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 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


they can deal massive hurt on even decent armies like Orks, putting them firmly around mid tier - which qualifies as 'good' as far as I can tell.

Right, because space marines can't obliterate orks. SoB also have no real anti flyer, magic, assault units, are lower toughness, less choice of weapons, lack of units overall, no non-apoc formations, no way to deal with high toughness monsters aside from lucky melta/exorcist shots to name a few things. But yeah, space marines, a codex babyed by GW with awnsers to everything and anything are weaker. For sure, no doubt.

While I don't agree with him, you're either wilfully misunderstanding him, or just don't care to actually read what you're responding to.

He has said SM is the bottom of top tier, and Sisters is solid mid tier. I don't agree for one second, as Sisters are clearly stuck in bottom tier because, as both you and I have stated, they are lacking... basically everything except ground to ground shooting, and even that is very very limited, and is lacking any of the weapons introduced into the power creep after the mid 90s.

But he still hasn't said that SM is weaker than Sisters as you claim. Attack his arguments, but don't attack things you're making up that he said.

 Purifier wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


they can deal massive hurt on even decent armies like Orks, putting them firmly around mid tier - which qualifies as 'good' as far as I can tell.

Right, because space marines can't obliterate orks. SoB also have no real anti flyer, magic, assault units, are lower toughness, less choice of weapons, lack of units overall, no non-apoc formations, no way to deal with high toughness monsters aside from lucky melta/exorcist shots to name a few things. But yeah, space marines, a codex babyed by GW with awnsers to everything and anything are weaker. For sure, no doubt.

While I don't agree with him, you're either wilfully misunderstanding him, or just don't care to actually read what you're responding to.

He has said SM is the bottom of top tier, and Sisters is solid mid tier. I don't agree for one second, as Sisters are clearly stuck in bottom tier because, as both you and I have stated, they are lacking... basically everything except ground to ground shooting, and even that is very very limited, and is lacking any of the weapons introduced into the power creep after the mid 90s.

But he still hasn't said that SM is weaker than Sisters as you claim. Attack his arguments, but don't attack things you're making up that he said.

Can you directly quote him, im being completely honest here I can't find where he agreed that "space marines are top tier, just not the best". That's literally this entire argument, is that he SPECIFICALLY says they are weak, while saying sisters are good. He mentions no 'tier' regarding space marines in at least 2 pages of his previous posts, nor has he mentioned sm being powerful outside of the superfriends.

The enitre argument is based around him thinking that space marine codex is weak, comparing them to CSM: "SM are certainly not strong in and of themselves either."

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


they can deal massive hurt on even decent armies like Orks, putting them firmly around mid tier - which qualifies as 'good' as far as I can tell.

Right, because space marines can't obliterate orks. SoB also have no real anti flyer, magic, assault units, are lower toughness, less choice of weapons, lack of units overall, no non-apoc formations, no way to deal with high toughness monsters aside from lucky melta/exorcist shots to name a few things. But yeah, space marines, a codex babyed by GW with awnsers to everything and anything are weaker. For sure, no doubt.

While I don't agree with him, you're either wilfully misunderstanding him, or just don't care to actually read what you're responding to.

He has said SM is the bottom of top tier, and Sisters is solid mid tier. I don't agree for one second, as Sisters are clearly stuck in bottom tier because, as both you and I have stated, they are lacking... basically everything except ground to ground shooting, and even that is very very limited, and is lacking any of the weapons introduced into the power creep after the mid 90s.

But he still hasn't said that SM is weaker than Sisters as you claim. Attack his arguments, but don't attack things you're making up that he said.

Can you directly quote him, im being completely honest here I can't find where he agreed that "space marines are top tier, just not the best". That's literally this entire argument, is that he SPECIFICALLY says they are weak, while saying sisters are good. He mentions no 'tier' regarding space marines in at least 2 pages of his previous posts, nor has he mentioned sm being powerful outside of the superfriends.

The enitre argument is based around him thinking that space marine codex is weak, comparing them to CSM: "SM are certainly not strong in and of themselves either."

the Space Marines codex is extremely unimpressive compared to, say, Eldar

He's comparing it to Eldar when he's calling it weak.

He's comparing SoB to Orks when he's calling them strong.

Look, I think he has a completely skewed image of the strengths of the armies that exist (he also refers to Orks as a decent codex...) and he's trying too hard to make it that there is one special list that's strong, when there are several. It's not helping that he's also using the words "weak" and "strong" really arbitrarily, comparing to different things only mentioned in footnotes. But it's there if you care to read it.

I agree, he has no concept of codex power levels, but what I am tlaking about Purifier is where he said: "The Space Marine codex is a weak book with a few exploitable things, but those few things make up a small part of the whole codex."

To me, I see him as saying the SM codex is mid tier at best, if he did mean they are bottom of the top tier, I would still STRONGLY disagree, but at least thats more acceptable.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


they can deal massive hurt on even decent armies like Orks, putting them firmly around mid tier - which qualifies as 'good' as far as I can tell.

Right, because space marines can't obliterate orks. SoB also have no real anti flyer, magic, assault units, are lower toughness, less choice of weapons, lack of units overall, no non-apoc formations, no way to deal with high toughness monsters aside from lucky melta/exorcist shots to name a few things. But yeah, space marines, a codex babyed by GW with awnsers to everything and anything are weaker. For sure, no doubt.

Sisters of Battle have too few choices to what they can field to be a good take-all-comers list on their own, it's true. But the units they do have access to are generally good enough at what they do that there is one particular build that Sororitas can put together which is capable of wrecking a lot of armies out there. It can't hurt some of the most top-tier armies too much, but against most armies it does just fine.

The lack of choices doesn't mean much in regards to how powerful you are when the things you do have are generally pretty powerful. It just means that every competitive Sororitas army looks almost exactly the same, because there's only one way to play them competitively.

Sisters of Battle aren't a weak army at all. The reason you don't see more Sororitas armies around has everything to do with how expensive and hard to find the models are and nothing to do with how effective they actually are. Numerous people over the years on this forum have made a post starting with something like, "I finally faced my first Sisters of Battle army," and continuing with something like, "They were way stronger than I thought they'd be," and often mentions the Sororitas winning the game.

And in regards to assault units, Death-Cult Assassins wreck any Marines that don't have a 2+ save or Storm Shield. The level of butchery is beyond belief, and they do it for around the cost of a Tactical Marine per DCA with only a single Priest needed as a tax.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Purifier wrote:
He's comparing it to Eldar when he's calling it weak.

He's comparing SoB to Orks when he's calling them strong.

Look, I think he has a completely skewed image of the strengths of the armies that exist (he also refers to Orks as a decent codex...) and he's trying too hard to make it that there is one special list that's strong, when there are several. It's not helping that he's also using the words "weak" and "strong" really arbitrarily, comparing to different things only mentioned in footnotes. But it's there if you care to read it.

His comparisons aren't arbitrary, they're relative.

Sisters of Battle ARE strong compared to Orks. Space Marines ARE weak compared to Eldar.

Strong and weak are relative to begin with when it comes to power rankings. How Eldar currently are would be weak in a game where most of the armies are even more powerful than that, but that doesn't stop them from being really strong in the current game.

His comparisons aren't actually wrong, they're just choosing a reference point that suits his point. Saying that Sisters of Battle are weak compared to Eldar also wouldn't be wrong, it's just choosing a different reference point.

 Pouncey wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:


they can deal massive hurt on even decent armies like Orks, putting them firmly around mid tier - which qualifies as 'good' as far as I can tell.

Right, because space marines can't obliterate orks. SoB also have no real anti flyer, magic, assault units, are lower toughness, less choice of weapons, lack of units overall, no non-apoc formations, no way to deal with high toughness monsters aside from lucky melta/exorcist shots to name a few things. But yeah, space marines, a codex babyed by GW with awnsers to everything and anything are weaker. For sure, no doubt.

Sisters of Battle have too few choices to what they can field to be a good take-all-comers list on their own, it's true. But the units they do have access to are generally good enough at what they do that there is one particular build that Sororitas can put together which is capable of wrecking a lot of armies out there. It can't hurt some of the most top-tier armies too much, but against most armies it does just fine.

The lack of choices doesn't mean much in regards to how powerful you are when the things you do have are generally pretty powerful. It just means that every competitive Sororitas army looks almost exactly the same, because there's only one way to play them competitively.

Sisters of Battle aren't a weak army at all. The reason you don't see more Sororitas armies around has everything to do with how expensive and hard to find the models are and nothing to do with how effective they actually are. Numerous people over the years on this forum have made a post starting with something like, "I finally faced my first Sisters of Battle army," and continuing with something like, "They were way stronger than I thought they'd be," and often mentions the Sororitas winning the game.

That also helps sisters a lot, the unknown. Not many people know you can be jumping around with 5 flamers in a jumppack-star unit so they don't plan their moves accordingly. As a fairly decent sisters player I know know they can be quite good, but when people know what each of your units is capable of, they melt really fast. T3 space marines with no real toys to play with hurts them unfortunately.

alex0911 wrote:
Obviously, Dark eldar is the most powerful army.

They have many Str D weapons and a lot of differents ways to spam invisibility.

Just wait until we can get Vect's Castigators.... Then they'll see. They'll all see!

I think people just have a very skewed idea of what 'good' actually means.

When I said Space Marines, as an entirety of a codex, are not good, this was in the context of the top codices - Tau, Necrons, Eldar - which were the ones being discussed at that point.

Sisters of Battle are good in that they have at least a decent chance of victory against most codices in the game. I cannot say where exactly in the mid tier they are, but the fact that they are decisively stronger than true bottom tier codices - such as CSM - means that I am loath to place them there as well.

SoB are not literally monolist, they just have an utterly tiny unit roster and so very little in the way of options in their list building, and a few of the units that are there are absolute duds (Celestians for example).

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
That also helps sisters a lot, the unknown. Not many people know you can be jumping around with 5 flamers in a jumppack-star unit so they don't plan their moves accordingly. As a fairly decent sisters player I know know they can be quite good, but when people know what each of your units is capable of, they melt really fast. T3 space marines with no real toys to play with hurts them unfortunately.

That's a good point. Probably a great deal of the success Sororitas have in those situations is their capabilities being unknown, rather than being powerful.

I'm reminded of a character called Bastion in the video game called Overwatch. He's a rare case, where he becomes more effective at lower skill levels and weaker at higher skill levels, to the point where the top players in the world never use him because he's too easy to take out. Yet one particular player in a top-level tournament chose to use Bastion at one point and actually did very well with him, specifically because all the players at that skill level hadn't fought against him in months and hadn't kept up the skills to deal with him effectively. However, that didn't last long, as the opponents adapted within a few minutes and began to obliterate Bastion.

In short, it's valid to attribute the Sororitas' success more to unpreparedness on the enemy's part than any sort of strength the Sororitas themselves have.

If "marines"were good, ba would be good. They're not. There's a lot of terrible units in c:sm that lose to sisters and ig.

Martel732 wrote:
If "marines"were good, ba would be good. They're not. There's a lot of terrible units in c:sm that lose to sisters and ig.

Sisters of Battle have some very weird wargear options. Like taking a Stormbolter as a special weapon. I get that it factors into the holy trinity of bolter-melta-flamer, but it's so utterly pointless as a squad's special weapon that even players who love the army's lore more than they do making a powerful army avoid it because the rest of the squad fulfills the "bolter" portion of the holy trinity just fine. The only thing it offers over not taking a special weapon at all is an extra shot from 12-24", another extra shot at that range when moving, and the ability to fire it before charging. For the price, it's not terrible, but you could also take a meltagun or flamer for not too much more.

To be fair, Sternguard Veterans can also take stormbolters, for whom it is an outright downgrade.

 Ashiraya wrote:
To be fair, Sternguard Veterans can also take stormbolters, for whom it is an outright downgrade.

...Yup. That's WAY dumber.

Who's writing these Codexes and do they actually play the game they're writing rules for?

 Pouncey wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
That also helps sisters a lot, the unknown. Not many people know you can be jumping around with 5 flamers in a jumppack-star unit so they don't plan their moves accordingly. As a fairly decent sisters player I know know they can be quite good, but when people know what each of your units is capable of, they melt really fast. T3 space marines with no real toys to play with hurts them unfortunately.

That's a good point. Probably a great deal of the success Sororitas have in those situations is their capabilities being unknown, rather than being powerful.

I'm reminded of a character called Bastion in the video game called Overwatch. He's a rare case, where he becomes more effective at lower skill levels and weaker at higher skill levels, to the point where the top players in the world never use him because he's too easy to take out. Yet one particular player in a top-level tournament chose to use Bastion at one point and actually did very well with him, specifically because all the players at that skill level hadn't fought against him in months and hadn't kept up the skills to deal with him effectively. However, that didn't last long, as the opponents adapted within a few minutes and began to obliterate Bastion.

In short, it's valid to attribute the Sororitas' success more to unpreparedness on the enemy's part than any sort of strength the Sororitas themselves have.

Precisely. I play overwatch and use bastion quite a bit, the amount of people who cry overpowered even when he gets wrecked by 3/4 of the hero roster is just amazingly funny to me, their tears fuel me! On a different note once I figure out a decent colour scheme ill get to play with them more and get more 'tactical' but there isn't a lot we can do without allys, and I absolutely refuse to play other imperium.

 cosmicsoybean wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

 cosmicsoybean wrote:
That also helps sisters a lot, the unknown. Not many people know you can be jumping around with 5 flamers in a jumppack-star unit so they don't plan their moves accordingly. As a fairly decent sisters player I know know they can be quite good, but when people know what each of your units is capable of, they melt really fast. T3 space marines with no real toys to play with hurts them unfortunately.

That's a good point. Probably a great deal of the success Sororitas have in those situations is their capabilities being unknown, rather than being powerful.

I'm reminded of a character called Bastion in the video game called Overwatch. He's a rare case, where he becomes more effective at lower skill levels and weaker at higher skill levels, to the point where the top players in the world never use him because he's too easy to take out. Yet one particular player in a top-level tournament chose to use Bastion at one point and actually did very well with him, specifically because all the players at that skill level hadn't fought against him in months and hadn't kept up the skills to deal with him effectively. However, that didn't last long, as the opponents adapted within a few minutes and began to obliterate Bastion.

In short, it's valid to attribute the Sororitas' success more to unpreparedness on the enemy's part than any sort of strength the Sororitas themselves have.

Precisely. I play overwatch and use bastion quite a bit, the amount of people who cry overpowered even when he gets wrecked by 3/4 of the hero roster is just amazingly funny to me, their tears fuel me! On a different note once I figure out a decent colour scheme ill get to play with them more and get more 'tactical' but there isn't a lot we can do without allys, and I absolutely refuse to play other imperium.

The thing about that is, because Quick Play in Overwatch uses an MMR system that actually succeeds very very well in pairing opponents of equal skill together, complaints of Bastion being overpowered in the lower-end MMR brackets are actually legitimate complaints. Players at those skill levels aren't good enough to actually counter him effectively. The fact that more skilled players can deal with him fairly easily is irrelevant, because the complaints are coming from players in a skill bracket where NO ONE is that good. It's not a matter of an individual player or team being unwilling to deal with him properly, it's that at that skill level, everyone is too bad at the game to deal with him. If someone in the bracket actually gets good enough to beat Bastion, they're moved out of the bracket to an MMR range where everyone can beat him.

 Ashiraya wrote:
I think people just have a very skewed idea of what 'good' actually means.

When I said Space Marines, as an entirety of a codex, are not good, this was in the context of the top codices - Tau, Necrons, Eldar - which were the ones being discussed at that point.

Sisters of Battle are good in that they have at least a decent chance of victory against most codices in the game. I cannot say where exactly in the mid tier they are, but the fact that they are decisively stronger than true bottom tier codices - such as CSM - means that I am loath to place them there as well.

SoB are not literally monolist, they just have an utterly tiny unit roster and so very little in the way of options in their list building, and a few of the units that are there are absolute duds (Celestians for example).

And this is also completely false, since typically you're only comparing the Vanilla codex as a whole, to only the most powerful lists of the other top books...
Take an Eldar army that includes no Wraithknight/D-scythes, and only 0-1 Scatbike/Warp Spider units, and suddenly even a basic CAD Marine list is more than competitive against it. Likewise, non-Gladius or Superfriends/formation abuse Marines are only junk vs. Necrons when the Necron player is still playing a full-on Decurion. Against a basic CAD 'Cron force, the majority of the Marine codex is perfectly viable.

Tau are simply an outlier. Their whole schtick of being a mobile gunline in an edition that massively favours shooting vs. chopping, on top of a couple awful mechanics (*cough*markerlights&interceptorspam*cough*) makes them unfair to most of the game.

Marines are definitely able to play on-par with Eldar & especially Necrons/other Marines for the most part, and with a variety of list types as well. (granted, a fully gouda'ed Wraithknight + MSU Scatbike & Warp Spider + Riptide wing army will murder pretty much anything Marines can come up with!)

But they are in no way the lowest rung of the top tier! Marines like Eldar, are the go-to army when aiming to outright win at tournaments. Tau, Necrons & Daemons are almost entirely just spoiler armies, who tend to determine which Marine or Eldar army gets the top spot over the others.

"Take an Eldar army that includes no Wraithknight/D-scythes, and only 0-1 Scatbike/Warp Spider units, and suddenly even a basic CAD Marine list is more than competitive against it. "

It really isn't. The majority of the marine codex isn't viable in a general sense. As in, can't do their jobs at all. I know this, because all those units are in C:BA. And none of the good units/combos.

Experiment 626 wrote:

And this is also completely false

No, it is not. The core of the Space Marine codex - units like predators, whirlwinds, tactical marines, rhinos, assault marines, devastators, scouts, captains, chaplains, sternguard veterans, vanguard veterans, terminators, assault terminators, land raiders, and so on are decisively mediocre and really not all that much better than their CSM counterparts. They have small advantages (chapter tactics and POTMS in exchange for a few extra points, etc) but in context the difference is minimal. Even with only Wraithcannon WGs, and without WKs/scatterbikes/warpspiders, Eldar are considerably more powerful overall - the SM codex has a few gimmicks that drags it up from the dirt (skyhammer, psychic powers, superfriends, etc) that are able to compete with Eldar, but if we exclude those gimmicks (and exclude the top Eldar picks too like you suggest, for fairness) the result is still that a fairly normal Eldar army with, say, a Farseer, some Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents, Shuricannon Jetbikes, War Walkers, maybe a couple of Hornets, Crimson Hunters and a couple of Fire Prisms will have the odds firmly in its favour.