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.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
because tac marines are not great for their points in general.

BWAHAHAAH!

Do you think repeating a great big lie often enough will actually make it true? Or do you just believe the lie yourself?

What more could you possibly want from them?

"There are larger statistical numbers than Marines have, therefore Marines aren't good." You so crazy, internet.

Tac marines' big achilles heel is their offense/pt. They have a bunch of gear that rarely comes up in an actual game. That is to say, rarely comes up while being shot to death outside of assault range. Basically marine lists pay for premium troops in a game about offensive power that are no good at offense.

Bg wrote:
Things Tac marines can handle?
Fire warriors
Kroot
Arguably Necron Warriors (same tier at least)
Ork Shoota Boys
Ork Choppa Boys
Termagaunts
Hormagaunts
Genestealers
Guardsmen
Corsairs
Guardians
Windriders
Rangers
Dire Avengers
Wraithguard
Kalabite Warriors
Wyches
Harlequins

And that's just troops. Off the top of my head.

Windriders make tournament lists, as do any Eldar unit that can take Serpents. Unlike TACs, they can threaten Bikes to jink, and plink away at Monsters. Guard get orders, hymns, superior base transports...

Tyranid troops are D-grade. Barring Orks, no other army has troops that can wipe out half their own unit.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
because tac marines are not great for their points in general.

BWAHAHAAH!

Do you think repeating a great big lie often enough will actually make it true? Or do you just believe the lie yourself?

I don't know about Poly Ranger, but you seem an expert in the field...

Points for points
10 tacticals with 0 upgrades (including heavy weapons and special weapnos) vs same points cost in Shoota boyz, 20.

starting out at 24 inch range.

turn 1 orks, move forward 6 fire off maximum shot (40) 13ish hit 6ish wound. 6 wounds = 2 dead marines

8 marines go backwards 6 and fire 8 shots hitting about 5-6 times and wounding 2-3 times meaning 2-3 dead orks.

Turn 2 Orks move foward 6 fire maximum shots (36) 12 hits 6 wounds and another 2 dead marines

6 marines go back 6 inches and fire 4 hits and 2 dead orks.

Turn 3 Orks move forward 6 fire maximum shots (32) 10 hits 5 wounds 1-2 dead marines.

Marines rinse and repeat and get 5 shots 3-4 hits and 2ish dead orks

Turn 4 orks move forward 6 fire maximum shots (26) about 8 hits 4 wounds maybe 1 dead marine.

Marines same thing firing 4 shots 3 hits and 1-2 dead orks.

After 4 turns the orks are down to 11ish boyz and the marines are down to 5. thats with 0 upgrades and going by rough statistics. if you throw in heavy weapons and add shoota boyz for the cost increase then the marines win EASILY, furthermore, if the Marines get to go first then its even more one sided. So i would say Tac Marines can win against Ork shoota boyz and if not they at least hold their own.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ohh and side note to mob rule:

turn 1 space marines close to 12 inches (dangerous because then your in assault range) and fire a 2 shots at 12inches you will get 20ish shots 7ish hits and 4 dead orks which means morale check, chances are they fail and then mob rule takes effect 3 hits and 1-2 wounds and even more dead orks.

The Orks in your own example are killing more points of marines each turn than the marine can kill of Orks in a turn. The marines firepower is dropping faster than the Orks. In your own example.

Yep they are martel, but not at any kind of significant rate, and at any point if the marine rolled lucky and managed to inflict 25% casualties he would force a morale check on the orks that they would most likely fail and then they would kill 1-6 of their own boyz and boom the tide has turned.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Yep they are martel, but not at any kind of significant rate, and at any point if the marine rolled lucky and managed to inflict 25% casualties he would force a morale check on the orks that they would most likely fail and then they would kill 1-6 of their own boyz and boom the tide has turned.

I think losing points twice as quickly is a very significant rate. Even down at 14 boyz, the marines have to score 4 kills to force a morale test. The best shot for this is the first turn, but it's incredibly unlikely for 10 bolter shots to kill 5 Orks. Plus your whole scenario goes sideways quickly if the Orks are in no-cost cover.

And the entire scenario goes the OTHER way if we factor in that it is incredibly hard to get 20 ork boyz all in range if your at the max of 18' So instead of all 20 orks shooting it may be as few as 4 or 5 but I didn't throw in all these other factors because it would confuse the issue to much and throw in way to many variables that go both ways.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you want to start throwing in random crap lets give the tacs a Heavy bolter and start them out at 36 inches, give the marines 2 turns of free shooting with a heavy bolter. 2 hits 1-2 wounds each time so that by the time the orks are actually in range they have lost about 3 of their number and when they reach 24 inches they get hit with 9 bolters meaning 3 more dead orks so 15 remaining(when you throw in the extra boy for the price of a Heavy Bolter) and now the contest is going the complete other way. And again we could throw in another variable and give the shoota boyz 2 Big shootas and blah blah blah it can go on and on, dont throw factors into the equation unless you want to spend 20 hours working out every little detail.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
And the entire scenario goes the OTHER way if we factor in that it is incredibly hard to get 20 ork boyz all in range if your at the max of 18' So instead of all 20 orks shooting it may be as few as 4 or 5 but I didn't throw in all these other factors because it would confuse the issue to much and throw in way to many variables that go both ways.

Movement for horde armies is certainly one of the big limitations they have. But there's a lot of power in having those wounds to give.

But I think it's telling that in your own base example, the marines will lose.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
because tac marines are not great for their points in general.

BWAHAHAAH!

Do you think repeating a great big lie often enough will actually make it true? Or do you just believe the lie yourself?

What more could you possibly want from them?

"There are larger statistical numbers than Marines have, therefore Marines aren't good." You so crazy, internet.

So by that logic you are saying Tac marines are GREAT for their points?
Also bit of a harsh post, if you would check my post history before you include me in your sweeping generalizations, you would realise that whilst I do not believe Tac marines to be great, I do not complain about them and try to buff them. If you also actually read PAST the part you quoted you would realise that I was AGAINST the buff.
As Martel states they have pretty poor offensive capability per point. Their defensive stats aren't fantastic per point either. I have never seen a tac heavy list win a game, ever. In fact on the rare occassions I have gone tac heavy (long time ago), I have been absolutely mullered! I have however seen necron warrior, eldar jetbike, ork boy, IG vet and IG AB russ heavy lists win games regularly if just talking about troops.
Now my armies include Necrons, CSMs (even worse marines), Renegades and BA (always with scouts despite owning a ton of tacs). So I am not saying this from a biased standpoint as I do not use them, and even if they were buffed, scouts would still compliment my BA playstyle more. I have nothing to gain from this, so please do not revert to such base insults as calling me a liar.

Also your quoted section at the end makes no gramatical or logical sense and I struggle to comprehend what you are saying. Please can you put some more effort into being more literate? Thank you.

I once borrowed by buddies models and proxied some Lascannons and ran a 1,500 unbound list of almost entirely tac marines combat squaded with veteran sergeants/PS and Flamer/Lascannon. God its been a long time but I think it was something like 8 tactical squads ish....either way my first turn i killed all my opponents transports and light armor and the next killed his armor. From that point onward i just let him walk towards me and whittled him down until my Veteran Sergeant and flamer with 3 other marines got in range and then just went to town on the remaining troops. Yeah it was unbound and all but its still fun to play like that :-P

 Ghazkuul wrote:
I once borrowed by buddies models and proxied some Lascannons and ran a 1,500 unbound list of almost entirely tac marines combat squaded with veteran sergeants/PS and Flamer/Lascannon. God its been a long time but I think it was something like 8 tactical squads ish....either way my first turn i killed all my opponents transports and light armor and the next killed his armor. From that point onward i just let him walk towards me and whittled him down until my Veteran Sergeant and flamer with 3 other marines got in range and then just went to town on the remaining troops. Yeah it was unbound and all but its still fun to play like that :-P

I'm pretty confident that my standard BA lists would table that list. 8 las cannons is not nearly enough to keep my lists from closing. I face many times that much fire from Eldar week in week out.

good for you martel.

The last time I played tac heavy was against the old eldar dex (the one that wasn't that great). My opponent took 3 wraithlords, karendras + scorps with a freekin 2++ reroll, avatar, seer council, 2 fire prisms, 3 warwalkers (2k pts so 2 detachments), and pathfinders. My tacs could do absolutely nothing. And that's not exactly an optimized eldar list either.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
good for you martel.

I don't think you understand the implication of that problem, though. 8 tac squads are miserable in hand to hand.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The last time I played tac heavy was against the old eldar dex (the one that wasn't that great). My opponent took 3 wraithlords, karendras + scorps with a freekin 2++ reroll, avatar, seer council, 2 fire prisms, 3 warwalkers (2k pts so 2 detachments), and pathfinders. My tacs could do absolutely nothing. And that's not exactly an optimized eldar list either.

The 4th ed Eldar codex still had some nasty builds in 5th. Particularly if your maps had ruins.

Yeah come to that and my renegades will be taking 3x that number of lascannons and will also have artillery, lots of spawn and tons of cheap chaff units. It'd butcher 8 tac units. Saying 'good for you martel' doesn't change his point.

nor does it change my point, it was a for fun game and we both played to have fun and to win and the tac marines whooped butt.

It was in 6th before the new eldar dex dropped.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anything can do well in a fun fluffy game, even pyrovores. Doesn't make them great.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
nor does it change my point, it was a for fun game and we both played to have fun and to win and the tac marines whooped butt.

That's not really a point. Analysis of uncompetitive situations is pretty meaningless.

I will say that I feel that marines are very much painted into a mathematical corner that won't be escaped without a total rules rebuild.

There is a way to escape it Martel... take scouts :-p. I gave up on tacs a loooong time ago.

When was the last time you saw a Genestealer heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Ranger heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Wych heavy list do well?

Tac heavy lists will out perform those troop heavy lists quite regularly. Especially head to head.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Yep they are martel, but not at any kind of significant rate, and at any point if the marine rolled lucky and managed to inflict 25% casualties he would force a morale check on the orks that they would most likely fail and then they would kill 1-6 of their own boyz and boom the tide has turned.

If I haven't fethed up the calculations (which well could be the case) the Orks have a standard deviation on their to-hit roll of ~2.98, or 7.45% of their total output, whereas the corresponding value for the Marines is ~1.49, or 14.9% of their total output. I still kinda suck at calculating standard deviation though, so someone who's better at it than me is more than welcome to fix it if it's wrong, but if it's right then Shoota Boyz are twice as good at reliably putting out S4 hits as Marines.

They're also by far more consistent in that it is highly unlikely that one would have a unit of Boyz crippled by one bad roll of dice, whereas each extra that shows up for a Space Marine player is a significant blow.

Bharring wrote:
When was the last time you saw a Genestealer heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Ranger heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Wych heavy list do well?

Tac heavy lists will out perform those troop heavy lists quite regularly. Especially head to head.

I agree. What I merely said was that they are not great. Not once have I said they are the worst. On the flip side of the coin, Eldar have access to more in troops than rangers, Dark eldar have more in troops than Wych's, and 'nids have more in troops than 'stealers. Marines only have tacs and scouts (and bikes if you take C:SM with an unlock character). Both bikes and scouts are worth their points, just like other armies extra options. Tacs imo are the poorer choice.

Bharring wrote:
When was the last time you saw a Genestealer heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Ranger heavy list do well?

When was the last time you saw a Wych heavy list do well?

Tac heavy lists will out perform those troop heavy lists quite regularly. Especially head to head.

I'd agree with head to head, but not in general. Failure is failure.

(2/3)(1/2)(1) = 1/3 dead Ork per Marine shot
(1/3)(1/2)(1/3) = 1/18 dead Marines per Ork shot

What am I missing? Even in Xenos fantasy land, where Marines never manage to leave that 12-18" sourspot, isn't it still 3 dead Orks for every Marine? And 6x3 is still more than 14x1.

Also, yes, each '1' you roll counts more against Marines than Orkz. I'm not sure that the standard deviation is that relevant here. How many times that do you have to be to tie it up? Probably not huge, but definitely large enough.

And while Orkz might get shafted by a couple bad dice rolls less than Marines, they are almost infinitely more shafted than Marines on Morale. Heck, most of the time if you're meeting them in the middle like this, you would *want* to break on their.movement phase as Marines.

I must be missing something huge here, because the numbers don't look close.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry, Martel, but didn't Tac spam win the BAO recently? And several of us see it from time to time. So Tac spam list wins aren't zero. So there is definitely room for things to be worse than Tac spam.

Do any of you think tac marines are GREAT? If not then I do not understand what we are disagreeing upon. I will state again - I am against the OPs buff on tacs weaponary. Can somebody please explain to me where the disagreement lies?
If you think tacs are GREAT then yes we are in disagreement.

I would only agree to this if CSM gets shred bolters as well. Do heavy bolters get shred?

Havocs with 4 heavy bolters would be a viable thing!

1/18 * 40 shots = 2.222 * 14 pts = 31 pts lost

1/3 * 10 shots = 3.3333 * 6 pts = 20 pts lost

The marines lose 22.2% of their firepower in the first exchange, and the Orks lose 16.6% of their firepower in the first exchange. It gets worse from there.

Standard deviation is actually huge for marines. See, marines can experience "the turn". This is a turn in which meaningful statistical deviation from armor saves makes you straight up lose because you lost too much of your firepower in a single turn.

I think they are that:
1) Tacs are worse than [insert troop of choice]
2) whether to buff Tacs or not.

#2 is the point of the thread.

In discussing #2, a basic thought gets expressed a number of ways:
If,
A beats B
B beats C
A beats C
Should we buff B? Why them instead of nerfing A or buffing C?

That then begets arguments of if Tacs are closer to 'B' or 'C'.

That then gets implications from some that Tacs are 'A', and others that Tacs are 'C'.

So more comparisons to other units.

(Tacs are strong 'B' units, trumping a lot of troops IMO)

And around and around we go.

If only the game were called "trumping troops".

So it seems like most people don't like giving bolters shred, myself included. I feel like we're stuck in a kind of limbo with no way to make S4 shooting with no special rules mean much anymore. Maybe for heavy bolters, though.