to do in updating it.

I think BA are worse than CSM at this exact moment. BA can't even drop units as durable as mutilators as we discussed in the other thread. BA are literally eclipsed by vanilla in every phase of the game.

I like how Terminators are gak and Assault Terminators are only slightly better to you and yet the 2 wound Terminator that has no guns to speak of and can't run to even get close to being able to assault - a method of killing you always decry as being impossible as it is for Terminators while also being terrible - is somehow really durable and awesomesauce compared to your entire codex.

I don't actually see that anywhere in the quoted text.

Knowledge from previous, similar threads.

 koooaei wrote:
Isn't "ignore cover everywhere"? =D

Sure, spend those two markerlight tokens to kill a 50 pt guardsman squad.

Just ignore the guardsmen. They're like mutilators, they're not going to hurt anything important even if they get in position to do so.

Man, threads like this really make me hope for a Warzone : Baal campaign to be coming out. Tyranids and Chaos Daemons are supposed to be converging on Baal now. Have it give BA some of the help they need. Super Formation that allows T1 Assault out of Deep Strike. Gimme some new units like Space Wolves are getting. Like a new flyer that is exclusive to Blood Angels or something really wild like Death Company Terminators (because...reasons), Death Company Bikers (because why not), or something to that effect.

Actually, the money unit: Death Company Centurions.

 koooaei wrote:
Isn't "ignore cover everywhere"? =D

Depends on the army. Tau have it in spades of course and any melee unit will ignore cover if it's good.
Wg D sycthes also ignore cover, as do flamers in general, although flamers aren't commonly picked. I think there might be a psyker power that allows it but I can't recall it off hand...most people reach for summoning, upping stats, teleporting, or re rolls it seems.

You'll notice I've never said ignore cover is everywhere. It's certainly more prevalent than it has ever been in the game, but it's still very army dependent. There certainly isn't enough in most armies to cause all of the guardsmen to lose their saves across the board. If it was one 400 point model relying on a cover save to live, sure, whatever ignores cover the army possesses will get thrown that way. Dropping 100 guardsmen is much harder.

I'm not sure why you used quotation marks?

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Slaphead wrote:
Some really good points made by everyone. Fair doo's Chaos have had it a lot worse than BA's.

Hopefully Chaos players will have something good to use when the new codex FINALLY becomes released. Maybe GW are taking so long in bringing it out because there is a ton of work they need to do in updating it.

I think BA are worse than CSM at this exact moment. BA can't even drop units as durable as mutilators as we discussed in the other thread. BA are literally eclipsed by vanilla in every phase of the game.

I like how Terminators are gak and Assault Terminators are only slightly better to you and yet the 2 wound Terminator that has no guns to speak of and can't run to even get close to being able to assault - a method of killing you always decry as being impossible as it is for Terminators while also being terrible - is somehow really durable and awesomesauce compared to your entire codex.

It's because I'm forced to buy 5 of them minimum. If I could buy two assault terminators and use them as tie-up losers, I would. It's all about efficiency. The grav devs or scatter bikes aren't nearly as good against squads of 1 or 2. In fact, if I could take 50 squads of one BA marine, things would improve a lot. But minimums of 5 make sure that grav devs or scatterbikes get their money's worth when they fire.

ASM with their packs cost a little more than 1 muti, or a little less than 2 mutis. They should be much more survivable than 1 muti, and a little less than 2. They can deep strike, but they can also run, move 12" in the movement phase, and even have a little shooting.

Have you considered running them as distraction/harassment?

BA may not do distraction-threats like CSM, but they do have options.

Aki,
That is why I said "twice or better" instead of "up to 3x better", when referring to what weapons that don't AP Marines do.

In general, if Guardsmen were so good, you'd see them more. If you saw them more, Marines would be better. As it sits, neither are a great option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, 5 Tac Marines are 70 points for Loyalists, 65 points for CSM, no huge difference.

When your options are even worse than CSM, that says a lot. Maybe with the Dante tax to offset the larger DS footprint. Maybe. For 105, you can get five men and two melta guns.

Bharring wrote:
ASM with their packs cost a little more than 1 muti, or a little less than 2 mutis. They should be much more survivable than 1 muti, and a little less than 2. They can deep strike, but they can also run, move 12" in the movement phase, and even have a little shooting.

Have you considered running them as distraction/harassment?

BA may not do distraction-threats like CSM, but they do have options.

Aki,
That is why I said "twice or better" instead of "up to 3x better", when referring to what weapons that don't AP Marines do.

In general, if Guardsmen were so good, you'd see them more. If you saw them more, Marines would be better. As it sits, neither are a great option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, 5 Tac Marines are 70 points for Loyalists, 65 points for CSM, no huge difference.

I agree that neither are good options, I was just pointing out that the Ap5 rarely comes up for guard.

It's a bigger deal for cultists, orks, and Nids because they want to reach cc and usually have to break cover to do so, being (mostly) slow. Guard can just hang back and let the wyverns take down targets while bubble wrapping to prevent charges to the tanks or Los being drawn. It's much easier for them to claim cover, and many ignores covers weapons that you see taken ignore armor too, with the exception of tau.

Ap 3 is a big deal for marines because they pay for a 3+ save that often gets demoted to a 5+ save, which is obviously worse. The fact that many Ap 3 weapons are better than strength 6 doesn't help.
Grav is also an issue of course.

That was my only point.


Edit,
I don't think BA have worse options than CSM by and large, though both armies are bottom of the barrel bad so it hardly matters who is slightly worse off.

It matters in CSM vs BA, LOL.

Not really, not in a major way. What's the matchup for dex pure between them, maybe 55 45 for one side or the other? It's relatively small and still dependent on list building, dice, and skill (probably in that order).

It's not like Eldar, tau, necron, or sm. heck, it's not even as bad as it would be against sisters or Nids.

I'm still trying to get that vassal game set up. Can BA MSU handle mutilator drop + raptors + spawn? CSM is a game where I think Dante would actually be pretty good. He kills all the raptors very quickly. DC seem to be reasonable against spawn as well.

You'll have to let me know how it goes or post a report. I'm not much impressed with mutilators or the reports they appeared in. Raptors are strictly inferior to bikes, spawn are great of course. I do think BA have some counters to spawn, but can't effectively counter the drake or bikes well, so it's a bit of a toss up.

Akiasura wrote:
You'll have to let me know how it goes or post a report. I'm not much impressed with mutilators or the reports they appeared in. Raptors are strictly inferior to bikes, spawn are great of course. I do think BA have some counters to spawn, but can't effectively counter the drake or bikes well, so it's a bit of a toss up.

I counter the drake by being in assault.

Still a few turns where it'll be doing work. It doesn't take long to earn the points back against marines, and it's hard for your entire army to be in melee and it works well against your entire army outside of terminators.

I'll still be spoiled by it not being a 360-degree hellturkey.