Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
GW thought that +1T was going to be sufficient for gravis armor. They were wrong. Terminators have been bumped TWICE on wounds now, because without them, they were just too fragile.
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
GW thought that +1T was going to be sufficient for gravis armor. They were wrong. Terminators have been bumped TWICE on wounds now, because without them, they were just too fragile.
The biggest issue with 40k is that it's built from the ground up to revolve around killing your opponent's models and yet sucks at balancing around it. Things are too tough, not tough enough, too powerful, not powerful enough, and this doesn't even include the melee versus ranged problem. If they made units useful and unique in ways that don't simply involve murdering your opponent's stuff and/or avoiding being murdered perhaps we could have an interesting game.
I have to say for example in Fantasy stats were more arbitrary. You had empire captains with F4 and T4 for... no reason whatsoever, and characters or elite units with more strenght and toughtness without being physically different and nobody saw that as something strange.
Like, playing with death characters or historical characters, but in 40k thats seen as something extremely extrange. "Of course they can't made a model and rules for X, he's dead!" but... why? And I know Aun'va and Kreedd are dead, but that was fluff after the model were released.
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
GW thought that +1T was going to be sufficient for gravis armor. They were wrong. Terminators have been bumped TWICE on wounds now, because without them, they were just too fragile.
The biggest issue with 40k is that it's built from the ground up to revolve around killing your opponent's models and yet sucks at balancing around it. Things are too tough, not tough enough, too powerful, not powerful enough, and this doesn't even include the melee versus ranged problem. If they made units useful and unique in ways that don't simply involve murdering your opponent's stuff and/or avoiding being murdered perhaps we could have an interesting game.
More temporary effects would be nice. Like "halve enemy unit movement next turn", "enemy unit CAN'T move next turn", "enemy units get -1 to hit next turn", "enemy unit can't shoot next turn" etc.
SecondTime wrote: More temporary effects would be nice. Like "halve enemy unit movement next turn", "enemy unit CAN'T move next turn", "enemy units get -1 to hit next turn", "enemy unit can't shoot next turn" etc.
That doesn't exactly fix things, unless you do that and cut lethality. Even then you're just applying video game debuffs.
If you want real change you need to redesign everything from deployment, to list building, to scope and scale, and once you've figured those out you can start looking at designing stats and special rules.
SecondTime wrote: This is an analog video game. And debuffs to reduce or shop shooting does reduce lethality.
???
Debuffs increase lethality, as you're also now *weakening* their troops with your highly lethal shots lmao.
Imagine not only killing 40% of someone's army first turn but NOW the rest of their troops have a healthy mix of the following applied to them:
> Like "halve enemy unit movement next turn", "enemy unit CAN'T move next turn", "enemy units get -1 to hit next turn", "enemy unit can't shoot next turn" etc.
lol
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Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
A yes, because toughness 5 is pointless. Okay Brian. I mean, canadian.
T5 is very, very powerful against lots of factions that don't have over the top access to S5+ weapons.
Imagine armies not having access to troops that have S5 AP2 D2 shots. Hahahahahahaa
Eonfuzz wrote: A yes, because toughness 5 is pointless. Okay Brian. I mean, canadian.
T5 is very, very powerful against lots of factions that don't have over the top access to S5+ weapons.
Imagine armies not having access to troops that have S5 AP2 D2 shots. Hahahahahahaa
Why do you need troops to do your killing? One of the core issues with 40k is that troops are often useless because they simply don't kill enough to justify taking more than a minimum number of them.
Your options may be over priced, not meta, or have other issues but almost every army can spam weapons that treat S4 and S5 the same.
SecondTime wrote: This is an analog video game. And debuffs to reduce or shop shooting does reduce lethality.
???
Debuffs increase lethality, as you're also now *weakening* their troops with your highly lethal shots lmao.
Imagine not only killing 40% of someone's army first turn but NOW the rest of their troops have a healthy mix of the following applied to them:
> Like "halve enemy unit movement next turn", "enemy unit CAN'T move next turn", "enemy units get -1 to hit next turn", "enemy unit can't shoot next turn" etc.
lol
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
A yes, because toughness 5 is pointless. Okay Brian. I mean, canadian.
T5 is very, very powerful against lots of factions that don't have over the top access to S5+ weapons.
Imagine armies not having access to troops that have S5 AP2 D2 shots. Hahahahahahaa
Yes, something would have to be done about alpha strikes, and more wounds probably need to be handed out as well.
SecondTime wrote: This is an analog video game. And debuffs to reduce or shop shooting does reduce lethality.
???
Debuffs increase lethality, as you're also now *weakening* their troops with your highly lethal shots lmao.
Imagine not only killing 40% of someone's army first turn but NOW the rest of their troops have a healthy mix of the following applied to them:
> Like "halve enemy unit movement next turn", "enemy unit CAN'T move next turn", "enemy units get -1 to hit next turn", "enemy unit can't shoot next turn" etc.
lol
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
A yes, because toughness 5 is pointless. Okay Brian. I mean, canadian.
T5 is very, very powerful against lots of factions that don't have over the top access to S5+ weapons.
Imagine armies not having access to troops that have S5 AP2 D2 shots. Hahahahahahaa
Oh totally, Heavy Intercessors have so many S5 AP-2 D2 shots for the price!
gibbindefs wrote: Toughness is how hard you are to wound and what strength weapons you are more likely to withstand. (...) T4 because they are harder to wound than a human
Okay, so I'll give you the same challenge I gave Slayer-Fan: Find me a lore source indicating that Orks are physically difficult to damage, like how Marines' skeletal augmentation allow them to bounce bullets. I can give you plenty of sources showing lasguns blowing big chunks out of Orks just like what they do to humans, but they keep fighting despite grievous injury and take more physical damage to put down. So if we're to go by what the stats are 'supposed' to mean, an Ork Boy should be something like T3/W2.
Then while you're at it, explain what it is about a Plague Marine that makes them harder to wound than a normal Chaos Marine. It's not like rotting away makes it harder to damage them, quite the opposite; frequently in the fluff we see shots tearing bits off of them but not slowing them down. So they shouldn't be any tougher than a normal Marine, but have more Wounds before they die. Call it T4/W3, maybe T4/W4 if we drop Disgustingly Resilient.
I'm not being pedantic; this is fundamental game design: You pick stats to represent the relative characteristics of game pieces, and then rate them according to their real-world or lore-based performance in those respective stats. If the model really were that Toughness indicates inherent resistance to damage and Wounds represents how much damage they can take before being incapacitated, then the scale would look something like:
Humans/Eldar: T3/W1
Orks/Gaunts: T3/W2
Skitarii: T4/W1
Marines: T4/W2
So the things that have augmentations or other things to reduce the actual effect of bullets have higher T, and the ones that have more organ redundancy and less susceptibility to pain have higher W. Toughness represents how hard you are to damage, Wounds reflects how much damage you can take, right? Simple. Consistent.
But obviously that's not the actual model. The actual model is a legacy, pre-8th carryover that generally held that, for infantry, W1 is taken as a baseline. Then the nebulous idea of 'how tough is it to kill' was reflected through Toughness alone, but scaled to fit designer's intent for gameplay rather than fluff.
There's no logical reason a Plague Marine should be harder to damage than a normal Marine. Their skin doesn't become bulletproof when they turn to Nurgle, if anything it gets weaker as it rots out. They're not physically harder to damage. They're just able to take a lot more punishment and have to be systematically dismembered to render them combat-ineffective. Under the legacy model, that's why they were T5. But then that wasn't enough, so they got a FNP too. Why do Plague Marines, who feel no pain, get a Feel No Pain, but Orks, who feel no pain, just get T4? If you're still trying to justify the stat model, there's no consistency- the simple explanation is that FNPs were a bolt-on mechanic to increase durability without adding a second Wound or messing with the S-vs-T scale.
Throw translating fluff directly into stats completely out the window, because that hasn't how it's worked since, like, 2nd. 40K is Design For Effect through and through. And in terms of effect, I think W2 basic infantry cause more problems than they solve, and it will only get worse if more things get brought up to that level.
Canadian 5th wrote: Anybody who thinks balancing around toughness makes sense these days need to realize that the wound chart and prevalence of S5 and S6 weapons says otherwise. The AP system also makes higher armour values less rewarding hence the prevalence of invulnerable saves.
GW thought that +1T was going to be sufficient for gravis armor. They were wrong. Terminators have been bumped TWICE on wounds now, because without them, they were just too fragile.
The biggest issue with 40k is that it's built from the ground up to revolve around killing your opponent's models and yet sucks at balancing around it. Things are too tough, not tough enough, too powerful, not powerful enough, and this doesn't even include the melee versus ranged problem. If they made units useful and unique in ways that don't simply involve murdering your opponent's stuff and/or avoiding being murdered perhaps we could have an interesting game.
I think one of the major problems is that the game is constantly one-upping itself.
When it's not giving new units bigger and better weapons just because, it's instead engaging in a constant offence vs. defence battle against itself.
e.g.:
"There are too many weapons with good AP! I know, we'll start improving Invulnerable saves across the board and also adding more of them!"
"Now AP isn't worth a damn because everything and its dog has an invulnerable save! I know, we'll make a new mechanic that ignores Armour *and* Invulnerable saves!"
"Wait, now elite units are getting killed by Mortal Wounds even when they have good armour *and* Invulnerable Saves! That's just not right. I know, clearly we need a new type of save that can be taken against any type of wound - even ones that bypass Invulnerable Saves. Now tough units can really feel tough again!"
"So many weapons aren't doing enough because the new super-hyper-mega-FNP is able to ignore even Mortal Wounds and has no weaknesses. I know, we'll start adding weapons that also ignore FNP . . ."
etc.
See the problem? At no point do they ever go back and fix the initial problem. Instead, they just escalate things more and more. And because of how the codex cycle works, it's never in an even manner but instead tends to be only some of the codices (typically the later ones in a given edition) that get the extra buffs.
vipoid wrote: I think one of the major problems is that the game is constantly one-upping itself.
When it's not giving new units bigger and better weapons just because, it's instead engaging in a constant offence vs. defence battle against itself.
e.g.:
"There are too many weapons with good AP! I know, we'll start improving Invulnerable saves across the board and also adding more of them!"
"Now AP isn't worth a damn because everything and its dog has an invulnerable save! I know, we'll make a new mechanic that ignores Armour *and* Invulnerable saves!"
"Wait, now elite units are getting killed by Mortal Wounds even when they have good armour *and* Invulnerable Saves! That's just not right. I know, clearly we need a new type of save that can be taken against any type of wound - even ones that bypass Invulnerable Saves. Now tough units can really feel tough again!"
"So many weapons aren't doing enough because the new super-hyper-mega-FNP is able to ignore even Mortal Wounds and has no weaknesses. I know, we'll start adding weapons that also ignore FNP . . ."
etc.
See the problem? At no point do they ever go back and fix the initial problem. Instead, they just escalate things more and more. And because of how the codex cycle works, it's never in an even manner but instead tends to be only some of the codices (typically the later ones in a given edition) that get the extra buffs.
I see it, but I also feel like GW sees it as a feature rather than as a bug. They figure players are already so invested that they'll ride the rollercoaster of balance in hope that they get a turn at the top of the heap.
When you look at it this way the constant bloat and scale creep all makes sense.
I'm not being pedantic; this is fundamental game design: You pick stats to represent the relative characteristics of game pieces, and then rate them according to their real-world or lore-based performance in those respective stats. If the model really were that Toughness indicates inherent resistance to damage and Wounds represents how much damage they can take before being incapacitated, then the scale would look something like:
Humans/Eldar: T3/W1
Orks/Gaunts: T3/W2
Skitarii: T4/W1
Marines: T4/W2
I'd totally play this, but we'd have people complaining how T4 doesn't mean anything and how W2 is pointless.
Oh totally, Heavy Intercessors have so many S5 AP-2 D2 shots for the price!
Oh wait they don't.
I don't believe I mentioned Heavy Intercessor's Heavy Intercessor Heavy Auto Stalker Bolt Rifle at all.
But maybe S5 AP2 D2 shots aren't as ubiquitous as people are saying they are.... Does that mean T5 and W2 is good now?
Eonfuzz wrote: I don't believe I mentioned Heavy Intercessor's Heavy Intercessor Heavy Auto Stalker Bolt Rifle at all.
But maybe S5 AP2 D2 shots aren't as ubiquitous as people are saying they are.... Does that mean T5 and W2 is good now?
Way to shift the goalposts Eon. Is T5 a meaningful increase over T4 without factoring in wounds?
Eonfuzz wrote: I don't believe I mentioned Heavy Intercessor's Heavy Intercessor Heavy Auto Stalker Bolt Rifle at all.
But maybe S5 AP2 D2 shots aren't as ubiquitous as people are saying they are.... Does that mean T5 and W2 is good now?
Way to shift the goalposts Eon. Is T5 a meaningful increase over T4 without factoring in wounds?
Yes. It doesn't matter against S1-3, S6-7, and S10+, but a LOT of weapons are S4-5 or S8-9.
RG Succesor, 1,750 Points has one squad that has S6/7 weapons, the Hellblasters. Everything else falls into the S4-5 or S8-9 range, excepting some Combi-Plas which might fire at S7.
Necrons, 2,000 Points has two units (the Doomsday Arks) that fall outside those ranges. Everything else, to my knowledge, is S4-5.
"Orks are brave and tough, and their bodies have a natural resilience which allows them to survive traumatic injuries and the most primitive surgery. They feel very little pain and can keep fighting even if they lose a limb or sustain a major body wound. Their blood, which is green, carries a symbiotic algae through their veins, digesting and reconstituting damaged body tissue and even rebuilding major organs." Codex Orks, 2nd Edition, Page 4 and Page 5
RG Succesor, 1,750 Points has one squad that has S6/7 weapons, the Hellblasters. Everything else falls into the S4-5 or S8-9 range, excepting some Combi-Plas which might fire at S7.
Necrons, 2,000 Points has two units (the Doomsday Arks) that fall outside those ranges. Everything else, to my knowledge, is S4-5.
So if we only look at terrible lists that will struggle against anything remotely optimized... Is that really your argument?
I think T5 is a situation help, but probably not as valuable as GW thinks it is. Gravis armor was garbage until it went to 3W, due to all the 2 damage weapons.
"Orks are brave and tough, and their bodies have a natural resilience which allows them to survive traumatic injuries and the most primitive surgery. They feel very little pain and can keep fighting even if they lose a limb or sustain a major body wound. Their blood, which is green, carries a symbiotic algae through their veins, digesting and reconstituting damaged body tissue and even rebuilding major organs." Codex Orks, 2nd Edition, Page 4 and Page 5
Perfect! So fluff-accurate Orks shouldn't be any tougher to damage than humans (they're just made of flesh, after all), but should be able to sustain a lot more damage before dying. So if T represents how hard they are to damage, and W represents how much damage they can sustain, then Orks will be lore-accurate at T3/W2.
See, what I think is really going on is people interpret Toughness as 'how hard a thing is to kill' and Wounds as 'how hard a thing is to kill', and don't actually differentiate between the two. Until this question comes up, and then differing identities for the stats are retroactively justified, even though in practice they're both used much to the same effect.
RG Succesor, 1,750 Points has one squad that has S6/7 weapons, the Hellblasters. Everything else falls into the S4-5 or S8-9 range, excepting some Combi-Plas which might fire at S7.
Necrons, 2,000 Points has two units (the Doomsday Arks) that fall outside those ranges. Everything else, to my knowledge, is S4-5.
So if we only look at terrible lists that will struggle against anything remotely optimized... Is that really your argument?
Custodes This list has more stuff that ignores T4->T5 than not. So okay, that's one list where it doesn't matter a TON-it still matters. There's the Guardian Spear shooting, Sentinel Blade shooting and melee...
Goffs First model? S8. Then over 100 Skarboys at S5. Some Kommandos, S4. And a few Big Shootas, S5. The majority of this list? Is affected by T4->T5.
Death Guard-CSM Decent amount of S4 Bolters, lot of Possessed who are S5.
Overall? No, T4->T5 is not ALWAYS going to help. But against a lot of lists-including, as shown especially with that second list-it will.
If you're playing a PUG you need to account for the fact that you might play against anything from Timmy's first list to the hardest of hardcore tournament grinders.
Custodes This list has more stuff that ignores T4->T5 than not. So okay, that's one list where it doesn't matter a TON-it still matters. There's the Guardian Spear shooting, Sentinel Blade shooting and melee...
Goffs First model? S8.
Then over 100 Skarboys at S5.
Some Kommandos, S4.
And a few Big Shootas, S5.
The majority of this list? Is affected by T4->T5.
Death Guard-CSM Decent amount of S4 Bolters, lot of Possessed who are S5.
Overall? No, T4->T5 is not ALWAYS going to help. But against a lot of lists-including, as shown especially with that second list-it will.
I said it doesn't make a meaningful difference, not that it makes no difference. Is T4 versus T5 going to reliably change outcomes? Is it difficult to change a viable tournament list to deal with a T5 meta rather than a T4 or mixed toughness meta? That's what I'm interested in.
T5 isn't hard to remove unless it has a bunch of wounds, but that's a wounds issue, not a toughness issue. Was Gravis armour good at T5 W2? Would people take terminators if they were changed to T5 W2 rather than T4 W3? In the context of the discussion does toughness provide enough of a benefit to make a unit that doesn't work at T4 work at T5? How about going from T5 to T6 or T3 to T4 without another change to compliment it?
See, what I think is really going on is people interpret Toughness as 'how hard a thing is to kill' and Wounds as 'how hard a thing is to kill', and don't actually differentiate between the two. Until this question comes up, and then differing identities for the stats are retroactively justified, even though in practice they're both used much to the same effect.
You still don't get it. They aren't both "how hard a thing is to kill." Toughness and Wounds are completely different. Toughness is what strength of weapon is required to wound the creature. Wounds is how wounded can the creature get before it can no longer fight.
The difference between T3 and T4 is that you need a stronger attack to wound them. An example: You have a full grown man and a toddler, you punch each of them on the arm, full force. The full grown man might get a bruise or he might just feel a stinging pain for a couple seconds, whereas the baby will probably have its bone broken or have massive bruises and internal injuries. The same attack had different chances of wounding them, based on how tough they were. This is how Toughness stat works. Wounds is how much damage they can sustain before going down. You don't reach wounds until after you bypass toughness. The example above, the full grown man didn't get wounded at all but the baby did. If there were a metal baseball bat involved then they would have both probably been wounded because the strength of the attack would have been much higher.
An example of the difference between 1W and 2W: Let's say you shot someone in the head and you succeeded to wound them. If it's a human they're pretty much dead. If it's a a massive muscular alien Ork with regenative capabilities that are known to keep living even when their head is cut off, they might survive. So even though they both took the wound, one of them can keep on fighting, the other can't. Special characters have high wounds because they are basically action heroes or protagonists. Think of an action movie where the main character gets hit with a bunch of bullets, but keeps on going through plot armor or by being a badass, but all the minor characters die in a single hit. Or how about a giant Ogre in a lord of the rings movie with arrows sticking out of his body and he gets stabbed a bunch of times, but he keeps on going. Technically all of those wounds got past his toughness but, do to his large bulk and his high pool of wounds he was able to keep on fighting longer than an average fighter.
Armor save is the chance for your armor... to save you. Underneath is still your toughness
Perfect! So fluff-accurate Orks shouldn't be any tougher to damage than humans (they're just made of flesh, after all), but should be able to sustain a lot more damage before dying. So if T represents how hard they are to damage, and W represents how much damage they can sustain, then Orks will be lore-accurate at T3/W2.
Just because they are both flesh doesn't mean they aren't harder to wound. If you got a in a fight with a goat or a gorilla, and you had a baseball, which would be easier for you to wound? Animals have massively different toughness based on bone density, muscle fiber density, skin thickness, how protected their organs are. If you think everything with flesh is equally as easy to hurt you are badly mistaken.
Goat: T2 1W
Gorilla: T4 2W
An Ork has Toughness 4 because he is tougher to WOUND than a human. Increasing their wounds to 2 would be a way to also show how they can keep on kickin' when they do finally get wounded.
You can't just arbitrarily change the stat balance of things. Are vehicles just going to be Toughness 15 and only have 1 wound? How about a Carnifex, Toughness 3 with 15 wounds? It doesn't make sense this way and is inconsistent with how the combat system has worked.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Man a lot of butthurt over the proposal of Orks needing to be W2.
Quite frankly stats aren't explored enough. Make Exarchs W3! Make Meganobz W4! What's with the hesitation?
This! If we aren't going to redesign the game from the ground up could we please explore what limited design space the game has?
Let's try wacky stuff like making some weapons just outright kill non-character multi-wound models on an unmodified hit roll of 6, this would make a unit like snipers terrifying for the new multi-wound units. We could try giving horde units modifiers where they get +1 to hit as long as they have more than 11 models, call it something like 'weight of fire'. I'm even down for half stats, like a 3.5 strength that wounds T3 like it's S4 and wounds T4 like it's S3. That way you can make something stronger, or tougher than a guardsman but weaker and less tough than a space marine.
40k might never be a deep game with loads of moment to moment tactical depth but it has scope to be far better than it is.
See, what I think is really going on is people interpret Toughness as 'how hard a thing is to kill' and Wounds as 'how hard a thing is to kill', and don't actually differentiate between the two. Until this question comes up, and then differing identities for the stats are retroactively justified, even though in practice they're both used much to the same effect.
You still don't get it. They aren't both "how hard a thing is to kill." Toughness and Wounds are completely different. Toughness is what strength of weapon is required to wound the creature. Wounds is how wounded can the creature get before it can no longer fight.
The difference between T3 and T4 is that you need a stronger attack to wound them. An example: You have a full grown man and a toddler, you punch each of them on the arm, full force. The full grown man might get a bruise or he might just feel a stinging pain for a couple seconds, whereas the baby will probably have its bone broken or have massive bruises and internal injuries. The same attack had different chances of wounding them, based on how tough they were. This is how Toughness stat works. Wounds is how much damage they can sustain before going down. You don't reach wounds until after you bypass toughness. The example above, the full grown man didn't get wounded at all but the baby did. If there were a metal baseball bat involved then they would have both probably been wounded because the strength of the attack would have been much higher.
An example of the difference between 1W and 2W: Let's say you shot someone in the head and you succeeded to wound them. If it's a human they're pretty much dead. If it's a a massive muscular alien Ork with regenative capabilities that are known to keep living even when their head is cut off, they might survive. So even though they both took the wound, one of them can keep on fighting, the other can't. Special characters have high wounds because they are basically action heroes or protagonists. Think of an action movie where the main character gets hit with a bunch of bullets, but keeps on going through plot armor or by being a badass, but all the minor characters die in a single hit. Or how about a giant Ogre in a lord of the rings movie with arrows sticking out of his body and he gets stabbed a bunch of times, but he keeps on going. Technically all of those wounds got past his toughness but, do to his large bulk and his high pool of wounds he was able to keep on fighting longer than an average fighter.
Armor save is the chance for your armor... to save you. Underneath is still your toughness
Perfect! So fluff-accurate Orks shouldn't be any tougher to damage than humans (they're just made of flesh, after all), but should be able to sustain a lot more damage before dying. So if T represents how hard they are to damage, and W represents how much damage they can sustain, then Orks will be lore-accurate at T3/W2.
Just because they are both flesh doesn't mean they aren't harder to wound. If you got a in a fight with a goat or a gorilla, and you had a baseball, which would be easier for you to wound? Animals have massively different toughness based on bone density, muscle fiber density, skin thickness, how protected their organs are. If you think everything with flesh is equally as easy to hurt you are badly mistaken.
Goat: T2 1W
Gorilla: T4 2W
An Ork has Toughness 4 because he is tougher to WOUND than a human. Increasing their wounds to 2 would be a way to also show how they can keep on kickin' when they do finally get wounded.
You can't just arbitrarily change the stat balance of things. Are vehicles just going to be Toughness 15 and only have 1 wound? How about a Carnifex, Toughness 3 with 15 wounds? It doesn't make sense this way and is inconsistent with how the combat system has worked.
I think you messed up the quotes. That was not me; it was Catbarf quoting me.
Personally I think the natural resilience and regeneration of organs warrant a better durability than thickened human flesh and redundant organs.
I have had an idea for a while that maybe Characters should have a wounds characteristic normal to their race/species; but have a certain amount of "Plot Armour" points. These "Plot Armour" points can be used to negate damage (maybe after rolling to save?). Maybe the "Plot Armour" save could also be cancelled if the damage was inflicted by a character who expends a "Plot Armour" point to make sure it counts. If a IG Captain is hit squarely by a heavy bolter he is as much paste as a new conscript except for Fate/Plot whatever. Just a thought, that probably belongs in the Proposed Rules section.
Galas wrote: I have to say for example in Fantasy stats were more arbitrary. You had empire captains with F4 and T4 for... no reason whatsoever, and characters or elite units with more strenght and toughtness without being physically different and nobody saw that as something strange.
Galas wrote: I have to say for example in Fantasy stats were more arbitrary. You had empire captains with F4 and T4 for... no reason whatsoever, and characters or elite units with more strenght and toughtness without being physically different and nobody saw that as something strange.
The main problem with wounds creep (e.g. W4 infantry, with mega awesome infantry being W5, etc) is the required damage escalation.
Lascannons need now to be like 3+d6 damage to reliably one-shot a W4 meganob or terminator. That means Leman Russ tanks need to be like 20 wounds to have similar durability and Knights need like 40-50...
and we are moving into a world where damage is the only important stat. Lasguns are useless in a world of W3 and W4 infantry. In fact, I am beginning to question even rolling for lasguns in a W2 power armor environment. It takes SO MUCH TIME and does basically nothing.
And that is the problem. There were 2 solutions to the "lethality problem" - make stuff more durable, or reduce the amount of murder.
Reducing the amount of murder speeds the gameplay up, but slows the rate of death (leaving more alive at the end). This badly exposes the problem of IGOUGO where the first guy on the objective doesn't die and therefore wins.
However, increasing durability slows gameplay down (hold on, let me fire my 130 lasgun shots... Ok, 3 marines dead. Only 57 more to go...) but doesn't slow the rate of death meaningfully (heavy bolters are D2, people bring anti-MEQ) which means all we have done is made gameplay a slog. Mark my words, by the end of the edition, marines will not feel durable anymore, but D1 weapons will still be worthless also.
gibbindefs wrote: You still don't get it. They aren't both "how hard a thing is to kill." Toughness and Wounds are completely different. Toughness is what strength of weapon is required to wound the creature. Wounds is how wounded can the creature get before it can no longer fight.
In every post so far I've acknowledged that this distinction is the usual explanation given, and then provided examples for why in practice it doesn't actually match up with the stats we see. Things often have high T when their durability doesn't actually come from being more resistant to fire, and things that in the lore can keep fighting after sustaining grievous injury still end up as T3/W1 or T4/W1 anyways.
If the stats we see don't actually reflect that distinction between strength of weapon required to wound and amount of damage they can sustain, our choices are either:
1. GW is so completely incompetent that for 30+ years they've never recognized misapplication of their own stat model, or
2. In practice, those stats aren't actually meant that literally, and a Plague Marine being T5/W1 has never actually literally meant that rotten flesh is somehow less physically damaged by bullets, or that Plague Marines are no better able to sustain wounds than a normal unaugmented human is.
gibbindefs wrote: The difference between T3 and T4 is that you need a stronger attack to wound them. An example: You have a full grown man and a toddler, you punch each of them on the arm, full force. The full grown man might get a bruise or he might just feel a stinging pain for a couple seconds, whereas the baby will probably have its bone broken or have massive bruises and internal injuries. The same attack had different chances of wounding them, based on how tough they were. This is how Toughness stat works. Wounds is how much damage they can sustain before going down. You don't reach wounds until after you bypass toughness. The example above, the full grown man didn't get wounded at all but the baby did. If there were a metal baseball bat involved then they would have both probably been wounded because the strength of the attack would have been much higher.
Given that ordinary S3 lasguns kill Orks just fine- once you accumulate enough attrition on them- I'll take this as a point for T3/W2 Orks.
gibbindefs wrote: An Ork has Toughness 4 because he is tougher to WOUND than a human.
See above, and I am happy to provide textual references. Orks are regularly zapped to death with lasguns, blown open by bolters, and killed with bayonets by regular humans in hand-to-hand, all depicted very similarly to when humans are on the receiving end. They don't seem any appreciably tougher to wound than a human; they just keep going even after sustaining massive trauma.
gibbindefs wrote: You can't just arbitrarily change the stat balance of things. Are vehicles just going to be Toughness 15 and only have 1 wound? How about a Carnifex, Toughness 3 with 15 wounds? It doesn't make sense this way and is inconsistent with how the combat system has worked.
You are so close to getting it. You're right, it would be less game-effective to have vehicles at absurdly high T but very low W, and Carnifexes at low T with very high W, wouldn't it? In fact, both have very similar combat profiles in the real game, despite being very different conceptually. Carnifexes in the fluff are regularly brought down by weight of fire from small arms (low-T/high-W), while vehicles need heavy weapons but can be knocked out in very few hits (high-T/low-W). Clearly this isn't actually how they're modeled in-game.
So what does this tell you about the validity and consistency of the supposed 'T = hard to hurt, W = amount of hurt' paradigm? And what does this tell you about how GW designs statlines, as far as rigidly applying their stat model to the lore versus designing for gameplay effect? Do you think they sat down with a stack of Carnifex references in the fluff and used those to objectively assess what strength of weapon is required to wound them and how wounded they can get before they can no longer fight, or did they just start with a tank profile because that's its gameplay role and go from there?
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Galas wrote: I have to say for example in Fantasy stats were more arbitrary. You had empire captains with F4 and T4 for... no reason whatsoever, and characters or elite units with more strenght and toughtness without being physically different and nobody saw that as something strange.
Perfect example right there. Higher T made characters to be a little less likely to be chopped down by rank-and-file, while still dying to cannonballs to the face. It was never in the lore that Empire Captains were downing enough steroids to make them comparably tough to Orcs.
That's design for effect, and that's how it should be, and people don't really notice those things as long as they play well. But as soon as someone has a lore argument for why [thing] should be better, suddenly these stats are treated as ISO Standard measurements and are expected to line up 1:1 with the fluff.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
The difference can't be that large going from S3 AP0 -> S4 AP0. The authors are paid to tell stories and sell books, so I don't think their input is useful in a game. GW needs to write a definitive history to be a stand in for real-life history in historical games. Panzer III's don't magically become better than IS-2's in an edition change because we have battle records and such to refute this idea. GW needs a definitive equipment hierarchy that game devs are compelled to follow.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
Great, so for some slight consistency we should have W2 Marines and Orks. Thanks for playing.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
I think the second wound is necessary to differentiate primaris marines from other units. It just turns out that its so much more effective than T or Sv that they felt compelled to give it to oldbois I guess.
As I stated in the other thread, chaos should have been given the second wound because *chaos* and leave loyalist oldbois at one.
"the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless"
Marines didn't start off the protagonist. But players have been conditioned to expect marines to be scooped up wholesale by the flavor of the edition. It's too bad GW went overboard in 9th.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
Has anyone said the Marines should be T3? Or 5+?
Or are you making that up?
This thread is literally called - I don't think marines should have 2 wounds. It is a direct statement that marines should be less durable. Tired of it. 1 w marines sucked hells balls for the entirety of 40k.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
Has anyone said the Marines should be T3? Or 5+?
Or are you making that up?
Some people prefer the Rogue Trader iteration apparently, which was T3 and not super human, so you're actually not far off the mark.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
Has anyone said the Marines should be T3? Or 5+?
Or are you making that up?
This thread is literally called - I don't think marines should have 2 wounds. It is a direct statement that marines should be less durable. Tired of it. 1 w marines sucked hells balls for the entirety of 40k.
Marines are pretty blatantly OP right now.
And I, for one, am fine with 2W Marines. But, two things should be done if they are to stay that way:
1) Other models should get the same treatment. Ork Boys, for instance.
2) Marines should pay appropriate prices for their performance. They currently are not.
Besides, even at 1W, they're a hell of a lot more durable than Guardsmen. T4 3+ is more durable against literally anything short of a Melta Gun than T3 5+. And if you get cover? T4 3+ is STILL more durable against a Melta than T3 5+.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
Has anyone said the Marines should be T3? Or 5+?
Or are you making that up?
This thread is literally called - I don't think marines should have 2 wounds. It is a direct statement that marines should be less durable. Tired of it. 1 w marines sucked hells balls for the entirety of 40k.
Marines are pretty blatantly OP right now.
And I, for one, am fine with 2W Marines. But, two things should be done if they are to stay that way:
1) Other models should get the same treatment. Ork Boys, for instance.
2) Marines should pay appropriate prices for their performance. They currently are not.
Besides, even at 1W, they're a hell of a lot more durable than Guardsmen. T4 3+ is more durable against literally anything short of a Melta Gun than T3 5+. And if you get cover? T4 3+ is STILL more durable against a Melta than T3 5+.
Marines are OP for other reasons. They pay a fair amount of points for their durability.
They are OP because of over generous core keywords compared to crons and being 1 of 2 9th edition codex released of of what 25 codex?
IMO though mini marines should not have gotten a 2nd wound but a point decrease. At 12 points a mini marine with 1 wound woulda have been fine. Now all the specialist like stren and devs are now 2x as durable to small arms...yeah...that is OP. Because the points is off.
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SecondTime wrote: "Besides, even at 1W, they're a hell of a lot more durable than Guardsmen. "
Not more durable per point though. That's where it all falls apart. Model by model is EASY in comparison.
Even less durable vs heavy firepower on points return. As in less durable. In other words a waste of points.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Great, so for some slight consistency we should have W2 Marines and Orks. Thanks for playing.
Nope. For greater consistency and better gameplay we should have W1 Marines and Orks.
If you want to keep restating the same opinions without adding any argument we can do this all day.
How are W1 Orks better gameplay when it doesn't reflect their toughness in lore?
T4 vs T3 is enough for Orks and Marines. Extra wound is unnecessary. T4 means a unit suffers 2/3 the wounds from S3 fire, or is 50% more durable. Good enough.
I really hate marines. I hate them so much that I hope they kick their bolters on the morning and feel pain in their toes all day! Seriously though, where do you think kind of hate (TOES HURTING!) comes from, Xenomancer?
Weapon damage literally doesn't change anything to the durability of 1W models. Except with FNP I guess...
Didn't say it did. But it creates design space that should probably be used to create more meaningful differences between models. The downside being that the units are even harder to cost, which is the last thing GW needs.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
No marine hate here. They've been my primary army for over 20 years.
Maybe an elite army requires better generals though. . . .
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Great, so for some slight consistency we should have W2 Marines and Orks. Thanks for playing.
Nope. For greater consistency and better gameplay we should have W1 Marines and Orks.
If you want to keep restating the same opinions without adding any argument we can do this all day.
How are W1 Orks better gameplay when it doesn't reflect their toughness in lore?
T4 vs T3 is enough for Orks and Marines. Extra wound is unnecessary. T4 means a unit suffers 2/3 the wounds from S3 fire, or is 50% more durable. Good enough.
Except you're blatantly saying Orks are fine being wounded on a 5+ by a Lasgun and then just dying. Thats not appropriate for the lore at all.
I really hate marines. I hate them so much that I hope they kick their bolters on the morning and feel pain in their toes all day! Seriously though, where do you think kind of hate (TOES HURTING!) comes from, Xenomancer?
I imagine it comes from all kinds of places. Mainly people bored of playing against marines and envious of their model releases.
My advice - find some friends who play more than just marine armies. Maybe get a marine army for yourself so you can also get excited when new releases come out.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Ordinary Lasguns killing Orks just fine? Thats just silly Lasgun porn and shouldn't be looked at for any serious game discussion.
Or does this just apply to Bolters?
You're basically agreeing with me, in a roundabout way: lore is inconsistent and often biased by perspective or authorial fiat, so shouldn't be taken as game design gospel.
That's been my main point, far removed from it as we are. This argument over exactly how lore translates into game stats, and whether there actually is a consistent model for doing so, is an offshoot.
When lore fails - look to real life. A rapid fire grendade launcher (bolter 70mm) kills even intrenched infantry in swaths and tee shirts don't actually offer any protection against laser beams. But armor plates actaully do offer protection against a number of weapons depending on how thick it is. A quarter inch steel plate can stop a standard rifle round. An inch thick plate (like a marine) is basically impervious to rifle rounds and requires anti tank firepower to penetrate.
Lets get real here. A space marine is a hand picked human specimen which receives gene enhancements/and exoskeleton and special organs which basically turn it into a bipedal silverback gorilla. Are we honestly saying that a 180 lb human should have the same T and wounds value as a 700 lb gorilla in 1inch plate armor? No. Just stop.
Marine hate is disgusting. It is rampant on dakka. What always makes me wonder how so many players of 40k hate the protagonist so much they belittle them to be useless and thereby make their favorite factions even more pathetic as a result. Marines win a lot of battles.
No marine hate here. They've been my primary army for over 20 years.
Maybe an elite army requires better generals though. . . .
Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
If a more normal army (specifically Imperial Guard) were the "line" faction, and everyone took flamers to kill blobs of light infantry and krak grenades / lascannons to kill medium tanks and heavy vehicles, then Space Marines would have shone.
However, SM were a "one trick pony" list when it came to their durability - 3+ armor, and that's it. The vehicles were so light that you could kill them with anything you fired at the infantry, so as long as you had the tools to mulch 3+, you could mulch marines.
This meant that, as marines grew in the number of people playing them, then the number of people spamming anti-3+ solutions went up. What's worse is that these options still have to be competitively priced since Imperial Guard, Tyranids, etc didn't stop existing, so you could still spam the anti-3+ weapons.
Now? To solve this problem, Marines are going to 2 wounds. Only, this doesn't solve the problem, because Marines are a one-trick pony still. What needs to happen is either: 1) Marines stop being so common in the meta or 2) Marines need to be an actual army, with a wide variety of statlines varying like Nids do. Otherwise, take any multi-damage weapon that's good against T4 3+ saves and you've got the marines pegged, whether it's Gravis, Primaris, oldboi, Predator, or Repulsorthing.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: How are W1 Orks better gameplay when it doesn't reflect their toughness in lore?
In lore, Orks are frequently depicted as attacking in tidal waves of green. This imagery shows up again and again, from the Dawn of War intro to Fifteen Hours to any of the Ciaphas Cain novels. To reflect the lore in broad strokes, it is best for Orks to be individually more durable than humans but still able to be fielded in large numbers. Giving Orks a multi-wound statline like Marines would necessitate driving up their price and immediately turn them into an elite army, which is contrary to the lore.
From a purely gameplay standpoint, it would also increase their vulnerability to multi-wound weapons. While T3/W2 is a potential option to avoid pricing them out excessively, it increases their vulnerability to D2 weapons. With D2, low-AP weapons being the optimal profile for killing Marines, this would put Orks in the odd position of being hard-countered by the same weapons that kill Marines effectively.
Keeping them at T4/W1 allows them to be tougher than Guardsmen, while still retaining numbers. It also biases them towards offensive output (particularly in melee), which fits well the theme of trying to kill them at range before they can get close. It encourages them to get stuck in and maximize their damage.
More generally speaking, W2 infantry create unintuitive breakpoints that can make a game extremely frustrating depending upon the weapon access of the opposing army. Those with widespread access to D2 weapons can kill them easily and yield a lot of points, while those with primarily D1 weapons struggle to inflict any damage. It further devalues troops with D1 weapons, while allowing anti-meta skew lists to mitigate the ostensible increased durability. Allowing for tough and/or heavily armored W1 models provides the design space for units that are cheap enough not to be efficient targets for multi-damage heavy weapons, while still being resilient to common D1 weapons that lack the Strength or AP to mitigate their defensive profile. This is, of course, contingent on not giving out lots of AP to everyone and everything.
If consistency is necessary, I'd much rather see Marines brought down to W1 than every other race that thinks 'hey, I'm supposed to be as tough as them!' also brought up to W2. It makes for a much more solid design space when D1/D2 can be used as a hard breakpoint to distinguish anti-infantry weapons from anti-vehicle weapons.
If Orks need to be more durable- objectively, not just to be like Marines- I'd be completely fine with seeing them taken up to T5. That would increase their durability against bolters and heavy bolters (and analogues), without bumping up their price too far, and without lots of undesirable knock-on effects elsewhere.
SecondTime wrote: "Besides, even at 1W, they're a hell of a lot more durable than Guardsmen. "
Not more durable per point though. That's where it all falls apart. Model by model is EASY in comparison.
T4/W1/3+ Marines at 15pts apiece are 4.5 times harder to kill with lasgun fire and 4 times harder to kill with bolter fire than 5pt Guardsmen, while costing 3 times more. Against S5 they're just as durable as Guardsmen and at S6-7 they're tougher than Guardsmen again.
It's against AP-1 and up that they lose that efficiency- although they can recover it to a degree by getting in cover. So if you feel W1 Marines are too easy to kill, the ubiquity of moderate AP is where you need to look. It's the #1 factor in Marines- and vehicles, and anything else with a 3+ save- feeling like they're made of glass.
Edit: And as Unit noted, this is also partly a factor of everyone optimizing to kill Marines, so the most-commonly-fielded weapons are the ones that counter them most effectively. Being W2 is cool until you run into an army that's all overcharged plasma and heavy bolters, and suddenly all your second Wound does is give up more points when you die.
There's nothing broken about a W2 Ork at the current price point though, or otherwise you'd have to concede that many T3 5+ models are too cheap per wound.
"4.5 times harder to kill with lasgun fire and 4 times harder to kill with bolter fire than 5pt Guardsmen, while costing 3 times more. "
That's not hugely impressive, and once you get to mortal wounds or any kind of non-basic weapon, it does down the drain FAST. People dont' want 80% of the game to be AP 0, so this analysis is largely academic. One wound marines are more fragile per point than guardsmen, even BEFORE expensive marine gear. Once you put gear on them, they bleed points incredibly fast. GW could have used this to push oldbois out of the game. Instead, we get super tiny marines.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Except you're blatantly saying Orks are fine being wounded on a 5+ by a Lasgun and then just dying. Thats not appropriate for the lore at all.
If we want to take the game system completely literally, I will happily find you excerpts of Orks getting one-shotted by lasguns or bolters blowing their heads open, and then write a paragraph about how a bolter shot being completely unable to kill a W2 Ork doesn't fit the lore. I can even double-feature it with some speculation as to why someone would be so pedantic as to think that a single 'shot' in game terms actually literally means exactly one shot on a full-auto recoilless laser assault rifle, and perform some statistical analysis as to whether a 33% incapacitation rate matches with lore sources or not.
I have readquired a liking for Fantasy 1 wound model with no damage stat for most weapons (With a couple having multi damage for each wound inflicted).
The problem I see with that stuff in 40k is basically that the broad range of units in 40k is much much bigger than in Fantasy. Going from a goblin to a dragon is big, but not as big as going from a gretchin to a Imperial Knight or Primarch, specially with Fantasy dragons being in the smaller side and not Smaug size side.
In Fantasy you had orc boyz and then black orcs but in 40k you have orcs and nobz that are substantially bigger and then you have meganobz and tyranid warriors and tyranid tyrant guard and terminators and centurions and custodes and a ton of different infantry units that cannot have 1 wound when in fantasy outside ogres and ogre sized units like trolls and Ushabti you just didnt had that variety, and most of those units had drawback rules (Something no longer exists in modern AoS or 40k. Only positive stuff!).
And weapons were normal weapons. Swords, spears, axes, bows, crossbows, outside magical weapons for characters and heroes. You didnt had a Imperial state troop armed with a melta rifle capable of one shoting Archaon the Everchosen.
I really believe 40K needs to expand the use of the stats to add much more variety of profiles to the game. That doesnt need to be only wounds. A redone of the "To Wound" table and actually using Toughtness, from 3 to maybe 10 even 12 instead of just 3-8, the same for Strenght, would also help. I now afterCatbarf has pointed it out with such elocuence have started to think about if we up wounds, how to make infantry with 1 damage weapons relevant without just giving them more shots and starting again the same problem.
Maybe making the To Wound table much bigger with interactions of 6/4+ , 6/5+ etc... to wound would help much more, like in the LOTR game.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Great, so for some slight consistency we should have W2 Marines and Orks. Thanks for playing.
Nope. For greater consistency and better gameplay we should have W1 Marines and Orks.
If you want to keep restating the same opinions without adding any argument we can do this all day.
How are W1 Orks better gameplay when it doesn't reflect their toughness in lore?
T4 vs T3 is enough for Orks and Marines. Extra wound is unnecessary. T4 means a unit suffers 2/3 the wounds from S3 fire, or is 50% more durable. Good enough.
Except you're blatantly saying Orks are fine being wounded on a 5+ by a Lasgun and then just dying. Thats not appropriate for the lore at all.
Right, because 2/3s of lasgun hits simply do nothing.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:There's nothing broken about a W2 Ork at the current price point though, or otherwise you'd have to concede that many T3 5+ models are too cheap per wound.
'Concede'? I will happily argue that many T3 5+ models are too cheap per wound. Get Guardsmen back up to 6ppm and a whole host of other one-wound models start looking more attractive in comparison, not least of which W1 Tacticals.
SecondTime wrote:"4.5 times harder to kill with lasgun fire and 4 times harder to kill with bolter fire than 5pt Guardsmen, while costing 3 times more. "
That's not hugely impressive, and once you get to mortal wounds or any kind of non-basic weapon, it does down the drain FAST. People dont' want 80% of the game to be AP 0, so this analysis is largely academic. One wound marines are more fragile per point than guardsmen, even BEFORE expensive marine gear. Once you put gear on them, they bleed points incredibly fast. GW could have used this to push oldbois out of the game. Instead, we get super tiny marines.
It's better efficiency, it doesn't need to be hugely impressive. And yes, you are illustrating my point: the game is largely driven by mortal wounds and special weapons, and the proliferation of both diminishes the value of the Marine statline. Again, Marines being the most common army means everyone tailors to kill Marines. Whatever their vulnerability is, it will be exploited. The best way to make Marines feel durable is to put them in a middle ground where nothing is really optimal against them.
Let's remember that in prior editions, things like autocannons and heavy bolters didn't degrade Marine saves at all. You had to get to the equivalent of current AP-2 to do anything to Marine armor. Furthermore, in cover they were able to get a 4+ or 5+ that you could not deny, which let them stand up even to those weapons that negated their armor. In theory, they were durable by being hard to kill with basic rifles and a waste to kill with lascannons. In practice, if you knew 80% of your games were going to be against Marines, you took as many plasma guns as possible. As long as Marines are the most popular army, there's no way to completely fix that.
With the changes to how AP works, GW screwed things up in leaving defensive profiles exactly the same during the transition to 8th. Giving Marines a 2+ save would have gone a long ways towards addressing their vulnerability; restricting AP similarly to Age of Sigmar (where AP-2 is a big deal and AP-3 is quite rare) would have been even better.
Yeah but in Sigmar damage jumps from one model to the other so units are less individuals and more ... a blob with stats. A 10 1w 1A unit is the same as a 10 wound 10Attack model.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
As Galas noted, the difference in how Damage is handled makes a huge difference for AoS's design space, because there's no such thing as overkill.
In 40K, giving a unit a second wound is understood to not be literally doubling their durability for the simple reason that anything D2+ kills them just as easily as before. Whereas in AoS, it actually is a linear doubling in durability since D2 weapons would have previously killed two models for each failed save. I should also point out that AoS doesn't have comparative wounding either, which affects the math as well.
40K's system is designed to create breakpoints that optimize weapons for certain roles- high-power weapons overkill infantry, while high-ROF/low-power weapons have difficulty wounding vehicles and then don't inflict enough damage to be meaningful.
So adjustment to a W value in 40K has a much less consistent impact than it does in AoS, because you start messing with the breakpoints and how they interact with the armies. Going from W1 to W2 doesn't just mean you're twice as hard to kill and that's that; it means you're twice as hard to kill with small arms and just as easy to kill with anything heavier, which implies a lower cost (see: Marines only paying 3pts for an extra wound, when mathematically a raw doubling of resilience on a 15pt model should as a baseline cost around (15*sqrt(2))-15 or 6pts), which in turn makes them less efficiently killed by small arms and more efficiently killed by heavier weapons. That has substantial repercussions.
I'd also point out that if you look at AoS armies, Orruks there don't play as hordes the way they do in 40K. A Skaven army, or one composed of Freeguild, is going to outnumber them by a substantial margin. You could certainly balance W2 Boyz around the 9-10pt mark, but if fluff is a concern then being outnumbered 2:1 by Guardsmen should feel 'off'.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) It didn't take me long to figure out that if I wanted to win games I needed to take tiggy with grav cents and spam NDK if I wanted to win with "Space Marines".
honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
One thing to add also is that Marines were only paying 3 extra points if all mini-marines were all "balanced" at their previous points cost with 1 wound.
I'm not sure how many 15 point tactical marines ever made the table.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
Can you name an army with the same stat line and infantry model appearing across every battle field role being avoided like the plague? I am not talking about marine participating in tournments. I am speaking to the lack of use of power armor in the history of competitive play.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
Can you name an army with the same stat line and infantry model appearing across every battle field role being avoided like the plague? I am not talking about marine participating in tournments. I am speaking to the lack of use of power armor in the history of competitive play.
Your argument is that Marines are, in general, subpar. But they have a few stand-out builds that let them compete. If that is not your argument, then I apologize for misunderstanding, and would appreciate you clearing it up.
My point is that that is not a unique thing. I can't think of a single Codex in my play experience that every unit was good. Even the current Marine Dex has some stinkers, like Scouts as an Elites choice.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
Can you name an army with the same stat line and infantry model appearing across every battle field role being avoided like the plague? I am not talking about marine participating in tournments. I am speaking to the lack of use of power armor in the history of competitive play.
The power armor horde has always done well when handled correctly.
Insectum7 wrote: The power armor horde has always done well when handled correctly.
Show us those tournament results. If you're talking about how they faired in casual play show us the meta, lists, and bat reps so we can see what 'well' actually means.
JNAProductions wrote: Your argument is that Marines are, in general, subpar. But they have a few stand-out builds that let them compete. If that is not your argument, then I apologize for misunderstanding, and would appreciate you clearing it up.
My point is that that is not a unique thing. I can't think of a single Codex in my play experience that every unit was good. Even the current Marine Dex has some stinkers, like Scouts as an Elites choice.
The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
Can you name an army with the same stat line and infantry model appearing across every battle field role being avoided like the plague? I am not talking about marine participating in tournments. I am speaking to the lack of use of power armor in the history of competitive play.
Your argument is that Marines are, in general, subpar. But they have a few stand-out builds that let them compete. If that is not your argument, then I apologize for misunderstanding, and would appreciate you clearing it up.
My point is that that is not a unique thing. I can't think of a single Codex in my play experience that every unit was good. Even the current Marine Dex has some stinkers, like Scouts as an Elites choice.
Happy to clarify and Ill make it simple. Power armor marines have always been subpar and something drastic had to be done to make them playable. Scouts have always been a stinker choice. Just wasted less points than power armor tacticals. True - plenty of armies aren't trying to bring anything but the minimum troop expenditure - but typically its so they can bring some other better infantry choice - 90% of all marine entries are power armor based...it is a much bigger issue for marines when their base unit profile is garbage. Esp when that garabe choice is more limiting due to cost than other armies garbage required picks.
Insectum7 wrote: The power armor horde has always done well when handled correctly.
Show us those tournament results. If you're talking about how they faired in casual play show us the meta, lists, and bat reps so we can see what 'well' actually means.
Tournament lists tend to be won with statistical outlier units, which power armor units are not, since they are functionally the baseline. But a collection of units don't need to be topping tourney results to be solid middle tier. Also, being the baseline, they're not bottom tier, despite what certain posters would like to claim.
Power armor swarm is essentially it's own skew build, and it's been serving some of us well for at least 15 years.
Insectum7 wrote: The power armor horde has always done well when handled correctly.
Show us those tournament results. If you're talking about how they faired in casual play show us the meta, lists, and bat reps so we can see what 'well' actually means.
Tournament lists tend to be won with statistical outlier units, which power armor units are not, since they are functionally the baseline. But a collection of units don't need to be topping tourney results to be solid middle tier. Also, being the baseline, they're not bottom tier, despite what certain posters would like to claim.
Power armor swarm is essentially it's own skew build, and it's been serving some of us well for at least 15 years.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
Galas wrote: A 10 1w 1A unit is the same as a 10 wound 10Attack model.
Uh? If you inflict 9 wounds to the 10 1w 1a unit, it can only make 1a for the rest of the game. If you inflict 9 wounds to the 10 wounds 10 attacks model, it can still inflicts 10 attacks. I mean, I know AoS has degrading profiles, but does it have this kind of degrading profile, where you lose attacks every time you lose a wound?
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Xenomancers wrote: I imagine it comes from all kinds of places. Mainly people bored of playing against marines and envious of their model releases.
My advice - find some friends who play more than just marine armies. Maybe get a marine army for yourself so you can also get excited when new releases come out.
Did you notice how your two solutions directly counter each other ?
If only there was a better way...
Insectum7 wrote: Tournament lists tend to be won with statistical outlier units, which power armor units are not, since they are functionally the baseline. But a collection of units don't need to be topping tourney results to be solid middle tier. Also, being the baseline, they're not bottom tier, despite what certain posters would like to claim.
Power armor swarm is essentially it's own skew build, and it's been serving some of us well for at least 15 years.
So 'works well' means does okay in metas where nobody builds to counter it, loses to anything that got randomly buffed in your opponent's formerly fluffy list, not worth considering if you enjoy list optimization. That sounds like the worst of all worlds, not good enough to be worth playing, not terrible enough to be a fun challenge to build around, and uninteresting on the tabletop too.
Galas wrote: A 10 1w 1A unit is the same as a 10 wound 10Attack model.
Uh? If you inflict 9 wounds to the 10 1w 1a unit, it can only make 1a for the rest of the game. If you inflict 9 wounds to the 10 wounds 10 attacks model, it can still inflicts 10 attacks. I mean, I know AoS has degrading profiles, but does it have this kind of degrading profile, where you lose attacks every time you lose a wound?
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Xenomancers wrote: I imagine it comes from all kinds of places. Mainly people bored of playing against marines and envious of their model releases.
My advice - find some friends who play more than just marine armies. Maybe get a marine army for yourself so you can also get excited when new releases come out.
Did you notice how your two solutions directly counter each other ?
If only there was a better way...
I don't see how it counters. I can assure you - marine players don't want to play against marines ether.
Insectum7 wrote: Tournament lists tend to be won with statistical outlier units, which power armor units are not, since they are functionally the baseline. But a collection of units don't need to be topping tourney results to be solid middle tier. Also, being the baseline, they're not bottom tier, despite what certain posters would like to claim.
Power armor swarm is essentially it's own skew build, and it's been serving some of us well for at least 15 years.
So 'works well' means does okay in metas where nobody builds to counter it, loses to anything that got randomly buffed in your opponent's formerly fluffy list, not worth considering if you enjoy list optimization. That sounds like the worst of all worlds, not good enough to be worth playing, not terrible enough to be a fun challenge to build around, and uninteresting on the tabletop too.
sure thing mr. glass half full.
It could also mean that the foundation of the unit is solid, and minor tweaks could put it on the top. It could also mean the adjustments that actually need to be made are against the statistical outlier units, and that 1W marines are perfectly fine.
Also, everybody built to counter T4 3+, because it was still everywhere.
Lets flip it around. Why don't you prove to me that they were "utter garbage" like Xeno claims.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Great, so for some slight consistency we should have W2 Marines and Orks. Thanks for playing.
Nope. For greater consistency and better gameplay we should have W1 Marines and Orks.
If you want to keep restating the same opinions without adding any argument we can do this all day.
How are W1 Orks better gameplay when it doesn't reflect their toughness in lore?
T4 vs T3 is enough for Orks and Marines. Extra wound is unnecessary. T4 means a unit suffers 2/3 the wounds from S3 fire, or is 50% more durable. Good enough.
Except you're blatantly saying Orks are fine being wounded on a 5+ by a Lasgun and then just dying. Thats not appropriate for the lore at all.
Right, because 2/3s of lasgun hits simply do nothing.
And half of Lasguns do nothing to a human. Clearly there's an issue in the game if a laser gun isn't wounding humans at more than half the rate they go through the armor.
Lasguns need to go to S4 confirmed.
Xenomancers wrote: Yes but you are a known primaris hater. I can't respect that. For several editions marines have been my primary army. It's always been below top tier. Requiring gimmicks to function with better armies. The tactical marine has always been bad too. I play lots of other armies now.
So marines have to be top tier for you to play them? Why not "solid middle"? Which, btw, they're rarely been below "solid middle". Usually marines are around upper-middle tier.
I'm sure you'll disagree, but it could be said that you have your own history here.
The space marine has always been below middle. Notable gimmicks have elevated marines to playable but it has always been mostly by avoiding the power armor marines. Because they have been notoriously bad for all of history. Because they pay for stats they don't or can't use. (WS3+ s4 on a 1 attack model - 3+ save which is easily ignored) honestly the 2 wound stat is easy to ignore too. The much bigger issue for marines is core. Is space marine core the norm is it necron? Core actually limits necron...which in the end is a buff to marines if every army is limited but they aren't.
Name an army that was universally topping tournaments.
Not with one or two builds-every single unit in their Dex appeared in a tournament winning list.
Can you name an army with the same stat line and infantry model appearing across every battle field role being avoided like the plague? I am not talking about marine participating in tournments. I am speaking to the lack of use of power armor in the history of competitive play.
The power armor horde has always done well when handled correctly.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you think that Astartes players deserve to have a massive advantage for picking the "right" army. Goalpost shifting and just disingenuous argumentation makes it look like you're just agitating for your favorite power armored bois to be overpowered.
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Insectum7 wrote: Why don't you prove to me that they were "utter garbage" like Xeno claims.
It could also mean that the foundation of the unit is solid, and minor tweaks could put it on the top. It could also mean the adjustments that actually need to be made are against the statistical outlier units, and that 1W marines are perfectly fine.
Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
Also, everybody built to counter T4 3+, because it was still everywhere.
Which means that T4 3+ was likely to underperform in that meta due to running into counters at a higher rate than other 'weaker' armies ran into their own counters. Hence the buff to the base MEQ profile.
Lets flip it around. Why don't you prove to me that they were "utter garbage" like Xeno claims.
Why should I prove a claim I didn't make? Especially given that you can't prove your claim that they 'work well'.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't see how it counters. I can assure you - marine players don't want to play against marines ether.
You don't see how "Start a marine army yourself" goes counter to "Find people who don't play marine armies"? Am I supposed to be excited about an army I don't get to play because my opponents are sick of them?
I don't want to play marines anyway, it's not an army that appeal to me...
Insectum7 wrote: Tournament lists tend to be won with statistical outlier units, which power armor units are not, since they are functionally the baseline. But a collection of units don't need to be topping tourney results to be solid middle tier. Also, being the baseline, they're not bottom tier, despite what certain posters would like to claim.
Power armor swarm is essentially it's own skew build, and it's been serving some of us well for at least 15 years.
So 'works well' means does okay in metas where nobody builds to counter it, loses to anything that got randomly buffed in your opponent's formerly fluffy list, not worth considering if you enjoy list optimization. That sounds like the worst of all worlds, not good enough to be worth playing, not terrible enough to be a fun challenge to build around, and uninteresting on the tabletop too.
sure thing mr. glass half full.
It could also mean that the foundation of the unit is solid, and minor tweaks could put it on the top. It could also mean the adjustments that actually need to be made are against the statistical outlier units, and that 1W marines are perfectly fine.
Also, everybody built to counter T4 3+, because it was still everywhere.
Lets flip it around. Why don't you prove to me that they were "utter garbage" like Xeno claims.
T4 3+ was not actually everywhere. There was lots of AP2 and AP3 weapons everywhere though. Because these weapons are generally the best at killing everything. ESP in past editions if they could be given ignore cover. Some people blame it on these weapons being too cheap or plentiful but the reality is t43+ was never great against small arms ether - even in the event you actually got to take a save because you could get a 4+ cover save so easily. 8th did make marines better in this sense but at the same time plenty of weapons murder marines in cover even better than they used to...so it was a wash. Honestly though in 8th the marine profile actually did reasonably well with 2 wounds. It was more issues like...not having stratagem/ army traits not applying to half our units/ weak psychic phase/ vehicles being made of paper which were the biggest issues for marines in 8th.
8.5 pretty much fixed those issues all at once and buffed a bunch of units. It got out of hand pretty fast. When the supplements started dropping.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you think that Astartes players deserve to have a massive advantage for picking the "right" army. Goalpost shifting and just disingenuous argumentation makes it look like you're just agitating for your favorite power armored bois to be overpowered.
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Insectum7 wrote: Why don't you prove to me that they were "utter garbage" like Xeno claims.
They won't, because they can't.
Nah that is not it at all. I am unhappy with the cron to marines comparison first out the gate in 9th edd. The marines codex is better in a lot of unfair ways. Mainly core making marine choices endless when cron choices are extremely limited. It is sure to create a big balance issue. Mini marines are over the top in a lot of places now. Primaris on the other hand...not the best choice at literally anything anymore (bad internal balance issue there).
Immortals vs intercessors is a pretty favorable matchup for immortals though. It's too bad we don't get more comparisons like that.
8.5 pretty much fixed those issues all at once and buffed a bunch of units. It got out of hand pretty fast. When the supplements started dropping.
This at least is something I'd agree with. I think the Marines 2.0 codex was, for the most part, reasonable (at least until you compare it to the CSM equivalent). It gave them a not-insignificant boost, but wasn't too bad.
But then we had a pile of dedicated Marine supplements.
And then another pile of Marine supplements thinly disguised as a universal campaign/story.
And then 9th dropped and Marines of course got a new codex immediately, plus even more new models, plus upgrades for a ton of their weapons. Oh, and many other armies got completely shafted with point increases, whilst Marines had their wounds doubled at virtually no cost.
I get that Marines were on the weaker end in early 8th, but by this point the pendulum had swung so far back the other way that its smashed a hole right through the side of the grandfather clock.
Canadian 5th wrote: Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
I'll throw this out there: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines gave regular W1 Marines a new lease on life, fixing the most problematic aspect of their design, which was getting out-shot and generally not really feeling like a surgical assault unit.
If it were up to me, I'd change Bolter Discipline to be one bonus shot at all ranges, give them an extra Attack on the base profile, and ditch Doctrines. That would make them more lethal at all ranges, allow them to move while maintaining maximum combat efficiency ('double shots at long range if you don't move' seems like the kind of rule Tau should have, not Marines), and avoid the systemic issues caused by bonus AP.
I'd playtest that extensively under 9th Ed rules, scenarios, and points values, and then assess if further changes are needed.
Canadian 5th wrote: Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
I'll throw this out there: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines gave regular W1 Marines a new lease on life, fixing the most problematic aspect of their design, which was getting out-shot and generally not really feeling like a surgical assault unit.
If it were up to me, I'd change Bolter Discipline to be one bonus shot at all ranges, give them an extra Attack on the base profile, and ditch Doctrines. That would make them more lethal at all ranges, allow them to move while maintaining maximum combat efficiency ('double shots at long range if you don't move' seems like the kind of rule Tau should have, not Marines), and avoid the systemic issues caused by bonus AP.
I'd playtest that extensively under 9th Ed rules, scenarios, and points values, and then assess if further changes are needed.
But doesn't fix the fact that they evaporate. Being awesome for a single turn then melting (along with all the gear you paid for) still plagued them. I thought GW would leave them like this to discourage their use. I can tell you that 2W marines with 2+ armor and 5+++ disintegrated if you didn't tripoint with them.
Canadian 5th wrote: Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
I'll throw this out there: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines gave regular W1 Marines a new lease on life, fixing the most problematic aspect of their design, which was getting out-shot and generally not really feeling like a surgical assault unit.
If it were up to me, I'd change Bolter Discipline to be one bonus shot at all ranges, give them an extra Attack on the base profile, and ditch Doctrines. That would make them more lethal at all ranges, allow them to move while maintaining maximum combat efficiency ('double shots at long range if you don't move' seems like the kind of rule Tau should have, not Marines), and avoid the systemic issues caused by bonus AP.
I'd playtest that extensively under 9th Ed rules, scenarios, and points values, and then assess if further changes are needed.
How does this fix their base stats issue? If the T4 Dv3+ profile is bad you can't fix that by heaping special rules on top of it. Otherwise we'd have seen mini marines running around at the end of 8th edition.
Canadian 5th wrote: Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
I'll throw this out there: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines gave regular W1 Marines a new lease on life, fixing the most problematic aspect of their design, which was getting out-shot and generally not really feeling like a surgical assault unit.
If it were up to me, I'd change Bolter Discipline to be one bonus shot at all ranges, give them an extra Attack on the base profile, and ditch Doctrines. That would make them more lethal at all ranges, allow them to move while maintaining maximum combat efficiency ('double shots at long range if you don't move' seems like the kind of rule Tau should have, not Marines), and avoid the systemic issues caused by bonus AP.
I'd playtest that extensively under 9th Ed rules, scenarios, and points values, and then assess if further changes are needed.
But doesn't fix the fact that they evaporate. Being awesome for a single turn then melting (along with all the gear you paid for) still plagued them. I thought GW would leave them like this to discourage their use. I can tell you that 2W marines with 2+ armor and 5+++ disintegrated if you didn't tripoint with them.
Pick any army that can muster lots of AP -2 and better. For assault elements with 1W, they die to AP 0 unless they are 2+. I've lost all 15 DC in one turn to throwaway fire in 8th. This is why 8.5 BA were codex: tripoint. If I couldn't turn off your shooting phase entirely, I died. Bottom line is that AP0 works just fine on 3+ armor. Scatterlasers from 7th were effectively AP0 and they scooped marines by the handful.
Canadian 5th wrote: Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
I'll throw this out there: Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines gave regular W1 Marines a new lease on life, fixing the most problematic aspect of their design, which was getting out-shot and generally not really feeling like a surgical assault unit.
If it were up to me, I'd change Bolter Discipline to be one bonus shot at all ranges, give them an extra Attack on the base profile, and ditch Doctrines. That would make them more lethal at all ranges, allow them to move while maintaining maximum combat efficiency ('double shots at long range if you don't move' seems like the kind of rule Tau should have, not Marines), and avoid the systemic issues caused by bonus AP.
I'd playtest that extensively under 9th Ed rules, scenarios, and points values, and then assess if further changes are needed.
You're basically suggesting to consolidate Manlet Marines into Primaris which most people won't object to.
It could also mean that the foundation of the unit is solid, and minor tweaks could put it on the top. It could also mean the adjustments that actually need to be made are against the statistical outlier units, and that 1W marines are perfectly fine.
Then show me these tweaks. If it's just so easy an obvious show me what you would have done instead.
As catbarf stated. Bolter Discipline, Doctrines, etc. were very valuable. Personally I think 1W marines were in a great spot after Codex 2.0, and didn't need the super-Doctrines.
Additionally, I'd reapply the older rules where each model in CC could use a grenade, that way they could attack vehicles with Krak in CC as they did in earlier editions.
Also, everybody built to counter T4 3+, because it was still everywhere.
Which means that T4 3+ was likely to underperform in that meta due to running into counters at a higher rate than other 'weaker' armies ran into their own counters. Hence the buff to the base MEQ profile.
Depends on how you ran it. If you skewed hard to Power Armor and put the effort in they could do quite well. If you took a couple token units and didn't commit they could be blasted off the table.
"If they weren't "top tier" and they weren't "hot garbage", then they were in a reasonably balanced position where minor tweaking would be enough."
Nah, not exactly. They spent a LOT of time in the bottom 1/3. A big part of that was terrible troops in editions that required troops to score. Yes, this could have all been fixed with point changes, but that's usually true.
I think shifting to primaris marines with 2W with limited wargear was as good shift over 1W make-your-own-marines. But 2W guys with gear options is turning out to be just nuts. I think the game would have been better with oldbois softsquatted.
Insectum7 wrote: As catbarf stated. Bolter Discipline, Doctrines, etc. were very valuable. Personally I think 1W marines were in a great spot after Codex 2.0, and didn't need the super-Doctrines.
If they were the only option in the codex that might have been okay, unfortunately, there were Cawl's beefy bois and the mini-marines didn't compete.
Additionally, I'd reapply the older rules where each model in CC could use a grenade, that way they could attack vehicles with Krak in CC as they did in earlier editions.
Was that an issue people were having with their mini-marines? Even if it was, I'm not calling 4 grenades plus a melta bomb reliable anti-tank.
Depends on how you ran it. If you skewed hard to Power Armor and put the effort in they could do quite well. If you took a couple token units and didn't commit they could be blasted off the table.
That sounds incredibly meta dependent, can you link us to battle reports and army lists that you felt this skew worked against? How about the lists that worked yours over? How would you have handled Knights if a player using them had joined your group?
If they weren't "top tier" and they weren't "hot garbage", then they were in a reasonably balanced position where minor tweaking would be enough.
You've asserted this repeatedly. Do you have any proof?
SecondTime wrote: "If they weren't "top tier" and they weren't "hot garbage", then they were in a reasonably balanced position where minor tweaking would be enough."
Nah, not exactly. They spent a LOT of time in the bottom 1/3. A big part of that was terrible troops in editions that required troops to score. Yes, this could have all been fixed with point changes, but that's usually true.
I think shifting to primaris marines with 2W with limited wargear was as good shift over 1W make-your-own-marines. But 2W guys with gear options is turning out to be just nuts. I think the game would have been better with oldbois softsquatted.
yes yes the bottom 1/3.
at the start of the index edition they had guymanboat rowdude and razorbacks
at the start of codex they gak on everyone within a firehose because they were the only army with stratagems and relics
mid way through codex they had a sad time, but during that sad time they were NOT "bottom 3" as other armies didn't have codexes yet
once all armies had codexes they were "bottom 3" for MAYBE a month or two before they got their next edition
once mehreeens had codex 2.0 they were top tier
once mehreeeens had psychic marineneing they were topper tier
once mehreeeeeeeeeeeens had codex 3.0 they were the toppest of tiers and now here we are
Stop talking through your nose with rose tinted glasses.
Insectum7 wrote: As catbarf stated. Bolter Discipline, Doctrines, etc. were very valuable. Personally I think 1W marines were in a great spot after Codex 2.0, and didn't need the super-Doctrines.
If they were the only option in the codex that might have been okay, unfortunately, there were Cawl's beefy bois and the mini-marines didn't compete.
Additionally, I'd reapply the older rules where each model in CC could use a grenade, that way they could attack vehicles with Krak in CC as they did in earlier editions.
Was that an issue people were having with their mini-marines? Even if it was, I'm not calling 4 grenades plus a melta bomb reliable anti-tank.
Depends on how you ran it. If you skewed hard to Power Armor and put the effort in they could do quite well. If you took a couple token units and didn't commit they could be blasted off the table.
That sounds incredibly meta dependent, can you link us to battle reports and army lists that you felt this skew worked against? How about the lists that worked yours over? How would you have handled Knights if a player using them had joined your group?
If they weren't "top tier" and they weren't "hot garbage", then they were in a reasonably balanced position where minor tweaking would be enough.
You've asserted this repeatedly. Do you have any proof?
Lets play a game, name the 66% of the game's troop choices that are "better" than mahreen troop choices.
I'll wait here with bated breath.
Eonfuzz wrote: Lets play a game, name the 66% of the game's troop choices that are "better" than mahreen troop choices.
I'll wait here with bated breath.
I wasn't talking about just tactical marines though, I was talking about how the T4 W1 Av3+ profile with one wound was always a bad profile that people only took if it had overwhelming firepower or free stuff attached to it.
Eonfuzz wrote: Lets play a game, name the 66% of the game's troop choices that are "better" than mahreen troop choices.
I'll wait here with bated breath.
I wasn't talking about just tactical marines though, I was talking about how the T4 W1 Av3+ profile with one wound was always a bad profile that people only took if it had overwhelming firepower or free stuff attached to it.
But it isnt. T4 W1 Av3+ A2 profile was the best troop profile in the game.
Only to get surpassed by the new and improved T4 W2 Av3+ A3 murhen profile
I don't really see how the highest numbers in the game profile wise is the worst.
Eonfuzz wrote: Lets play a game, name the 66% of the game's troop choices that are "better" than mahreen troop choices.
I'll wait here with bated breath.
I wasn't talking about just tactical marines though, I was talking about how the T4 W1 Av3+ profile with one wound was always a bad profile that people only took if it had overwhelming firepower or free stuff attached to it.
But it isnt. T4 W1 Av3+ A2 profile was the best troop profile in the game.
Only to get surpassed by the new and improved T4 W2 Av3+ A3 murhen profile
I don't really see how the highest numbers in the game profile wise is the worst.
Marines had A1, not A2. Highest numbers don't matter. Units have to be good for their cost.
Eonfuzz wrote: But it isnt. T4 W1 Av3+ A2 profile was the best troop profile in the game.
Only to get surpassed by the new and improved T4 W2 Av3+ A3 murhen profile
I don't really see how the highest numbers in the game profile wise is the worst.
Why are you fixated on troops when there are more than just tactical marines in the codex?
Eonfuzz wrote: But it isnt. T4 W1 Av3+ A2 profile was the best troop profile in the game.
Only to get surpassed by the new and improved T4 W2 Av3+ A3 murhen profile
I don't really see how the highest numbers in the game profile wise is the worst.
Why are you fixated on troops when there are more than just tactical marines in the codex?
I mentioned them as an example of a contributing factor to marine's problems in the past.
Insectum7 wrote: As catbarf stated. Bolter Discipline, Doctrines, etc. were very valuable. Personally I think 1W marines were in a great spot after Codex 2.0, and didn't need the super-Doctrines.
If they were the only option in the codex that might have been okay, unfortunately, there were Cawl's beefy bois and the mini-marines didn't compete.
Additionally, I'd reapply the older rules where each model in CC could use a grenade, that way they could attack vehicles with Krak in CC as they did in earlier editions.
Was that an issue people were having with their mini-marines? Even if it was, I'm not calling 4 grenades plus a melta bomb reliable anti-tank.
Depends on how you ran it. If you skewed hard to Power Armor and put the effort in they could do quite well. If you took a couple token units and didn't commit they could be blasted off the table.
That sounds incredibly meta dependent, can you link us to battle reports and army lists that you felt this skew worked against? How about the lists that worked yours over? How would you have handled Knights if a player using them had joined your group?
If they weren't "top tier" and they weren't "hot garbage", then they were in a reasonably balanced position where minor tweaking would be enough.
You've asserted this repeatedly. Do you have any proof?
I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Most of their successful builds in the past were in spite of T4 3+ at their price point, not because of. Early 3rd is an exception. It doesn't really matter. I think GW mostly came to the conclusion that I'm more correct and then they completely overreacted over the course of 8th and going into 9th.
Looking back, I think that marines were only playtested in a very casual environment, because they were priced to always get a 3+ save against only a moderate number of wounds.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Except that's not actually my position. My position is that the marine stat line was regularly a detriment for mainly meta reasons.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Except that's not actually my position. My position is that the marine stat line was regularly a detriment for mainly meta reasons.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
And are Marines unique like that?
Or is every tournament list just the best bits of a Codex, relying on the best gimmicks and whatnot to do well?
JNAProductions wrote: And are Marines unique like that?
Or is every tournament list just the best bits of a Codex, relying on the best gimmicks and whatnot to do well?
Did I ever imply that they were? If so, please quote me as saying such. This thread isn't about every other stat line and codex entry, its about marines having two wounds. Single wound marines were never good and could never rely on their stats, now they can.
But lets' talk other units. I want other lacklustre unit entries to get buffs as well some of them should get durability bumps, others should get buffs to damage output, a rare few could get a new gimmick entirely. One idea I'd like to see is mobz of boyz getting a +1 to hit while they have 11 or more models in a unit because 'dis many boyz can't miss'. Gants/gaunts might get -1 to hit while above 11 models in a unit because they're a 'ceaseless swarm' and it's hard to focus enough fire on any given gant to bring them down. DE poison weapons might deal mortal wounds on 6s.
I don't just want marine toughness negated because I think it feels good that they're tough but I also don't want one-sided stomps.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
Gotta be honest here, i just read through all of this, and I have watched you and Canadian move the goal posts several times. When someone makes an argument about Tactical Space Marines you flip the conversation to tournament meta and how the CODEX SM wasn't good, and when that gets an argument against it the conversation flips back to T4 3+ tac marines never being good.
After Codex 2.0 Marine Tacs were in a fine spot, 2 shots at 24' 2attacks on the charge, etc. The 2nd wound was not needed and came far to cheaply for Marines.
Xenomancers wrote: T4 3+ was not actually everywhere. There was lots of AP2 and AP3 weapons everywhere though. Because these weapons are generally the best at killing everything. ESP in past editions if they could be given ignore cover. Some people blame it on these weapons being too cheap or plentiful but the reality is t43+ was never great against small arms ether - even in the event you actually got to take a save because you could get a 4+ cover save so easily. 8th did make marines better in this sense but at the same time plenty of weapons murder marines in cover even better than they used to...so it was a wash. Honestly though in 8th the marine profile actually did reasonably well with 2 wounds. It was more issues like...not having stratagem/ army traits not applying to half our units/ weak psychic phase/ vehicles being made of paper which were the biggest issues for marines in 8th.
8.5 pretty much fixed those issues all at once and buffed a bunch of units. It got out of hand pretty fast. When the supplements started dropping.
T4 3+ was everwhere, sternguard, tacs, devastators etc. In previous editions it took 6 S4 hits to guarantee 1 dead Marine, Against Ork boyz, it took 2.32 hits to guarantee 1 dead Ork boy, or roughly 3x fewer while Ork boyz were generally a bit less than half the price of a SM. So against small arms fire, SM's were more durable point for point than Ork boyz or other similar troop choices. As far as weapons killing Marines easier now in cover than prior....well no. There are a handful of exceptions, notably high AP weapons, -3 and -4AP specifically, but those are still relatively more rare, but more importantly, the new cover rules benefit SM players a lot more than less elite armies. My ork boyz used to enjoy sitting in cover getting a 4+ save, now on the rare occurrences I actually get to use a cover save its a 5+. So its a 50% worse save, and in 8th, the rules basically precluded me from ever even getting this.
The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up.
And my T4 W1 Sv6+ statlines was always amazing and didn't require "gimmicks" to make it worth taking? Ork boyz sucked in 7th, they were only good in 8th because of Da Jump/tellyporta rules which gave them a 8' charge turn 1.
At the same time, my Lootas with the exact same statline were hot garbage for the longest time and only became good in 8th when the codex dropped and gave Bad Moon loota's shoot twice and Mob up to create a 25 Boy mob of Lootas dumping 2D3 S7 -1AP 2D shots a turn that exploded on 5s. Without shoot twice, without mob up they are hardily seen anymore. Almost like....they required a gimmick to get to the top tables. And I never expected T4 W1 Sv6+ to be durable, but I did expect them to be cheap....which they weren't.
Space Marine Tacs were never top tier, but they certainly weren't bottom tier either. In 7th you didn't see SM players using them as much as possible, on the flipside you only saw boyz in the gimmicky Green tide list, and only until the meta figured out how easy it was to counter.
Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
You needed to use the weapons effectively. That's all, and it's not exactly a high bar. If you're equipping them poorly out of fear of losing more points-per-wound you're doing it wrong. They're meant to contribute.
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
Gotta be honest here, i just read through all of this, and I have watched you and Canadian move the goal posts several times. When someone makes an argument about Tactical Space Marines you flip the conversation to tournament meta and how the CODEX SM wasn't good, and when that gets an argument against it the conversation flips back to T4 3+ tac marines never being good.
After Codex 2.0 Marine Tacs were in a fine spot, 2 shots at 24' 2attacks on the charge, etc. The 2nd wound was not needed and came far to cheaply for Marines.
I've never once argued that it's just tactical marines that had issues. I've argued that the T4 W1 Sv3+ profile was never particularly good and used tournament results as a means showing that. The counterpoints I've had are that they were playable in casual metas without any discussion of what those metas and marine lists looked like.
I wish Martel would stop posting because people keep treating my posts as if they're agreeing with him and I'm very often not.
T4 3+ was everwhere
In which editions were they both 'everywhere' and top 3 in competitive events?
sternguard, tacs, devastators etc.
Sterngaurd and devs would have been taken in their metas if they were T1 W1 with no save because they were being delivered up close to delete something and weren't expected to survive the counter attack.
In previous editions it took 6 S4 hits to guarantee 1 dead Marine, Against Ork boyz, it took 2.32 hits to guarantee 1 dead Ork boy, or roughly 3x fewer while Ork boyz were generally a bit less than half the price of a SM. So against small arms fire, SM's were more durable point for point than Ork boyz or other similar troop choices.
Yes, and that was never the issue. The issue was always that the enemy would point big guns at marines because they didn't have anything scary to point those weapons at, dreadnoughts used to get tar pitted, terminators (Grey Knights and wound allocation aside) were always jokes; the few times where that wasn't the case it wasn't because the humble marine was good it was because S10 Mephiston jogging up behind a rhino was good, or autocannons were rending on 6s to hit. Show me a meta where marines were considered high tier because they were tough.
And my T4 W1 Sv6+ statlines was always amazing and didn't require "gimmicks" to make it worth taking? Ork boyz sucked in 7th, they were only good in 8th because of Da Jump/tellyporta rules which gave them a 8' charge turn 1.
Maybe you never played in other times, but boyz have had metas where they were among the best units in the game, when was that ever true of the MEQ statline?
Just look at all these units that you claim have always sucked being taken by a top tournament player.
I've played since 3rd. I'm not just talking about 7th and 8th edition because I played zero games in 7th and a handful of games in 8th. My experience stems more from the first half of 6th backwards and then coming back to Dakka earlier this year.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
You needed to use the weapons effectively. That's all, and it's not exactly a high bar. If you're equipping them poorly out of fear of losing more points-per-wound you're doing it wrong. They're meant to contribute.
You say this as if it wasn't common wisdom that kitting out your tactical squads was a trap unless you literally had nothing else to spend those points on. Why make a tac squad sort of okay at something when you could take a unit that's actually *good* at doing that job?
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SecondTime wrote: They dont do a thing on your opponents turn except bleed points. Yes they contribute but they also increase fragility tremendously.
Love you too canadian. And ill stop when i want to.
You literally make even points that you've got a good read on look terrible because you exaggerate how good and bad things are.
I'd much rather disagree with you because I look worse by association if I happen to agree with you on something.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
If it's only one player with the success, keeping in mind there's not that many combinations for a Marine army...couldn't there be something wrong with that Marine army?
It's hard to read what you are saying without coming to the conclusion that you don't think marines should be winning tournaments...I don't think that is what you are saying but it seems like it.
Gotta be honest here, i just read through all of this, and I have watched you and Canadian move the goal posts several times. When someone makes an argument about Tactical Space Marines you flip the conversation to tournament meta and how the CODEX SM wasn't good, and when that gets an argument against it the conversation flips back to T4 3+ tac marines never being good.
After Codex 2.0 Marine Tacs were in a fine spot, 2 shots at 24' 2attacks on the charge, etc. The 2nd wound was not needed and came far to cheaply for Marines.
I've never once argued that it's just tactical marines that had issues. I've argued that the T4 W1 Sv3+ profile was never particularly good and used tournament results as a means showing that. The counterpoints I've had are that they were playable in casual metas without any discussion of what those metas and marine lists looked like.
I wish Martel would stop posting because people keep treating my posts as if they're agreeing with him and I'm very often not.
T4 3+ was everwhere
In which editions were they both 'everywhere' and top 3 in competitive events?
sternguard, tacs, devastators etc.
Sterngaurd and devs would have been taken in their metas if they were T1 W1 with no save because they were being delivered up close to delete something and weren't expected to survive the counter attack.
In previous editions it took 6 S4 hits to guarantee 1 dead Marine, Against Ork boyz, it took 2.32 hits to guarantee 1 dead Ork boy, or roughly 3x fewer while Ork boyz were generally a bit less than half the price of a SM. So against small arms fire, SM's were more durable point for point than Ork boyz or other similar troop choices.
Yes, and that was never the issue. The issue was always that the enemy would point big guns at marines because they didn't have anything scary to point those weapons at, dreadnoughts used to get tar pitted, terminators (Grey Knights and wound allocation aside) were always jokes; the few times where that wasn't the case it wasn't because the humble marine was good it was because S10 Mephiston jogging up behind a rhino was good, or autocannons were rending on 6s to hit. Show me a meta where marines were considered high tier because they were tough.
And my T4 W1 Sv6+ statlines was always amazing and didn't require "gimmicks" to make it worth taking? Ork boyz sucked in 7th, they were only good in 8th because of Da Jump/tellyporta rules which gave them a 8' charge turn 1.
Maybe you never played in other times, but boyz have had metas where they were among the best units in the game, when was that ever true of the MEQ statline?
Just look at all these units that you claim have always sucked being taken by a top tournament player.
I've played since 3rd. I'm not just talking about 7th and 8th edition because I played zero games in 7th and a handful of games in 8th. My experience stems more from the first half of 6th backwards and then coming back to Dakka earlier this year.
I literally called you out for moving the goal posts...and you proceed to make a long post where you move the goal posts.
You: T4 W1 Sv3+ isn't good, not just on tacs but all marines
Me: What about these relevant examples of that being completely false.
You: Well those don't count because reasons.
I then mention Ork boyz in 7th and 8th and you reply with links to ork lists from 5th edition....as if that is even remotely relevant to the points made.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
You literally refuse to post battle reports, army lists, or a breakdown of your own admitted non-tournament meta. How am I supposed to know if you're good bad or somewhere in between?
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
If it's only one player with the success, keeping in mind there's not that many combinations for a Marine army...couldn't there be something wrong with that Marine army?
No? It just means the one player is doing something the others aren't, even with limited combos, and when he explains what he is doing he is interrupted with "NOPE NOT POSSIBLE I DID SOME MATH ON A NAPKIN"
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
You literally refuse to post battle reports, army lists, or a breakdown of your own admitted non-tournament meta. How am I supposed to know if you're good bad or somewhere in between?
Me? I am not the one making any claims as I don't play Marines.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
You literally refuse to post battle reports, army lists, or a breakdown of your own admitted non-tournament meta. How am I supposed to know if you're good bad or somewhere in between?
Probably because you are moving the goal posts at the speed of light.
You complain about the old Marine stat line saying it was never good, but then when shown units that were good you say they don't count. So either you are talking about tac marines and only tacs or you are just arguing in a circle, constantly changing what you mean in order to appear as if you are right.
Marine statlines were in TOURNAMENT WINNING LISTS for years, yeah they required gimmicks, but that is every fething list that wins tournaments. 7th edition saw the SM Super formation being one of hte absolute most powerful lists in the game. Literally winning tournaments hand over fist, and guess what? it was packed with T4 W1 Sv3+ Models. Gimmick was they got free transports.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Except that's not actually my position. My position is that the marine stat line was regularly a detriment for mainly meta reasons.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
So you're saying that even though their stats aren't awesome, they have plenty of tools that help them to be competitive. Ok.
So like, Formations that run Sternguard and Grav in Drop Pods that are competitive and happen to field a bunch of Power Armored bodies aren't actually competitive armies with power armored bodies. . .
And really it's Command Squads for 7th because of Formations.
The traditional marine statline is a liability if you're not using it correctly, because you're paying a price for good stats, and if you don't use them you're wasting your points. Gear them up with good weapons so they can deliver with their BS, get them into combat so they can use their WS, S, T and Save to bully poor combatants, and use Transports to deploy in your favor so you don't get stuck in a position where you're letting the opponent just pick off your dudes with high powered weapons.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
You needed to use the weapons effectively. That's all, and it's not exactly a high bar. If you're equipping them poorly out of fear of losing more points-per-wound you're doing it wrong. They're meant to contribute.
You say this as if it wasn't common wisdom that kitting out your tactical squads was a trap unless you literally had nothing else to spend those points on. Why make a tac squad sort of okay at something when you could take a unit that's actually *good* at doing that job?
Who's common wisdom, exactly? I've never heard it, and I think whoever said it is wrong in most cases. If you're not giving them at least one weapon you're wasting an opportunity, since you've already spent the points on a platform that can upgrade for a pittance.
Why? Because armies should be fighting cohesively and units can function in support of one another. Four Tactical Squads with Heavies just added an additional Devastator Squads worth of firepower in support while they're holding objectives, maneuvering to tie stuff up in CC or, RFing a ton of bolters into chaff. . . or all of the above at once.
Sorry, I got your profile pic mixed up with Insectums, somehow...
As for why I won't just take anybody's word that tacs were good back in the day is because they weren't. I was around playing and reading battle reports from players far better than myself since 2009 (I went by Norade back then) and there weren't many metas where marines were anywhere close to top tier.
I may be missing some but the only metas I can recall marines being strong in were
1) Abusing drop pods and under priced weapons (Pod sterngaurd and pod Grav are the prime examples of this) even then they were a heavy skew list and often failed to generate long term success.
2) 5e wound allocation abusing SW but that was mostly due to Thunderwolves bouncing wounds and a psychic power that instantly killed things in a line.
3) Blood Angles abusing named characters and some psychic powers to create single model melee monsters that consolidated into new combats.
Beyond these, I can't think of anything prior to Iron Hands and however long 8th edition index era Gulliman lasted and again, none of those relied on MEQ bodies being tough to get the job done.
SemperMortis wrote: I literally called you out for moving the goal posts...and you proceed to make a long post where you move the goal posts.
You: T4 W1 Sv3+ isn't good, not just on tacs but all marines
Me: What about these relevant examples of that being completely false.
You: Well those don't count because reasons.
I then mention Ork boyz in 7th and 8th and you reply with links to ork lists from 5th edition....as if that is even remotely relevant to the points made.
My arguments in this thread have been that the issue with 2W marines isn't that they're too tough, but that marine lists have too much firepower from specialist units, that toughness isn't that good at making units feel tough on the table in 8th and 9th edition, and "The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up." This was my first post talking about the old MEQ statline.
I think you might be confusing me for Martel given that my first post on the issue called out sternguard and devs by name.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Except that's not actually my position. My position is that the marine stat line was regularly a detriment for mainly meta reasons.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
So you're saying that even though their stats aren't awesome, they have plenty of tools that help them to be competitive. Ok.
So like, Formations that run Sternguard and Grav in Drop Pods that are competitive and happen to field a bunch of Power Armored bodies aren't actually competitive armies with power armored bodies. . .
From my first post about the old MEQ statline:
"The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up."
This has been the crux of my argument since I weighed in on the matter. Are you even reading what I post or are you just assuming I'm saying the same thing as Martle and arguing against that?
Who's common wisdom, exactly? I've never heard it, and I think whoever said it is wrong in most cases. If you're not giving them at least one weapon you're wasting an opportunity, since you've already spent the points on a platform that can upgrade for a pittance.
Why? Because armies should be fighting cohesively and units can function in support of one another. Four Tactical Squads with Heavies just added an additional Devastator Squads worth of firepower in support while they're holding objectives, maneuvering to tie stuff up in CC or, RFing a ton of bolters into chaff. . . or all of the above at once.
A winning 40k list triples down on the things that make it stand out from the rest and surrounds it with units that support that theme. You can get away with putting upgrades on tac marines in a casual meta but I've never seen any tournament meta where tac squads were a key source of damage in top 8 lists.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Were you reading tournament battle reports or regular 40k battle reports?
Most tournament lists were gimmicky and totally contra-fluff lists, and were obviously distinct from fluffy, casual, or aesthetically pleasing lists.
I was reading tournament focused lists post by players like DashofPepper, FLG's Reece, Shep and others I can't recall through the fog of years gone by. That part of the hobby is what interests me just the same as I enjoy watching professional League of Legends more than I do playing it and miss the days of 3.x edition D&D and the Character Optimization boards. I like to see skilled players using the game's rules to their fullest extent.
On the topic of fluff, as subjective as it is, can I ask what's unfluffy about the list used in this BatRep:
Insectum7 wrote: I don't need proof when it simply stands to reason. If your positi6in is that they weren't "hot garbage" and my position is simply that they weren't top tier, then we agree that they were somewhere in the middle.
Except that's not actually my position. My position is that the marine stat line was regularly a detriment for mainly meta reasons.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
So you're saying that even though their stats aren't awesome, they have plenty of tools that help them to be competitive. Ok.
So like, Formations that run Sternguard and Grav in Drop Pods that are competitive and happen to field a bunch of Power Armored bodies aren't actually competitive armies with power armored bodies. . .
From my first post about the old MEQ statline:
"The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up."
This has been the crux of my argument since I weighed in on the matter. Are you even reading what I post or are you just assuming I'm saying the same thing as Martle and arguing against that?
And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Who's common wisdom, exactly? I've never heard it, and I think whoever said it is wrong in most cases. If you're not giving them at least one weapon you're wasting an opportunity, since you've already spent the points on a platform that can upgrade for a pittance.
Why? Because armies should be fighting cohesively and units can function in support of one another. Four Tactical Squads with Heavies just added an additional Devastator Squads worth of firepower in support while they're holding objectives, maneuvering to tie stuff up in CC or, RFing a ton of bolters into chaff. . . or all of the above at once.
A winning 40k list triples down on the things that make it stand out from the rest and surrounds it with units that support that theme. You can get away with putting upgrades on tac marines in a casual meta but I've never seen any tournament meta where tac squads were a key source of damage in top 8 lists.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
You needed to use the weapons effectively. That's all, and it's not exactly a high bar. If you're equipping them poorly out of fear of losing more points-per-wound you're doing it wrong. They're meant to contribute.
You say this as if it wasn't common wisdom that kitting out your tactical squads was a trap unless you literally had nothing else to spend those points on. Why make a tac squad sort of okay at something when you could take a unit that's actually *good* at doing that job?
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SecondTime wrote: They dont do a thing on your opponents turn except bleed points. Yes they contribute but they also increase fragility tremendously.
Love you too canadian. And ill stop when i want to.
You literally make even points that you've got a good read on look terrible because you exaggerate how good and bad things are.
I'd much rather disagree with you because I look worse by association if I happen to agree with you on something.
Then do that. I don't care.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: veteran marine player with a good record is told he is doing it wrong by less veteran players with worse performance
I had quite a good record with BA circa 5th and I can tell you that vanilla marines were straight garbage in 5th. I don't know what he's doing, and it really doesn't matter anymore. It's clear GW didn't agree, so here we are.
I also did just fine in 8th once I realized I had a one-trick army and I wasn't using that trick. Especially vs armies like Ultras, who basically didn't have a chapter tactic vs BA.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
Have you looked at any other infantry?
I mean, an Infantry Squad given a plasma and heavy bolter goes from 50pts to 65pts, an increase of 30%. In 8th Ed, that same loadout would have been an increase from 40pts to 55pts, which is 38% more. 10 T3/5+ wounds is pretty fragile.
Kabalites are currently horrendously overpriced, but even at 90pts for a squad of 10, a pair of Blasters bumps them up to 120pts, or a 33% increase.
Skitarii Vanguard are also 9ppm, so 90pts for a squad of 10, then three Plasma Calivers are 10 apiece, so also 120pts, 33% increase.
Tacticals? Under 9th, 150pts for a squad of 10, take a plasma gun and lascannon for another 25, putting them at 175pts for a 17% increase. Your weapons are a lower percentage of the unit's cost, and are significantly better protected. Everyone else's infantry experiences significantly greater increase in fragility by taking special/heavy weapons.
A lot of these supposed Achilles' heels of Marine design seem to be things that every other army faces. Moreso, in cases like this.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
Have you looked at any other infantry?
I mean, an Infantry Squad given a plasma and heavy bolter goes from 50pts to 65pts, an increase of 30%. In 8th Ed, that same loadout would have been an increase from 40pts to 55pts, which is 38% more. 10 T3/5+ wounds is pretty fragile.
Kabalites are currently horrendously overpriced, but even at 90pts for a squad of 10, a pair of Blasters bumps them up to 120pts, or a 33% increase.
Skitarii Vanguard are also 9ppm, so 90pts for a squad of 10, then three Plasma Calivers are 10 apiece, so also 120pts, 33% increase.
Tacticals? Under 9th, 150pts for a squad of 10, take a plasma gun and lascannon for another 25, putting them at 175pts for a 17% increase. Your weapons are a lower percentage of the unit's cost, and are significantly better protected. Everyone else's infantry experiences significantly greater increase in fragility by taking special/heavy weapons.
A lot of these supposed Achilles' heels of Marine design seem to be things that every other army faces. Moreso, in cases like this.
I'm talking about older marines not 9th. 9th ed plasma gun is completely miscosted now that marines have 2 wounds. Specifically, how much better said gear is now that marines have 2 wounds. As is stands now, I don't want to play with or against marines 9.0.
All this talk about sterngard. Sterngard were never good.
In literally every edition - they were an expensive suicide unit. Anything they did - IG vets did as good for less or some variation of cheap suicide squad (trueborn, ect) Why? Because the meq statline costed more points without offering any substantial durability increase (nothing close to having more bodies in your unit or taking 2 units for only 50% of the cost)
I can tell you one thing now though. Sterngard are not only good. They are borderline the best unit marines have access to. On the undercosted spectrum for sure - but if you make them 19 points and charge them 4-5 point for their ap-2 super boltgun now I think we are in a place where a sterngard can actually be played.
SecondTime wrote: Everyone posting is forgetting gear cost. Once you equipped a tactical squad, they were quite fragile. Even worse for a devastator squad. The very selling point of "tactical marines can be equipped for any mission!" was actually a horrible weakness on the opponent's turn.
Have you looked at any other infantry?
I mean, an Infantry Squad given a plasma and heavy bolter goes from 50pts to 65pts, an increase of 30%. In 8th Ed, that same loadout would have been an increase from 40pts to 55pts, which is 38% more. 10 T3/5+ wounds is pretty fragile.
Kabalites are currently horrendously overpriced, but even at 90pts for a squad of 10, a pair of Blasters bumps them up to 120pts, or a 33% increase.
Skitarii Vanguard are also 9ppm, so 90pts for a squad of 10, then three Plasma Calivers are 10 apiece, so also 120pts, 33% increase.
Tacticals? Under 9th, 150pts for a squad of 10, take a plasma gun and lascannon for another 25, putting them at 175pts for a 17% increase. Your weapons are a lower percentage of the unit's cost, and are significantly better protected. Everyone else's infantry experiences significantly greater increase in fragility by taking special/heavy weapons.
A lot of these supposed Achilles' heels of Marine design seem to be things that every other army faces. Moreso, in cases like this.
Tacticals are 18 points bub. Intercessors are 20. The weapons are cheaper though. Think an infantry lascannon is 15 now. A grav cannon is only 10 and a MM is 20. You are gonna be seeing lots of grav.
In general - you aren't looking at the final points costs for a lot of these 9th edition chapter approveds . Their codex can fix things. Best to compare them to the only 9th edd codex we have now.
An immortal is 17 points compared to a marine tactical at 18.
You have a str 5 ap-2 weapon T5 1W vs a str 4 ap-0 t4 2 wound. Immortals are the clear winner in this matchup. They even have 2 attacks in melee.
If you move to elites. Praetorians at 25ppm can take their pick of space marine elite manlets and beat them straight up (note that grav cannons are pretty dirty). The praetorian at str 5 ap-3 flat 2 damage is essentially a gravcannon a peice a turn and they have 2 wounds too. Conclusion - 2 wound marines is fine if the price is right. 2 wounds is also not that great of a stat. Flat 2 damage weapons treat it like 1 wound. t5 in most cases is actually superior because it is guaranteed damage reduction. OFC there is a cookie cutter weapon for every profile in the game.
Really...the only place marines have a significant advantage is their character auras are better and also affect more things (like dreads and stern) I am not 100% sold how OP marines are compared to crons though. If we just excluded 1 unit (eradicators) I think the crons would have a significant advantage against marines. We shall see - I have assembled quite a large cron force now because I have been playing a lot less. My good friend plays BT and IF so we are gonna have some battles and I can give a better idea of how this will go.
JNAProductions wrote: And are Marines unique like that?
Or is every tournament list just the best bits of a Codex, relying on the best gimmicks and whatnot to do well?
Did I ever imply that they were? If so, please quote me as saying such. This thread isn't about every other stat line and codex entry, its about marines having two wounds. Single wound marines were never good and could never rely on their stats, now they can.
But lets' talk other units. I want other lacklustre unit entries to get buffs as well some of them should get durability bumps, others should get buffs to damage output, a rare few could get a new gimmick entirely. One idea I'd like to see is mobz of boyz getting a +1 to hit while they have 11 or more models in a unit because 'dis many boyz can't miss'. Gants/gaunts might get -1 to hit while above 11 models in a unit because they're a 'ceaseless swarm' and it's hard to focus enough fire on any given gant to bring them down. DE poison weapons might deal mortal wounds on 6s.
I don't just want marine toughness negated because I think it feels good that they're tough but I also don't want one-sided stomps.
I agree. I have most armies - I want them all to do well. I want every unit to be viable. Elite infantry in general struggle in this game. Which is a particular issue for marines who have nothing but elite infantry in their armies. Aspect warriors need serious help(incubi least of all but they should also get a minor buff), Tyranid warriors could use a QOL buff, plus lots of other units. I advocate for all weak units. I am more vocal about marines because holy crap dakka. Yall really like to rewrite history and turn marines into something they are not. They are historically bad. Plus yes - marines do deserve to be a competitive army...they should not have any kind of negative handicap put against them because they are easy to play and a "starter" army.
SecondTime wrote:I'm talking about older marines not 9th.
So what edition then?
Because going back all the way to 3rd, Marines haven't ever paid substantially more per special/heavy weapon than other armies, but have had significantly more expensive (and durable) troops carrying them.
Just cherry-picking an edition: In 5th Ed I paid 5ppm for Guardsmen, and a plasma gun + heavy bolter cost an extra 25pts for the squad. That increased the price of the squad by a whopping 50%. Even just a grenade launcher + heavy bolter was an extra 15pts, increasing their cost 30%.
Nothing Tacticals have ever had comes anywhere close to that reduction in durability for the cost. I'm not seeing any validity to the claim that Marines particularly suffered from kitting up their troops; if anything you had more incentive to do so than other armies.
Xenomancers wrote:Tacticals are 18 points bub. Intercessors are 20. The weapons are cheaper though. Think an infantry lascannon is 15 now. A grav cannon is only 10 and a MM is 20. You are gonna be seeing lots of grav.
In general - you aren't looking at the final points costs for a lot of these 9th edition chapter approveds . Their codex can fix things. Best to compare them to the only 9th edd codex we have now.
We're talking about W1 Marines. The 18ppm for W2 isn't very relevant.
I guess that's why I saw so many naked squads then. So maybe it is a non-problem. Maybe the inefficiency of other marine weapon platforms forced the weapons onto the marines and other armies were using bare minimum units to shield their superior weapon platforms. Pre 9th marines with gear just seem to play incredibly fragile and I know others can attest to this.
Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
So how did this work vs tripoint?
Well enough. Tripointing can go both ways, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. Although lots of times I had a Rhino in combat too, which increases the footprint of the units involved, making things harder to tripoint.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
So how did this work vs tripoint?
Well enough. Tripointing can go both ways, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. Although lots of times I had a Rhino in combat too, which increases the footprint of the units involved, making things harder to tripoint.
I only need tripoint a single model. Your rhino doesn't help that much. I feel like you were playing against people bad at tripointing, but it really doesn't matter anymore. You have your position on it and we have ours. Both of which are wiped away by 9th edition completely.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
So how did this work vs tripoint?
Well enough. Tripointing can go both ways, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. Although lots of times I had a Rhino in combat too, which increases the footprint of the units involved, making things harder to tripoint.
I only need tripoint a single model. Your rhino doesn't help that much. I feel like you were playing against people bad at tripointing, but it really doesn't matter anymore. You have your position on it and we have ours. Both of which are wiped away by 9th edition completely.
Right, but you have to surround a model. Keeping close base to base and denying the area to surround a model is the defensive play, and when you increase the overall footprint of a unit/group of units it's harder to cutoff the potential exits. It also depends hugely on the size of the units that are fighting, etc. It's not as easy as "move-tripoint-profit".
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
I don't think it's fair to claim that 9th ed codices should be balanced against 8th edition ones. I think the marines got over generous core keywords - a completely unnecessary buff to dreads - and have a few key units that need nerfs with some weapons going up in cost. To answer your question though - No - Marines are a step ahead of every army in the game right now. I fully expect by the middle of next they will be power creeped out (except maybe some snowflake chapter) Crons fair okay against marines by virtue of being good at killing marines because of their popular weapon profiles. Marines are better against the field though by a wide margin.
Clearly the MM needs a point increase. Eradicators. Imo a fair amount of units need reductions to. The new Gladiator tanks cost way too much. Lots of internal balance issues too. In general though it is a pretty high quality codex by GW standards and I like the 9th edition format.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
I don't think it's fair to claim that 9th ed codices should be balanced against 8th edition ones. I think the marines got over generous core keywords - a completely unnecessary buff to dreads - and have a few key units that need nerfs with some weapons going up in cost. To answer your question though - No - Marines are a step ahead of every army in the game right now. I fully expect by the middle of next they will be power creeped out (except maybe some snowflake chapter)
Clearly the MM needs a point increase. Eradicators. Imo a fair amount of units need reductions to. The new Gladiator tanks cost way too much. Lots of internal balance issues too. In general though it is a pretty high quality codex by GW standards and I like the 9th edition format.
Why not? I can play my Daemons against your Marines right now, if Covid wasn't stopping me.
If GW wanted to crank up the power, they should've charged appropriately for it, and then once EVERYONE got supercharged, they could bring the points down to old levels, but keep everyone on parity.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
I don't think it's fair to claim that 9th ed codices should be balanced against 8th edition ones. I think the marines got over generous core keywords - a completely unnecessary buff to dreads - and have a few key units that need nerfs with some weapons going up in cost. To answer your question though - No - Marines are a step ahead of every army in the game right now. I fully expect by the middle of next they will be power creeped out (except maybe some snowflake chapter)
Clearly the MM needs a point increase. Eradicators. Imo a fair amount of units need reductions to. The new Gladiator tanks cost way too much. Lots of internal balance issues too. In general though it is a pretty high quality codex by GW standards and I like the 9th edition format.
Why not? I can play my Daemons against your Marines right now, if Covid wasn't stopping me.
If GW wanted to crank up the power, they should've charged appropriately for it, and then once EVERYONE got supercharged, they could bring the points down to old levels, but keep everyone on parity.
It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time. I think it's best and tournaments really should take this format too. Have different divisions for 40k - the haves and the have nots.
Marines and crons can play 9th edd codex division - everyone else can play 8.5 codex eddition. In a friendly match - it doesn't matter anyways. If someone is playing marines against your daemons they should not spam their tournament builds against you. It's not fair.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's 1 point more than a 5th-7th edition Plaguebearer.
You really want to make that comparison?
So you don't think tacs were that bad. So that probably means you think the 2W oldbois are a pretty poor idea as well. What's the point of rehashing this?
2W Firstborn is fine, provided they pay the appropriate point cost.
Very few Space Marine units are paying the proper points right now.
Xeno, do you think Space Marines are well-balanced, compared to the other existing Codecs right now? That includes the as-of-yet unupdated Codecs, since they're still valid to play.
I don't think it's fair to claim that 9th ed codices should be balanced against 8th edition ones. I think the marines got over generous core keywords - a completely unnecessary buff to dreads - and have a few key units that need nerfs with some weapons going up in cost. To answer your question though - No - Marines are a step ahead of every army in the game right now. I fully expect by the middle of next they will be power creeped out (except maybe some snowflake chapter)
Clearly the MM needs a point increase. Eradicators. Imo a fair amount of units need reductions to. The new Gladiator tanks cost way too much. Lots of internal balance issues too. In general though it is a pretty high quality codex by GW standards and I like the 9th edition format.
Why not? I can play my Daemons against your Marines right now, if Covid wasn't stopping me.
If GW wanted to crank up the power, they should've charged appropriately for it, and then once EVERYONE got supercharged, they could bring the points down to old levels, but keep everyone on parity.
It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time. I think it's best and tournaments really should take this format too. Have different divisions for 40k - the haves and the have nots.
Marines and crons can play 9th edd codex division - everyone else can play 8.5 codex eddition. In a friendly match - it doesn't matter anyways. If someone is playing marines against your daemons they should not spam their tournament builds against you. It's not fair.
Why can't they? If the power level is 100, release new Dexes at 100.
Or, if they want to crank it up to 200, release the Dexes at the same time, or charge the new Dex the appropriate costs.
Moreover, Marines are really flipping good ACROSS THE BOARD. An ordinary, fluffy TAC list is significantly better from the Marine Dex than most any other Codex right now.
Xenomancers wrote: It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time.
Remind me who's putting a gun to GW's head and demanding that they stagger rules releases in this manner in the first place?
IMO it's the biggest issue for the game and always has been. Like seriously Marines were the worst army in 40k for the 85% of the edition and the best for the last 15%. What part do you think gets remembered?
That doesn't matter though. What matters is the games we play. I want 100% of my games to be balanced. Not 0% like this release format means.
Xenomancers wrote: It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time.
Remind me who's putting a gun to GW's head and demanding that they stagger rules releases in this manner in the first place?
IMO it's the biggest issue for the game and always has been. Like seriously Marines were the worst army in 40k for the 85% of the edition and the best for the last 15%. What part do you think gets remembered?
That doesn't matter though. What matters is the games we play. I want 100% of my games to be balanced. Not 0% like this release format means.
Got anything to back that up?
but the lower part is just wishfull thinking disbalance sells, just like frustration, GW behaves alot like mobile feetoplay games.
At no point in 8th were Marines the worst army. Even at the height of Ynnari and Castellans, they were still winning games and had some decent tournament placings.
The same cannot be said for Necrons or Grey Knights during the same period of time.
Xenomancers wrote: It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time.
Remind me who's putting a gun to GW's head and demanding that they stagger rules releases in this manner in the first place?
Beancounters and shareholders, because all quartals need nice numbers..
I mean you are right....but it really irks me that quarterly stock prices and revenue quotas are impacting game balance in a bloody hobby. I deal with that stuff enough at work.
Xenomancers wrote: It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time.
Remind me who's putting a gun to GW's head and demanding that they stagger rules releases in this manner in the first place?
IMO it's the biggest issue for the game and always has been. Like seriously Marines were the worst army in 40k for the 85% of the edition and the best for the last 15%. What part do you think gets remembered?
That doesn't matter though. What matters is the games we play. I want 100% of my games to be balanced. Not 0% like this release format means.
Got anything to back that up?
but the lower part is just wishfull thinking disbalance sells, just like frustration, GW behaves alot like mobile feetoplay games.
40% WR for most astartes factions on 40k stats is pretty irrefutable. Then again you could have just like...played against marine armies and figured it out pretty easily yourself...oh? You don't have any stratagems? Your tanks don't get army traits(you seem to play CSM so this also affected you) ...none of your units shoot twice? No access practically to -1 to hits. Practically no invune saves.
You are probably right about GW wanting it to be this way. If it makes them the most money how could you blame them. Then again...it's hard to imagine why you'd ever made a new models rules bad...which GW does all the time. Models with good rules fly off the shelves even if they are old.
Xenomancers wrote: It is impossible to release rules staggered like this and be balanced at the same time.
Remind me who's putting a gun to GW's head and demanding that they stagger rules releases in this manner in the first place?
Beancounters and shareholders, because all quartals need nice numbers..
I mean you are right....but it really irks me that quarterly stock prices and revenue quotas are impacting game balance in a bloody hobby. I deal with that stuff enough at work.
there are industries out there, gaming industry and entertainment in general, that should NOT and NEVER be beholden to the stockmarket...
Bosskelot wrote: At no point in 8th were Marines the worst army. Even at the height of Ynnari and Castellans, they were still winning games and had some decent tournament placings.
The same cannot be said for Necrons or Grey Knights during the same period of time.
Incorrect. WR shows they were the worst. 40k is a dice game. You try enough with any army you can become a statistical outlier. The only thing that matters is how many times it was attempted and the attempt average. As any college professer would do when determining the curve on a test. You cutt off the lowest and highest points on a test and then average the ones in the middle to figure the curve.
Also just a hint...GK are basically just space marines with a few unique units. Yeah - they were also bad but I am including them in all astartes. Which were all hella bad. Unlike sisters which have been good even as an index. With a high win rate.
Necrons were pretty bad to - Maybe at times were worse off than marines. But if I recall they weren't in the 40% WR area.
Insectum7 wrote: And that was in the same post where you challenged the idea that "power armor horde" could do well. A power armored horde that also contains Devastators, Sternguard, etc along with Tactical Squads.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
If tripling down on damage-dealing Power Armor has a supporting theme of MOAR power armor that deals damage. . . that's the Power Armor Horde in a nutshell. Tacs aren't there as the high focus damage dealers, but in support of Devastators, etc. they bring the same types of weapons with greater longevity because the opponent is going to be dealing with the Devastators first. Deployed correctly, and this is the situation I aim for, four Tactical Squads bring the same firepower as three additional Devastator Squads, plus a lot more bolters, Ob Sec, and longevity.
A Devastator Squad is 10 Marines with 4 Heavy Weapons
A Tactical Squad is 10 Marines with 1 Heavy Weapon and 2 Special Weapons that hit like Heavy Weapons at close range.
Thus, just deliver the Tactical to close quarters, and you're hitting close to the power of another Devastator Squad, but are in a better position to use Bolters and Assault in order to gum up the opponents maneuvering/fire/whatever is necessary. Or, Combat Squad them and two Special Weapon crews will hit like 4 Heavy Weapons while still getting the benefit of being able to gum stuff up. Tac Squads are just Devastators-lite that you put on the front line to do Tac-Squad stuff. Playing UM it's great, because assaulting/being assaulted, then pulling out and gunning at stuff again is a fantastic ability that chews a lot of stuff up.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
So how did this work vs tripoint?
Well enough. Tripointing can go both ways, sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you. Although lots of times I had a Rhino in combat too, which increases the footprint of the units involved, making things harder to tripoint.
I only need tripoint a single model. Your rhino doesn't help that much. I feel like you were playing against people bad at tripointing, but it really doesn't matter anymore. You have your position on it and we have ours. Both of which are wiped away by 9th edition completely.
Right, but you have to surround a model. Keeping close base to base and denying the area to surround a model is the defensive play, and when you increase the overall footprint of a unit/group of units it's harder to cutoff the potential exits. It also depends hugely on the size of the units that are fighting, etc. It's not as easy as "move-tripoint-profit".
Well, anyone can pay 2 CP now, so tripoint protection is gone anyway.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Your last statement doesn't necessary follow from the second to last statement; just because YOU won doesn't automatically make them fine. But its now completely irrelevant.
Bosskelot wrote: At no point in 8th were Marines the worst army. Even at the height of Ynnari and Castellans, they were still winning games and had some decent tournament placings.
The same cannot be said for Necrons or Grey Knights during the same period of time.
Incorrect. WR shows they were the worst. 40k is a dice game. You try enough with any army you can become a statistical outlier. The only thing that matters is how many times it was attempted and the attempt average. As any college professer would do when determining the curve on a test. You cutt off the lowest and highest points on a test and then average the ones in the middle to figure the curve.
Also just a hint...GK are basically just space marines with a few unique units. Yeah - they were also bad but I am including them in all astartes. Which were all hella bad. Unlike sisters which have been good even as an index. With a high win rate.
Necrons were pretty bad to - Maybe at times were worse off than marines. But if I recall they weren't in the 40% WR area.
Necrons were statistically worse and from what I remember never actually won a major tournament. At least not pre-Marines 2.0.
And GK had basically no overlap with regular Marines ruleswise, not least of all because they had different units and stratagems. If you're going to place them under the Codex Marines umbrella then do CSM get to come to? Where is the cut-off point?
And again, GK and Necrons still performed worse than Codex Marines throughout the edition. Even after Necrons got their Codex they were performing worse than Codex Marines. Crucially, pre-PAGK only won 2 tournaments in total (and one of those was a non-competitive, fluff-based event), Necrons won none. Various flavours of Ultramarines and Raven Guard won tournaments through two-thirds of the edition using the initial 8th Codex.
And looking at absolute winrates is incredibly misleading because it discounts how people choose to play tournaments in 40k. Marines winrates got pushed down because a lot of newer, less experienced players were taking them to tournaments for the first time because 8th made the playerbase explode in size. So you had a large representation for the Faction/Codex made up of a lot of inexperienced competitive players, many of whom it must be said were not playing hyper-comp in the first place (as a lot of comp 40k players don't anyway to be fair) and also playing an army which everyone knew well and had long figured out. But even amongst this, you had good players placing well with the army still, even at its lowest points. This is in stark contrast to good, experienced Necron and GK players who were not placing well or who straight up switched to other armies.
Hell, it wasn't until like CA2018 that I felt I could even stand a chance as Necrons vs Raven Guard or Guilliman gunline armies.
I don't hold my personal record with ultras or Gk to be extremely relevant in how the army performs. I've probably won more than I've lost with ether army over multiple editions. I've won local tournaments with GK many times in 5/7th as well as team tournaments. It's cause I know how to make a skew list - not because I am a particularly skillful player. I play 40k like Admiral nelson. Or alexander. When I succeeded I knew it was because I was lucky.
what's funny is I played eldar and tau to in these editions where I have to do dumb stuff just to keep the game interesting. Played Ynnari one time in 7th and we still have stories about how I literally beat 4k of deathwatch in drop pods with a 2k Ynnari list. SOULBURST!!!! one guy at the shop literally calls me that everytime he sees me. Even though I rarely play eldar anymore.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't hold my personal record with ultras or Gk to be extremely relevant in how the army performs. I've probably won more than I've lost with ether army over multiple editions. I've won local tournaments with GK many times in 5/7th as well as team tournaments. It's cause I know how to make a skew list - not because I am a particularly skillful player. I play 40k like Admiral nelson. Or alexander. When I succeeded I knew it was because I was lucky.
what's funny is I played eldar and tau to in these editions where I have to do dumb stuff just to keep the game interesting. Played Ynnari one time in 7th and we still have stories about how I literally beat 4k of deathwatch in drop pods with a 2k Ynnari list. SOULBURST!!!! one guy at the shop literally calls me that everytime he sees me. Even though I rarely play eldar anymore.
Well they do hold personal records to relevant. So that basically ends the analysis. Which is irrelevant anyway. It's clear GW thought marines were too weak, and so they turned it up to "11" and broke off the dial.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Your last statement doesn't necessary follow from the second to last statement; just because YOU won doesn't automatically make them fine. But its now completely irrelevant.
If you think 10 point marines for 5th-7th is fair you are insane.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Your last statement doesn't necessary follow from the second to last statement; just because YOU won doesn't automatically make them fine. But its now completely irrelevant.
If you think 10 point marines for 5th-7th is fair you are insane.
I didn't say that. Someone else said that. This isn't an either/or proposition. I can think both positions are inaccurate. There is a lot of design space between "They're fine" and "make 'em 10 pts". Making them 10 pts is just about what Gladius ended up doing in 7th, though.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Your last statement doesn't necessary follow from the second to last statement; just because YOU won doesn't automatically make them fine. But its now completely irrelevant.
If you think 10 point marines for 5th-7th is fair you are insane.
All it does is shoot a bolter. What you gonna do - roll over the 2+ deathstarts with bolter fire? Give me a break.
Xenomancers wrote: Oh sorry. Hard to imagine you ever had to pay 14-15 points for a crappy tactical marine with 1 wound. It is a travesty actually lol. Those 5-7th edd marines were worth 10 points AT BEST.
That's about the sort of comment I expect from Xeno at this point. I won many a game with 15 point 1w Marines. They were totally fine.
Your last statement doesn't necessary follow from the second to last statement; just because YOU won doesn't automatically make them fine. But its now completely irrelevant.
If you think 10 point marines for 5th-7th is fair you are insane.
I didn't say that. Someone else said that. This isn't an either/or proposition. I can think both positions are inaccurate. There is a lot of design space between "They're fine" and "make 'em 10 pts". Making them 10 pts is just about what Gladius ended up doing in 7th, though.
DING DING DING. We have a winner! Which is why Gladius wasn't auto win. 2450 points vs 2000 points should be auto win. Turns out - nothing in the army was worth it's points so it only turned out to be a high tier skew list that was still totally beatable.
Good luck beating an eldar army in 7th that got 3-4 free wave serpents.
My arguments in this thread have been that the issue with 2W marines isn't that they're too tough, but that marine lists have too much firepower from specialist units, that toughness isn't that good at making units feel tough on the table in 8th and 9th edition, and "The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up." This was my first post talking about the old MEQ statline.
Your argument has changed a number of times when proven false with facts. A Marine stat line by itself is durable compared to most of the game, this isn't a "marine" problem, its a 40k problem that you seem to think effected Marines more than anyone else in the entire game. I had Horde armies in 7th and 8th getting gunned off the table before turn 3 was over. So likewise does that mean that my T4 W1 6+ save was the issue and only the issue? no it was because some genius decided to hand out dmg buffs like it was christmas. That doesn't mean your "Marine" statline was less durable than everyone elses basic troops/infantry. Again, your statline (pre 9th) was roughly 3x more durable than the ork statline but you were barely more than 2x as expensive. Ork Boy = 7pts in 8th edition, SMTac was what? 13-15? How about those Devestators? My Lootas were 18ppm compared to a Devestator with a missile launcher who was what? 33? so more than 3x as durable but less than half the cost. Factor in them always being in cover for a 2+ vs my Lootas usually not being able to fit in cover, but if they somehow managed, only getting a 5+.
I think you might be confusing me for Martel given that my first post on the issue called out sternguard and devs by name.
No, you have said specifically the "Marine stat line" and than I asked about sternguard/devs etc you said they don't count because they relied on damage not durability. Ok, well here is the thing, they functioned and won tournaments with that stat line. So yeah they relied on dmg but almost every unit in the game relies on damage to win. Pre SM buffs the Ork horde didn't win by being durable but by being able to beat anyone off an objective using a plethora of S4 melee attacks.
There were metas where they did well, but that usually wasn't because of their stats. It was due to rhino rush, grav pods, sternguard salamander drop pods, formations, etc. there weren't metas where taking space marines because they had 'the best stats in the game' was actually viable. They weren't always the worst, but a list that relied on power-armoured bodies was rarely even a mid-tier threat.
You mean like every other tournament winning list in the game not relying on the basic statline of any unit but instead relying on some sort of gimmick to win....like Ork boyz appearing in massive numbers turn 2 in charge range? or a SM Smash captain? Or an IK castellan being able to shoot at full capacity the whole game regardless of dmg? Or hell, the death star build relying on several buffs from several characters to make them super durable? I can keep going dude. No list won because the basic statline of their infantry was amazing....except maybe Eldar scatbikes in 7th , but even than, basically the entire game acknowledged how broken that unit was.
"The argument is that the T4 W1 Sv3+ statline has always been bad enough to require a gimmick to make it worth taking. Most good marine lists take as few T4 W1 Sv3+ bodies as they can in favour of literally anything else. The exceptions to these rules generally involve units that are taken for their offense rather than their defensive profile past examples include Sterguard Vets, Devastators, 5-man tac squads with twin special weapons in Razorbacks. In all cases you didn't expect these models to be durable, you expected them to kill things and hopefully trade up."This has been the crux of my argument since I weighed in on the matter. Are you even reading what I post or are you just assuming I'm saying the same thing as Martle and arguing against that?
Yes, we acknowledge this argument, and enjoy watching you contradict yourself in your own post. Stat line isn't good...except for these tournament winning lists that used those stat lines...but they don't count because I only care about durability and everything else can be forgotten......and please don't apply this bad logic to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER ARMY IN THE FETHING GAME.
Again, show me the lists and battle reports where these 'hordes' actually came together to find success. Without seeing the lists, the battle reports, and getting some understanding of the meta it's impossible to analyze how strong your idea of a power armour horde actually was.
We may also have a different definition of horde as well because even at their height lists would have been topping out at what 30 sternguard, likely in 6 combat squads because MSU meta, 15 devs, people rarely wanted to take the ablative wounds, and minimum units of tactical marines. The rest of your points would be tied up in HQ choices, drop pods, and razor backs and your 'horde' tops out at 55 marine bodies which.
That's not how those lists played in practice though. What made Devs good, in the few metas they were good in, was dropping them on something important with drop pod assault and spamming Grav weapons into the key parts of your opponents army. The same thing goes for Sternguard who loved being Salamanders so they could drop in with their combi-meltas or combi-flamers and get a disgusting RoI. You weren't winning because you saturated the enemies ability to kill MEQs you won because you could easily put your best damage dealers into the enemy lines and put up enough threat that they never even shot at your guys on objectives.
So are we just ignoring all of 7th where Marines were top tier because they took a ton of SM bodies that got them free transports? OMG They required a gimmick to win? same argument, same bad logic. Yeah, go figure infantry don't win tournaments by themselves without a gimmick or some kind of extra damage potential. And since an ork Horde is usually 120+ models with 1/3rd the durability as SM's I would call any SM list with 40+ models a Power Armor Horde. So 55 models is absolutely a "horde" of power armor.
And straight back into the bad argument that the Marine stat line requires a gimmick to win events...yes we know, so does everyone else.
SecondTime wrote: I guess that's why I saw so many naked squads then. So maybe it is a non-problem. Maybe the inefficiency of other marine weapon platforms forced the weapons onto the marines and other armies were using bare minimum units to shield their superior weapon platforms. Pre 9th marines with gear just seem to play incredibly fragile and I know others can attest to this.
This isn't a "Marine" problem, it was a problem for basically everyone. I never took Special weapons in my ork units because they never did much and usually detracted from the Unit. At least with a Min squad of Tac Marines(even at 15ppm) you could plop them on an objective and have a Las cannon or Missile launcher with 4 ablative wounds. For the same price I could take like 10 boyz and a big shoota. Less durable vs most enemy fire and significantly less useful at ranged combat.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't think it's fair to claim that 9th ed codices should be balanced against 8th edition ones. I think the marines got over generous core keywords - a completely unnecessary buff to dreads - and have a few key units that need nerfs with some weapons going up in cost. To answer your question though - No - Marines are a step ahead of every army in the game right now. I fully expect by the middle of next they will be power creeped out (except maybe some snowflake chapter) Crons fair okay against marines by virtue of being good at killing marines because of their popular weapon profiles. Marines are better against the field though by a wide margin.
9th edition codexs should be balanced against what they are playing against. This isn't Marines fault, it was GW's fault. And the fact is, in 7th Orkz had the first codex and were...actually WORSE than they were before, and at that point they were playing 6th edition with a 4th edition codex. In fact, if you remember, at the time the community was using the ork codex to suggest 7th would be an edition of lower power levels, of less damage output....right before Necrons got decurion and eldar got the super codex and the game went to hell. Also, the argument that the game is ok to be imbalanced until everyone gets a codex isn't a good argument either since 8th took 18ish months before the major factions all got a codex.
Xenomancers wrote: IMO it's the biggest issue for the game and always has been. Like seriously Marines were the worst army in 40k for the 85% of the edition and the best for the last 15%. What part do you think gets remembered?
Wow and right back into another falsehood. No, Marines did not have "The worst army in 40k for 85% of the edition" no matter how you want to judge the codex this is completely BS. your go to defense of this falsehood is Tournament W/L ratio but you always so conveniently leave out Top placings. "Marines had a bad W/L rate therefore they were bad" in those same tournaments they usually had a top 4-6 placing and usually at least 2 in the top 20 for big events like LVO. So again, no they didn't suck. But for you and others, if Marines aren't super OP they are garbage, which i'll prove by the next quote.
DING DING DING. We have a winner! Which is why Gladius wasn't auto win. 2450 points vs 2000 points should be auto win. Turns out - nothing in the army was worth it's points so it only turned out to be a high tier skew list that was still totally beatable.
Good luck beating an eldar army in 7th that got 3-4 free wave serpents.
LMAO! Marines were bad because they didn't auto-win! LMAO!!!!!!!!!!
Eldar didn't need 3-4 free wave serpents because their Scat bikes, WK, Spiders, Reapers etc were dramatically UNDER PRICED. And guess what? Nobody denied that except a couple of Die hard WAAC Eldar players. Yeah go figure Marines required a huge gimmick to beat the other top contenders that were either massively OP or required a gimmick of their own to win events (Triptides) Sorry bud, SM's have not been bottom tier at all for the last few editions, and they are currently massive over powered compared to basically every other codex in the game.
Xenomancers wrote: I don't hold my personal record with ultras or Gk to be extremely relevant in how the army performs. I've probably won more than I've lost with ether army over multiple editions. I've won local tournaments with GK many times in 5/7th as well as team tournaments. It's cause I know how to make a skew list - not because I am a particularly skillful player. I play 40k like Admiral nelson. Or alexander. When I succeeded I knew it was because I was lucky.
what's funny is I played eldar and tau to in these editions where I have to do dumb stuff just to keep the game interesting. Played Ynnari one time in 7th and we still have stories about how I literally beat 4k of deathwatch in drop pods with a 2k Ynnari list. SOULBURST!!!! one guy at the shop literally calls me that everytime he sees me. Even though I rarely play eldar anymore.
And then everyone stood up and clapped?
Are these the same people that run the meta bending mind breakingly powerful squigbuggies and stompas?
The problem I experimented playing T4 1w sv3+ models in the past both 8th and previous editions is that yeah, ok, lasguns and lass cannons yada yada but most weapons in the game are some form of medium rate of fire, medium strenght, some ap (this is more relevant in 8th) weapons.
So ok, a space marine historically was much more resilient to both bolters, lasguns, shootas, etc... than a guardsmen or other light infantry, but agaisnt 70% of the weapons in the game, even not the ones specialized to killing marines, space marines had a astronomically bad resilience.
That does not mean that marines were bad yada yada, but I just want to make clear than when most people have complained for decades that marines always felt too fragile specially for their costs, thats what they were talking about.
And yeah, ok, if you play SM hordes with 100-120 marines if you lose 40 marines a turn is not that big of a deal but 40 marines is what most space marine players of all flavours used as all of their infantry.
EDIT: And of course there was a ton of units in other armies that were expensive and just as fragile (poor tyranid warriors) but unlike marines not that many armies share one single profile for 80% of their units.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I mentioned it earlier: the reason armies became so good at killing marines is Marines became the most common opponent
They are victims of their own success. Adding 2 wounds won't change that
TBH I don't believe thats a thing. Ok , yeah, dark eldar spamming disintegrator raiders is a hard counter for primaris spam just like plasma. But historically, space marines have been extremely vulnerable to most weapons in the game. You never needed to really specialized at killing space marines like you had to specialize to fight vehicle or heavy stuff lists or horde lists. Your anti horde weapons made marines fail saves fast enough and your anti medium and anti heavy weapons killed marines good enough to all be worth it.
Again this is not an argument in favour of 2 wound marines, just trying to explain why historically most marine players felt they have always been too fragile for their costs outside absurd invisible deathstars or stuff like nurgle bikers, wulfen, etc...
Which is fine. The state of the game now, everything would basically be fine if every old marine unit got up and disappeared. If you take ONLY the primaris marines at maybe a SLIGHT point increase (1-3 points) they would be a perfectly fine army with a diverse set of units that put options on the table and had a playstyle. It's primaris + old marines at 2w that is the issue.
Old marines and everything associated with them cannot be squatted fast enough.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I mentioned it earlier: the reason armies became so good at killing marines is Marines became the most common opponent
They are victims of their own success. Adding 2 wounds won't change that
TBH I don't believe thats a thing. Ok , yeah, dark eldar spamming disintegrator raiders is a hard counter for primaris spam just like plasma. But historically, space marines have been extremely vulnerable to most weapons in the game. You never needed to really specialized at killing space marines like you had to specialize to fight vehicle or heavy stuff lists or horde lists. Your anti horde weapons made marines fail saves fast enough and your anti medium and anti heavy weapons killed marines good enough to all be worth it.
Again this is not an argument in favour of 2 wound marines, just trying to explain why historically most marine players felt they have always been too fragile for their costs outside absurd invisible deathstars or stuff like nurgle bikers, wulfen, etc...
And yet again, Facts > Feelings
The average Marine is about 3x more durable vs those anti-horde weapons. anti-horde as a general rule doesn't have AP. The only thing true about this argument is that Marine players would get destroyed by anti-light vehicle and some anti-medium vehicle weapons. S5+ with -1 or -2AP is actually fairly good at killing Marines and generally is relatively cheap. A Heavy Bolter is 10ish points and is kills SM's reasonably fast, but even then they are still 3x more durable pt for pt vs Ork boyz, its only when you get to -2AP and better that Marines become less durable point for point. So you are in the realm of specialized weapons at that point.
An old Heavy Bolter firing 3 S5 -1AP shots (all hits for argument sake) kills on average 1 Marine a turn. That same HB kills 2 boyz Under 8th edition points values, those boyz cost MORE than the SM did. And they have no save where as the SM has a 4+ save and theoretically could walk away unscathed.
Against bolter fire it takes 6 bolter HITS to kill 1 Old 1W Marine, to kill 1 Ork it takes 2.32 hits. So on a grander scale, it takes 60 bolter hits to kill 10 Tac Marines, that same level of firepower kills 25 boyz. 8th edition values, that is 130pts of dead Marines vs 175pts of dead Orkz. Again, point for point Marines were TOUGHER to kill than Boyz. When you start going into AP-2 weaponry that is where those Boyz become less cost efficient to kill than Marine Tacs.
12 wounds with -2 AP kill 8 Marines where as it kills 12 Boyz. 8th edition prices that was 104pts of dead SM and 84pts of dead Orkz.
Summary, SM's were more durable than Ork boyz by a large Margin vs AP -0 weapons, more durable vs AP-1 weapons and after that AP-2+ they were worse. So the feeling that tacs were "vulnerable" doesn't really work out to be true. In reality, in order for that feeling to be true, your opponent needs a plethora of AP-2+ weapons, or in other words, they need to list tailor. And why would competitive armies list tailor against SM values? Because SM's are the most popular army in the game by a large margin which means as someone else so eloquently put it, Marines are a victim of their own success. IE People build lists to deal with Marines at tournament levels because that is who they are most likely to face off against.
Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
Galas, you and I are saying the same thing with different conclusions. Str 3-4 ap0 was never the most popular gun, you are right, and that is because it is bad against space marines.
Guns that were bad against Space Marines were never seen (unless they were mandatory), because Space Marines were the most common foe. This is what I mean by saying they were victims of their own success.
The fact that they didn't have any other profile I also call out in my earlier post in this thread pointing this fact out.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Galas, you and I are saying the same thing with different conclusions. Str 3-4 ap0 was never the most popular gun, you are right, and that is because it is bad against space marines.
Guns that were bad against Space Marines were never seen (unless they were mandatory), because Space Marines were the most common foe. This is what I mean by saying they were victims of their own success.
The fact that they didn't have any other profile I also call out in my earlier post in this thread pointing this fact out.
I see the truth in this argument. I was just trying to explaing why people have historically always said marines were too fragile. And thats why we are now in this point.
Literally when GW revealed primaris they said, they are what most people expected marines to be. In one of their articles. Both in models and rules. And I don't disagree with that. I just believe all space marines should be more expensive and lose a ton of special rules. Marines should not be an army built on top of special upon special rules. They should be an army that wins by a combination of base good stats and tactical use of your forces agaisnt the weak points of your enemy.
Personally, I have always said Horus Heresy was the worst that happened to 40k. First, I said it in the fluff department. But now even in the rules and game, 40k has become 30k 2.0. And I know, in 30k marines aren't as oppresive (basically because it is a game in live support state), but this obsesion with bolter porn and primarch centered narrative has come from 30k to 40k.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
I would arguee that historically, and now more than ever, 40k has not been a depth enough game to allow people to use complex tactics were mixed stats, units and strategies could be used for their full potential, thus always being a game much more built upon MTG mechanics, with over specialized, one trick pony units and options being better.
Space marines have stopped being a middle of the road army to become the best army at literally everything. Thats why they are so absurd.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I mentioned it earlier: the reason armies became so good at killing marines is Marines became the most common opponent
They are victims of their own success. Adding 2 wounds won't change that
TBH I don't believe thats a thing. Ok , yeah, dark eldar spamming disintegrator raiders is a hard counter for primaris spam just like plasma. But historically, space marines have been extremely vulnerable to most weapons in the game. You never needed to really specialized at killing space marines like you had to specialize to fight vehicle or heavy stuff lists or horde lists. Your anti horde weapons made marines fail saves fast enough and your anti medium and anti heavy weapons killed marines good enough to all be worth it.
Again this is not an argument in favour of 2 wound marines, just trying to explain why historically most marine players felt they have always been too fragile for their costs outside absurd invisible deathstars or stuff like nurgle bikers, wulfen, etc...
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
Opponents could short circuit most of that by killing you on their turn. Preferably by shooting, because of ATSKNF. Marines paid for WS they weren't using when advancing and then BS they weren't using when they were punching. Until very recently, 40K rewarded hyper specialization, not units that paid for a little bit of everything. Marines were paying for things that just weren't very useful IN PRACTICE only on paper. I know you think they were worth it, but against hard lists, I just don't see it.
Plasma isn't TAC in a meta dominated by Grots. Not more than Flamers or Frag Grenades.
But plasma was good against light and medium vehicles (marines + a few), monsters with no invulns (Tyranids), and Marines.
In an alternative universe where Marines of any flavor don't exist but everything else is the same, Plasma is good against light and medium vehicles, big Tyranids but not little ones, and ... what, Necrons?
They were TAC because the "all comers" part of TAC was Marines.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
Opponents could short circuit most of that by killing you on their turn. Preferably by shooting, because of ATSKNF. Marines paid for WS they weren't using when advancing and then BS they weren't using when they were punching. Until very recently, 40K rewarded hyper specialization, not units that paid for a little bit of everything. Marines were paying for things that just weren't very useful IN PRACTICE only on paper.
Following that same logic, Orks pay for a high S4 and WS3 while not being in melee, making them terrible and overcosted.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
I would arguee that historically, and now more than ever, 40k has not been a depth enough game to allow people to use complex tactics were mixed stats, units and strategies could be used for their full potential, thus always being a game much more built upon MTG mechanics, with over specialized, one trick pony units and options being better.
I'll counter by reminding you that "punch the shooty stuff and shoot the punchy stuff" has always been a thing, and while one-trick-pony units can be attractive, you quickly get into rock-scissors-paper territory which has it's own inherent risks. Imo it's purely a playstyle preference. Me? I like units that can give me the most options in any given turn.
Galas wrote: Space marines have stopped being a middle of the road army to become the best army at literally everything. Thats why they are so absurd.
I agree that now marine design is just becoming "ThE BeStEsT EvAr!!11!" And that's really a shame.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Plasma isn't TAC in a meta dominated by Grots. Not more than Flamers or Frag Grenades.
But plasma was good against light and medium vehicles (marines + a few), monsters with no invulns (Tyranids), and Marines.
In an alternative universe where Marines of any flavor don't exist but everything else is the same, Plasma is good against light and medium vehicles, big Tyranids but not little ones, and ... what, Necrons?
They were TAC because the "all comers" part of TAC was Marines.
I think its because the math of plasma was just better than melta/flamer most of the time. Plasma could kill two 2+ armor targets, not just one like melta. Flamers were replicated by small arms. But maybe you are right. But I know for huge stretches of at least my play area, no one was gaming against marines.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
I would arguee that historically, and now more than ever, 40k has not been a depth enough game to allow people to use complex tactics were mixed stats, units and strategies could be used for their full potential, thus always being a game much more built upon MTG mechanics, with over specialized, one trick pony units and options being better.
I'll counter by reminding you that "punch the shooty stuff and shoot the punchy stuff" has always been a thing, and while one-trick-pony units can be attractive, you quickly get into rock-scissors-paper territory which has it's own inherent risks. Imo it's purely a playstyle preference. Me? I like units that can give me the most options in any given turn.
Galas wrote: Space marines have stopped being a middle of the road army to become the best army at literally everything. Thats why they are so absurd.
I agree that now marine design is just becoming "ThE BeStEsT EvAr!!11!" And that's really a shame.
I think the math was behind the specialists for a long time, but it doesn't matter now.
Galas wrote: Sempermortis you are trying to spin my argument agaisnt myself when you are saying the same I have said?
Anti horde weapons killed marines good enough, and then they are much more vulnerable to nearly all the other weapons from anti-medium weapons to heavy weapons, that are most of the game. No, the most popular weapons of the game are not S3-S4 AP0 (Or ap4 or over in old editions) weapons.
And on top of that, space marines for nearly all of the game had only one stat profile for 80% of their units, where for example stuff like orks, tyranids, imperial guard, necrons, had much varied profiles in toughtness, wound counts, saves, etc...
You all comparing 14ppm tac marines when devastators, veterans, etc... all had the same profile. Hormagaunts, Genestealers, Tyranid Warriors, Tyrant Guard, Hyve Guard, for putting and example, all have different profiles all being infantry (And I know for most of 40k history all have sucked).
So thats why for most of 40k history, most players have said space marines were never resilient for their cost, starting with tacticals and getting worse the more elite you did go because the base profile and resilience was the same. Even terminators.
Of course thats no longer true but when people come here and puts so many people complaints, justified in their context with more or less reason, as some kind of space marine victim complex, is quite disrespectfull both with history and with those players.
Space Marines may not have been "resilient for their cost", but that's fine because you weren't just paying for their resilience. You were paying for good BS, WS, S, I, Frag and Krak grenades, Bolter, Bolt Pistol, ATSKNF, etc.
Armies that don't have all the other amenities would appropriately cost less even if they have the same durability, which few of them did anyways. So of course, if all you're going to measure by is durability, then Marines wind up looking less cost efficient for their durability. It's as simple as that. Comparing SMs to Orks, Orks had a low initiative, worse Ld. worse BS, etc. So, looking at them side by side purely from a durability standpoint Orks might wind up looking better. But it's basically beside the point.
In order to play Space Marines well, you need to be able to leverage all those other aspects appropriately. If you aren't doing that, then arguably you're not getting your points worth.
Opponents could short circuit most of that by killing you on their turn. Preferably by shooting, because of ATSKNF. Marines paid for WS they weren't using when advancing and then BS they weren't using when they were punching. Until very recently, 40K rewarded hyper specialization, not units that paid for a little bit of everything. Marines were paying for things that just weren't very useful IN PRACTICE only on paper.
Following that same logic, Orks pay for a high S4 and WS3 while not being in melee, making them terrible and overcosted.
Well, melee-focused units have suffered more often than not in this game. So, kinda. Orks seems to be chronically overcosted.
Opponents could short circuit most of that by killing you on their turn.
That's why I spent points on Rhinos and Pods a lot of the time. Rhinos are very tough, point for point, and can help protect models. Pods are great because you can't shoot what's not yet on the table. Both of which help ensure a strong alpha strike, which preferably brings me the advantage.
SecondTime wrote: Preferably by shooting, because of ATSKNF. Marines paid for WS they weren't using when advancing and then BS they weren't using when they were punching. Until very recently, 40K rewarded hyper specialization, not units that paid for a little bit of everything. Marines were paying for things that just weren't very useful IN PRACTICE only on paper. I know you think they were worth it, but against hard lists, I just don't see it.
It's really easy. Models that can shoot and fight, can do both in the same turn, and thus output more damage than a unit that does only one or the other. Plus you get to tangle up enemy units, AND if you're like me, you can often back out of CC and shoot again if it's the thing to do. It's all about maximizing damage up front, reducing options for the opponent, and sticking out the fight longer.
I think the math was behind the specialists for a long time, but it doesn't matter now.
The math for Specialists should be better when we're talking about their specialty. The math for the generalist works out when opposing a specialist in an area that's not their specialty. That's the balance.
Opponents could short circuit most of that by killing you on their turn.
That's why I spent points on Rhinos and Pods a lot of the time. Rhinos are very tough, point for point, and can help protect models. Pods are great because you can't shoot what's not yet on the table. Both of which help ensure a strong alpha strike, which preferably brings me the advantage.
SecondTime wrote: Preferably by shooting, because of ATSKNF. Marines paid for WS they weren't using when advancing and then BS they weren't using when they were punching. Until very recently, 40K rewarded hyper specialization, not units that paid for a little bit of everything. Marines were paying for things that just weren't very useful IN PRACTICE only on paper. I know you think they were worth it, but against hard lists, I just don't see it.
It's really easy. Models that can shoot and fight, can do both in the same turn, and thus output more damage than a unit that does only one or the other. Plus you get to tangle up enemy units, AND if you're like me, you can often back out of CC and shoot again if it's the thing to do. It's all about maximizing damage up front, reducing options for the opponent, and sticking out the fight longer.
I think the math was behind the specialists for a long time, but it doesn't matter now.
The math for Specialists should be better when we're talking about their specialty. The math for the generalist works out when opposing a specialist in an area that's not their specialty. That's the balance.
As i said, none of this matters now does it? I guess GW's motivations are really perplexing to you as well.
Perplexing how? "Marines uber alles" isn't at all perplexing. They sell the bolter-porn, they sell the models. They're just sacrificing other factions to do it.
Insectum7 wrote: Perplexing how? "Marines uber alles" isn't at all perplexing. They sell the bolter-porn, they sell the models. They're just sacrificing other factions to do it.
I mean to those of us who thought marines are were on the weak side power increases weren't THAT surprising. GW just showed their usual restraint, which is none. But to you, there's not even that motivation. Because everything was fine.
Insectum7 wrote: Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
How did you deal with skew lists like Knights + Loyal 32, Triple Skulltaker, Plague Bearer Bomb, etc? How did you deal with ITC and European style tournament missions?
More to the point, what was your meta actually like in terms of armies and missions? I ask this because your list could have simply found a soft spot in a small meta among players who rarely bought new models and just played with whatever they happened to have. One semi-static local meta isn't something GW can or should balance for. They need to balance around their paying customers, not leeches who buy a codex and maybe 1 new unit per year.
Insectum7 wrote: Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
How did you deal with skew lists like Knights + Loyal 32, Triple Skulltaker, Plague Bearer Bomb, etc? How did you deal with ITC and European style tournament missions?
More to the point, what was your meta actually like in terms of armies and missions? I ask this because your list could have simply found a soft spot in a small meta among players who rarely bought new models and just played with whatever they happened to have. One semi-static local meta isn't something GW can or should balance for. They need to balance around their paying customers, not leeches who buy a codex and maybe 1 new unit per year.
Pretty bold of you to assume the only paying customers are tournament players lol. And by using your own hyperbole against you, meta-chasers who probably just buy the latest meta-list second-hand instead of buying units they like and love like real casual players.
Insectum7 wrote: Well that's literally how my lists played for 8th.
70 Marine bodies minimum. Loaded up on Heavies and Specials, possibly some supporting units along with transports to deliver them. The army varied a bit, but the best target any anti-vehicle weapon would have is a Razorback, although sometimes not even that. If I went full bore on firepower I could get 100 S5+ AP-3 D2+ (combination of Grav, Plasma, Las) shots with full CM + Lt. Rerolls. Realistically some Grav Cannons turned into Plasma Cannons for cost and range (and same damage output against many target types), but you get the idea. Unprepared armies melted. Prepared armies usually suffered gobs of damage and sometimes we got into brutal attrition games where we both dwindled pretty hard. It wasn't the "best" army, and arguably I could have optimized it further, but even against "max cheese" tourney lists like Eldar and IG soups at their respective heights I still had huge amounts of damage capability and didn't feel too far behind in the power curve. My really bad losses were usually because I did something boneheaded like forgot to play to the mission, etc.
That was BEFORE SM codex 2.0, mind you. Obviously the power level increased when that came out.
A couple additional points. My PA Horde relies a lot on UM tactics, being able to back out of combats and keep firing is really, really good, and it allows you to really mess with some opponents. Rhinos are probably some of the toughest models, point for point, in the game, paying only 7 points for a T7 3+. HK missiles (lots of them) are great. An army with the damage output tied up in troops doesn't care about opposing Lascannon-esque weapons. Heavies/Specials are Heavies/Specials regardless of what unit is carrying them. Don't forget your Krak Grenades. You could "transport" 20 Marines 9" with one Rhino.
How did you deal with skew lists like Knights + Loyal 32, Triple Skulltaker, Plague Bearer Bomb, etc? How did you deal with ITC and European style tournament missions?
More to the point, what was your meta actually like in terms of armies and missions? I ask this because your list could have simply found a soft spot in a small meta among players who rarely bought new models and just played with whatever they happened to have. One semi-static local meta isn't something GW can or should balance for. They need to balance around their paying customers, not leeches who buy a codex and maybe 1 new unit per year.
Pretty bold of you to assume the only paying customers are tournament players lol. And by using your own hyperbole against you, meta-chasers who probably just buy the latest meta-list second-hand instead of buying units they like and love like real casual players.
agreed. the idea that casual players buy less is silly.
SemperMortis wrote: Your argument has changed a number of times when proven false with facts. A Marine stat line by itself is durable compared to most of the game, this isn't a "marine" problem, its a 40k problem that you seem to think effected Marines more than anyone else in the entire game. I had Horde armies in 7th and 8th getting gunned off the table before turn 3 was over. So likewise does that mean that my T4 W1 6+ save was the issue and only the issue? no it was because some genius decided to hand out dmg buffs like it was christmas. That doesn't mean your "Marine" statline was less durable than everyone elses basic troops/infantry. Again, your statline (pre 9th) was roughly 3x more durable than the ork statline but you were barely more than 2x as expensive. Ork Boy = 7pts in 8th edition, SMTac was what? 13-15? How about those Devestators? My Lootas were 18ppm compared to a Devestator with a missile launcher who was what? 33? so more than 3x as durable but less than half the cost. Factor in them always being in cover for a 2+ vs my Lootas usually not being able to fit in cover, but if they somehow managed, only getting a 5+.
No, it hasn't. I literally summarized my arguments as they've related to this thread and my first post about the T4 W1 Sv3+ profile specified that it was bad in spite of units like Sterngaurd and Devestators. If you're unable to see that please quote me having changed my argument or concede the point.
As to 7th and 8th edition, and specific comparisons to Orks, I have to ask yes, and? For one it ignores prior editions which are part of my argument secondly it ignores every other army in the game. Your 'argument' reads more like whining about how orks were underpowered for two editions while ignoring that, unlike marines, they've had metas where their basic troops were among the best units in the game. I'm sorry if you never got to play those editions.
No, you have said specifically the "Marine stat line" and than I asked about sternguard/devs etc you said they don't count because they relied on damage not durability. Ok, well here is the thing, they functioned and won tournaments with that stat line. So yeah they relied on dmg but almost every unit in the game relies on damage to win. Pre SM buffs the Ork horde didn't win by being durable but by being able to beat anyone off an objective using a plethora of S4 melee attacks.
Except for all the earlier metas where Orks won because they were durable, had killing power, and could deploy in 30 man foot blobs under a KFF or in trukks for a mobile threat. You can't just look at 7th and 8th edition when you talk about the marine stat line being awful
You mean like every other tournament winning list in the game not relying on the basic statline of any unit but instead relying on some sort of gimmick to win....like Ork boyz appearing in massive numbers turn 2 in charge range? or a SM Smash captain? Or an IK castellan being able to shoot at full capacity the whole game regardless of dmg? Or hell, the death star build relying on several buffs from several characters to make them super durable? I can keep going dude. No list won because the basic statline of their infantry was amazing....except maybe Eldar scatbikes in 7th , but even than, basically the entire game acknowledged how broken that unit was.
I've literally posted winning Ork and DE lists from days gone past that didn't spam anything in particular and won major tournaments. Please show me a comparable SM list that managed the same thing.
Yes, we acknowledge this argument, and enjoy watching you contradict yourself in your own post. Stat line isn't good...except for these tournament winning lists that used those stat lines...but they don't count because I only care about durability and everything else can be forgotten......and please don't apply this bad logic to LITERALLY EVERY OTHER ARMY IN THE FETHING GAME.
Ask yourself this. Would you prefer to pay for a marine or a BS 3+ veteran guardsman who can put out the same firepower for cheaper? Marine units are forced to pay for durability that doesn't make them tough, a melee stat that a suicide gunner unit couldn't use, while other armies can instead use a specialist unit that gets all the upsides of high firepower without paying for stats they don't use.
Good units in 40k specialize at doing one thing and are supported by other units that do another specific thing. Being a mushy middle generalist is a terrible plan unless you're not paying points for your secondary role.
So are we just ignoring all of 7th where Marines were top tier because they took a ton of SM bodies that got them free transports? OMG They required a gimmick to win? same argument, same bad logic. Yeah, go figure infantry don't win tournaments by themselves without a gimmick or some kind of extra damage potential. And since an ork Horde is usually 120+ models with 1/3rd the durability as SM's I would call any SM list with 40+ models a Power Armor Horde. So 55 models is absolutely a "horde" of power armor.
And straight back into the bad argument that the Marine stat line requires a gimmick to win events...yes we know, so does everyone else.
Except that I can point to metas prior to 7th edition where that wasn't the case. Are metas older than 7th invalid now?
Castozor wrote: And by using your own hyperbole against you, meta-chasers who probably just buy the latest meta-list second-hand instead of buying units they like and love like real casual players.
Way to miss the point... The point is you can't balance around a given static meta or you risk imbalance in less static metas where people are quick to purchase new units and where lists are optimized ruthlessly.
Insectum7 wrote: I'll counter by reminding you that "punch the shooty stuff and shoot the punchy stuff" has always been a thing, and while one-trick-pony units can be attractive, you quickly get into rock-scissors-paper territory which has it's own inherent risks. Imo it's purely a playstyle preference. Me? I like units that can give me the most options in any given turn.
That's a terrible way to play which is why you never see lists doing this performing at top tables. The best army is an army of specialists that have their weaknesses covered by other specialists or a list that's so good at a single-specialty that it can win before its weakness is exploited. Tournament results from all of 40k's history bear this out.
Calling the tournament meta less static I find laughable considering it only changes with balance changes just like MOBA's. Consider also you maybe get less hostile responses if you don't call people like me leeches for no good reason.
Castozor wrote: Calling the tournament meta less static I find laughable considering it only changes with balance changes just like MOBA's. Consider also you maybe get less hostile responses if you don't call people like me leeches for no good reason.
I don't care about a hostile response. If anything I'd prefer less tone policing so people can say what they really think.
Your assessment of tournament metas is also completely off both for 40k and MOBAs. For 40k certain strategies may remain king, but the supporting cast does change in response to the results of additional playtesting and potential counter-play. For MOBAs just look at the region pick/ban/play rates among the major regions and you'll see that on the same patch different metas developed and then look at how those metas collided at worlds to create an entirely new meta.
Insectum7 wrote: I'll counter by reminding you that "punch the shooty stuff and shoot the punchy stuff" has always been a thing, and while one-trick-pony units can be attractive, you quickly get into rock-scissors-paper territory which has it's own inherent risks. Imo it's purely a playstyle preference. Me? I like units that can give me the most options in any given turn.
That's a terrible way to play which is why you never see lists doing this performing at top tables. The best army is an army of specialists that have their weaknesses covered by other specialists or a list that's so good at a single-specialty that it can win before its weakness is exploited. Tournament results from all of 40k's history bear this out.
Nonsense, lots of lists feature all-rounder units. Flyrants would be a good example, so would Intercessors. In fact what would you say is more "specialist" Tacticals or Intercessors?
Insectum7 wrote: Nonsense, lots of lists feature all-rounder units. Flyrants would be a good example, so would Intercessors. In fact what would you say is more "specialist" Tacticals or Intercessors?
Don't Flyrants fall into the same category that Scatbikes do in that they're OP as hell? Or do we have different standards for good units in bad books compared to good units in good books?
Tacs and Intercessors are both generalists in that they're designed to be good at a few things at the same time. Tacs because they can take different load-outs with their special weapons, have access to cheap transport options, and can combat squad; Intercessors because they can shoot better than most troop choices and melee better than most troop choices making a mismatch. If Intercessors weren't so aggressively undervalued in terms of their point cost they'd be awful because it's tough to be good when you're paying full price for being good in two distinct roles at once.
Insectum7 wrote: Nonsense, lots of lists feature all-rounder units. Flyrants would be a good example, so would Intercessors. In fact what would you say is more "specialist" Tacticals or Intercessors?
Don't Flyrants fall into the same category that Scatbikes do in that they're OP as hell? Or do we have different standards for good units in bad books compared to good units in good books?
Tacs and Intercessors are both generalists in that they're designed to be good at a few things at the same time. Tacs because they can take different load-outs with their special weapons, have access to cheap transport options, and can combat squad; Intercessors because they can shoot better than most troop choices and melee better than most troop choices making a mismatch. If Intercessors weren't so aggressively undervalued in terms of their point cost they'd be awful because it's tough to be good when you're paying full price for being good in two distinct roles at once.
So to clarify, generalists can be competetive. Yes?
Insectum7 wrote: So to clarify, generalists can be competetive. Yes?
If you make them cost few enough points ANYTHING in 40k can be competitive. Current Marines are good generalists and you're complaining about them being too good. My point is that there's no elegant way to make a generalist feel good without making it feel WAY TOO GOOD because it appears to be OP at everything.
1W Marines could be good if they cost 10PPM but then you'd have Marine armies with nearly as many Tacs that Ork armies have Boyz or Nidz have Gants/Gaunts and that would be equally terrible for 40k. The tightrope you need to walk is making Marines *feel* tough while not making them too cheap but also making sure they're only the slightest hair worse than a specialist at that niche so they can be fluffy, good, and 'balanced' at the same time and until the end of 7th when GW threw in the towel, gave them a ton of free units and prayed it would make them at least okay, that balance has fallen to the weak side of the scale.
So how can Marines be able to build top tier tournament lists that use their iconic power armored units without being too strong for the casual meta? That's what this discussion boils down to.
I think the problem here is that a top tier tournament list is required.
IMO, lists shouldn't define tournament wins but rather players do. Hand Nick Nanavanti DKoK and he should still win vs modern SM. The fact that he can't is a travesty.
So instead of asking for top tier tournament results in the toxic competitive environment that GW has fostered by making the list the important facet, lets agitate for making the competitive environment into REAL competition by reducing the importance of the list.
No, it hasn't. I literally summarized my arguments as they've related to this thread and my first post about the T4 W1 Sv3+ profile specified that it was bad in spite of units like Sterngaurd and Devestators. If you're unable to see that please quote me having changed my argument or concede the point.
As to 7th and 8th edition, and specific comparisons to Orks, I have to ask yes, and? For one it ignores prior editions which are part of my argument secondly it ignores every other army in the game. Your 'argument' reads more like whining about how orks were underpowered for two editions while ignoring that, unlike marines, they've had metas where their basic troops were among the best units in the game. I'm sorry if you never got to play those editions.
I figured 7th would be far enough back, 6 years of Marines being dominant in the game isn't enough? We can go back to 6th and 5th edition where Ork armies that won relied upon *shock* Gimmicks. Specifically Nob biker wound pools and skew lists for Kan Wall. Ironically, in neither 5th or 6th were ork Boyz "the best units in the game". So how far are you going back to make that statement that Ork boyz were one of the best units in the game? And are we now moving the goal posts for a unit to have to be the best in the game?
I am also not whining about orkz being under powered LOL, I am pointing to them as an example, as a measuring stick of how SM statlines compare, if you are viewing them as under powered by comparison that is your own thought process, not mine. In all those examples the "bad" Marine durability was point for point better than the comparable ork unit. We could probably do something similar with other armies, but I am most familiar with orkz.
Except for all the earlier metas where Orks won because they were durable, had killing power, and could deploy in 30 man foot blobs under a KFF or in trukks for a mobile threat. You can't just look at 7th and 8th edition when you talk about the marine stat line being awful
Where was this "durable" ork meta? what edition was this? I can remember skew horde lists that abused the KFF wording. I can even remember trukk spam, but according to you, that doesn't count because you can't make it a gimmick remember? But regardless, lets ask that question again, how does that "awful" marine durability statline compare to those Ork units you just named? Which is more durable the ork version or the marine version point for point?
I've literally posted winning Ork and DE lists from days gone past that didn't spam anything in particular and won major tournaments. Please show me a comparable SM list that managed the same thing.
And I can post you a SM list where they didn't spam anything in particular either and won major tournaments, doesn't prove a damn thing If you want examples you can literally go look up at 40kstats and see a host of 8th edition Tournament winning SM lists, same for 7th prior to decurion style formations, same for 6th where Marines tacs were probably at their worst but still did well in the tournament scene.
Ask yourself this. Would you prefer to pay for a marine or a BS 3+ veteran guardsman who can put out the same firepower for cheaper? Marine units are forced to pay for durability that doesn't make them tough, a melee stat that a suicide gunner unit couldn't use, while other armies can instead use a specialist unit that gets all the upsides of high firepower without paying for stats they don't use.
A BS 3+ Veteran guardsmen is criminally under costed at 6ppm right now, but even at 6ppm, I would still take the Marine, would you like to know why? Because T3 with a 5+ save dies incredibly fast, to kill 1 requires 1.5 bolter wounds or 2.5 hits. That Marine as mentioned takes 6. So the Veteran I openly admit is under priced and yet the Marine is still more than twice as durable. And in 9th edition, where holding an objective with troops has a lot of value, a T4 3+ save model that can do decent dmg in CC is more valuable than 3 BS3 guardsmen plinking away with lasrifles, especially when it should be closer to 2.3 vets, not 3.
Good units in 40k specialize at doing one thing and are supported by other units that do another specific thing. Being a mushy middle generalist is a terrible plan unless you're not paying points for your secondary role.
That very much used to be the case, now we have things like intercessors and tac marines who are criminally under priced who can do everything better than those "specialists".
Except that I can point to metas prior to 7th edition where that wasn't the case. Are metas older than 7th invalid now?
Ahh, so now the argument isn't that T4 W1 3+sv statlines are terrible, its that at some nebulous time, as yet to be defined by you, that the aforementioned statline was bad and therefore that justifies the hamfisted buffs SM got in 9th.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the problem here is that a top tier tournament list is required.
IMO, lists shouldn't define tournament wins but rather players do. Hand Nick Nanavanti DKoK and he should still win vs modern SM. The fact that he can't is a travesty.
So instead of asking for top tier tournament results in the toxic competitive environment that GW has fostered by making the list the important facet, lets agitate for making the competitive environment into REAL competition by reducing the importance of the list.
That's going to be an issue then because in the Rock, Paper, Scissors world of 40k Marines can beat the Pebbles, Post-It Notes, and Plastic Scissors but lose to the Boulders, Cardboard, and Box Cutters that other armies will have at the top of these roles. It's all well and good to want a system where you can use skill to expose the flaws in your enemy's plan but a simple D6IGOUGO game like 40k that has been shedding rules depth for years isn't that system.
That's why every tournament winning list is some form of skew and why Marines have very rarely had a seat at top tables. Their very design doesn't lend themselves to working against the most special specialists that other armies want to play with.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the problem here is that a top tier tournament list is required.
IMO, lists shouldn't define tournament wins but rather players do. Hand Nick Nanavanti DKoK and he should still win vs modern SM. The fact that he can't is a travesty.
So instead of asking for top tier tournament results in the toxic competitive environment that GW has fostered by making the list the important facet, lets agitate for making the competitive environment into REAL competition by reducing the importance of the list.
That's going to be an issue then because in the Rock, Paper, Scissors world of 40k Marines can beat the Pebbles, Post-It Notes, and Plastic Scissors but lose to the Boulders, Cardboard, and Box Cutters that other armies will have at the top of these roles. It's all well and good to want a system where you can use skill to expose the flaws in your enemy's plan but a simple D6IGOUGO game like 40k that has been shedding rules depth for years isn't that system.
That's why every tournament winning list is some form of skew and why Marines have very rarely had a seat at top tables. Their very design doesn't lend themselves to working against the most special specialists that other armies want to play with.
So instead of fixing the game, you think the correct answer is just Marine dominance? Or do you have no ideas for how to fix it? Because one could argue that generalists are actually quite good against specialists, since they will have the tools to exceed where the specialist does not - and therefore are able to exploit the weakness the specialists have. Conversely, the specialists have a single defining strength, and are therefore obvious and predictable.
SemperMortis wrote: I figured 7th would be far enough back, 6 years of Marines being dominant in the game isn't enough?
I figured I'd just pick the only time since very early 3rd where Codex: Space Marine marines have been good... Not biased at all.
We can go back to 6th and 5th edition where Ork armies that won relied upon *shock* Gimmicks. Specifically Nob biker wound pools and skew lists for Kan Wall. Ironically, in neither 5th or 6th were ork Boyz "the best units in the game". So how far are you going back to make that statement that Ork boyz were one of the best units in the game? And are we now moving the goal posts for a unit to have to be the best in the game?
And yet we have the oft-repeated phrase 'Boyz before toys' and the advice to any new Ork player in 5th and 6th edition is that they need to run enough Boyz to compliment their Toyz. You didn't see top lists that ran minimum numbers of Boyz or skipped them entirely for grots like you did with Marines who took 5-man naked units or Scouts.
Tide was also always a threat that usually failed to find tournament space because of the time-limited nature of such events and not for power level reasons.
Where was this "durable" ork meta? what edition was this? I can remember skew horde lists that abused the KFF wording.
If the gimmick itself did all the lifing why wasn't that KFF list just as good with Nobz and Grots? Could it be that Boyz were actually good?
Which is more durable the ork version or the marine version point for point?
What's shooting at them? Orks are good against weapons waste strength and AP against their KFF/Cybork saves and low PPM costs that and MEQ are good against the basic small arms of most armies. It's hardly apples to apples.
And I can post you a SM list where they didn't spam anything in particular either and won major tournaments, doesn't prove a damn thing If you want examples you can literally go look up at 40kstats and see a host of 8th edition Tournament winning SM lists, same for 7th prior to decurion style formations, same for 6th where Marines tacs were probably at their worst but still did well in the tournament scene.
So why haven't you?
A BS 3+ Veteran guardsmen is criminally under costed at 6ppm right now, but even at 6ppm, I would still take the Marine, would you like to know why? Because T3 with a 5+ save dies incredibly fast, to kill 1 requires 1.5 bolter wounds or 2.5 hits. That Marine as mentioned takes 6. So the Veteran I openly admit is under priced and yet the Marine is still more than twice as durable. And in 9th edition, where holding an objective with troops has a lot of value, a T4 3+ save model that can do decent dmg in CC is more valuable than 3 BS3 guardsmen plinking away with lasrifles, especially when it should be closer to 2.3 vets, not 3.
In 9th, for most of 40k that hasn't been the case.
That very much used to be the case, now we have things like intercessors and tac marines who are criminally under priced who can do everything better than those "specialists".
Which is why I've focused on previous editions and have stated multiple times that Marines are currently too powerful.
Ahh, so now the argument isn't that T4 W1 3+sv statlines are terrible, its that at some nebulous time, as yet to be defined by you, that the aforementioned statline was bad and therefore that justifies the hamfisted buffs SM got in 9th.
Where have I stated that 9th edition Marines are okay as they are? My argument has been that them going to 2W and getting to feel tough isn't what's making them broken and that generalists are hard to balance.
Look at the thread I started in this subforum to see my point of view.
Insectum7 wrote: So to clarify, generalists can be competetive. Yes?
If you make them cost few enough points ANYTHING in 40k can be competitive. Current Marines are good generalists and you're complaining about them being too good. My point is that there's no elegant way to make a generalist feel good without making it feel WAY TOO GOOD because it appears to be OP at everything.
.
Conversely, you don't make the generalists feel OP and you accept the fact that there are always going to be people who can't get the full potential out of the unit because it isn't just plug-and-play.
I'm not actually complaining about marines being too good from a competetive standpoint in terms of winning games. I'm complaining about marines continually evolving to be head and shoulders above units that were formerly comparable. 2W is a dramatic increase in power over Necrons, Aspect Warriors, Orks, etc.
Unit1126PLL wrote: So instead of fixing the game, you think the correct answer is just Marine dominance? Or do you have no ideas for how to fix it? Because one could argue that generalists are actually quite good against specialists, since they will have the tools to exceed where the specialist does not - and therefore are able to exploit the weakness the specialists have. Conversely, the specialists have a single defining strength, and are therefore obvious and predictable.
Da fuq? I have done exactly that on this message board.
Canadian 5th wrote: I don't think it would work for 40k but one way this could work is as follows:
1) Remove HQs from the battlefield and instead purchase special rules, faction-specific mission objectives, buffs, etc. pregame based on which commander is in charge of your force.
2) Make enforced fog of war style effects where most units can see a shorter distance than they can shoot. Your other units can skip a turn to let another unit you control take a shot at something they can see but the firing unit cannot. Troops, ideally being a cheap unit that doesn't output a ton of damage would be ideal for this.
3) Make specialist units far more limited in what they can target. For example, an anti-tank missile launcher can only fire at tanks with any real probability of success. Some specialist units may not even deploy to the table and instead requiring called shots by troops to interact with the board; snipers, air support, and artillery come to mind.
4) With rare exceptions only small parts of your army start on the table with a flexible mix of other forces able to come in as the game progresses. For example, you may bring 1,500 points of models to a 1,000 point game and choose what comes on based on how the battle progresses. Some forces might get more extra points to work with, some might arrive faster, others might start with an extra unit on the field, etc.
I think all of this would do a lot to ensure the basic troop feels better while giving scope for various faction traits to shine through.
Canadian 5th wrote: I think the better way to do Fog of War in 40k is by giving each datasheet a sight range of, for example, 18 inches. This means that you might not be able to use the full range of your weapons without a spotter. Some armies would pay extra points because they can shoot further without spotters, others might automatically share target call-outs without needing to take an action to do so, yet others might need to pull out a radio and hunker down if they want artillery support.
Not only does this give troops more of a use, but it also gives us another lever to differentiate and balance armies.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Man a lot of butthurt over the proposal of Orks needing to be W2.
Quite frankly stats aren't explored enough. Make Exarchs W3! Make Meganobz W4! What's with the hesitation?
This! If we aren't going to redesign the game from the ground up could we please explore what limited design space the game has?
Let's try wacky stuff like making some weapons just outright kill non-character multi-wound models on an unmodified hit roll of 6, this would make a unit like snipers terrifying for the new multi-wound units. We could try giving horde units modifiers where they get +1 to hit as long as they have more than 11 models, call it something like 'weight of fire'. I'm even down for half stats, like a 3.5 strength that wounds T3 like it's S4 and wounds T4 like it's S3. That way you can make something stronger, or tougher than a guardsman but weaker and less tough than a space marine.
40k might never be a deep game with loads of moment to moment tactical depth but it has scope to be far better than it is.
Compared to a video game, like League, 40k has much less room for skill expression. Part of this is due to the heavy RNG inherent in a game that relies on rolling dice to determine outcomes and the other half is that the rules are fairly shallow and the implementation of IGOUGO is essentially non-interactive. The other half is that it's played out in turns rather than in real-time, so quick reactions and high levels of awareness aren't needed. There are also no drafts where you get to ban-pick-counter pick your opponent using a variety of units, no dynamic items to build or skills to rank up over the course of a single match, no timed objectives to shift the focus of the battle around the playspace in-game, and no real alternative strategies (lane swaps, flex picks, split push, dragon stacking versus focusing on rift scuttle and farming, early game versus scaling, etc.).
So unlike League where you can have champions that work well at each tier of play (Under Plat, Plat and Diamond, Challenger, Pro) there isn't really room to make units that work well at one tier but have a low skill cap or units that only a very skilled player can make use of. There also isn't an automated matchmaker for 40k and even if there were the relatively tiny player base and long game times mean that it would struggle to find even matches in a reasonable length of time.
All this basically says that we should raise the floor on bad units in 40k while lowering good units because everything has to fall into the same tier of play and compounding a skill imbalance because 40k does take skill to play well, with a list imbalance is going to result in many poor games.
I've made many suggestions for how to fix 40k and expressed frustration at its lack of depth. It's not my fault you've failed to see them.
Insectum7 wrote: Conversely, you don't make the generalists feel OP and you accept the fact that there are always going to be people who can't get the full potential out of the unit because it isn't just plug-and-play.
I'm not actually complaining about marines being too good from a competetive standpoint in terms of winning games. I'm complaining about marines continually evolving to be head and shoulders above units that were formerly comparable. 2W is a dramatic increase in power over Necrons, Aspect Warriors, Orks, etc.
Necrons are beating Marines right now and also have tools that will work in a meta where Marines aren't top threats, other factions haven't been updated yet, this evolution has been a thing for what 18 months now in a game that spans decades. This too shall pass.
I figured I'd just pick the only time since very early 3rd where Codex: Space Marine marines have been good... Not biased at all.
My apologies for thinking the recent 6 YEARS of gaming was enough and apparently was unaware that this is "biased". And I 100% agree (sarcasm) that Marines were terrible in 4th,5th and 6th edition.
And yet we have the oft-repeated phrase 'Boyz before toys' and the advice to any new Ork player in 5th and 6th edition is that they need to run enough Boyz to compliment their Toyz. You didn't see top lists that ran minimum numbers of Boyz or skipped them entirely for grots like you did with Marines who took 5-man naked units or Scouts. Tide was also always a threat that usually failed to find tournament space because of the time-limited nature of such events and not for power level reasons.
Yes, because ork "toyz" also included units that were basically boyz with ...toyz. Kind of like devastators are Marines with toyz. And those "toyz" were generally sub par in comparison to similar units from other armies. Funny enough, in those editions you didn't see boyz spam winning events, and it wasn't because of the "time constraints" you mentioned. In fact, in 7th one of the formations we got in the horribly written Ork Supplement was 10 units of boyz for 100-300 models. And the only time it did well was when fielded with....a Gimmick, specifically a VSG that was later removed for all intents and purposes due to its nature of being a bit broken. In early 8th, ork boyz spam/kommando spam was the only way to compete and that was easily 180-240 models. No problem with time constraints back then, so why weren't they winning tournaments back in 4th-6th edition?
If the gimmick itself did all the lifing why wasn't that KFF list just as good with Nobz and Grots? Could it be that Boyz were actually good?
Because Nobz were terribly over priced and grotz are functionally useless. In 4-6th, tournament had a lot of kill point missions, and its a bit harder to remove a 30 boy blob under a KFF than a 10 Nob unit or a 30 blob of T2 grotz.
What's shooting at them? Orks are good against weapons waste strength and AP against their KFF/Cybork saves and low PPM costs that and MEQ are good against the basic small arms of most armies. It's hardly apples to apples.
Both are T4, both had 1 Wound, the only difference was their save stat, Orkz 6+ marines 3+. KFF's weren't everywhere and Cybork was only on nobz, not boyz and was relatively expensive. And in 4th-6th, massive damage output like we see today just didn't exist. What was the best anti-marine weapon in 4th-6th that most armies used? For my orkz it was getting into CC and using as much attacks as possible while the nob with his PK basically did the heavy lifting. Plus, if we are going to throw in buffing characters for durability, why not give those space marines an apothecary?
So why haven't you?
Why haven't i bothered to post a list of all the space marine winning lists from the last 6 years? mostly because its such a ridiculous request. Should I also prove to you that getting hit by a bus is a bad thing? or that breathing water isn't conducive to long term health in humans? But just for the sake of argument, here is a list space marine lists in 7th, https://bloodofkittens.com/7th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/
In 9th, for most of 40k that hasn't been the case.
So lets move those goal posts to talk about the game from previous editions as opposed to your original question. If that is the case than I would probably take the cheaper model that puts out "Roughly" The same firepower, because in previous editions, playing to the mission wasn't as important as Killing lots of stuff.
Which is why I've focused on previous editions and have stated multiple times that Marines are currently too powerful.
Good, we can agree on that.
You can argue until your blue in the face the fact remains that SM's did very well for themselves for basically the entire game's existence, definitely within the last 12-14 years. In fact, they and maybe eldar stand apart from the rest of the game as having really never truly been bottom tier for 4-5 editions straight.
Insectum7 wrote: Conversely, you don't make the generalists feel OP and you accept the fact that there are always going to be people who can't get the full potential out of the unit because it isn't just plug-and-play.
I'm not actually complaining about marines being too good from a competetive standpoint in terms of winning games. I'm complaining about marines continually evolving to be head and shoulders above units that were formerly comparable. 2W is a dramatic increase in power over Necrons, Aspect Warriors, Orks, etc.
Necrons are beating Marines right now and also have tools that will work in a meta where Marines aren't top threats, other factions haven't been updated yet, this evolution has been a thing for what 18 months now in a game that spans decades. This too shall pass.
SemperMortis wrote: My apologies for thinking the recent 6 YEARS of gaming was enough and apparently was unaware that this is "biased". And I 100% agree (sarcasm) that Marines were terrible in 4th,5th and 6th edition.
Feth off with the high horse you rode in on.
Yes, because ork "toyz" also included units that were basically boyz with ...toyz. Kind of like devastators are Marines with toyz. And those "toyz" were generally sub par in comparison to similar units from other armies. Funny enough, in those editions you didn't see boyz spam winning events, and it wasn't because of the "time constraints" you mentioned. In fact, in 7th one of the formations we got in the horribly written Ork Supplement was 10 units of boyz for 100-300 models. And the only time it did well was when fielded with....a Gimmick, specifically a VSG that was later removed for all intents and purposes due to its nature of being a bit broken. In early 8th, ork boyz spam/kommando spam was the only way to compete and that was easily 180-240 models. No problem with time constraints back then, so why weren't they winning tournaments back in 4th-6th edition?
I skipped 7th, like every sensible player of 40k did. If you played that mess, that's on you.
As for works using masses of Boyz to win, they did that. It wasn't uncommon to see Orks lists with multiple 30 model blobs that also brought other stuff that worked alongside them. Contrast this to Marine lists where that never happened with Marines, even their gimmicks were stand-alone and abused drop pods and high damage guns with zero interaction from the rest of their list required, that's what I mean by a gimmick. Using 90 boyz, plus Nobz, plus Battlewagons, plus HQs isn't a gimmick, its an army list.
Because Nobz were terribly over priced and grotz are functionally useless. In 4-6th, tournament had a lot of kill point missions, and its a bit harder to remove a 30 boy blob under a KFF than a 10 Nob unit or a 30 blob of T2 grotz.
So Boyz were a good durable unit that had a role in winning lists...
Both are T4, both had 1 Wound, the only difference was their save stat, Orkz 6+ marines 3+. KFF's weren't everywhere and Cybork was only on nobz, not boyz
Mad Dok Grotsnik disagrees with you...
What was the best anti-marine weapon in 4th-6th that most armies used? For my orkz it was getting into CC and using as much attacks as possible while the nob with his PK basically did the heavy lifting. Plus, if we are going to throw in buffing characters for durability, why not give those space marines an apothecary?
It depends on your army. Everything from Devourers to Grav to FRFSRF lasguns was used to mow down Marines.
Why haven't i bothered to post a list of all the space marine winning lists from the last 6 years? mostly because its such a ridiculous request. Should I also prove to you that getting hit by a bus is a bad thing? or that breathing water isn't conducive to long term health in humans? But just for the sake of argument, here is a list of LVO winners in 7th, https://bloodofkittens.com/7th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/
I was asking for a list or two, similar to what I've posted. Also, feth 7th, nobody sane played 7th and it nearly killed the game. Let's talk 3rd through 6th and 8th and 9th and keep that mess in the past where it belongs.
So lets move those goal posts to talk about the game from previous editions as opposed to your original question. If that is the case than I would probably take the cheaper model that puts out "Roughly" The same firepower, because in previous editions, playing to the mission wasn't as important as Killing lots of stuff.
I've always been talking about the broad sense and not just one edition. If you've missed that I don't know what to say.
My argument is that Marines feel right at 2W, kill too much stuff for their cost, that other factions need buffs, and that it's tough to make a generalist codex that has a top tier list without making the whole thing too strong. Look a few posts up and you can literally see me quoting myself saying those things!
I've also argued that the current Marine codex isn't sure to be an issue going forward as we haven't seen any other 9th edition rules aside from Necrons yet. If we get more books at the same power level as Necrons I don't think Marines will be that much of an issue even if Marines don't catch any nerfs. Marines aren't at Iron Hands levels any more, they won't effortlessly dominate top tables at tournaments, and that's the meta I care about. If you feel like they're an issue casually even after we get more 9th edition books I'll sympathize but it won't bother me all that terribly much.
I've always thought marines should be at least 2 wounds, I rejoiced years back when the legion of the damned were 2 wounds, then they made them elites and you could only take ten of them!
In today's game I think they need it. When you consider all the giant units that are now in many armies that can deal out a lot of punishment, I think you'll find that marine players will take all the help they can get! I know some may say "ah but marines can take (detachments?) like some of the walkers etc, but I think you need to bear in mind that not all marine players will have access to these units, simply because they can't afford to buy them. I suspect that may factor into GW thinking. So, what do they do? Make them a little tougher to take out.
Remember, marines are meant to be the spearpoint, first in last out, they need to be tough.
Ho-hum.
I skipped 7th, like every sensible player of 40k did. If you played that mess, that's on you.
yeah that was for orkz in previous editions as well good for you though skipping 7th, it was a feth show.
As for works using masses of Boyz to win, they did that. It wasn't uncommon to see Orks lists with multiple 30 model blobs that also brought other stuff that worked alongside them. Contrast this to Marine lists where that never happened with Marines, even their gimmicks were stand-alone and abused drop pods and high damage guns with zero interaction from the rest of their list required, that's what I mean by a gimmick. Using 90 boyz, plus Nobz, plus Battlewagons, plus HQs isn't a gimmick, its an army list.
it wasn't uncommon to see it, but it was incredibly rare to see them win anything at tournaments. Nob biker shenanigans and kan wall are what carried the Ork 4th edition codex through 5th and 6th edition.
So Boyz were a good durable unit that had a role in winning lists...
The other troops choice was garbage and Nobz are elites...so by comparison yes, but compared to the rest of the game? still less durable/useful than the Marines you are complaining about.
Mad Dok Grotsnik disagrees with you...
LMAO! Very true, you could take a 160pt character so that you could give your Ork boyz a 5+ Invuln save....for 5pts PER MODEL. Suddenly that 180pt Mob is now 330pts...and you upgraded their save from a 6+ armor save to a 5+ invuln save. Under the old rules, Mad Dok I believe had to join a Mob so therefore his FNP only conferred to 1 unit, so you had basically 500pts in a 1500pt tournament army (I think that was the average battle size in 4th-6th but its been a long time) tied up in 1 troop choice that for all intents and purposes is still LESS durable that a similar value of Tac Marines.
I was asking for a list or two, similar to what I've posted. Also, feth 7th, nobody sane played 7th and it nearly killed the game. Let's talk 3rd through 6th and 8th and 9th and keep that mess in the past where it belongs.
Ah, i keep forgetting, you get to randomly decide which editions, models and rules we use in our analysis. So, I either have to go back over a decade to find you battle reports or I could just say...8th edition. Where SM's were arguably the most dominant army in the entire game at the start of the edition and after Codex 2.0 unarguably the most broken OP army in the game Do you really want me to post winning lists for you or do you feel this is an established fact we can agree on?
I've always been talking about the broad sense and not just one edition. If you've missed that I don't know what to say.
Except when you are talking about specific models in specific editions but also don't count in other editions because meh.
My argument is that Marines feel right at 2W, kill too much stuff for their cost, that other factions need buffs, and that it's tough to make a generalist codex that has a top tier list without making the whole thing too strong. Look a few posts up and you can literally see me quoting myself saying those things!
Sure they feel right, they are literally the most powerful troop choice in the game point for point right now. Which is hilarious because they are actually better than Intercessors who themselves are currently out shooting Firewarriors at range and out fighting genestealers in CC. So yeah I am sure they feel right and I do give you credit though for saying they kill too much and other factions need buffs...but that is the issue. You "FEEL" they are right at 2W, but when you reduce their damage output OR buff other factions to similar levels where they can deal with those 2W Marines, guess what is going to happen? They will no longer "FEEL" right.
I've also argued that the current Marine codex isn't sure to be an issue going forward as we haven't seen any other 9th edition rules aside from Necrons yet. If we get more books at the same power level as Necrons I don't think Marines will be that much of an issue even if Marines don't catch any nerfs. Marines aren't at Iron Hands levels any more, they won't effortlessly dominate top tables at tournaments, and that's the meta I care about. If you feel like they're an issue casually even after we get more 9th edition books I'll sympathize but it won't bother me all that terribly much.
At the current moment, SM's and Custodes are dominating the meta. We haven't had any major tournaments recently but we did have a Spanish GT where 28 people showed up. Marines Had 2 top 5 placings, and 4 in the top 10. Notably 2 Salamanders a Blood Angel and a Crimson Fist. Sadly, nobody showed up with Necrons for a comparison :( So maybe they are doing well, I personally don't think they are going to fair well against the new 9th edition SM codex but I am at least honest in saying we don't have any real data points yet.
Flyrants were not OP. Flyrants got spammed because they were one of the only viable units in the codex for over 2 editions. Nids were not dominating tourney scenes or anything. Yes. Some good players with nids won tourneys. But they were not surrounded by other nid armies all covering the top ranks. It was 1 or 2 nids surrounded by eldar and SM.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think the problem here is that a top tier tournament list is required.
IMO, lists shouldn't define tournament wins but rather players do. Hand Nick Nanavanti DKoK and he should still win vs modern SM. The fact that he can't is a travesty.
So instead of asking for top tier tournament results in the toxic competitive environment that GW has fostered by making the list the important facet, lets agitate for making the competitive environment into REAL competition by reducing the importance of the list.
That's going to be an issue then because in the Rock, Paper, Scissors world of 40k Marines can beat the Pebbles, Post-It Notes, and Plastic Scissors but lose to the Boulders, Cardboard, and Box Cutters that other armies will have at the top of these roles. It's all well and good to want a system where you can use skill to expose the flaws in your enemy's plan but a simple D6IGOUGO game like 40k that has been shedding rules depth for years isn't that system.
That's why every tournament winning list is some form of skew and why Marines have very rarely had a seat at top tables. Their very design doesn't lend themselves to working against the most special specialists that other armies want to play with.
So instead of fixing the game, you think the correct answer is just Marine dominance? Or do you have no ideas for how to fix it? Because one could argue that generalists are actually quite good against specialists, since they will have the tools to exceed where the specialist does not - and therefore are able to exploit the weakness the specialists have. Conversely, the specialists have a single defining strength, and are therefore obvious and predictable.
To fix the game you need a whole rewrite, period. Thats difficult though when people here are vehemently against changing IGOUGO because "muh legacy rules it's change and i don't like the idea of a proper depth game" and against changing the dice to a slightly higher system because of something as absurd as "i can't read the numbers as quick".
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: To fix the game you need a whole rewrite, period. Thats difficult though when people here are vehemently against changing IGOUGO because "muh legacy rules it's change and i don't like the idea of a proper depth game" and against changing the dice to a slightly higher system because of something as absurd as "i can't read the numbers as quick".
I haven't met anyone that protests the former as it comes up, and the latter isn't actually relevant because you can achieve any probability with any size dice - what matters are the permutations it is put through by the rules. After all, for an 8% chance for X to succeed, you can either roll a 12 on a D12, or you can roll a 6 on a D6 and then a 4+.
Slipstream wrote: In today's game I think they need it. When you consider all the giant units that are now in many armies that can deal out a lot of punishment, I think you'll find that marine players will take all the help they can get!
Cool. I guess every other army's infantry should get 2-wounds as well, then?
I mean, it's not as if giant units in other armies cease to exist when you play an army other than Space Marines.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: To fix the game you need a whole rewrite, period. Thats difficult though when people here are vehemently against changing IGOUGO because "muh legacy rules it's change and i don't like the idea of a proper depth game" and against changing the dice to a slightly higher system because of something as absurd as "i can't read the numbers as quick".
I haven't met anyone that protests the former as it comes up, and the latter isn't actually relevant because you can achieve any probability with any size dice - what matters are the permutations it is put through by the rules. After all, for an 8% chance for X to succeed, you can either roll a 12 on a D12, or you can roll a 6 on a D6 and then a 4+.
There are people protesting it all the time. We literally have a bunch of protests in one thread right now simply because of "muh legacy I want it to work even if I admit it's outdated" and literally "I want to sit for half an hour" in previous threads this has been brought up. It's literally all because that's how it's always been done and they've literally never played any other game in their lives.
And while you CAN achieve various effects on different dice, the difference is the power of those modifiers themselves, which in turn made modifiers and rerolls too important and people whined. Even a single -1 to hit got a lot of people complaining it was broken (even though technically the +1 to the armor save instead is actually better in most circumstances), or the fact that a straight up +1 to Wound doesn't scale in any correct manner whatsoever. Even a Warlord Titan gets wounded on a 5+ if either a Slamguinus charges OR an Eldar Guardian got a +1 to wound.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
You can scale up to D8 or D10. That would require significantly less fiddling with stats, and as well the availability of D8 is pretty easy.
Right on with your points, but the problem isn't the whole concept of modifiers, the problem is GW's implementation.
A +1 to-wound on a different Toughness/Strength chart can matter less or more depending on how those rules are written.
Conversely, a +1 to-hit or -1 to-hit through some different permutation (such as an Attack skill and a Defense skill comparison) can be more or less effective, even with a d6.
Game design tools exist to make the D6 wonderful, wild, and flexible. GW won't use those tools. There's no indication they'd be better if you stuffed a bunch of D12s in their toolbox instead of D6s.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Right on with your points, but the problem isn't the whole concept of modifiers, the problem is GW's implementation.
A +1 to-wound on a different Toughness/Strength chart can matter less or more depending on how those rules are written.
Conversely, a +1 to-hit or -1 to-hit through some different permutation (such as an Attack skill and a Defense skill comparison) can be more or less effective, even with a d6.
Game design tools exist to make the D6 wonderful, wild, and flexible. GW won't use those tools. There's no indication they'd be better if you stuffed a bunch of D12s in their toolbox instead of D6s.
But the rerolls are still an issue because of that singular power of lack of granularity. Would the Captain aura be as powerful if you just rolled 1s on a D8 or a D10 compared to a D6? Absolutely not. Would people have complained about Chapter Master rerolls if it was just effectively rerolling 2s and 3s on a D10 and Marines still were BS4+ in such a system? Probably not (but I'd still expect complaints because Marines).
Granularity with the D8 or D10 also helps with a better wounding Chart instead of wondering why Lasguns just stopped working on Mortarion (using T7 vs S3 in the previous system) or why they wound Carnifexes and Imperial Knights at the same rate. One might argue that "Lasguns shouldn't hurt Knights to begin with" but weapons doing absolutely nothing leads to skew lists to begin with.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also the limit on the D6 made the BS chart for all the previous editions really fething silly
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Would the Captain aura be as powerful if you just rolled 1s on a D8 or a D10 compared to a D6? Absolutely not. Would people have complained about Chapter Master rerolls if it was just effectively rerolling 2s and 3s on a D10 and Marines still were BS4+ in such a system? Probably not (but I'd still expect complaints because Marines).
The Captain and Chapter Master auras would be easier to balance if they had something to do with command rather than being incremental variants of yelling at your dudes to make them shoot better. This implies a game system that has some modeling for what command actually is and does and how having your CO on the field helps you fight better, providing another dimension for unit differentiation beyond ever-more-infinitesimal raw combat ability.
The idea of needing more granular dice to better handle damaging Carnifexes and Knights- in a game system where a Knight standing three feet in front of you is exactly as difficult to hit as an Eldar jet a half mile away moving at two hundred miles per hour- is downright ludicrous. Switching to a more granular dice type to add functionally meaningless nuance to shallow game mechanics would be the epitome of missing the forest for the trees. Games with fewer sequential rolls and less granular tuning of individual outcomes on D6s still manage to accomplish deeper gameplay and real differentiation between forces as compared to 40K.
And if an effect really is so subtle and minor that adjusting one of the current 3-7 rolls required to resolve a single shot from a single weapon on a single model is insufficient granularity to represent it in the game stats? You don't represent it in rules, because it clearly isn't significant enough to be worth the added cognitive burden and design overhead to account for. If I'm fielding ICBMs and tank platoons I don't care if your combat knife is 5% sharper or your chaplain makes your riflemen 3% more accurate or your CO is carrying a hammer instead of a sword. None of that gak matters at the scale I'm playing at, and 40K continuously suffers from getting so caught up in its own chrome that it doesn't look at the big gaps where basic mechanics ought to be.
I think Rites of Battle made more sense when they allowed loyalists to use their leaders LD for all their units, back when LD actually mattered. When you needed it to get around things like target priority, being forced to fall back (back when falling back was a bad idea), etc. Way better than just yelling at anything within 6 to "Shoot better!".
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
they're also hard to roll in large quantities.
Step 1) Hold dice
Step 2) Let go of dice.
At the quantities of dice that 40K currently needs to play some factions (such as orks) no physical die is easy to roll because our hands cupped together have a finite volume and the dice exceed that volume.
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
Is this a problem in the USA ?
If anyone needs dice sets of any size, number, or sides, its pretty easy to come by. Most LGSs in sweden can contact a distributor or manufacturer and order sets of any make up and even large amounts of loose bags of various sizes... I have done this myself... I called the distributor because my friend owns the store I did it through. Is it possible your LGS just doesnt want to put the leg work in ?
not sure what we are talking about... but I really do not think this is a kind of limitation.
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
Is this a problem in the USA ?
If anyone needs dice sets of any size, number, or sides, its pretty easy to come by. Most LGSs in sweden can contact a distributor or manufacturer and order sets of any make up and even large amounts of loose bags of various sizes... I have done this myself... I called the distributor because my friend owns the store I did it through. Is it possible your LGS just doesnt want to put the leg work in ?
not sure what we are talking about... but I really do not think this is a kind of limitation.
No I am talking through experience contacting dice manufacturers both in europe and america. Ordering dice that are not d6s and d10s in larger quantities is difficult especially if you are looking for particular colors. It gets exponentially worse if you are looking for minis. (8-10mm scale as opposed to the standard 16mm scale). You know those cubes of 36 mini d6s people buy for like 10-15 bucks? Easy to come by. Want to get 30 d12s at the same scale? Again. Good luck. If you can find a manufacturer that would even be willing to sell you 100 as a minimum order I would love to hear about it. I have been told by multiple manufacturers that their molds for the dice come in the basic sets (d4/d6/d8/d10/d%/d12/d20) and they cannot manufacture d12s alone.
Again, if you can find something that does otherwise I would love to hear about it. I have a project that would really benefit from finding a supplier.
I don't let my opponents use the mini D6s due to legibility reasons. I also don't let them use GW specialty dice. Gravity dice are preferred if possible.
I can go to most game stores and just pick 12 D12s out of a bucket and play with them. I do most of my rolls in 10s or 12s anyway. Just use regular scale. I suspect that that's the reason for the differing experiences.
SecondTime wrote: I don't let my opponents use the mini D6s due to legibility reasons. I also don't let them use GW specialty dice. Gravity dice are preferred if possible.
I can go to most game stores and just pick 12 D12s out of a bucket and play with them. I do most of my rolls in 10s or 12s anyway. Just use regular scale. I suspect that that's the reason for the differing experiences.
Well some of my units roll 40-90 dice at a time. I refuse to roll anything but mini dice. Good luck telling other people what dice they can use.
I'll admit when one friend of mine uses his mini dice (he always keeps them separated by color in exactly 60dice minibags) I just take the results he has said to me as true because theres no way I'm gonna look and stop the game to count everything from the other side of the table.
SecondTime wrote: I don't let my opponents use the mini D6s due to legibility reasons. I also don't let them use GW specialty dice. Gravity dice are preferred if possible.
I can go to most game stores and just pick 12 D12s out of a bucket and play with them. I do most of my rolls in 10s or 12s anyway. Just use regular scale. I suspect that that's the reason for the differing experiences.
Well some of my units roll 40-90 dice at a time. I refuse to roll anything but mini dice. Good luck telling other people what dice they can use.
I just don't play them. The mini dice are hard to read and don't roll particularly well.
In order to move to a new type of dice they either need to make the dice available in miniature sizes or they need to move to apocalypse style stat lines and data sheets so that the number of dice rolled is drastically reduced.
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
Is this a problem in the USA ?
If anyone needs dice sets of any size, number, or sides, its pretty easy to come by. Most LGSs in sweden can contact a distributor or manufacturer and order sets of any make up and even large amounts of loose bags of various sizes... I have done this myself... I called the distributor because my friend owns the store I did it through. Is it possible your LGS just doesnt want to put the leg work in ?
not sure what we are talking about... but I really do not think this is a kind of limitation.
No I am talking through experience contacting dice manufacturers both in europe and america. Ordering dice that are not d6s and d10s in larger quantities is difficult especially if you are looking for particular colors. It gets exponentially worse if you are looking for minis. (8-10mm scale as opposed to the standard 16mm scale). You know those cubes of 36 mini d6s people buy for like 10-15 bucks? Easy to come by. Want to get 30 d12s at the same scale? Again. Good luck. If you can find a manufacturer that would even be willing to sell you 100 as a minimum order I would love to hear about it. I have been told by multiple manufacturers that their molds for the dice come in the basic sets (d4/d6/d8/d10/d%/d12/d20) and they cannot manufacture d12s alone.
Again, if you can find something that does otherwise I would love to hear about it. I have a project that would really benefit from finding a supplier.
Your telling me Chessex couldn't hook this up for you ? me and you sir have had very different experiences with that company... Not sure what to tell you. I got an entire pallet of loose dice at the same scale about 2 years ago from them. Sure, we had to sort them ourselves but it wasn't too bad. We were even given options to buy the same colour sets at what ever quantity in what ever scales , # of sides and styles but it was cheaper to buy boxes of loose dice from them so we went with that.
Are you associated with a store or are you trying to do this as a private person ? that could be the difference ?
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
Is this a problem in the USA ?
If anyone needs dice sets of any size, number, or sides, its pretty easy to come by. Most LGSs in sweden can contact a distributor or manufacturer and order sets of any make up and even large amounts of loose bags of various sizes... I have done this myself... I called the distributor because my friend owns the store I did it through. Is it possible your LGS just doesnt want to put the leg work in ?
not sure what we are talking about... but I really do not think this is a kind of limitation.
No I am talking through experience contacting dice manufacturers both in europe and america. Ordering dice that are not d6s and d10s in larger quantities is difficult especially if you are looking for particular colors. It gets exponentially worse if you are looking for minis. (8-10mm scale as opposed to the standard 16mm scale). You know those cubes of 36 mini d6s people buy for like 10-15 bucks? Easy to come by. Want to get 30 d12s at the same scale? Again. Good luck. If you can find a manufacturer that would even be willing to sell you 100 as a minimum order I would love to hear about it. I have been told by multiple manufacturers that their molds for the dice come in the basic sets (d4/d6/d8/d10/d%/d12/d20) and they cannot manufacture d12s alone.
Again, if you can find something that does otherwise I would love to hear about it. I have a project that would really benefit from finding a supplier.
Your telling me Chessex couldn't hook this up for you ? me and you sir have had very different experiences with that company... Not sure what to tell you. I got an entire pallet of loose dice at the same scale about 2 years ago from them. Sure, we had to sort them ourselves but it wasn't too bad. We were even given options to buy the same colour sets at what ever quantity in what ever scales , # of sides and styles but it was cheaper to buy boxes of loose dice from them.
Are you associated with a store or are you trying to do this as a private person ? that could be the difference ?
Yeah, I am telling you that Chessex does not sell mini dice in individual sizes (d12) in the 8-10mm scale. You can buy a dnd set in very specific colors (all bright translucents mostly with horrible legibility)
I have tried as a individual, through a store with a very large regular stock of dice, and as a business looking to create a product over the last 4 years checking in with them and others at different times.
Chessex will not make you a set of those dice in black with white lettering as an example. They only come in those particular colors. And you could not order 100 d10s at that size (again the mold is apparently for the whole set so they only make them as a whole set).
Go give it a try and let me know if you get better answers.
Lance845 wrote: The issue with changing the dice is purely availability of dice.
Mini d12s are a nightmare to come by in any sizable amount. Go try to buy just 10 of them. Contact dice manufacturers. Good luck.
Is this a problem in the USA ?
If anyone needs dice sets of any size, number, or sides, its pretty easy to come by. Most LGSs in sweden can contact a distributor or manufacturer and order sets of any make up and even large amounts of loose bags of various sizes... I have done this myself... I called the distributor because my friend owns the store I did it through. Is it possible your LGS just doesnt want to put the leg work in ?
not sure what we are talking about... but I really do not think this is a kind of limitation.
No I am talking through experience contacting dice manufacturers both in europe and america. Ordering dice that are not d6s and d10s in larger quantities is difficult especially if you are looking for particular colors. It gets exponentially worse if you are looking for minis. (8-10mm scale as opposed to the standard 16mm scale). You know those cubes of 36 mini d6s people buy for like 10-15 bucks? Easy to come by. Want to get 30 d12s at the same scale? Again. Good luck. If you can find a manufacturer that would even be willing to sell you 100 as a minimum order I would love to hear about it. I have been told by multiple manufacturers that their molds for the dice come in the basic sets (d4/d6/d8/d10/d%/d12/d20) and they cannot manufacture d12s alone.
Again, if you can find something that does otherwise I would love to hear about it. I have a project that would really benefit from finding a supplier.
Your telling me Chessex couldn't hook this up for you ? me and you sir have had very different experiences with that company... Not sure what to tell you. I got an entire pallet of loose dice at the same scale about 2 years ago from them. Sure, we had to sort them ourselves but it wasn't too bad. We were even given options to buy the same colour sets at what ever quantity in what ever scales , # of sides and styles but it was cheaper to buy boxes of loose dice from them.
Are you associated with a store or are you trying to do this as a private person ? that could be the difference ?
Yeah, I am telling you that Chessex does not sell mini dice in individual sizes (d12) in the 8-10mm scale. You can buy a dnd set in very specific colors (all bright translucents mostly with horrible legibility)
I have tried as a individual, through a store with a very large regular stock of dice, and as a business looking to create a product over the last 4 years checking in with them and others at different times.
Chessex will not make you a set of those dice in black with white lettering as an example. They only come in those particular colors. And you could not order 100 d10s at that size (again the mold is apparently for the whole set so they only make them as a whole set).
Go give it a try and let me know if you get better answers.
honestly, I can look into this and get back to you.
Saying that, sure your limited by the sizes, styles and #sides they offer... geting a bunch of loose 8-10mm of all #sides and styles in bulk would be relatively easy and I am sure possible. But the fact that you want such specific ones... I could see how they would expect you to buy too large a quantity to be worth it.
Honestly though, then it is a you problem. You can most definitely either get large quantities at a different size OR large quantities of them mismatched at the size you want ... In order to play the game one of thos concessions could totally and reasonablybe made... Not to mention, if a game the size of warhammer required it, 100% chessex would create a product due to the increased demand.
But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: To fix the game you need a whole rewrite, period. Thats difficult though when people here are vehemently against changing IGOUGO because "muh legacy rules it's change and i don't like the idea of a proper depth game" and against changing the dice to a slightly higher system because of something as absurd as "i can't read the numbers as quick".
I haven't met anyone that protests the former as it comes up, and the latter isn't actually relevant because you can achieve any probability with any size dice - what matters are the permutations it is put through by the rules. After all, for an 8% chance for X to succeed, you can either roll a 12 on a D12, or you can roll a 6 on a D6 and then a 4+.
Maybe I have misunderstood you, but if you are comparing the result you can obtain throwing a D12 and the result you can obtain throwing 2 D6, you have to consider that you can't obtain 1 with two D6 and above all with two D6 you have a not linear probability distribution: for example with two D6 you have a probability in thirty-six (which is 2.78 in percentage) to obtain 2 or 12 and 6 probability in thirty-six (which is 72.22 in percentage) and this not linearity can have some interesting effects (not necessarily bad) on the game.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
If GW was making a change like that,,, oh man you better believe they would make sure the dice were available, they would have a deal set up with at least one of major manufacturers well in advance and they would capitalize on it 100% ... I honestly think availability is none issue here... now I can totally see other issues,,, I just really think GW is big enough that availability wouldn't be a problem,,, in fact,,, it could be incredibly profitable ... and we know how GW feels about profit .
I can see them scheming in the board room already
Mat Ward : "and then they will buy ALL of our d36s because we will be the only ones offering them " *laughs maniacally* "hey you, give those marines bigger guns !!!, these ultramarine d36s arn't going to sell if players arn't convinced these guns CAN do 36 dmg will they ! " *Matt Ward walks out of GWHQ stroking his hasbro ultramarine action figure*
I'd actually prefer a D10 for the 10% increments, but that's completely academic. I did a fan rewrite of 7th using the old AP system with D10 that was pretty cool the couple times we play tested it.
All armor was 2+ to 10+ and you got half (rounded up) of the save if the weapon AP matched exactly.
Terminators with 2+ (on a d10) got a 6+ save vs AP 2 and no save vs AP 1.
But this was before AP mods came back and multiple wounds, etc.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
If GW was making a change like that,,, oh man you better believe they would make sure the dice were available, they would have a deal set up with at least one of major manufacturers well in advance and they would capitalize on it 100% ... I honestly think availability is none issue here... now I can totally see other issues,,, I just really think GW is big enough that availability wouldn't be a problem,,, in fact,,, it could be incredibly profitable ... and we know how GW feels about profit .
It would necessitate the creation of new molds. Which I am not sure GW is willing to shell out for. Do I think GW would make FULL sized d12s? Absolutely. Full sized d12s would be all over the place. Minis? Naw.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
Lance845 wrote: You misunderstood. It's rolling a d6 and then rerolling that d6 if you got a particular result.
I.E. 1d6 result is a 6 (effectively a 11 on a d12). Reroll that d6 and get a 4+ and now it's a 12.
You had a wonderful idea! You could roll two dice (for example a white one and a red one), using the second one to decide if a certain number (for example 4) corresponds to 8 or 9. You just solved an issue I had when I tried to rectify the rules of the second edition, without change the dice.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
If GW was making a change like that,,, oh man you better believe they would make sure the dice were available, they would have a deal set up with at least one of major manufacturers well in advance and they would capitalize on it 100% ... I honestly think availability is none issue here... now I can totally see other issues,,, I just really think GW is big enough that availability wouldn't be a problem,,, in fact,,, it could be incredibly profitable ... and we know how GW feels about profit .
It would necessitate the creation of new molds. Which I am not sure GW is willing to shell out for. Do I think GW would make FULL sized d12s? Absolutely. Full sized d12s would be all over the place. Minis? Naw.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
Again, those are full sized. Not mini. 16mm scale not 8-10.
I think you underestimate how automated the dice production industry has become in the past decade... honestly, I really can't see this as a problem these days. But alas, i ll find out for you and if I pull it off you can buy em from me if you really want XD.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
If GW was making a change like that,,, oh man you better believe they would make sure the dice were available, they would have a deal set up with at least one of major manufacturers well in advance and they would capitalize on it 100% ... I honestly think availability is none issue here... now I can totally see other issues,,, I just really think GW is big enough that availability wouldn't be a problem,,, in fact,,, it could be incredibly profitable ... and we know how GW feels about profit .
It would necessitate the creation of new molds. Which I am not sure GW is willing to shell out for. Do I think GW would make FULL sized d12s? Absolutely. Full sized d12s would be all over the place. Minis? Naw.
Lance845 wrote: But thats the issue. If GW makes the change the dice need to already be available. I am fine on rolling any number of sides dice if I can get a large enough quantity in the correct scale at a price to be worth it.
But they are not available. So sitting on this forum and suggesting it is a problem. I managed to cut a deal with a store who sold me 100 d12s in 3 different colors about 4 years back. But the owner had to pull individual dice out of dnd sets to get them for me and I had to pay a higher price on the individual dice because it would be harder for her to sell the others.
I have 100 d12s because I had a really cool store owner do a 1 off for me. Nobody else is reasonably getting that deal.
Again, they are not. Those are standard sized dice. Stop spending a minute on google and coming back with a product I am not talking about. You can contact Dice Emporium and ask them about the size of those dice.
All of these dice changes seem like they are a bigger pain in the butt that the benefits they gain in granularity. Thought of carrying and trying to roll 20 d10s is egghhh
40k can function fine with D6s, it doesn't need more granularity to adequately represent the various units. It just needs more care given to using the space that it has.
Insectum7 wrote: 40k can function fine with D6s, it doesn't need more granularity to adequately represent the various units. It just needs more care given to using the space that it has.
Yeah... having to consider things like facing/ manouvering as well as target priority and leadership are mechanics that do this to a degree and have been mentioned.
However apparently people have been demanding "streamliend rules" and "acessible" "easy to learn" and other buzzwords from WH... And AOS and 40k current is the result where re-rolls and modifiers are the only mechanics left for cryin out loud.. This is what a "streamlined" game looks like.It just gets janky when you play with titanic models and grots because of this constant dumming down.
Insectum7 wrote: 40k can function fine with D6s, it doesn't need more granularity to adequately represent the various units. It just needs more care given to using the space that it has.
Yeah... having to consider things like facing/ manouvering as well as target priority and leadership are mechanics that do this to a degree and have been mentioned.
However apparently people have been demanding "streamliend rules" and "acessible" "easy to learn" and other buzzwords from WH... And AOS and 40k current is the result where re-rolls and modifiers are the only mechanics left for cryin out loud.. This is what a "streamlined" game looks like.It just gets janky when you play with titanic models and grots because of this constant dumming down.
Disagree. You can very easily have a streamlined and simple game with a ton of tactical depth. GW just seems incapable of making that game.
Insectum7 wrote: 40k can function fine with D6s, it doesn't need more granularity to adequately represent the various units. It just needs more care given to using the space that it has.
Yeah... having to consider things like facing/ manouvering as well as target priority and leadership are mechanics that do this to a degree and have been mentioned.
However apparently people have been demanding "streamliend rules" and "acessible" "easy to learn" and other buzzwords from WH... And AOS and 40k current is the result where re-rolls and modifiers are the only mechanics left for cryin out loud.. This is what a "streamlined" game looks like.It just gets janky when you play with titanic models and grots because of this constant dumming down.
Disagree. You can very easily have a streamlined and simple game with a ton of tactical depth. GW just seems incapable of making that game.
There certainly is that argument about GW I wont deny..
Other games fill that space, perfectly happy with GW going more streamlined while still having tactical depth.
So many of those things just caused stress and additional arguements which were not fun. Rather they remove opportunities for that as much as possible. Adding pre-measure and removing templates and facings made the games a lot more fun.
Leth wrote: Other games fill that space, perfectly happy with GW going more streamlined while still having tactical depth.
So many of those things just caused stress and additional arguements which were not fun. Rather they remove opportunities for that as much as possible. Adding pre-measure and removing templates and facings made the games a lot more fun.
I get why they did it, but templates were fun as hell and screwing up and scattering artillery onto your own face was hilarious.
Spent more time watching people space out 2 inches and argue about blasts to the point where I stopped including them in my list just to save time. I am glad they are gone, same with armor facings.
Leth wrote: Spent more time watching people space out 2 inches and argue about blasts to the point where I stopped including them in my list just to save time. I am glad they are gone, same with armor facings.
You're not wrong in that doing so removed room for argument, but it also removed the source of childlike glee that was landing a ridiculous number of hits, the way perfectly gauging a distance made you feel brilliant, or the hilarious chagrin in blowing up my own Razorbacks with an untimely scatter roll; all cutting memorable moments from the game. I don't personally agree that this was worth it, but I can accept that this is down to your personal gaming experience.
Leth wrote: Spent more time watching people space out 2 inches and argue about blasts to the point where I stopped including them in my list just to save time. I am glad they are gone, same with armor facings.
You're not wrong in that doing so removed room for argument, but it also removed the source of childlike glee that was landing a ridiculous number of hits, the way perfectly gauging a distance made you feel brilliant, or the hilarious chagrin in blowing up my own Razorbacks with an untimely scatter roll; all cutting memorable moments from the game. I don't personally agree that this was worth it, but I can accept that this is down to your personal gaming experience.
And, now we watch people congaline instead and blob tightly together to avoid consolidation issues AND provide a small angle of attack against melee...
It isn't much better, let's be honest here.
For everyone else it was a huge pain in the ass and source of plenty of bad feelings, not worth the possible random memorable moments IMO. Nothing fun in arguing the angle of the die so that it hits 1 model instead of 3.
Apparently GW agreed because they got rid of a bunch of that stuff and the game has been more fun for it, same with no ore-measuring, they have slowly removed the sources of unfun arguements and cheating and I couldn’t be happier.
I never saw an argument about scatter or number of models hit that lasted longer than a few sentences - or if I did, I can't remember it, which means it wasn't serious.
Furthermore, as a 30k player, that spacing out 2" thing? That's... actually significant. I don't get why people think it's "just a waste of time."
Spacing out 2" increases your units size and frontage and makes it easier to catch you in assault (and lock you up, because you couldn't easily fall back in those days) with multiple units, which made those units immune to shooting as well as exposing your units to multiple attacks. Furthermore, it made it possible for a charging unit / piling in unit to infiltrate your lines (by slipping between models) to grab objectives and stuff.
I always ally some blasts with my Daemons in 30k because it makes my foes spread out, and that's a mistake against Daemons because of how easy it is to swarm a spread out unit with multiple attackers. The local meta is going back to people closing ranks again, actually, to shrink the amount of frontage available to hit in CC. That means that, against my CC army, they'd rather tank blasts to the face than expose their units to the merciless CC capabilities of my units that expanding out to 2" does.
TLDR: position matters on the tabletop, templates caused a specific type of position change, and that had in-game effects. It wasn't a "chore", it was a significant tactical decision that has impacts for how your opponent could punish it.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I never saw an argument about scatter or number of models hit that lasted longer than a few sentences - or if I did, I can't remember it, which means it wasn't serious.
Furthermore, as a 30k player, that spacing out 2" thing? That's... actually significant. I don't get why people think it's "just a waste of time."
Spacing out 2" increases your units size and frontage and makes it easier to catch you in assault (and lock you up, because you couldn't easily fall back in those days) with multiple units, which made those units immune to shooting as well as exposing your units to multiple attacks. Furthermore, it made it possible for a charging unit / piling in unit to infiltrate your lines (by slipping between models) to grab objectives and stuff.
I always ally some blasts with my Daemons in 30k because it makes my foes spread out, and that's a mistake against Daemons because of how easy it is to swarm a spread out unit with multiple attackers. The local meta is going back to people closing ranks again, actually, to shrink the amount of frontage available to hit in CC. That means that, against my CC army, they'd rather tank blasts to the face than expose their units to the merciless CC capabilities of my units that expanding out to 2" does.
TLDR: position matters on the tabletop, templates caused a specific type of position change, and that had in-game effects. It wasn't a "chore", it was a significant tactical decision that has impacts for how your opponent could punish it.
I saw many nasty arguments about it. Also, it can be both a chore and a significant decision.
SecondTime wrote: I saw many nasty arguments about it. Also, it can be both a chore and a significant decision.
Fair enough at the nastiness part. Both of us only have anecdotes.
And no, not really, it can't. Wargames are based on decision making. You shouldn't delete significant decisions from the game that have impacts on the outcome of the battle just because "it's too hard". Instead, you streamline the process. For example, instead of making "unit coherency 2 inches", just say "nominate a model to be the units leader when making your list. If a unit has a sergeant or other clear leader, it must be that. All models must end within 6" of the units leader anywhere they want, if the unit moves. If it's 10-20 models, this distance is 9" instead. If it's 20+ models, this distance is 12") or something like that. Then you have to measure once, sweeping your tape measure around the unit leader, instead of measuring individually for each pair of models.
But hey, instead of making positioning important to a wargame, let's just delete it.
SecondTime wrote: I saw many nasty arguments about it. Also, it can be both a chore and a significant decision.
Fair enough at the nastiness part. Both of us only have anecdotes.
And no, not really, it can't. Wargames are based on decision making. You shouldn't delete significant decisions from the game that have impacts on the outcome of the battle just because "it's too hard". Instead, you streamline the process. For example, instead of making "unit coherency 2 inches", just say "nominate a model to be the units leader when making your list. If a unit has a sergeant or other clear leader, it must be that. All models must end within 6" of the units leader anywhere they want, if the unit moves. If it's 10-20 models, this distance is 9" instead. If it's 20+ models, this distance is 12") or something like that. Then you have to measure once, sweeping your tape measure around the unit leader, instead of measuring individually for each pair of models.
But hey, instead of making positioning important to a wargame, let's just delete it.
So it's not a chore but you recommend a change to make it not a chore?
I understand what you're saying spacing can be important but in reality for most people it boiled down to compact or minimise blasts if it was the former all is good and well, the latter was indeed a chore of minute nudging and shuffling to maintain that 2" gap, primarily to minimise incoming damage. It wasn't a skill, it wasn't some revelation it was a tedious mathematical exercise in measuring.
Dudeface wrote: I understand what you're saying spacing can be important but in reality for most people it boiled down to compact or minimise blasts if it was the former all is good and well, the latter was indeed a chore of minute nudging and shuffling to maintain that 2" gap, primarily to minimise incoming damage. It wasn't a skill, it wasn't some revelation it was a tedious mathematical exercise in measuring.
Especially with 120 ork boys doing it.
But it was a choice they made, that's the point. they can make their army more vulnerable to CC or less vulnerable to blasts, or more vulnerable to blasts but less vulnerable to CC. The fact that removing templates removed this fundamental choice is a bad thing. The fact that the choice was also a chore is a bad thing, but I don't think that "remove player choice, it's fine now" was the correct way to fix it.
They threw the baby (i.e. player choice and tabletop interaction between armies) out with the gross bathwater (i.e. "measuring 2" is time consuming")
Dudeface wrote: I understand what you're saying spacing can be important but in reality for most people it boiled down to compact or minimise blasts if it was the former all is good and well, the latter was indeed a chore of minute nudging and shuffling to maintain that 2" gap, primarily to minimise incoming damage. It wasn't a skill, it wasn't some revelation it was a tedious mathematical exercise in measuring.
Especially with 120 ork boys doing it.
But it was a choice they made, that's the point. they can make their army more vulnerable to CC or less vulnerable to blasts, or more vulnerable to blasts but less vulnerable to CC. The fact that removing templates removed this fundamental choice is a bad thing. The fact that the choice was also a chore is a bad thing, but I don't think that "remove player choice, it's fine now" was the correct way to fix it.
Agreed, there does need to be a mid ground, I'm not convinced on the templates as the solution, a little more control over the casualty removal could give the same effect.
Dudeface wrote: I understand what you're saying spacing can be important but in reality for most people it boiled down to compact or minimise blasts if it was the former all is good and well, the latter was indeed a chore of minute nudging and shuffling to maintain that 2" gap, primarily to minimise incoming damage. It wasn't a skill, it wasn't some revelation it was a tedious mathematical exercise in measuring.
Especially with 120 ork boys doing it.
But it was a choice they made, that's the point. they can make their army more vulnerable to CC or less vulnerable to blasts, or more vulnerable to blasts but less vulnerable to CC. The fact that removing templates removed this fundamental choice is a bad thing. The fact that the choice was also a chore is a bad thing, but I don't think that "remove player choice, it's fine now" was the correct way to fix it.
They threw the baby (i.e. player choice and tabletop interaction between armies) out with the gross bathwater (i.e. "measuring 2" is time consuming")
This works in computer games where the formation of your unit is just a click away from changing from one to the other. But in 40k you need to individually move each model. Thats a chore.
Blasts worked in Fantasy because there was no problem. In 40k they never worked properly outside the firsts editions when warhammer 40k was a skirmish game. I'm not saying the system we have now is better or even good enough. But I , and nobody I know, misses blasts.
ITT: Miniatures gamers who think position of the model shouldn't matter.
I think perhaps the problem is the scale of games. GW's scale is more like Apocalypse (which, coincidentally, does not require you to change formations much if at all), while the rules for blasts and templates fit a smaller type of game more.
If moving the "individual guy" is too hard, then the game should not be concerning itself with the positions of "individual guys" and, in that case, there's no reason for "individual guy" to even be a miniature on his own - he should just be based with a few other guys, like Flames of War.
But in a game where a miniature is a guy, then you can't just ignore his position, however precisely you have to measure it and however much of a chore moving him is. That's like, fundamental to minis wargaming.
I love blast templates, flamer templates, and scatter dice... So fluffy
However, I also understand why they were removed from the game... definitely more streamlined, definitely less arguments, definitely less need for "my intent was" and definitely less variables to keep track of in terms of exact placement.
If i wana play a game that cares about exact placement, there are other games that honestly do it better.
So, for this game, good call on taking it out, though I do miss it from a fluffy kind of perspective.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: Miniatures gamers who think position of the model shouldn't matter.
I think perhaps the problem is the scale of games. GW's scale is more like Apocalypse (which, coincidentally, does not require you to change formations much if at all), while the rules for blasts and templates fit a smaller type of game more.
If moving the "individual guy" is too hard, then the game should not be concerning itself with the positions of "individual guys" and, in that case, there's no reason for "individual guy" to even be a miniature on his own - he should just be based with a few other guys, like Flames of War.
But in a game where a miniature is a guy, then you can't just ignore his position, however precisely you have to measure it and however much of a chore moving him is. That's like, fundamental to minis wargaming.
I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
After all what did Rousseau say about durability of a system? Something something as small as possible the spread of equality something something don^t tolerate the extreme...?
Might well be worth a go and start a propper scale / gameformat. Personally i'd really like to see let's say FOC slots dependant upon pts size of the game played...
After all what did Rousseau say about durability of a system? Something something as small as possible the spread of equality something something don^t tolerate the extreme...?
Might well be worth a go and start a propper scale / gameformat. Personally i'd really like to see let's say FOC slots dependant upon pts size of the game played...
Isn't it in the 3ed book of "Social Contract" he wrote about goverment systems, where he writes that democracy of the real kind, never existed and probably never will, but if it did it would have to work on a very small scale, but as it wouldn't work even on a one family level, he himself doesn't see it work anytime in the future. And he knew something about families not working being a real bastard to humans both within and outside his family.
Galas wrote: I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
Well, the reason blasts and templates exist is to affect positioning in the wargame, and that's it.
The fact that said effect on positioning was a chore rather than, say, part of wargaming leads me to believe that people didn't like it.
"Here, players, is a tool that only affects positioning and nothing else."
"Oh, well, I don't like this tool. It makes me POSITION things, and there's too many things to position! The game is better off without it."
After all what did Rousseau say about durability of a system? Something something as small as possible the spread of equality something something don^t tolerate the extreme...?
Might well be worth a go and start a propper scale / gameformat. Personally i'd really like to see let's say FOC slots dependant upon pts size of the game played...
Isn't it in the 3ed book of "Social Contract" he wrote about goverment systems, where he writes that democracy of the real kind, never existed and probably never will, but if it did it would have to work on a very small scale, but as it wouldn't work even on a one family level, he himself doesn't see it work anytime in the future. And he knew something about families not working being a real bastard to humans both within and outside his family.
Nope, second book chapter 11 including bookmark, and in general not just democracy. Btw he has an interesting view on Landsgemeinden or basic democracy as practiced in switzerland at the time, rather idealistic allbeit his idealistic perception did later on get influential as an goal that got atleast partially achieved.
he prefaces this by a statement that he doesn't mean ultimate equality but as close as possible, tolerate neither the overrich nor the beggars, for it is this two classes that are damaging the volonté general, one of which sells the freedom and becomes the helpershelper of tyranny the other class grants the tyrants.
Same could be said about game systems or any systems of interaction between multiple parties, if one undertands unit types as such.
Frankly Rousseau might be a genius in regards to statesphilosophy but as genius as he was there as lackluster was his pedagogic skillset or capability for social structures in regards to familial systems.
Galas wrote: I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
Well, the reason blasts and templates exist is to affect positioning in the wargame, and that's it.
The fact that said effect on positioning was a chore rather than, say, part of wargaming leads me to believe that people didn't like it.
"Here, players, is a tool that only affects positioning and nothing else."
"Oh, well, I don't like this tool. It makes me POSITION things, and there's too many things to position! The game is better off without it."
You see why I might draw the conclusion I have.
"
The play group I was in at the time of 5th/6th allowed the handwaive of "all these models are 2" " apart. I was outvoted, and so there's that problem too.
Galas wrote: I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
Well, the reason blasts and templates exist is to affect positioning in the wargame, and that's it.
The fact that said effect on positioning was a chore rather than, say, part of wargaming leads me to believe that people didn't like it.
"Here, players, is a tool that only affects positioning and nothing else."
"Oh, well, I don't like this tool. It makes me POSITION things, and there's too many things to position! The game is better off without it."
You see why I might draw the conclusion I have.
You know whats also tactical and makes positioning matter in your wargame? Counting the ammunition of each individual model and having units that carry amunition to resuply them on the fly.
Ask me to do that for 10 models, I will do it. Ask me to do it for 70 with 5 tanks and I'll say you have no idea what kind of game you are trying to do.
Galas wrote: I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
Well, the reason blasts and templates exist is to affect positioning in the wargame, and that's it.
The fact that said effect on positioning was a chore rather than, say, part of wargaming leads me to believe that people didn't like it.
"Here, players, is a tool that only affects positioning and nothing else."
"Oh, well, I don't like this tool. It makes me POSITION things, and there's too many things to position! The game is better off without it."
You see why I might draw the conclusion I have.
You know whats also tactical and makes positioning matter in your wargame? Counting the ammunition of each individual model and having units that carry amunition to resuply them on the fly.
Ask me to do that for 10 models, I will do it. Ask me to do it for 70 with 5 tanks and I'll say you have no idea what kind of game you are trying to do.
And that's why I said GW's scale is off. At the scale where an entire company of men and tanks is fighting, then just have units be abstract blobs. It doesn't matter where Lieutenant Dan is positioned relative to Forrest Gump - though it does matter where the command element is positioned relative to the whole squad.
The fact that it's sometimes okay to measure given a single model (woo conga-lines to give conscripts the commissar buff because Conscript Eddie happened to be within 6" while the other 29 were off locked in combat with a Wraithknight or whatever) leads me to believe that people like controlling single models instead of unitary, er, units. But then you give them a tool like the template that makes single model position important and everyone's like "WHAT?!"
Galas wrote: I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
Well, the reason blasts and templates exist is to affect positioning in the wargame, and that's it.
The fact that said effect on positioning was a chore rather than, say, part of wargaming leads me to believe that people didn't like it.
"Here, players, is a tool that only affects positioning and nothing else."
"Oh, well, I don't like this tool. It makes me POSITION things, and there's too many things to position! The game is better off without it."
You see why I might draw the conclusion I have.
They also may have been there to facilitate other mechanics such as randomising amount of wounds/damage done. Admittedly as a result of positioning.
If I can ignore damage through intelligent positioning etc, thats great, leveraging ranges and los etc. But minimising the number of hits from a template simply isn't a tactical decision or move, it's max coherency for everyone all day every day which is a faffy measurement game.
Personally I used to just approximate it by eye and not care, because I'd rather get my game finished than lose the extra time to the measuring. The 1 hit extra I likely took a turn tops probably made little difference by being somewhere between 1-2" coherency.
Dudeface wrote: If I can ignore damage through intelligent positioning etc, thats great, leveraging ranges and los etc. But minimising the number of hits from a template simply isn't a tactical decision or move, it's max coherency for everyone all day every day which is a faffy measurement game.
No, it isn't.
People assert this without realizing that spreading out 2" max for every model has 3 serious consequences: 1) Increased frontage vs. close combat units. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spread out against my Slaanesh Daemons in 30k, so I can lock you in combat with 5 or 6 units instead of 1, you can't run away, then I H&R out on your turn (after savaging your unit) and go kill something valuable. Thanks for the free shield against your shooting, probably shouldn't've spread out as much.
2) Space on the table and your own damage output. It's harder to get all your models in rapid-fire range (or with shorter range guns in general) into range of my units while being spread across half of creation. Conversely, if I'm comfortable concentrating (because I am not afraid of your blasts or you don't have any) then I will be able to bring greater force to bear against a single point of your dramatically extended perimeter, and wiping out a whole unit will open a gaping hole rather than a small one.
3) Terrain - spreading out to a huge amount means some models will inevitably encounter terrain during their move, which has a chance to slow them down (or even kill the model if it's dangerous), or make them out of LOS for shooting, etc.
It is a tactical choice you make, not an automatic thing.
Galas wrote: I'll also add the use of blast templates as sniping weapons for characters. Extremely fluffy , of course. Much tactical.
That only happened with Barrage, not all templates in general, and that's only because the Barrage rules were terribly written. Ironically, it didn't happen in 4th, for example, because the rules weren't as terribly written. Oh, GW.
Blasts were kinda cool but I think they should work somewhere in-between then and now.
It should work like -
Large blast template - you place it to try to touch as many units as you can. Every unit under the marker takes d3 auto hits. If the center hole hits it takes d3+3 auto hits. This way you have the cool random mechanics of blast markers scattering.
For small blas just make it 1 hit and d3 for direct hit.
to make bs relevant - make a to hit roll after you place your blast marker. If you score a hit only roll 1 d6 to determine scatter distance. For aircraft - only direct center hole hits count. For abilities that proc on hit rolls and generate additional hits - additional hits just ad +1 to the hit total.
Dudeface wrote: If I can ignore damage through intelligent positioning etc, thats great, leveraging ranges and los etc. But minimising the number of hits from a template simply isn't a tactical decision or move, it's max coherency for everyone all day every day which is a faffy measurement game.
No, it isn't.
People assert this without realizing that spreading out 2" max for every model has 3 serious consequences:
1) Increased frontage vs. close combat units. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE spread out against my Slaanesh Daemons in 30k, so I can lock you in combat with 5 or 6 units instead of 1, you can't run away, then I H&R out on your turn (after savaging your unit) and go kill something valuable. Thanks for the free shield against your shooting, probably shouldn't've spread out as much.
2) Space on the table and your own damage output. It's harder to get all your models in rapid-fire range (or with shorter range guns in general) into range of my units while being spread across half of creation. Conversely, if I'm comfortable concentrating (because I am not afraid of your blasts or you don't have any) then I will be able to bring greater force to bear against a single point of your dramatically extended perimeter, and wiping out a whole unit will open a gaping hole rather than a small one.
3) Terrain - spreading out to a huge amount means some models will inevitably encounter terrain during their move, which has a chance to slow them down (or even kill the model if it's dangerous), or make them out of LOS for shooting, etc.
It is a tactical choice you make, not an automatic thing.
Those are all tactical choices, very welcome ones, but none necessitate being at max coherency the same way blasts do. In fact all those are perfectly viable things now. The only stand out in this is blasts which you're forced into going max coherency or not bothering caring at all.
Dudeface wrote: [Those are all tactical choices, very welcome ones, but none necessitate being at max coherency the same way blasts do. In fact all those are perfectly viable things now. The only stand out in this is blasts which you're forced into going max coherency or not bothering caring at all.
Blast templates are the issue here.
I think you missed my point. All of those are drawbacks caused by being at max coherency. They're reasons not to do it. If blasts force you to do it, then you suffer those drawbacks.
Right now, in 40k, what rules force you to spread out and present a greater frontage to the enemy as a unit? (which has all 3 of those drawbacks)
Dudeface wrote: [Those are all tactical choices, very welcome ones, but none necessitate being at max coherency the same way blasts do. In fact all those are perfectly viable things now. The only stand out in this is blasts which you're forced into going max coherency or not bothering caring at all.
Blast templates are the issue here.
I think you missed my point. All of those are drawbacks caused by being at max coherency. They're reasons not to do it. If blasts force you to do it, then you suffer those drawbacks.
Right now, in 40k, what rules force you to spread out and present a greater frontage to the enemy as a unit? (which has all 3 of those drawbacks)
Spanning to reach objectives, board quarters, auras and screen. They changed coherency to prevent people spanning the board at max coherency in 9th because units having a huge frontage was happening too regularly in 8th without blasts.
If anything that shows that blasts aren't needed to make people incentivised to have a large frontage, so much so it needed a nerf. There should be and imo, are enough reasons to either compact or expand a unit frontage - as you listed - without an arbitrary mechanic that punishes anything other than max coherency.
Dudeface wrote: [Those are all tactical choices, very welcome ones, but none necessitate being at max coherency the same way blasts do. In fact all those are perfectly viable things now. The only stand out in this is blasts which you're forced into going max coherency or not bothering caring at all.
Blast templates are the issue here.
I think you missed my point. All of those are drawbacks caused by being at max coherency. They're reasons not to do it. If blasts force you to do it, then you suffer those drawbacks.
Right now, in 40k, what rules force you to spread out and present a greater frontage to the enemy as a unit? (which has all 3 of those drawbacks)
Spanning to reach objectives, board quarters, auras and screen. They changed coherency to prevent people spanning the board at max coherency in 9th because units having a huge frontage was happening too regularly in 8th without blasts.
If anything that shows that blasts aren't needed to make people incentivised to have a large frontage, so much so it needed a nerf. There should be and imo, are enough reasons to either compact or expand a unit frontage - as you listed - without an arbitrary mechanic that punishes anything other than max coherency.
So the only reason is to screen, which is much less useful before units could just willy nilly fall back (since your screen essentially provided a shooting shield to the enemy).
Spanning to reach objectives is fair, too, but not possible in HH or earlier editions (typically, it was FAQ'd that the same unit could not hold multiple objectives, though GW routinely forgot to add it to the next edition and it had to be FAQ'd again).
Board quarters isn't, because the unit has to be wholly within the quarter (so stretching between 2 doesn't work) to get the points.
Auras didn't exist in 7th.
So yes, using a ruleset that doesn't have auras (which should be wholly within imho, I hate conga-line for buffs mechanic and feel and look) and where you can't just hurtlessly walk out of combat, blasts were necessary to spread out units. But your point is taken, there's still a couple reasons here.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ITT: Miniatures gamers who think position of the model shouldn't matter.
I think perhaps the problem is the scale of games. GW's scale is more like Apocalypse (which, coincidentally, does not require you to change formations much if at all), while the rules for blasts and templates fit a smaller type of game more.
If moving the "individual guy" is too hard, then the game should not be concerning itself with the positions of "individual guys" and, in that case, there's no reason for "individual guy" to even be a miniature on his own - he should just be based with a few other guys, like Flames of War.
But in a game where a miniature is a guy, then you can't just ignore his position, however precisely you have to measure it and however much of a chore moving him is. That's like, fundamental to minis wargaming.
I believe theres a big difference from "I don't believe that Blasts templates are fit for the scale 40k is played and they were never rigthly implemented" and "I don't care about positioning in my wargames". But maybe I'm just a strange fella.
He's got a point, though. If we don't want the individual positioning of individual models to actually matter, they might as well be on stands a la Apocalypse. If we do want the positioning to matter, then having area-effect weapons not affect troops in close order any differently from those in skirmish lines seems like a glaring omission.
Like, it seems very odd to me that we measure range and check LOS from minis individually, but when it comes to receiving fire it doesn't matter if they're all bunched up in a blob in the open, in a conga line extending well beyond the shooter's maximum range, or all stuffed into a bunker with somebody's pinky extending out- they all take casualties exactly the same way.
As far as play experience I'll say one thing- even if I don't need to worry about templates anymore, picking up and moving a horde of 30 Gaunts at a time, positioning them to properly be out of LOS or in cover or within Synapse or outside charge range, is a lot more tedious and time-consuming than just shifting a couple of movement trays. I'm fine with either simulationist or abstract, just pick one and stick with it.
I think the datasheets and such SHOULD move towards apocalypse. It's a massive waste of time to count and measure individual models to calculate how many dice are being rolled in a combat when you are dealing with units that can comprise 30 models with 3 attacks each. Especially when the idea that they are constantly moving around is abstracted to begin with.
The unit to unit interaction of apoc is WAY more appropriate for 40k then the model to unit interaction we play with.
Frankly Rousseau might be a genius in regards to statesphilosophy but as genius as he was there as lackluster was his pedagogic skillset or capability for social structures in regards to familial systems.
Thanks, thought it was the part from B3 chapt 5-7. He really is not liked around here, because of the hired work he did for Prussia and Russia in the 70s and 80s. Plus he was an atheist.
As far as play experience I'll say one thing- even if I don't need to worry about templates anymore, picking up and moving a horde of 30 Gaunts at a time, positioning them to properly be out of LOS or in cover or within Synapse or outside charge range, is a lot more tedious and time-consuming than just shifting a couple of movement trays. I'm fine with either simulationist or abstract, just pick one and stick with it.
But isn't it part of the price for paying a horde army. In 8th the anti horde options like flamers were laughably weak vs horde. While from what I was told, with good placing flamers in prior editions were rather deadly.
?
If you want examples you can literally go look up at 40kstats and see a host of 8th edition Tournament winning 
Both are T4, both had 1 Wound, the only difference was their save stat, Orkz 6+ marines 3+. 
good for you though skipping 7th, it was a feth show.
