usefulness of a 3+ save.

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**gummyofallbears**

so I was reading around on the interwebs, and have found multiple occasions of people saying that marines are below average when it comes to survivability. Where does this notion come from?

Marines, or T4 3+ saves are IMHO above average in survivability, and much harder to kill than any other troop (bar decurion warriors and GK termies). On average it takes 30 wounds to kill a tactical squad, and with T4, that is not easy.

Although they will die, how does this mean that they are not survivable, and if it does, what should I expect as a troop that could survive shooting?

happy wargaming,

-Mikey

**Kharne the Befriender**

It's decent, but you have to worry about ap3 weaponry, so I'd say make good use of cover when possible

**Melissia**

It's a massive improvement in survivability. As someone who has played Sisters (T3 3+sv), Guard (T3, 5+sv, which is ignored by most weapons), and Orks (T4, essentially no armor at all), in my experience, the 3+ save makes a massive difference-- and so does the T4.

**Kharne the Befriender**

From a 4+ or from nothing?

**Melissia**

Kharne the Befriender wrote:
From a 4+ or from nothing?

Yes. 4+ gets ignored by heavy flamers and other such weapons. 3+ is ignored only by a few specialist weapons, and anti-tank weapons. But if they're aiming anti-tank weapons at your 3+ save infantry, they're not aiming them at your tanks, so it's okay.

**Kharne the Befriender**

Well from those armies I agree, but I play necrons which have T4 and usually a 3or 4+ save

**Melissia**

You're playing Necrons and complaining about survivability issues?

You're doing it wrong.

**vipoid**

I think it probably depends a little on how expensive the model is and what sort of incoming fire it can expect. e.g. a 3+ save will probably be more useful on a marine than, say, a MC - because the latter will already be a target for powerful weapons that will ignore its save anyway.

That being said, whilst they might not seem too useful, I think 3+ saves are the sort of thing that you'd really miss if they were taken away. e.g. if the aforementioned MC went down to a 5+ save, then suddenly autocannons are 3 times as effective against it, and poison will just shred it.

**Kharne the Befriender**

I've had it to where I've failed every reanimation protocol

**CrownAxe**

Kharne the Befriender wrote:
I've had it to where I've failed every reanimation protocol

Which is an example of bad luck, not proof that necrons lack survivability

**Kharne the Befriender**

Exactly, damn the dice Gods!

**sub-zero**

If you are worried about survivability against AP3 weapons, just take rubric marines, they come with a 3+ 4++ standard.

**Rihgu**

Melissia wrote:
Kharne the Befriender wrote:
From a 4+ or from nothing?
Yes. 4+ gets ignored by heavy flamers and other such weapons. 3+ is ignored only by a few specialist weapons, and anti-tank weapons. But if they're aiming anti-tank weapons at your 3+ save infantry, they're not aiming them at your tanks, so it's okay.

3+ is ignored by many specialist weapons (and for at least 2 armies, the basic troop weapons, although Bladestorm is only a chance of triggering), many of them of large range and being blasts/large blasts.

**Jayden63**

While there are some weapons that ignore 3+ saves on platforms that may be a little too numerous, I've found that there is no substitution for the 3+ save when dealing with all the other little things. dangerous terrain wounds, exploding vehicle wounds, get hot wounds, none specialist CC wounds, etc.

I know just how devastating vehicle explosions are for my orks, and Tau armies.

**Unit1126PLL**

Rihgu wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Kharne the Befriender wrote:
From a 4+ or from nothing?
Yes. 4+ gets ignored by heavy flamers and other such weapons. 3+ is ignored only by a few specialist weapons, and anti-tank weapons. But if they're aiming anti-tank weapons at your 3+ save infantry, they're not aiming them at your tanks, so it's okay.

3+ is ignored by many specialist weapons (and for at least 2 armies, the basic troop weapons, although Bladestorm is only a chance of triggering), many of them of large range and being blasts/large blasts.

Let's use Imperial Guard as an example.

Does not ignore 3+:
Lasgun, laspistol, heavy stubber, heavy bolter, autocannon, mortar, frag missile, flak missile, storm bolter, sniper rifle, krak grenade, frag grenade, flamer, heavy flamer, multiple rocket pods, multilasers, Hellhound flamethrower, Stormshard mortars, frag launchers, ripper guns, Exterminator autocannon, punisher cannon, Manticore missile, boltgun, bolt pistol

Ignores 3+
Melta, plasma, battlecannon, demolister cannon, executioner plasma cannon, Vanquisher cannon, Earthshaker cannon, lascannon, krak missile, Deathstrike missile, hotshot lasgun, hotshot laspistol

I must be missing some, but you get the idea.

**gummyofallbears**

exactly my point. You need to shoot marines with dedicated anti tank weapons or the occasional AP3 flamer or special gun (rubric marines for example, or scions) to really kill them. They will pass 2/3 of the saves you make them take, yet I still see people constantly say they are not very survivable.

**CrownAxe**

I find the problem with 3+ saves isn't that it is bad or that ap3 is abundant. It's that the units with 3+ are paying a premium for it. As a result they are usually "fragile for the price" and not just fragile in general. Especially when the price they pay for armor usually cuts in to their damage output and mobility.

**Poly Ranger**

I think when people say below average they are referring to points to survivability ratio. Yes an ork is 3 times more vulnerable to ap4, 5 and 6 weaponary but costs a lot less (and three orks whilst costing slightly more bring many more attacks). And SMs are just as vulnerable as a 6pt ork to ap1, 2 and 3.
I personally think that whilst straight out SMs are only slightly less than average for point to survivability ratio, this completely fails to take into account ATSKNF. Not being able to be swept and auto rallying bumps up the survivability by a large margin.

**Luke_Prowler**

The 3+ is very useful again the vast majority of anti-infantry and even low end anti-tank. PLaying orks regularly requires figuring out how to get the full strength of a shoota mob or our few ap 3 weapons into the face of space marines. Certainly a small number of models off sets that a bit, but combines with models with a 3+ save also usually having better ap weapons in return evens it out.

Where the idea of "3+ is useless" comes from is less the fault of the save itself and more how 40k's meta shapes itself. The most likely thing you're going to run into is vehicles, monstrous creatures, and of course the complete saturation of some variety of space marine (along with other armies that have mass access to 3+ like eldar) encourages players to take as much plasma and/or grav as they can wedge into their army listand rarely need to take any dedicated anti-infantry unit beyond the bare minimum.

**Rihgu**

Unit1126PLL wrote:
Rihgu wrote:
Melissia wrote:
Kharne the Befriender wrote:
From a 4+ or from nothing?
Yes. 4+ gets ignored by heavy flamers and other such weapons. 3+ is ignored only by a few specialist weapons, and anti-tank weapons. But if they're aiming anti-tank weapons at your 3+ save infantry, they're not aiming them at your tanks, so it's okay.

3+ is ignored by many specialist weapons (and for at least 2 armies, the basic troop weapons, although Bladestorm is only a chance of triggering), many of them of large range and being blasts/large blasts.

Let's use Imperial Guard as an example.

Does not ignore 3+:
Lasgun, laspistol, heavy stubber, heavy bolter, autocannon, mortar, frag missile, flak missile, storm bolter, sniper rifle, krak grenade, frag grenade, flamer, heavy flamer, multiple rocket pods, multilasers, Hellhound flamethrower, Stormshard mortars, frag launchers, ripper guns, Exterminator autocannon, punisher cannon, Manticore missile, boltgun, bolt pistol

Ignores 3+
Melta, plasma, battlecannon, demolister cannon, executioner plasma cannon, Vanquisher cannon, Earthshaker cannon, lascannon, krak missile, Deathstrike missile, hotshot lasgun, hotshot laspistol

I must be missing some, but you get the idea.

Don't forget power swords, power axes, and power fists. I think Bane Wolfs also have a weapon that ignores 3+? Are Hotshot Volleyguns available to normal AM or is that Tempestus book only?

I'd say ~33% of the weapons in the codex is more than "a few specialist weapons".

And given that about half of those are blasts, my 20ppm 3+ save dudes (Grey Knights) aren't seeing their Power Armour as a good investment!

**vipoid**

Rihgu wrote:

Don't forget power swords, power axes, and power fists.

The cornerstone of any IG army.

**Rihgu**

vipoid wrote:
Rihgu wrote:

Don't forget power swords, power axes, and power fists.

The cornerstone of any IG army.

As much as boltguns/bolt pistols, flak missiles, mortars and sniper rifles are

And I recall 5th edition, where power fists were very popular on sarges. And 6th (perhaps into 7th? But maybe not now that Azrael has changed) had the 50 man blobs with 5 power axe wielding sarges.

**Carnage43**

The crux of the matter is cost to survivabiltiy ratio.

You pay a LOT of points for that power armor. Compare a Sister of battle to a guardsman. You DOUBLE a guardsman's cost to upgrade the lasgun to bolter, +1 BS and power armor. It's a 100% increase in his hitting power at range, and double the survivabilty to return fire...seems fair right? Well, those points paid for armor are only worthwhile if you actually get to make a save....other wise you might as well be naked and save yourself the points cost.

Now, the issue is worse for marines, as they are paying points for increased LD, Initiative, grenades, WS, all of which just contributes to making their survivability worse point for point while rarely contributing to their damage output. Throw in the multitude of rending, pseudo-rending, AP1-2-3 weapons (especially blast and/or ignores cover) and you have a very poor unit in terms of staying power to points ratio.

**vipoid**

Rihgu wrote:

And I recall 5th edition, where power fists were very popular on sarges.

You mean back when they were reasonably priced?

And when sergeants couldn't be picked out and killed in combat?

**Rihgu**

vipoid wrote:
Rihgu wrote:

And I recall 5th edition, where power fists were very popular on sarges.

You mean back when they were reasonably priced?

And when sergeants couldn't be picked out and killed in combat?

Yes, sir.

Not exactly sure where you want this to go that's on topic, though. If you point out that in the current edition they're not popular, I'll point out that my army is still the same as it was in 5th edition and I'm not the only one. We've already covered the point that it's not exactly a hallmark of a guard army. But it's still an option so it should be included in a list of the army's options...

**carldooley**

The issue IMHO is that space marines are 'meta defining' meaning that with the prevalence of 3+ saves is something that most people have to consider when building their TAC lists. If the actual tabletop presence fit the fluff, then AP3 weapons would be far rarer on the field, as most armies would likely be Nids, Orcs, or Guard swarms with the rest showing up rarely, if at all.

**BlaxicanX**

3+ saves are crap due to power-creep. The amount of ranged firepower being thrown around the table has increased exponentially over the editions, and due to poor balancing mechanics any competitive list is going to min-max and spam the strongest weapons.

The people who are going on about how durable 3+ saves are against small-arms are failing to take into consideration how rare small-arms are in today's 40K. My 1500 point Eldar list has 36 models in it, and of those 36 models only 8 of them have weapons with a strength lower than 6.

**Melissia**

tl;dr: for whatever reason, Space Marines are popular, therefor people take counters that target Space Marines.

**BlaxicanX**

The consequence being that it feths up the entire game. This 1500 pt Eldar list that deletes multiple squads of marines per turn also kills Guard and Orks faster than their cheap ppm can compensate due to the unholy combination that is high strength+high rate of fire.

**vipoid**

BlaxicanX wrote:
3+ saves are crap due to power-creep. The amount of ranged firepower being thrown around the table has increased exponentially over the editions, and due to poor balancing mechanics any competitive list is going to min-max and spam the strongest weapons.

I think that's partially true, but then I'm not sure many other saves have it better. I mean, guardsmen are cheap and plentiful, but there are so many weapons these days that just sweep handfuls of them off the table.

2+ saves are arguably the best off, but even that is very dependant on the cost of the unit. Really, it seems most survivable units these days are about using invulnerable saves, or 'bonus' saves - like FNP or Necro-no-pain.

Also, slightly off topic, but I think there's a similar problem with armour values. A lot of the time, there's very little benefit to going above AV12, and virtually none to going above AV13. It's not that the increases are inherently worthless, but they're just not worth the current costs. The number of Gauss, Haywire and D-weapons around mean that high-AV just doesn't offer much extra protection. And, that's not even counting stuff like meltas - where it simply doesn't make much difference.

I think this is tied to two other issues though:

1) Weapons that are good at everything, with no real downsides. Look at the old Haywire weapons - the one from the DE book is a 24" S4 AP4 Assault 1 weapon. The 5th edition Necron one was 12" S5 AP- Assault 4. And, both of these were pretty limited in where you could take them (the Necron one could only be taken on a royal court, and the DE one is and was limited to Scourges and Talos). The DE one is obviously pretty bad against virtually everything non-vehicle, whilst the necron one has a prohibitively-short range. Nowadays, we have 36" 2-shot S6 haywire guns on basic troops.

Then you have stuff like grav, which is incredibly strong against MCs, but has enough shots to be effective against lighter infantry and even a bonus rule that lets them shred a land raider in 2 hits (not to mention turning any transport into a piece of scenery with a single 6).

The trouble with weapons like this is that they eliminate any choice. Why take weapons that are good against some thing but bad at others, when you can have weapons that are just good all-round.

"Ah!" I hear you say (unless it's just the voices in my head again...). "But Grav isn't good against everything. In fact, it's awful against hordes."

Well, that leads me to:

2) Lack of good hordes. There's green tide and then... nope, that's it. I mean, there's two other armies that can even qualify as any sort of light horde - nids and IG. Nids hordes haven't been scary since 5th, and IG infantry lack both the survivability and the resilience necessary to win any kind of shooting war.

If there were more hordes that were actually a threat, there may be more of a reason for players to take flamers instead of melta/grav/plasma. But, when virtually every threat has good armour... it's just not going to happen.