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So this topic came up in the now-locked Stormsurge thread. I think that MCs and GMCs are quite overpowered in the current game. Brokenly overpowered, in fact. But one defense for the current rules is that MCs/GMCs can theoretically take wounds from small arms. My contention is that they are functionally immortal to small arms instead of being absolutely immune. I think that trying to shoot small arms at them is a poor decision and that the fact that it is theoretically possible but practically inefficient is just another one of their advantages in terms of offering out false hope to opponents.

Are you saying that you will not play your BA against anyone who fields an MC/GMC in any variant?

As was shown previously, the storm surge takes about 26 bolter shots before it suffers a wound.

So, at rapid fire range, it's about ~180 points of bolters to cause a single wound assuming marines. At long range, this becomes 360. Certain chapter tactics will help this, though not by much (most of the damage disappears from needing a 6 to wound and the armor save).
This doesn't include a delivery mechanism, and considering the range of the guns and the amount of interceptor Tau has, you will likely need a transport.

I believe we showed in another thread that the wraithknight is even worse. I think we were running dominions against the wraithknight and riptide, and it took about 7-8 squads armed with meltas+combi melta to kill a knight, and 3 to kill a riptide.

I can't imagine how anyone thinks most MCs and GMCs (the latter especially) are weak against small arms fire. PGs, scat bikes, fire dragons, spiders, destroyers, and grav weapons cause a lot more wounds and are much most cost effective for the points. Lascannons and meltas don't seem to have enough shots to be effective, and with meltas, the short range doesn't help.

Naw wrote:
Are you saying that you will not play your BA against anyone who fields an MC/GMC in any variant?

No, just the Stormsurge. Or anyone trying to fire more than two weapons a turn with a GMC. I've already faced the WK more times than I care to recount. I'm so sick of that fething thing. I've had dreams about going marauder heavy in a 40K game just to lay the hurt on WKs. Yea, that bad.

The question includes all under those typings, so let me give some examples: a stormsurge, a wraithknight, a GUO, a daemon prince, and a tervigon. Do you believe all of these models have an unfair advantage because of their type? Or do you think certain ones are simply strong, and happen to abuse the typing to make themselves stronger then they should be?

I actually don't find the stormsurge that bad for the points. It's the riptide that drives me up the wall.

Yep. Outside of the Daemon Prince (which is moderately strong unless tooled out, I mean T5 and a 5++ Invuln??) the only thing MCs/GCs have to fear is Instant Death, and that's rare as it is.

Compared to equivalently costed vehicles, they absolutely have an advantage. The tervigon, guo, and daemon price are not as undercosted as the WK and Stormsurge, but they are still undercosted compared to their vehicular counterparts. And most ICs as well. Those ICs without EW for sure.

If there was a way in the game other than Str D to reduce their wounds faster than one at a time, I would be a lot less bitter. That was one of the few things that 2nd did right: lascannon inflicted 2D6 wounds for example, so MCs just couldn't laugh at lascannons. LIke they do now. I pay massive points for weapons that MCs just laugh at.

autumnlotus wrote:
The question includes all under those typings, so let me give some examples: a stormsurge, a wraithknight, a GUO, a daemon prince, and a tervigon. Do you believe all of these models have an unfair advantage because of their type? Or do you think certain ones are simply strong, and happen to abuse the typing to make themselves stronger then they should be?

Tyranid MCs are still fairly strong, especially the Flyrants.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I actually don't find the stormsurge that bad for the points. It's the riptide that drives me up the wall.

They're both obscene.

 jreilly89 wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question includes all under those typings, so let me give some examples: a stormsurge, a wraithknight, a GUO, a daemon prince, and a tervigon. Do you believe all of these models have an unfair advantage because of their type? Or do you think certain ones are simply strong, and happen to abuse the typing to make themselves stronger then they should be?

Tyranid MCs are still fairly strong, especially the Flyrants.

Out of this list, I would think the Daemon Prince is probably the only one that isn't really good. The Tervigon would probably be next, but can still be considered pretty good, although they both suffer from ID fear.

Compare this to tanks, where if I listed all the tanks even the eldar dex could take, a lot of them would be bad or inferior to the wraith lord/knight. Same with the Tau codex.

Akiasura wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question includes all under those typings, so let me give some examples: a stormsurge, a wraithknight, a GUO, a daemon prince, and a tervigon. Do you believe all of these models have an unfair advantage because of their type? Or do you think certain ones are simply strong, and happen to abuse the typing to make themselves stronger then they should be?

Tyranid MCs are still fairly strong, especially the Flyrants.

Out of this list, I would think the Daemon Prince is probably the only one that isn't really good. The Tervigon would probably be next, but can still be considered pretty good, although they both suffer from ID fear.

Compare this to tanks, where if I listed all the tanks even the eldar dex could take, a lot of them would be bad or inferior to the wraith lord/knight. Same with the Tau codex.

Eh, Dp's can be good, but they get really expensive fast.

A high expense makes them inefficient, then. That limits how "good" they can be.

The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

All of those models completely ignore the main hallmark of a marine army in melee: the power armor. So yeah, they all seem pretty damn powerful to me. The WK/Riptide/Stormsurge being the worst, but the rules MCs/GMCs get are just nuts.

Okay, so how about a Dreadnought? It also ignores the rules marines get for a measley 95 points it gets 5 attacks on the charge! Also it is COMPLETELY IMMUNE to bolters from the front (WHAT???)

The weakness of MCs is supposed to be that you get less stats for the points, not that you can hurt them with small arms.

Let's take, off the top of my head because they're similar, a Dreadnought with assault cannon vs a Kastelan Robot with Phosphor gun.

It's not a perfect comparison but the Kastelan is pretty close to a MC dread, released about the same time. He costs 35 points more (100 vs 135 if I'm remembering right.)

MCs do NOT get less stats for the points. They get an armor save, which is a huge upgrade over a dreadnought. That dreadnought might be immune to boltguns, but a few autocannons or scatterlasers shot its way will HP it out. MCs laugh at autocannons and scatterlasers. Relatively speaking.

Even with four attacks, dreadnoughts are still terrible.

autumnlotus wrote:
The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

A clunky robot walker whose only organic components are the highly vulnerable "pilot" and the tanks of drugs being fed into him/her would seem extremely bizarre as a monstrous creature...

 Pouncey wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

A clunky robot walker whose only organic components are the highly vulnerable "pilot" and the tanks of drugs being fed into him/her would seem extremely bizarre as a monstrous creature...

Let's not get into this. Let's just stick with what is currently typed in the rules.

the_scotsman wrote:
Okay, so how about a Dreadnought? It also ignores the rules marines get for a measley 95 points it gets 5 attacks on the charge! Also it is COMPLETELY IMMUNE to bolters from the front (WHAT???)

The weakness of MCs is supposed to be that you get less stats for the points, not that you can hurt them with small arms.

Let's take, off the top of my head because they're similar, a Dreadnought with assault cannon vs a Kastelan Robot with Phosphor gun.

It's not a perfect comparison but the Kastelan is pretty close to a MC dread, released about the same time. He costs 35 points more (100 vs 135 if I'm remembering right.)

Kastellan > Dreadnaught. Dreadnaughts can't deflect shots.

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

A clunky robot walker whose only organic components are the highly vulnerable "pilot" and the tanks of drugs being fed into him/her would seem extremely bizarre as a monstrous creature...

Let's not get into this. Let's just stick with what is currently typed in the rules.

Okies then. Dropping it and changing subject to be more on-topic.

One of the early posts in this thread talked about the points cost of the number of Marines with Bolters needed to take a wound off of it.

Does that comparison mean that Sisters of Battle (being the same BS and using the same weapon as those Marines, but costing fewer points per model) would be better at dealing with a MC/GMC, since they require fewer points of models to deal the same damage?

Also, taking a squad of Marines and not giving them at least a Special Weapon seems bizarre.

And for a third point, someone talked about the number of Melta-Dominions needed to take out a particular GMC in one round of shooting. I imagine that GMCs aren't meant to be taken out in a single volley, but worn down and hopefully finished off before the end of the game.

Gargantuan Creatures belong in Apocalypse. That you can use them in normal games is absurd.

Akiasura wrote:
As was shown previously, the storm surge takes about 26 bolter shots before it suffers a wound.

I'm pretty sure it actually takes 40.5 bolter shots to average a wound against the SS.

 vipoid wrote:
Gargantuan Creatures belong in Apocalypse. That you can use them in normal games is absurd.

But then GW doesn't get money

the_scotsman wrote:
Okay, so how about a Dreadnought? It also ignores the rules marines get for a measley 95 points it gets 5 attacks on the charge! Also it is COMPLETELY IMMUNE to bolters from the front (WHAT???)

The weakness of MCs is supposed to be that you get less stats for the points, not that you can hurt them with small arms.

The placement of large walkers in the MC category seems to have been done for the sake of unit diversity throughout a codex, and by connection to increase sales. From a game point of view it makes little sense. You could justify something liike a riptide having toughness instead of AV if it had weak points or large amounts of exposed wiring and inner workings that could be damaged by small arms fire... but as you pointed out why then is a dreadnought not also in that category?

It's as though 2 different philosophies for vehicle design were thrown into the game and to me it feels shabby and illogical. It should be fairly clear cut. Large battle suits, i.e. those that have a pilot -as opposed to a wearer like TDA- should be walkers, without exception.

 Pouncey wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

A clunky robot walker whose only organic components are the highly vulnerable "pilot" and the tanks of drugs being fed into him/her would seem extremely bizarre as a monstrous creature...

Let's not get into this. Let's just stick with what is currently typed in the rules.

Okies then. Dropping it and changing subject to be more on-topic.

One of the early posts in this thread talked about the points cost of the number of Marines with Bolters needed to take a wound off of it.

Does that comparison mean that Sisters of Battle (being the same BS and using the same weapon as those Marines, but costing fewer points per model) would be better at dealing with a MC/GMC, since they require fewer points of models to deal the same damage?

Also, taking a squad of Marines and not giving them at least a Special Weapon seems bizarre.

And for a third point, someone talked about the number of Melta-Dominions needed to take out a particular GMC in one round of shooting. I imagine that GMCs aren't meant to be taken out in a single volley, but worn down and hopefully finished off before the end of the game.

You can't let them live that long. If they are around for too long, they will have done too much damage.

 Pouncey wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:

autumnlotus wrote:
The question was general power, not comparing it to vehicles. We all know vehicles are kinda trash. Take Repentent Engines: they would be a lot better as MCs, likely with T5 and 3-4 wounds. But they would still be pretty awful

A clunky robot walker whose only organic components are the highly vulnerable "pilot" and the tanks of drugs being fed into him/her would seem extremely bizarre as a monstrous creature...

Let's not get into this. Let's just stick with what is currently typed in the rules.

Okies then. Dropping it and changing subject to be more on-topic.

One of the early posts in this thread talked about the points cost of the number of Marines with Bolters needed to take a wound off of it.

Does that comparison mean that Sisters of Battle (being the same BS and using the same weapon as those Marines, but costing fewer points per model) would be better at dealing with a MC/GMC, since they require fewer points of models to deal the same damage?

Yes and no.
If MCs and GMCs were actually vulnerable to small arms fire, then yes, sisters would be better. Especially with the AoF the basic troop choice gets and being cheaper (the extra toughness marines get tend not to make a difference in this case, while the invul save sisters gets actually comes into play!).
However, small arms are actually really awful and you'd much rather take plasma guns or grav weapons. Sisters don't get access to these, and thus are much worse at dealing with them.

For example, compare dominions loaded to bear against sternguard with combi plas or centurions. You'll find the SM are much more efficient at removing MCs and GMCs off the table, because their platform for delivering the weapons that are actually useful is strictly superior. And their weapon choices are strictly superior.

 Pouncey wrote:

Also, taking a squad of Marines and not giving them at least a Special Weapon seems bizarre.

While I agree, the original claim made in another thread was that MC's and GMC's are weak against small arms fire, not special weapons.

 Pouncey wrote:

And for a third point, someone talked about the number of Melta-Dominions needed to take out a particular GMC in one round of shooting. I imagine that GMCs aren't meant to be taken out in a single volley, but worn down and hopefully finished off before the end of the game.

It would take 1 dominion squad longer than a game to wipe out a wraith knight (the original claim was that a single squad could wipe out a wraith knight).
It would take 2 squads (and I believe the cost is comparable) about 4 turns to wipe out a wraith knight, assuming nothing was done to stop this from happening.
It would take 3 squads 2-3 rounds, though closer to 3, to wipe out a knight. That's still half the game where the wraith knight gets to do things.

The reality, for Dominion squads at least, is that they lack the range and toughness to take multiple rounds to remove a wraith knight. A wraithknight can just move away, or kill the squad, way faster than it can be killed by an equivalent amount of points in dominions.
Most GMCs cause so much damage, and for some reason are reasonably fast, that you can't allow them to survive 4+ turns. You need to remove them by turn 2-3 or they will earn their points back, if only in how many shots they are absorbing.


Vipoid,
Are you sure? Does the SS get FnP or something? I'm not looking at the book, so I went off of the T6 and 3+ save alone.
I'm showing 2/3*1/6*1/3=2/54, or ~1/27.

Honestly the line for monstrous / walker creatures is all but gone at this point. Either they balance them to be equal but different, or just remove one and add a modifier to the other whenever it's a "walker" or "monster". There's a reason I don't have any vehicles in my armies that aren't AV 13 or more, mine just being Plague Hulk's and Land Raider Crusaders

Real life physics would say a grav weapon should ID a GMC, but alas, no such luck.

GMC's are OP in non-apoc games.

Definitely, but that is mainly because the stats and abilities behind them seem to be meant for that level of play. A GMC with space marine stats would be amusing. I do hope more GMC are made, but don't replace others. As a daemon player I want them to make a generic daemon lord for every god, just not to be underpriced like the wraithknight as that would cause everyone to suddenly become a daemon player xD

Martel732 wrote:

Naw wrote:
Are you saying that you will not play your BA against anyone who fields an MC/GMC in any variant?

No, just the Stormsurge. Or anyone trying to fire more than two weapons a turn with a GMC. I've already faced the WK more times than I care to recount. I'm so sick of that fething thing. I've had dreams about going marauder heavy in a 40K game just to lay the hurt on WKs. Yea, that bad.

I wish I could just throw void rays at it. Alas. :(