Karol wrote: Maybe stuff like termagants isn't suppose to kill whole units of marines in one go. Maybe killing 2-3 with 30 is what should happen.
No. This argument is not a fluff argument. This is a mechanical argument about the way the game plays. Under no circumstance should the game play be represented by almost 100 dice from an anti infantry weapon having no meaningful impact on infantry.
The moment those marines step into some terrain shooting at them goes from near pointless to actually pointless.
Edit: Lance, your math's a bit off; Devourers are S4. A unit of 30 Termagants with Devourers averages 8.75 wounds on MEQ. I should point out to non-Tyranid players that that's also a 270pt unit with a grand total of 30 T3/6+ wounds and 18" range; it's the glassiest of glass hammers.
The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.
When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.
I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.
Galas wrote: The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.
When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.
Or just getting away from a per model stat line into a per unit stat line ala Apocalypse.
The amount of wounds a unit has versus the amount of dice rolled for a units guns can reign everything in big time. And if it ALSO works like apoc where you never remove individual models then the value of each "model" becomes more valuable and viable per point spent.
Again, it takes a fundamental shift in the way the whole core mechanics of the game work in order for any of this to be viable. I am not disagreeing that there has been a problem with the amount of design space. But just shifting things over doesn't REALLY fix that and creates a bigger issue in the game play.
Galas wrote: Theres just so much you can make with the "generalisation" of stats, like a Catachan Infantryman is S4 just like a Space Marine. We all know we can't have a unit being 3,5F or 3,8F so the different brackets of an stat have space for variance.
Actually, 0.5 versions of stats have been discussed on this board before and they work fairly well for doing exactly what you want. The way that S3.5 would work is that it would count as S4 versus T3 and below and as S3 against T4 and up.Years ago it was brought up as a way to fix boyz who were S3 base S4 on the charge back then.
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Also, for boyz and gants, doesn't FnP make more sense than flat out extra wounds? They can keep fighting after taking some serious wounds, so give them a chance to shrug off hits and keep on coming. You could have also done this for marines, but that was a DG thing and it would make for a very messy design space.
Galas wrote: Theres just so much you can make with the "generalisation" of stats, like a Catachan Infantryman is S4 just like a Space Marine. We all know we can't have a unit being 3,5F or 3,8F so the different brackets of an stat have space for variance.
Actually, 0.5 versions of stats have been discussed on this board before and they work fairly well for doing exactly what you want. The way that S3.5 would work is that it would count as S4 versus T3 and below and as S3 against T4 and up.Years ago it was brought up as a way to fix boyz who were S3 base S4 on the charge back then.
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Also, for boyz and gants, doesn't FnP make more sense than flat out extra wounds? They can keep fighting after taking some serious wounds, so give them a chance to shrug off hits and keep on coming. You could have also done this for marines, but that was a DG thing and it would make for a very messy design space.
No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.
Lance845 wrote: No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.
Why not give boyz a 6+ FnP (5+ with a nearby painboy) and gants 5+ FnP in synapse (6+ out of synapse).
For boyz that means they can have a T4 5++ in 5+ FnP which makes a block of 30 very hard to shift. This gets better if you then spend CP to replenish them. For gants it means getting 33% more of them across the table or eating even more shooting per unit to remove them entirely and this is valuable.
EDIT: Even with a base 6+ FnP that's 5 extra gants surviving from an otherwise wiped out unit. If they were badly overkilled anyway, this does nothing, but if not even keeping 1 or 2 on an objective still lets you score it for another round.
Lance845 wrote: No. A 6+ save with a 6+ FNP might as well just be a 6+ save for all the good it's going to do.
Why not give boyz a 6+ FnP (5+ with a nearby painboy) and gants 5+ FnP in synapse (6+ out of synapse).
For boyz that means they can have a T4 5++ in 5+ FnP which makes a block of 30 very hard to shift. This gets better if you then spend CP to replenish them.
For gants it means getting 33% more of them across the table or eating even more shooting per unit to remove them entirely and this is valuable.
And then Catalyst turns it into a 3+ and leviathan turns that into a 4+/2+ with Catalyst?
Lance845 wrote: And then Catalyst turns it into a 3+ and leviathan turns that into a 4+/2+ with Catalyst?
Or we do the sane thing and make Catalyst give a 5+ FnP to units without one or raise the value of FnP by one to a maximum of 4+ FnP.
Or we can understand that this is a band-aid that is trying to justify the current round of bull crap and in effect causes a cascade of other issues.
A psychic power for the nids gets less useful and becomes worthless for a specific hive fleet. So now we need to redo one or both of those to "make it work".
My point here isn't that gants/gaunts should be 2w. It's that old marines shouldn't and all the arguments being used to justify why they should are either crap fluff arguments that can be disputed by other fluff or mechanical arguments that create other issues.
Lance845 wrote: Or we can understand that this is a band-aid that is trying to justify the current round of bull crap and in effect causes a cascade of other issues.
I'm all for going back to older systems where lethality was less of an issue but that literally means removing entire factions (Knights) from the game and going back to square one on balancing units that Fly.
A psychic power for the nids gets less useful and becomes worthless for a specific hive fleet. So now we need to redo one or both of those to "make it work".
How does it get less useful? As written it gives a unit a 5+ FnP and does nothing else. My suggestion was to give it a use on units that already have an FnP and a cap so you can't give any unit in your army a storm shield.
For Leviathan you've saved them from needing to cast a power at all so they can take other powers rather than the same auto-include.
You have reduced it's effectiveness by making it do half it's effect. (Lets be honest. Nids are NEVER outside of synapse and if you ever catch nids outside of synapse things have already gone catastrophically wrong). And you have effected leviathan by removing a psychic power from their list. Name another subfaction that looses a psychic power in exchange for it's subfaction bonus?
Lance845 wrote: You have reduced it's effectiveness by making it do half it's effect. (Lets be honest. Nids are NEVER outside of synapse and if you ever catch nids outside of synapse things have already gone catastrophically wrong). And you have effected leviathan by removing a psychic power from their list. Name another subfaction that looses a psychic power in exchange for it's subfaction bonus?
So you can't use your subfaction bonus and Catalyst on your other units now? I suggested the 6+ FnP and 5+ FnP for gants, not the entire faction.
Also, any -1 to hit powers are pretty useless right now, +1 toughness on DA Terminator units is also useless given their special rule. So there's precedence for making certain powers and faction bonuses less useful as you change editions.
Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
Galas wrote: The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.
When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.
I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.
Let's look at 3rd-7th, when this 'one wound for infantry' convention existed. You shoot at a Guardsman and a Marine with a bolter.
You need 1.5 hits on average to kill a Guardsman. Wound on 3s, no save.
You need 6 hits on average to kill a Marine. That's four times harder to kill, from not a huge delta in stats. And during this era, Marines were only 2-3x more expensive than Guardsmen (depending on when exactly you look), so point for point they were harder to kill with small arms.
Now consider a T5/2+ profile. You need 18 bolter hits to kill. That's twelve times harder to kill than the Guardsman.
How many times harder to kill than a Guardsman does a humanoid, non-character profile really need to be? If that sets a soft cap on 'efficient' pricing at 50ish points (ten times Guardsman cost), is that really a problem?
I would argue that the prevalence of AP modifiers, as well as a wound chart that makes low-toughness troops tougher than they used to be and high-toughness troops weaker than they used to be, is why expensive troops are perceived as weak to begin with. High T doesn't matter if everyone still wounds you on 5s, and high saves don't matter if they get degraded to 5+ or worse anyways.
In which case the logical solution would be to fix the systems that are meant to represent durability, rather than lean into a new one because the others don't work. And it's not like W2 Marines are going to feel tough when they get splattered by D2 heavy bolter fire.
Galas wrote: The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.
But it also goes the other way. Even when anything can wound everything else, you can easily end up with low-level infantry being utterly pointless.
Just look to what guardsmen were like in 7th edition - they struggled to put significant wounds on most units even when firing whole platoons at them, and there were so many torrent flamers and large blasts floating around that you didn't bother removing individual models - you just used a dustpan and brush.
But you couldn't give them more survivability, because that would be unfluffy.
And you also couldn't give them better weapons, because that would also be unfluffy.
So as other units got more and more buffs, guardsmen (and many other units like them) were left in the dirt.
JNAProductions wrote: So, 30 Termagants put out 90 shots at 18".
45 hits.
26.25 wounds
8.75 unsaved
270 points of Gants kills 72 points of Tactical Marines at 18". What does 270 points of Tactical Marines do to Gants?
30 shots
20 hits
13.33 wounds
11.11 unsaved
They kill 100 points of Gants. Without buffs. Without being in Tactical Doctrine. At 24" instead of 18".
Boy, sure seems fair, don't it?
Considering that a termagaunt's sole reason for existence is to die for Darkseid sure seems fair to me.
It's also why Tyranid players who are finding some success with them aren't giving them a weapon with no AP that nearly doubles their point cost. That unit would cost 150 with fleshborers and is no easier to kill.
Lance845 wrote: Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.
Lance845 wrote: Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.
I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications. Bringing other units in line with the new normal based on fluff or balance has ramifications. It not only doesn't make sense fluff wise (unless you start moving everyone else up also) it also doesn't help the game mechanically. It was a bad choice for the game. And I suspect down the line it's going to get worse. Worse for everyone who doesn't get moved up or worse for everyone when we all start throwing tons of dice to no effect. Unless they also make all weapons more lethal too. Then even though the numbers are bigger it won't actually have changed anything.
Galas wrote: The problem with all infantry being 1W is that theres a point where no matter how good your armor in a d6 system theres a price point where you aren't worth it because a 1 will always kill you.
When a 1 kills the same a 4 point guardsmen than a 25 point Grey Knight power armored marine, or you start putting things like invulnerables, FNP's , etc, etc... or it is just not worth it to be more expensive than X value. Thats something easely fixed with different "health" values. Maybe in a d10 or a d20 system having everything to be 1 wound like most stuff in Infinity is worth it because maybe a guardsmen dies if he rolls more than 15 on a d20 and a space marine needs to roll a 1,2,3. But with a d6 is unviable.
I mean, I agree with the amount of shotting (And even worse, rerolling) that has plagued the game right now.
Let's look at 3rd-7th, when this 'one wound for infantry' convention existed. You shoot at a Guardsman and a Marine with a bolter.
You need 1.5 hits on average to kill a Guardsman. Wound on 3s, no save.
You need 6 hits on average to kill a Marine. That's four times harder to kill, from not a huge delta in stats. And during this era, Marines were only 2-3x more expensive than Guardsmen (depending on when exactly you look), so point for point they were harder to kill with small arms.
Now consider a T5/2+ profile. You need 18 bolter hits to kill. That's twelve times harder to kill than the Guardsman.
How many times harder to kill than a Guardsman does a humanoid, non-character profile really need to be? If that sets a soft cap on 'efficient' pricing at 50ish points (ten times Guardsman cost), is that really a problem?
I would argue that the prevalence of AP modifiers, as well as a wound chart that makes low-toughness troops tougher than they used to be and high-toughness troops weaker than they used to be, is why expensive troops are perceived as weak to begin with. High T doesn't matter if everyone still wounds you on 5s, and high saves don't matter if they get degraded to 5+ or worse anyways.
In which case the logical solution would be to fix the systems that are meant to represent durability, rather than lean into a new one because the others don't work. And it's not like W2 Marines are going to feel tough when they get splattered by D2 heavy bolter fire.
I mean in your example that guardsmen would have had a 4+ save for being in cover vs the marine +3armor save. The thing is, I really don't believe warhammer was better in 3rd-7th edition. I also dont believe HH is better at this because power armored dudes die like schmucks there (And thats proper for the Horus Heresy when your battles where between hundreds of thousands of marines). In general I just like a better distribution of stats with higher point costs and lower model counts without entering skirmish, etc...
Lance845 wrote: Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.
I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications. Bringing other units in line with the new normal based on fluff or balance has ramifications. It not only doesn't make sense fluff wise (unless you start moving everyone else up also) it also doesn't help the game mechanically. It was a bad choice for the game. And I suspect down the line it's going to get worse. Worse for everyone who doesn't get moved up or worse for everyone when we all start throwing tons of dice to no effect. Unless they also make all weapons more lethal too. Then even though the numbers are bigger it won't actually have changed anything.
Is a problem to throw 120 dice and accomplish nothing but I don't find a problem to make a more organical defensive upgrade making basic statlines better without stuff like 2++ armour saves and 4+FNP. The offensive profiles for now have not been upgraded in 9th. Yeah, melta is better. And melta was useless before. Probably is a little too cheap for what it does but now they can give it a proper cost agaisnt a Lasscannon for example. That makes the game less lethal.
Lance845 wrote: [I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications.
Nobody competitive took 1W mini-marines once Cawl's boys found their footing, the ramification is that you'll see a wider variety of 2W marine bodies on the board rather than only the new models. The weapons that killed Intercessors will kill a tac squad just fine.
So which ramifications are you worried about that hadn't already happened once Primaris models arrived? For that matter, why is this only an issue now when bikes, Tau crisis suits, and being a Grey Knight already gave you extra wounds; why do those rules get a pass when the new ones don't?
Lance845 wrote: [I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications.
Nobody competitive took 1W mini-marines once Cawl's boys found their footing,
That was the point Old marines are supposed to be more cheaper bodies before they get squatted and primaris are the new more expensive but tougher normal.
the ramification is that you'll see a wider variety of 2W marine bodies on the board rather than only the new models. The weapons that killed Intercessors will kill a tac squad just fine.
I am sorry... MORE variety from the faction that has more units then any other 2 combined? Then certain other 3 combined? Are you kidding me? There shouldn't BE more variety of marine infantry. We can go into the side by side comparisons if you want, but you saying this is exactly why it was a negative ramification. This is a problem.
So which ramifications are you worried about that hadn't already happened once Primaris models arrived? For that matter, why is this only an issue now when bikes, Tau crisis suits, and being a Grey Knight already gave you extra wounds; why do those rules get a pass when the new ones don't?
Crisis suits are like dreads. Again, the extra wounds are because you are not damaging a person, you are damaging the suit. Same with the bikes. A extra wound for the machine. Grey Knights have always had their problems and their bonuses. Nobody sees the Grey Knights unbalancing the game.
Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?
At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.
Galas wrote: Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?
Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.
Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.
There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.
At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.
That is only true if you have a solid ground of consistent fluff/feeling to base it on. There isn't. So which fluff are you using? Where does my fluff fit in with that? GW has never given us a consistent fluff to build off of to use as a foundation when using game design to bridge the gap between balance and fluff. So we have a game, and it can either be a good game or a bad one. And the fluff/feel can't help in that equation because none of us really know what it is.
@Lance: You're making some good points, and I usually find myself agreeing with you. But I feel like you're being kind of unreasonable in regards to the 2 Wound thing and in regards to fluff having an impact on crunch.
I'm sure there is fluff out there saying that gaunts are unkillable chitin zombies. 40k has a lot of fluff, and it's not rare to find that some of it is contradictory. Now, in game terms, is the concept of a hormagaunt better served by it being hard to kill? I think most people would agree that a hormagaunt should feel like a zergling. That it occupies the role of being a squishy-but-numerous enemy. From a game balance perspective, being squishy means we don't have to charge points for it being durable, and that in turn makes it more viable for them to be taken in large numbers.
We could make gaunts be two wounds as an acknowledgement of the fluff that says they're hard to kill. We would have to increase their points cost to account for this increased durability which would, in turn, probably result in people fielding fewer of them. It would change their "feel" from a bunch of squishy mooks to that of a slightly more "elite" foe.
Game design is not purely about mathing out perfectly balanced stat profiles. A big part of it is conveying the intended experience. In 40k's case, part of that experience is seeing some of an army's fluff manifested on the tabletop. The "feel" matters because "the feel" is how the fantasy of the game is being conveyed. Defining units through their differences is part of how we shape that feel.
So you could make 2W gaunts, but you'll be changing the fantasy conveyed. You'll be telling people that gaunts are not, in fact, zerglings. They are instead a step more durable than that. They are closer to a semi-elite creature like a daemon or an eldar. There are those who may be all for this particular change. You could pitch it in Proposed Rules and make a compelling argument for it. But I think may of us prefer for gaunts to feel numerous and squishy, and moving them away from that feel might make us want to have a unit that does feel like a zergling.
I'm spending a lot of time talking about gaunts. I know you're not actually advocating for more durable gaunts. My point is that, in the same way people want gaunts to feel squishy and numerous, they also want marines to feel durable. Even before primaris marines were a thing, I liked the idea of giving marines 2W or some other form of durability boost because losing a marine to a laspistol didn't "feel" right. The single wound was failing to convey the fantasy that I'd been sold on.
Your insistence that being T4 and having a 3+ save already represented their superior durability misses the point that many felt the marine fantasy wasn't being sufficiently conveyed. Yes, T4 and a 3+ save represent the marine being tougher than a guardsman, but they didn't represent it very well because a marine didn't feel significantly more durable against small arms fire.
Giving marines an extra hitpoint does a lot to fix how they feel. Especially in a game where most infantry units don't have that many wounds. Should marines pay more for that extra wound? Maybe. Should we go even further and make marines have even more wounds and also give more wounds to other units? Maybe! I think there's a way to do that and make it work. These are not unreasonable ideas.
We all know that fluff shouldn't be used as an excuse to make something OP. We all know that there are limits on what fluff should and should not be represented in the rules. But I think we're all also aware that fluff *should* guide what the game looks like. Insisting that you shouldn't make marines more durable because they already have a Toughness and Save better than a guardsman's is just bizarre to me. I kind of get the impression you might be digging your heels in to an unreasonable degree.
Or maybe I'm misinterpreting just how staunch your position actually is.
Galas wrote: Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?
Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.
Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.
There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.
But crisis suits are not mechas, and definetely, Stealth Suits aren't, and both give normal taus extra wounds. The same goes for the bike. If one extra wounds represents the bike taking extra damage, having a bigger armor why can't give an extra wound?
And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.
Galas wrote: Lance, you say fluff arguments are stupid so why are you justifying with it things like suits and bikes when you can say the same for a terminator armor? Is a bigger and heavier armor than power armored one so it gives better save and an enxtra wound?
Because taken as a whole there is a consistency of design for the old things. A battle suit like a dread had more wounds. It's save was in line with other equivalent armors. It's toughness was in line with the difficulty of wounding other equivalent toughnesses.
Simply putting on a thick armor gave a model a better save. Not more wounds. Actually being encased inside of an entire mech gave you more wounds because at that point you are not a man in armor you are the pilot of a vehicle. Likewise the bike is a man on a vehicle.
There is no consistency of design for giving terminators an extra wound.
At the end of the day you can't separate, or you shouldnt (GW surely does) the trifecta of Fluff/Feeling, Game desing and balance.
That is only true if you have a solid ground of consistent fluff/feeling to base it on. There isn't. So which fluff are you using? Where does my fluff fit in with that? GW has never given us a consistent fluff to build off of to use as a foundation when using game design to bridge the gap between balance and fluff. So we have a game, and it can either be a good game or a bad one. And the fluff/feel can't help in that equation because none of us really know what it is.
There may not be a "one true fluff" to base things on, but designers can choose a fluff interpretation to go with. Fluff that says 5 marines can totally take on 200 orks... is probably not going to be well-received. (Partly because it fails to make room for the non-marine player's own power fantasy.) Fluff that says, "A small number of marines can take on a larger number of orks," tells you that a single marine is more powerful than the average ork and can reasonably be represented on the tabletop.
So while fluff and fans might bicker over exactly how durable a suit of terminator armor is, we can also agree that terminators should feel quite durable. I know you've seen all the threads in the Proposed RUles section trying to make terminators more worthwhile. Those threads were largely a response to the "feel" of terminators not being right. A third wound on a terminator seems like a reasonable way to correct that feel. And I'd argue that making a unit behave in a way that satisfies its intended fantasy while being balanced within the game itself is more important than insisting on whether terminator armor should provide exactly 1 or 2 wounds or what have you. Is the end result of this change desirable? It's too early to be sure, but I think yes.
And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.
Have an exalt. I like a lot of what you're saying in this thread.
Lance845 wrote: That was the point Old marines are supposed to be more cheaper bodies before they get squatted and primaris are the new more expensive but tougher normal.
They gave it an entire edition and nobody played mini-marines, so in 9th they either needed to squat them or fix them and they chose to fix them.
I am sorry... MORE variety from the faction that has more units then any other 2 combined? Then certain other 3 combined? Are you kidding me? There shouldn't BE more variety of marine infantry. We can go into the side by side comparisons if you want, but you saying this is exactly why it was a negative ramification. This is a problem.
How exactly is marine glut a problem in gameplay? Units will either find a niche in competitive play or they won't; a second wound doesn't automatically make a questionable unit good. The plus is that casual players will get to use their collection without feeling punished for not buying enough of the new stuff.
Other factions haven't been shafted out of models because marines are getting theirs, GW knows which factions sell and plan accordingly.
Crisis suits are like dreads. Again, the extra wounds are because you are not damaging a person, you are damaging the suit.
What exactly is the difference between a marine in fully enclosed power armor and a Tau in fully enclosed power armor? Remember that Tau limbs do extend at least partway into the arms and legs of their crisis suits; they have never been like a Gundam or a Dreadnought where the pilot is fully within an armored cockpit.
Same with the bikes. A extra wound for the machine.
I guess WWI was wrong and we should have had men on horses charging machine guns because, obviously, a mount should give an extra wound. To continue this insane line of thought a dude on a bike should be able to survive a gunshot wound to the chest solely because they're on a bike. Should 1W biker models have a 50/50 chance to leave a guy on foot or a riderless bike?
Grey Knights have always had their problems and their bonuses. Nobody sees the Grey Knights unbalancing the game.
My position in this thread started with pointing out how bad the argument is that fluff justifies the extra wound on the marines. The fluff is inconsistent and shouldn't be used.
Mechanically my position in this thread is how bad for the game it is to simply staple more wounds onto things.
Old Marines need to hurry up and get squatted. That fixes a bunch of problems right there. It doesn't matter if they legacy have 2w or not if they are no longer represented in the current books.
But while they exist it IS a problem. Because fluff or mechanical arguments for why everyone else now lives in that world. Everyone else is devalued by comparison. And you either fix that by dropping everyones point values (unlikely after the current rise in point values) making their weapons better (maybe happening? When will that be done? 2 years out?) or start giving them more wounds (so we all roll more dice for less actual effect in the game).
Thats it. Its a problem that it exists as as per the title of the thread I don't think marines should have 2w. It's mechanically bad without drastic other changes and the fluff doesn't justify it.
Galas wrote: I mean in your example that guardsmen would have had a 4+ save for being in cover vs the marine +3armor save.
For all the time that I played those editions, a basic cover save was 5+. That made a Marine 2.67x harder to kill than a Guardsman with S4, while costing around 2.5-3x more depending on when you look in the history. The Marines were more vulnerable to anti-tank fire, the Guardsmen were dramatically more vulnerable to template weapons and anything that ignored cover; and of course they had to stay in cover to get that benefit.
Marines felt appropriately tough at 1 wound. It's the changes in mechanics that have degraded Marine durability, and make 1 higher T and a much better save not feel adequate for representing tougher physiology and much better armor.
Galas wrote: The thing is, I really don't believe warhammer was better in 3rd-7th edition. I also dont believe HH is better at this because power armored dudes die like schmucks there (And thats proper for the Horus Heresy when your battles where between hundreds of thousands of marines). In general I just like a better distribution of stats with higher point costs and lower model counts without entering skirmish, etc...
Sure. I really like a lot of the gameplay concepts, like armor modifiers, introduced in 8th/9th. But the implementation is key; what we've seen in 8th and now 9th is weapons having access to high AP, and a wounding system that makes high-volume mid-strength fire real good at killing Marines and vehicles alike.
When every basic Marine can get AP-2 on the most relevant turns of the game, obviously even a 2+ save is not going to feel especially durable. And if a lasgun wounds T5 just as easily as T4, and a bolter wounds T5, T6, and T7 all the same, then obviously having a point or two of higher T is not going to make a unit feel noticeably tougher either.
What I'm getting at is that having troops feel tough while staying with the old W1-for-infantry paradigm isn't impossible, it just requires reining in AP modifiers and re-evaluating the Strength-vs-Toughness system. Otherwise handing out W2 everywhere while simultaneously upping existing weapons to D2 is just getting into an arms race of band-aid fixes to core mechanics not working as they should.
But crisis suits are not mechas, and definetely, Stealth Suits aren't, and both give normal taus extra wounds. The same goes for the bike. If one extra wounds represents the bike taking extra damage, having a bigger armor why can't give an extra wound?
And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.
Crisis suits are absolutely mechs. Where do you think the pilots legs and arms are? They have images of tau inside them with open cockpits. Because it's a cockpit. The "head" of a crisis suit is a camera on a swivel. It's not a helmet. Because it's not actually a suit of armor. A Tau's arms CAN'T be inside the arms of the crisis suit. 1) their shoulders would need to be where their ears are. 2) they would be sticking strait out from their body to reach the joint. 3) they would then need to bend at the elbow or wrist to go down into the fore arm of the suit?
It's POSSIBLE the taus legs are going down into the upper legs of the suit, but its more likely they are sitting in it fetal.
Basically a marine in armor is like iron man. A tau in a crisis suit is like iron monger. It's a very different thing.
Lance845 wrote: Thats it. Its a problem that it exists as as per the title of the thread I don't think marines should have 2w. It's mechanically bad without drastic other changes and the fluff doesn't justify it.
Prove that the second wound on mini-marines is a balance problem and that it must be a problem for the game's design long term. I want math.
Otherwise, this is a bunch of woe is me whining about marines and unlike usual this doesn't even seem to be based on them being too strong just that it doesn't feel fair or something... TBH I'm still not sure what your actual point of contention is.
But crisis suits are not mechas, and definetely, Stealth Suits aren't, and both give normal taus extra wounds. The same goes for the bike. If one extra wounds represents the bike taking extra damage, having a bigger armor why can't give an extra wound?
And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.
Crisis suits are absolutely mechs. Where do you think the pilots legs and arms are? They have images of tau inside them with open cockpits. Because it's a cockpit. The "head" of a crisis suit is a camera on a swivel. It's not a helmet. Because it's not actually a suit of armor. A Tau's arms CAN'T be inside the arms of the crisis suit. 1) their shoulders would need to be where their ears are. 2) they would be sticking strait out from their body to reach the joint. 3) they would then need to bend at the elbow or wrist to go down into the fore arm of the suit?
It's POSSIBLE the taus legs are going down into the upper legs of the suit, but its more likely they are sitting in it fetal.
Basically a marine in armor is like iron man. A tau in a crisis suit is like iron monger. It's a very different thing.
I have never seen a crisis suit official drawing showing how Tau fit inside.
I mean the only similarly sized concept art we have with the Tau biology showing clearly how it fits inside is the one of Shadowsun. But I agree. I believe Crisis suits are more mecha than suits. That still leaves us with Stealth suits giving an extra wound.
Spoiler:
And I don't disagree a game can be made with resilient 1 wound units. I mean. Look at LOTR, Nazgul all have one wound or Ghost infantry and they are tought as nails. But with the volume of shots and attacks in warhammer having single wound units is a recipe for disaster because theres a very high chance of rolling 1's, that on a d6 kill anything. And theres just as much you can lower the ammount of shoots units can make because 1 is the minimun. But that ship has sailed long ago. Nerfing rerrolls is a first step to lower the offensive power of the game and GW is doing it, as the necron and SM codex show.
TBH all this afternoon of talking about warhammer and the problem with damage and wounds has made me want to play GW's LOTR game so bad. Man thats a good game.
Lance845 wrote: Thats it. Its a problem that it exists as as per the title of the thread I don't think marines should have 2w. It's mechanically bad without drastic other changes and the fluff doesn't justify it.
Prove that the second wound on mini-marines is a balance problem and that it must be a problem for the game's design long term. I want math.
Otherwise, this is a bunch of woe is me whining about marines and unlike usual this doesn't even seem to be based on them being too strong just that it doesn't feel fair or something... TBH I'm still not sure what your actual point of contention is.
I already did when I started showing the impact of weapons and the number of dice it took to have a meaningful impact in the game. The escalation of number of dice to impact is either going to get worse (needing even more dice) or weapons are going to get better (at which point any percieved durability gain will be mitigated so what was the fething point?).
Lance845 wrote: I already did when I started showing the impact of weapons and the number of dice it took to have a meaningful impact in the game. The escalation of number of dice to impact is either going to get worse (needing even more dice) or weapons are going to get better (at which point any percieved durability gain will be mitigated so what was the fething point?).
You didn't show it very comprehensively, nor did you show what was lost going from 7e to 8e in terms of durability so we had a point of comparison. You cherry-picked a few units that do especially badly against 2W marines and tried to make that the center of your argument.
So how many shots should it take to kill 10 man unit of marines and how many marines should a unit of gants kill per turn? Are there some weapons gants have access to that do a better job versus marines while their other options are better for hordes? If not are we happy to make one for them?
EDIT: Added an option to give gants a weapon with AP -1 to make them better versus marines.
It was an example I am intimately familiar with and shows the sheer volume of dice very well. This is not a unit who is particularly bad at fighting marines. This is the stock iconic infantry of a competing faction.
1) No there is not a better weapon. Termagants have a fleshborer 12" assault1 str3 d1 ap- or Devourer 18" assault3 str4 d1 ap-.
So 30 shots that would be even less successful per shot or 90 shots that still are not doing great. Lets remember that that is 270 points for a single max sized unit.
2) The point is volume of dice to effect.
You tell me, under the absolute worst scenario where a infantry to infantry weapon is being used, how many dice YOU think it should take to bring down 1 MEQ? 1 TEQ?
3) It's easy to see the difference going from 1w marines to 2w marines. You cut the effectiveness of model elimination in half.
Lance845 wrote: Thats it. Its a problem that it exists as as per the title of the thread I don't think marines should have 2w. It's mechanically bad without drastic other changes and the fluff doesn't justify it.
Prove that the second wound on mini-marines is a balance problem and that it must be a problem for the game's design long term. I want math.
It doubles the resilience of marine toughness against every other regular infantry in the game, because all basic weapons and most CC attacks do 1 damage. Math 1x2 = 2
Lance845 wrote: [I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications.
Nobody competitive took 1W mini-marines once Cawl's boys found their footing . . .
And I'm not even proposing for terminator armor to give an extra wound. GW thinks that it does, and I don't disagree with it being unreasonable. It can work and I can understand why. The difference in your perception is that bikes have always give an extra wound. Thats why most people tought the primaris biker with 4 wounds were extrange, because they should have had 3 wounds, 2+1 for the bike. It has nothing to do with balance or consistence, is just that people is more used to how things used to be. And in general I don't have that much liking for justifying things just because "tradition". Warhammer has always been many things but consistent has never been one of those.
For starters, it was consistent about 1W infantry for a long, long, long time.
It was consistent with a Marine being as tough as an Ork, with Armor equivalent to the heaviest Aspect Warriors, and stronger than both.
The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Also currently marines at 18 ppm vrs 9ppm Firewarrior Kabalites etc are twice the points of other infantry.
IMHO the issue is less 2w marines vrs others its the Doctorines for free marine's vrs everyone else who gets no free bonuses.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Not even sure that's true. A marine gets a save against higher AP level guns now, while during the prior paradigm they would have gotten none. Marines continue to get the same save against most infantry small arms.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Also currently marines at 18 ppm vrs 9ppm Firewarrior Kabalites etc are twice the points of other infantry.
IMHO the issue is less 2w marines vrs others its the Doctorines for free marine's vrs everyone else who gets no free bonuses.
The new AP system effected everyone equally and arguably made the game more balanced by making each weapon capable of doing SOMETHING instead of always impacting some armies and more or less never impacting others.
Old Marines were SLIGHTLY over costs (by a point or 2) but everything else was fine until that tons of free upgrades codex 2.0.
My point here is that the AP system is fine and not an issue.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Also currently marines at 18 ppm vrs 9ppm Firewarrior Kabalites etc are twice the points of other infantry.
IMHO the issue is less 2w marines vrs others its the Doctorines for free marine's vrs everyone else who gets no free bonuses.
The new AP system effected everyone equally and arguably made the game more balanced by making each weapon capable of doing SOMETHING instead of always impacting some armies and more or less never impacting others.
Old Marines were SLIGHTLY over costs (by a point or 2) but everything else was fine until that tons of free upgrades codex 2.0.
My point here is that the AP system is fine and not an issue.
Nope definataly screwed my firewarriors over way harder than my buddy's guardsmen.
The new AP system is what it is but when the game system was changed up as drastically as it was from 7th to 8th it caused a lot of issues.
Wounding chart totally different.
AP sysyem totally different
Cover save system totally different
Codex 2.0 was a massive over correction but pretending that 11point marines would have worked/been good for the game isn't true either.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Not even sure that's true. A marine gets a save against higher AP level guns now, while during the prior paradigm they would have gotten none. Marines continue to get the same save against most infantry small arms.
I'm not just talking pure marines, AP3 and AP4 wasn't all that common on basic infantry weapons while AP5 was.
People tended to go AP2 or meh.
While cover ment less for heavily armoured units and light units did, though it also create daft situations too.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Also currently marines at 18 ppm vrs 9ppm Firewarrior Kabalites etc are twice the points of other infantry.
IMHO the issue is less 2w marines vrs others its the Doctorines for free marine's vrs everyone else who gets no free bonuses.
The new AP system effected everyone equally and arguably made the game more balanced by making each weapon capable of doing SOMETHING instead of always impacting some armies and more or less never impacting others.
Old Marines were SLIGHTLY over costs (by a point or 2) but everything else was fine until that tons of free upgrades codex 2.0.
My point here is that the AP system is fine and not an issue.
Nope definataly screwed my firewarriors over way harder than my buddy's guardsmen.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Not even sure that's true. A marine gets a save against higher AP level guns now, while during the prior paradigm they would have gotten none. Marines continue to get the same save against most infantry small arms.
There are a number of aspects to it.
First is that a lot of stuff that didn't used to degrade Marine armor now does. Getting a 6+ save against a plasma gun now is better than nothing, but going from 3+ to 4+ when you're hit by heavy bolters, disintegrators, autocannons, or any other AP-1/AP-2 weapons that wouldn't have been AP3 under the old system, is more impactful. You can viably spam those high-output, mid-strength weapons and kill a lot of Marines. The number of weapons with AP-1 or AP-2 drastically outweighs the number with exactly AP-3.
Second is that the game is chock full of high AP now, and bonus AP is a popular means of either marking a weapon as special (see: Marine autocannons at AP-2, plasma at AP-4) or as a force multiplier (eg Doctrines). Basic Intercessors in Tactical doctrine are throwing AP-2, outright halving the effectiveness of power armor.
If you do a straight conversion from the old system it looks like:
AP4 became AP-1
AP3 became AP-2
AP2 became AP-3
AP1 became AP-4
So we effectively are at basic Marines shooting what would have been AP3 under the old system. Can you imagine if basic Marines had AP3 back in the day? If Marine autocannons were AP3 as well? Marine plasma at AP1? I have no doubt we'd see the same kinds of complaints; armor would be basically irrelevant, and anything without an invuln would be dead meat.
And third, high AP can now be used to negate cover, which didn't used to be a thing. If you got hit by a plasma weapon, you could claim a 5+ or 4+ cover save. Now cover augments your 3+ armor to 2+, but it's super Cawl-pattern plasma in Tactical doctrine so it's AP-5, you get no save, bye-bye.
Put all three together, and it's no wonder that armor feels worthless.
This is absolutely not true. I mean, I like AP modifiers as a mechanic, but they affected different armies totally differently.
Like, my Guard love the new AP system. I never got to use my 5+ save before, because bolters just blew through it with AP5. But now I always get that 5+ save, and even things like heavy bolters and autocannons still let me fish for 6s. That's a huge buff to the durability of my troops. Then I can get cover for even more benefit. Sure, my cover save is now worse against high AP weapons, but I was never worried about plasma guns shooting my boys; it was high-volume AP5 fire that shredded me, and now I get a 4+ save in cover against AP0 rather than a 5+. If I'm up against Marines and they're AP-2 across the board, well, I'm not really any worse off than I was before.
Meanwhile Marines, as I said above in my reply to Insectum7, are now affected by a lot of stuff that didn't used to touch their 3+ save, and super-high-AP weapons deny them any benefit from cover. If you're facing an AP-2 army, your armor is now half as effective as it used to be, and high AP will prevent you from even saving your guys with cover.
And at the extreme end, mass heavy bolters are now great at killing Terminators. No more needing to take plasma guns and then hope they fail their invulns; just spam AP-1 fire and they go down.
The AP modifier system benefits units (and armies) with light armor and penalizes ones with heavy armor; I don't think GW properly appreciated just how much of an impact it would have.
Lance845 wrote: It was an example I am intimately familiar with and shows the sheer volume of dice very well. This is not a unit who is particularly bad at fighting marines. This is the stock iconic infantry of a competing faction.
1) No there is not a better weapon. Termagants have a fleshborer 12" assault1 str3 d1 ap- or Devourer 18" assault3 str4 d1 ap-.
So 30 shots that would be even less successful per shot or 90 shots that still are not doing great. Lets remember that that is 270 points for a single max sized unit.
Let's get stuck in!
Devourer Gants vs TEQ:
90 shots
45 hits
~26 wounds
4.33 unsaved wounds
1 dead terminator worth between 33 and 50 points
Devourer Gants vs 2W MEQ:
90 shots
45 hits
~26 wounds
8.74 unsaved wounds
4 dead marines worth between 72 and 82 points (I assumed a 5 man squad with melta and combi-melta for the 82 points)
Devourer Gants vs 1W MEQ:
90 shots
45 hits
~26 wounds
8.74 unsaved wounds
5 dead marines worth between 75 and 95 points (Capped at 5 because who was taking 10 man mini-marines and not squading them in 8th)
Devourer Gants vs Boyz:
90 shots
45 hits
~26 wounds
~21.67 unsaved wounds
4 dead boyz worth 168 points
Devourer Gants vs Devourer Gants:
90 shots
45 hits
40 wounds
33.33 unsaved wounds
30 dead gants worth 270 points
We can see here that devourer armed hormagants are a pretty decent (if expensive) anti-horde option that are going to be difficult to make work if you see a lot of PEQ or MEQ models. The thing is, they weren't good against 1W MEQ anyway because they'd never see 10 man squads where they might have been almost efficient. They could use a buff, but they would have been just as awful against PEQ and 5-man MEQ in our last meta so has much actually changed with them?
2) The point is volume of dice to effect.
You tell me, under the absolute worst scenario where a infantry to infantry weapon is being used, how many dice YOU think it should take to bring down 1 MEQ? 1 TEQ?
I don't care that much about dice to wound ratios. If the points efficiency is reasonable and units have a use that's all I care about.
3) It's easy to see the difference going from 1w marines to 2w marines. You cut the effectiveness of model elimination in half.
Only in cases where there were more wounds to take. As stated above if you weren't against PEQ before those same shots simply overkilled the 5-man scouts or Tac Marines they were shooting at and had around the same points efficiency due to the lower point costs of their targets. Against PEQ you have the exact same situation as we have now so nothing has changed.
Insectum7 wrote: It doubles the resilience of marine toughness against every other regular infantry in the game, because all basic weapons and most CC attacks do 1 damage. Math 1x2 = 2
*slow clap* That's great, how many mini-marines were you seeing in 8th edition once primaris had taken hold? I ask because unless you saw people playing MEQ instead of PEQ you won't see a change. Things might actually be worse for marines now if they have to take troops because the minimum cost for a Tac squad is now 90 points versus the 75 scout squad they could have used before.
Show us your tournament record then if you were competitive. I can believe you did well at a store level, but I have doubts that you were doing well at any larger events if you were using a lot of MEQ bodies.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, marines are still over-tuned with units that are a little too good at everything and doctrines on top of that I just don't think it's the 2W MEQ that are the issue.
Ice_can wrote: The new AP system is what broke alot of the balance of old, that on top of (pre coxex 2.0 buffs) the poor translation of AP5 AP 4 weapons to AP0.
Not even sure that's true. A marine gets a save against higher AP level guns now, while during the prior paradigm they would have gotten none. Marines continue to get the same save against most infantry small arms.
There are a number of aspects to it.
First is that a lot of stuff that didn't used to degrade Marine armor now does. Getting a 6+ save against a plasma gun now is better than nothing, but going from 3+ to 4+ when you're hit by heavy bolters, disintegrators, autocannons, or any other AP-1/AP-2 weapons that wouldn't have been AP3 under the old system, is more impactful. You can viably spam those high-output, mid-strength weapons and kill a lot of Marines. The number of weapons with AP-1 or AP-2 drastically outweighs the number with exactly AP-3.
Second is that the game is chock full of high AP now, and bonus AP is a popular means of either marking a weapon as special (see: Marine autocannons at AP-2, plasma at AP-4) or as a force multiplier (eg Doctrines). Basic Intercessors in Tactical doctrine are throwing AP-2, outright halving the effectiveness of power armor.
If you do a straight conversion from the old system it looks like:
AP4 became AP-1
AP3 became AP-2
AP2 became AP-3
AP1 became AP-4
So we effectively are at basic Marines shooting what would have been AP3 under the old system. Can you imagine if basic Marines had AP3 back in the day? If Marine autocannons were AP3 as well? Marine plasma at AP1? I have no doubt we'd see the same kinds of complaints; armor would be basically irrelevant, and anything without an invuln would be dead meat.
And third, high AP can now be used to negate cover, which didn't used to be a thing. If you got hit by a plasma weapon, you could claim a 5+ or 4+ cover save. Now cover augments your 3+ armor to 2+, but it's super Cawl-pattern plasma in Tactical doctrine so it's AP-5, you get no save, bye-bye.
Put all three together, and it's no wonder that armor feels worthless.
I understand the foundation but disagree with the conclusions. The statement "So we effectively are at basic Marines shooting what would have been AP3 under the old system." Doesn't ring true because Space Marines actually GET a save where they used to NOT get a save. That's the very definition of an improvement.
And the observation that Intercessors get AP-2 . . . well I'd chalk that up to a mistake in Intercessor/Doctrine design rather than a change in the core system. Intercessors are the outlier among standard infantry, unfortunately they're just really, really popular. But Imo Intercessors/Primaris are the mistake here, again, not the AP rules.
The final point I'd have is that marine resilience against small arms became much better, since cover actually gives them a bonus. If a marine is in cover it takes (in your comparison) the "equivalent" of AP3 to reduce their save below a 3+, right? Leaving a 4+ "cover save". An AP-3 weapon still leave marines with a 5+ "cover save". 4+ and 5+ are right in line with the cover saves of 3-7th. So Marines get their 4+ and 5+ like 3-7, but also get a 2+ against small arms. That's either similar or an improvement for the vast majority of weapons.
Your example though, is telling. Cawl super-plasma with Doctrines. That's not a core rule issue. That's a PRIMARIS issue.
Honestly, Classic Marines with book 2.0 and no supplements was just about perfect balance for marines. Ignore Primaris and ignore the supplement books and you had a solid, high tier and pretty balanced book for the last stages of 8th.
Edit again:
The shocker for marines, for like the first two years, was that Guardsmen got a save when Marines just pummeled them into the ground in prior editions. Imo Doctrines+Bolter Discipline provided a decent fix for that. But the other problem fighting against the new GEQ hordes was that Blast and Template weapons took such a hit going into 8th. So that could be seen as less of an AP issue and more of a Blast/Template issue.
Insectum7 wrote: It doubles the resilience of marine toughness against every other regular infantry in the game, because all basic weapons and most CC attacks do 1 damage. Math 1x2 = 2
*slow clap* That's great, how many mini-marines were you seeing in 8th edition once primaris had taken hold? I ask because unless you saw people playing MEQ instead of PEQ you won't see a change. Things might actually be worse for marines now if they have to take troops because the minimum cost for a Tac squad is now 90 points versus the 75 scout squad they could have used before.
Numerous people playing classic marines. I saw Space Wolves, Blood Angels and my UM successors. I also saw CSM, which were 1W Space Marines.
Show us your tournament record then if you were competitive. I can believe you did well at a store level, but I have doubts that you were doing well at any larger events if you were using a lot of MEQ bodies.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, marines are still over-tuned with units that are a little too good at everything and doctrines on top of that I just don't think it's the 2W MEQ that are the issue.
Pffft. Show us your credentials to make such broad statements.
The shift to two wounds is less of an army-competetive balance issue and more of a "feels bad" issue for non-marines. Genestealers, Fire Warriors, Orks, Eldar, etc just got a lot worse at killing Marines.
Dice to wound ratios ARE point effeciency and units having a use.
A PEQ has 3 guns and every 2 wounds removes 1 gun which is a significant hit to damage output for a unit that starts at 3 models.
MEQ can kill 8 models removing 8 guns vs 4 models removing 4 guns from a up to 10 model unit.
TEQ it removes a single gun now that they have 3 wounds but would have removed 4 models when they were 1 wound. A significant difference.
This perfectly illustrates my point. The DRASTIC change in durability do to the increase in wounds is going to require a change to the weapons or giving similar buffs to all the other armies. At which point either the buff was pointless or everyone can start throwing more dice to 1/2 effect.
Lance845 wrote: Dice to wound ratios ARE point effeciency and units having a use.
A PEQ has 3 guns and every 2 wounds removes 1 gun which is a significant hit to damage output for a unit that starts at 3 models.
MEQ can kill 8 models removing 8 guns vs 4 models removing 4 guns from a up to 10 model unit.
TEQ it removes a single gun now that they have 3 wounds but would have removed 4 models when they were 1 wound. A significant difference.
This perfectly illustrates my point. The DRASTIC change in durability do to the increase in wounds is going to require a change to the weapons or giving similar buffs to all the other armies. At which point either the buff was pointless or everyone can start throwing more dice to 1/2 effect.
only if GW wants to return the the status quo before this change
I don't really care whether regular Space Marines have 2 wounds or 20. So long as they consistently apply this rule to all factions and similar units. Which, they haven't been. The inconsistency, and the lack of updates to certain factions and favouritism towards others has always been a problem with Games Workshop, and will continue to be my biggest issue with them.
Insectum7 wrote: I understand the foundation but disagree with the conclusions. The statement "So we effectively are at basic Marines shooting what would have been AP3 under the old system." Doesn't ring true because Space Marines actually GET a save where they used to NOT get a save. That's the very definition of an improvement.
And the observation that Intercessors get AP-2 . . . well I'd chalk that up to a mistake in Intercessor/Doctrine design rather than a change in the core system. Intercessors are the outlier among standard infantry, unfortunately they're just really, really popular. But Imo Intercessors/Primaris are the mistake here, again, not the AP rules.
The final point I'd have is that marine resilience against small arms became much better, since cover actually gives them a bonus. If a marine is in cover it takes (in your comparison) the "equivalent" of AP3 to reduce their save below a 3+, right? Leaving a 4+ "cover save". An AP-3 weapon still leave marines with a 5+ "cover save". 4+ and 5+ are right in line with the cover saves of 3-7th. So Marines get their 4+ and 5+ like 3-7, but also get a 2+ against small arms. That's either similar or an improvement for the vast majority of weapons.
Your example though, is telling. Cawl super-plasma with Doctrines. That's not a core rule issue. That's a PRIMARIS issue.
Honestly, Classic Marines with book 2.0 and no supplements was just about perfect balance for marines. Ignore Primaris and ignore the supplement books and you had a solid, high tier and pretty balanced book for the last stages of 8th.
Edit again:
The shocker for marines, for like the first two years, was that Guardsmen got a save when Marines just pummeled them into the ground in prior editions. Imo Doctrines+Bolter Discipline provided a decent fix for that. But the other problem fighting against the new GEQ hordes was that Blast and Template weapons took such a hit going into 8th. So that could be seen as less of an AP issue and more of a Blast/Template issue.
I may not have stated my position clearly. I agree that it's a problem with implementation, not with the core concept of armor modifiers- but mechanically, armor modifiers rather than all-or-nothing changes the relative value of saves. A 6+ save under the old system was completely worthless; now it (especially with cover) can actually help out against small arms. Bad armor is better and good armor is easier to mitigate (again, Terminators), meaning there's been a 'convergence' of effectiveness. 3+ and 5+ are a lot more similar to one another than they used to be.
I think the biggest problem was GW's unwillingness to touch statlines. If it were me, I'd put Terminator armor at a 1+, power armor at 3+, and Guardsmen flak armor at 6+ (everything currently 6+ going up to 7+), and fill in from there. Then don't give anyone AP-2 on basic weapons, or bonus AP as a faction trait, or bonus AP for being Cawl-pattern. At the very least, this would make 3+ armor feel a bit more special, reduce the need for invulns (Terminators being at 4+ when hit with lascannons), and provide more intermediate steps between Cadian flak armor and Space Marine power armor.
If right now it takes a 30 model unit with a 4 point gun upgrade to kill a single terminator then it takes 150 god damn models shooting 450 times to kill a single 5 man unit of infantry.
Thats like regular guardsmen trying to kill an imperial knight with lasguns.
If right now it takes a 30 model unit with a 4 point gun upgrade to kill a single terminator then it takes 150 god damn models shooting 450 times to kill a single 5 man unit of infantry.
Thats like regular guardsmen trying to kill an imperial knight with lasguns.
Who thinks thats balanced?
Arguably that could be made balanced via points but the point is also: who even wants this to be the game? I stopped playing my Orkz for several reasons but one of them was having to roll 80+ dice just to see, maybe 4 or so, Primaris keel over. It's just absolutely terrible to play this way, rolling hundreds of dice each round for little to no effect. Having such (a) popular faction(s) with base 2 wounds makes the game feel so bad to play if you have mostly 1dmg weapons for your anti-infantry. If it was just Custodes with 30 guys max on the field fair enough, but marine players of both spikey and loyalist kind can and will run easily 60+ model count armies.
If right now it takes a 30 model unit with a 4 point gun upgrade to kill a single terminator then it takes 150 god damn models shooting 450 times to kill a single 5 man unit of infantry.
Thats like regular guardsmen trying to kill an imperial knight with lasguns.
Who thinks thats balanced?
I understand what you're saying, but I do have issues:
1) Hormagants and Termagaunts probably shouldn't be taking an upgrade that makes them cost 9 points, running them at 5 points per model and using them as a means of gaining board control seems like what they should be used for and even that is iffy.
2) Tyranids as a faction need some help and have for most of their existence. It's gakky but Nids will probably look bad against even a mid tier faction let alone a faction that's over-tuned like SMs are.
3) You shouldn't be using AP0 guns against power armor. In a weak codex, you don't have a ton of good options, but things like Tyrant Guard, Hive Tyrants, etc. are what should do your killing. Your little bigs tie things up so fewer guns point at the big stuff.
These factors are why I wanted you to look at things as other factions would see them and not just from the perspective of a Tyranid player. Your faction needs help and I hope your next codex delivers.
If right now it takes a 30 model unit with a 4 point gun upgrade to kill a single terminator then it takes 150 god damn models shooting 450 times to kill a single 5 man unit of infantry.
Thats like regular guardsmen trying to kill an imperial knight with lasguns.
Who thinks thats balanced?
I understand what you're saying, but I do have issues:
1) Hormagants and Termagaunts probably shouldn't be taking an upgrade that makes them cost 9 points, running them at 5 points per model and using them as a means of gaining board control seems like what they should be used for and even that is iffy.
Okay. So if they don't get the upgrade then not only do they have to get 6" closer but they shoot 1 time per model and have str 3. So a unit of 30 can deal less than 1 wound on average to a terminator. So now it takes 450 MODELS to kill a single 5 man unit of terminators.
2) Tyranids as a faction need some help and have for most of their existence. It's gakky but Nids will probably look bad against even a mid tier faction let alone a faction that's over-tuned like SMs are.
When the nid dex came out in 8th they were basically the poster boy for internal and external balance. They had some very few dud units but for the most part they had MANY viable play styles and were balanced well against other codexes of the time that were not drastically over or under powered. But thats not the point. Imperial guard with lasguns are going to face the same problems. It's not the nids who are out of line with the game. It's the marines who are out of line with everyone else.
3) You shouldn't be using AP0 guns against power armor. In a weak codex, you don't have a ton of good options, but things like Tyrant Guard, Hive Tyrants, etc. are what should do your killing. Your little bigs tie things up so fewer guns point at the big stuff.
No. Orks, guard, tau, eldar, and nid infantry should be able to match marine infantry. Its volume of bodies that allow them to compete versus the tougher lower body count of the marines. It's only the increase in wounds thats thrown it all out of whack. Again. 30 termagants could kill 4 terminators before.
These factors are why I wanted you to look at things as other factions would see them and not just from the perspective of a Tyranid player. Your faction needs help and I hope your next codex delivers.
K.
Necron warriors. BS 3+ 24" Str4 AP-1 D1.
20 models = 20 shots = 13.33 hits. 6.88 wounds. 3.44 dmg vs MEQ 2.3ish damage vs TEQ. They can kill 1.5 marine or hurt but not kill 1 terminator. It takes 60-80 necron warriors to kill a 5 man unit of old marines or 180 of them to wipe out a single 5 man unit of terminators. Of course you can halve those numbers if they can get within 12" to be in rapid fire range. But also of course the marines don't need to get into 1/2 range to rapid fire they just have to stand still or pull some other bull gak.
Oh, and since you wanted comparison numbers. It would take 30-40 necron warriors to kill a 5 man unit of MEQ before or 60 to kill TEQ, with again being able to cut those numbers in half if they got to rapid fire range. And for fluff they are using a gun that by the fluff breaks down all mater into it's constituent atoms and should be slicing through marine armor like it doesn't exist.
Insectum7 wrote: I understand the foundation but disagree with the conclusions. The statement "So we effectively are at basic Marines shooting what would have been AP3 under the old system." Doesn't ring true because Space Marines actually GET a save where they used to NOT get a save. That's the very definition of an improvement.
And the observation that Intercessors get AP-2 . . . well I'd chalk that up to a mistake in Intercessor/Doctrine design rather than a change in the core system. Intercessors are the outlier among standard infantry, unfortunately they're just really, really popular. But Imo Intercessors/Primaris are the mistake here, again, not the AP rules.
The final point I'd have is that marine resilience against small arms became much better, since cover actually gives them a bonus. If a marine is in cover it takes (in your comparison) the "equivalent" of AP3 to reduce their save below a 3+, right? Leaving a 4+ "cover save". An AP-3 weapon still leave marines with a 5+ "cover save". 4+ and 5+ are right in line with the cover saves of 3-7th. So Marines get their 4+ and 5+ like 3-7, but also get a 2+ against small arms. That's either similar or an improvement for the vast majority of weapons.
Your example though, is telling. Cawl super-plasma with Doctrines. That's not a core rule issue. That's a PRIMARIS issue.
Honestly, Classic Marines with book 2.0 and no supplements was just about perfect balance for marines. Ignore Primaris and ignore the supplement books and you had a solid, high tier and pretty balanced book for the last stages of 8th.
Edit again:
The shocker for marines, for like the first two years, was that Guardsmen got a save when Marines just pummeled them into the ground in prior editions. Imo Doctrines+Bolter Discipline provided a decent fix for that. But the other problem fighting against the new GEQ hordes was that Blast and Template weapons took such a hit going into 8th. So that could be seen as less of an AP issue and more of a Blast/Template issue.
I may not have stated my position clearly. I agree that it's a problem with implementation, not with the core concept of armor modifiers- but mechanically, armor modifiers rather than all-or-nothing changes the relative value of saves. A 6+ save under the old system was completely worthless; now it (especially with cover) can actually help out against small arms. Bad armor is better and good armor is easier to mitigate (again, Terminators), meaning there's been a 'convergence' of effectiveness. 3+ and 5+ are a lot more similar to one another than they used to be.
I think the biggest problem was GW's unwillingness to touch statlines. If it were me, I'd put Terminator armor at a 1+, power armor at 3+, and Guardsmen flak armor at 6+ (everything currently 6+ going up to 7+), and fill in from there. Then don't give anyone AP-2 on basic weapons, or bonus AP as a faction trait, or bonus AP for being Cawl-pattern. At the very least, this would make 3+ armor feel a bit more special, reduce the need for invulns (Terminators being at 4+ when hit with lascannons), and provide more intermediate steps between Cadian flak armor and Space Marine power armor.
Ok, ok, I getcha.
The 3+ save is not the same magnitude of difference when compared to the 5+ save that it was under the 3-7th paradigm. That I definitely agree with, hence my mention of the jump in value of the GEQ 5+. I agree that the change that should have happened there is to push the Guard back to a 6+ like it was* in 2nd Ed. It wasn't that Space Marines became more fragile, it's that Guardsmen became weirdly tough for 8th. Terminators going to a 1+ would work too, although I think they should still have a chance to fail a 1+ save against an AP0 weapon. Unsure.
*Guard had a 6+ save, but it became a 5+ against Blast weapons iirc. For the record, Termagants had NO save in 2nd ed.
The only thing a 1+ save does in the current rules is effectively ignore AP1, as rolls of 1 still fail regardless.
So I don't see a problem with 1+ being an armour save in the game for the likes of terminators, wraithlords etc.
What they really shouldn't be doing is giving AP to standard infantry guns, except maybe under special conditions (the shuriken 6s for example, or only within 6" or something).
And if guardsmen went back to 6+ saves, then that would make guardians actually seem comparatively better like they used to with 5+ mesh armour...
Lance845 wrote: Okay. So if they don't get the upgrade then not only do they have to get 6" closer but they shoot 1 time per model and have str 3. So a unit of 30 can deal less than 1 wound on average to a terminator. So now it takes 450 MODELS to kill a single 5 man unit of terminators.
You don't take them because they kill things. You take them to gain board control and win the game via objectives.
When the nid dex came out in 8th they were basically the poster boy for internal and external balance. They had some very few dud units but for the most part they had MANY viable play styles and were balanced well against other codexes of the time that were not drastically over or under powered. But thats not the point. Imperial guard with lasguns are going to face the same problems. It's not the nids who are out of line with the game. It's the marines who are out of line with everyone else.
Didn't the rule of 3 come out mainly because Nid players were bringing nothing but Flyrants to games?
No. Orks, guard, tau, eldar, and nid infantry should be able to match marine infantry. Its volume of bodies that allow them to compete versus the tougher lower body count of the marines. It's only the increase in wounds thats thrown it all out of whack. Again. 30 termagants could kill 4 terminators before.
How often were terminators taken in winning lists even after they gained two wounds? How many threads have there been on Dakka over the years asking about fixing terminators?
Necron warriors. BS 3+ 24" Str4 AP-1 D1.
20 models = 20 shots = 13.33 hits. 6.88 wounds. 3.44 dmg vs MEQ 2.3ish damage vs TEQ. They can kill 1.5 marine or hurt but not kill 1 terminator. It takes 60-80 necron warriors to kill a 5 man unit of old marines or 180 of them to wipe out a single 5 man unit of terminators. Of course you can halve those numbers if they can get within 12" to be in rapid fire range. But also of course the marines don't need to get into 1/2 range to rapid fire they just have to stand still or pull some other bull gak.
Let's just ignore that you can deep strike that 20 strong brick of warriors for a single pregame CP, or veil them forward to kneecap a threat or hold a table quarter. Beyond that, warriors aren't just limited to gauss flayers anymore, they can take gauss reapers which are Assault 2 12" S5 AP-2.
So when they get into range they can do this to those terminators you're so fixated on:
40 shots
26.67 hits
17.78 wounds
8.88 unsaved wounds
2 or 3 dead terminators
You also have options to buff those warriors with 2+ shooting if you veiled them over with an overlord:
40 shots
33.33 hits
22.22 wounds
11.11 unsaved wounds
3 dead terminators with a chance to catch a 4th
That's a pretty good return for a tough unit that that'll get back a 3rd of the models you knockdown.
Looking at those numbers, what's the point of bringing regular Troop weaponry if you are playing vs Marines?
I need like 50 Kabalite rifles to kill a 5 man Intercessor squad in Rapid Fire range.
Of course you have to bring different weaponry to fight different threats, but when I'm facing SMs, I have to bring a couple card decks so my Troops have something to do during the game.
I'm not experienced enough to come with a solution, but increasing the lethality of Xenos basic weaponry to compete with Space Marines could bring a lot of problems to the general balance of the game...
Denegaar wrote: Looking at those numbers, what's the point of bringing regular Troop weaponry if you are playing vs Marines?
I need like 50 Kabalite rifles to kill a 5 man Intercessor squad in Rapid Fire range.
Of course you have to bring different weaponry to fight different threats, but when I'm facing SMs, I have to bring a couple card decks so my Troops have something to do during the game.
I'm not experienced enough to come with a solution, but increasing the lethality of Xenos basic weaponry to compete with Space Marines could bring a lot of problems to the general balance of the game...
Denegaar wrote: Looking at those numbers, what's the point of bringing regular Troop weaponry if you are playing vs Marines?
I need like 50 Kabalite rifles to kill a 5 man Intercessor squad in Rapid Fire range.
Of course you have to bring different weaponry to fight different threats, but when I'm facing SMs, I have to bring a couple card decks so my Troops have something to do during the game.
I'm not experienced enough to come with a solution, but increasing the lethality of Xenos basic weaponry to compete with Space Marines could bring a lot of problems to the general balance of the game...
The problem I see is that "poison" is a really lacklustre rule to have in its current implementation. Outside of Harlys, Eldar are really chaff troops, which does not fit (my) canon for them.
Forcing a second wound on a to wound roll of 6 would equalise Kabalites against Intercessor under the current rules.
Of course Poisonous Weapon is really underpowered, but it was just an example of a weapon that hits on 3s, wounds of 4s, no AP and D1.
The most basic weapon profile that has become lackluster vs the most played Troop choice in the game.
We can buff Poison, Shuriken and Gauss, but that feels like patches. Why buff durability of Primaris if then you have to change all other weapon choices so the rest of the factions can fight?
Let's just ignore that you can deep strike that 20 strong brick of warriors for a single pregame CP, or veil them forward to kneecap a threat or hold a table quarter. Beyond that, warriors aren't just limited to gauss flayers anymore, they can take gauss reapers which are Assault 2 12" S5 AP-2.
Yes, lets. Because we are working off stock troop comparisons apparently. But then lets compare.
So when they get into range they can do this to those terminators you're so fixated on:
40 shots 26.67 hits 17.78 wounds 8.88 unsaved wounds 2 or 3 dead terminators
You also have options to buff those warriors with 2+ shooting if you veiled them over with an overlord:
40 shots 33.33 hits 22.22 wounds 11.11 unsaved wounds 3 dead terminators with a chance to catch a 4th
That's a pretty good return for a tough unit that that'll get back a 3rd of the models you knockdown.
No it's not. 40 shots with character support shooting at 2+ BS with 3+ wounds and AP-2 cannot kill a 5 model unit of infantry. AND they have to get within 12" to do it. That is not a pretty good return. Thats a garbage return.
The problem I see with marines having 2 wounds is just that they are too cheap. Nobody things Custodes are OP because they have basic troops with 3 wounds T5 and basically terminator statlines with better invul saves.
Anyway I have to say, gentelmen and gentelwoman is a pleasure to debate about a topic like this with such polite and well-mannered posters. Things can get a little heated and one of the reasons I don't post as much in this forum is because people is just too fast to jump to the throat of other posters.
Denegaar wrote: Of course Poisonous Weapon is really underpowered, but it was just an example of a weapon that hits on 3s, wounds of 4s, no AP and D1.
The most basic weapon profile that has become lackluster vs the most played Troop choice in the game.
We can buff Poison, Shuriken and Gauss, but that feels like patches. Why buff durability of Primaris if then you have to change all other weapon choices so the rest of the factions can fight?
I see it as an opportunity. 2W for Marines feels right, personally speaking. Now other codizes have to follow suit and make their units feel right, too.
While nerfing outliers is usually the faster solution, I'm more a "bring everything up to the same level to even things out" myself.
Oversimplified: Everything is awesome > everything sucks equally.
Galas wrote: The problem I see with marines having 2 wounds is just that they are too cheap. Nobody things Custodes are OP because they have basic troops with 3 wounds T5 and basically terminator statlines with better invul saves.
Anyway I have to say, gentelmen and gentelwoman is a pleasure to debate about a topic like this with such polite and well-mannered posters. Things can get a little heated and one of the reasons I don't post as much in this forum is because people is just too fast to jump to the throat of other posters.
The point values is definitely part of it with custodes. Those point values put a cap on how many models are coming to the table and the unit size of the custodes are inherently smaller. Any one unit is only doing so much even when 1 model is a monster.
Custodes are like the Harlequinns for the imperium. A small model count elite force. SM are not a small model count elite force. They are not a horde army but they are not even remotely close to Custodes or Harlequinns. They shouldn't be this hard to kill when they can come in the numbers they do and fire as many shots as they do.
And they SHOULDN'T be harelquinns or custodes. They SHOULD be the middle of the road army.
Only termintors are also in marine armies which are elite too. So making them 1W would be a direct nerf, just to make a different army weaker that can replace termintors with something else.
Karol wrote: Only termintors are also in marine armies which are elite too. So making them 1W would be a direct nerf, just to make a different army weaker that can replace termintors with something else.
You do know there is a difference between elite army and elite units within an army right?
The "elite" imperial guard units shouldn't be costed and have stat lines like custodes.
Galas wrote: The problem I see with marines having 2 wounds is just that they are too cheap. Nobody things Custodes are OP because they have basic troops with 3 wounds T5 and basically terminator statlines with better invul saves.
Anyway I have to say, gentelmen and gentelwoman is a pleasure to debate about a topic like this with such polite and well-mannered posters. Things can get a little heated and one of the reasons I don't post as much in this forum is because people is just too fast to jump to the throat of other posters.
The point values is definitely part of it with custodes. Those point values put a cap on how many models are coming to the table and the unit size of the custodes are inherently smaller. Any one unit is only doing so much even when 1 model is a monster.
Custodes are like the Harlequinns for the imperium. A small model count elite force. SM are not a small model count elite force. They are not a horde army but they are not even remotely close to Custodes or Harlequinns. They shouldn't be this hard to kill when they can come in the numbers they do and fire as many shots as they do.
And they SHOULDN'T be harelquinns or custodes. They SHOULD be the middle of the road army.
Thas the problem with Space Marines. They are always sold as the heroes of the imperium, this super soldiers that can triumph agaisnt the worse of odds. But then, they are expected to be the middle of the road of the game. The thing everyone compares agaisnt. It would have been like having the Chaos Warrior being the baseline troop of Warhammer Fantasy. There it worked because the baseline was the imperial human, our Imperial Guard Infantry squad.
Galas wrote: The problem I see with marines having 2 wounds is just that they are too cheap. Nobody things Custodes are OP because they have basic troops with 3 wounds T5 and basically terminator statlines with better invul saves.
Anyway I have to say, gentelmen and gentelwoman is a pleasure to debate about a topic like this with such polite and well-mannered posters. Things can get a little heated and one of the reasons I don't post as much in this forum is because people is just too fast to jump to the throat of other posters.
The point values is definitely part of it with custodes. Those point values put a cap on how many models are coming to the table and the unit size of the custodes are inherently smaller. Any one unit is only doing so much even when 1 model is a monster.
Custodes are like the Harlequinns for the imperium. A small model count elite force. SM are not a small model count elite force. They are not a horde army but they are not even remotely close to Custodes or Harlequinns. They shouldn't be this hard to kill when they can come in the numbers they do and fire as many shots as they do.
And they SHOULDN'T be harelquinns or custodes. They SHOULD be the middle of the road army.
Thas the problem with Space Marines. They are always sold as the heroes of the imperium, this super soldiers that can triumph agaisnt the worse of odds. But then, they are expected to be the middle of the road of the game. The thing everyone compares agaisnt. It would have been like having the Chaos Warrior being the baseline troop of Warhammer Fantasy. There it worked because the baseline was the imperial human, our Imperial Guard Infantry squad.
I am not saying they should be the middle of the road for EVERYTHING. They should be the middle of the road for model count. They are not a horde and shouldn't be. They are not the hyper elite and shouldn't be. They are the front line shock troopers of the imperium. The tip of the spear. So they need to be able to put out more dakka per model then the hordes to keep up and need to have good saves and toughness to survive being shot but they shouldn't be getting anywhere near the durability of custodes. They have too many bodies for that to be a thing. Especially with the damage they can put out.
Honestly Primaris is the best thing to ever happen to SM.
They give them that extra wound at the point cost and the body count to do the job SM are supposed to be doing and fit the niche they are meant to fit.
Lance845 wrote: I am not saying they should be the middle of the road for EVERYTHING. They should be the middle of the road for model count. They are not a horde and shouldn't be. They are not the hyper elite and shouldn't be.
Part of the issue as I see it is that they aren't middle of the road for capabilities anymore; not only are they second only to Custodes for most elite base Troops, but even the elites of most other armies need numerical superiority to beat them.
I thought they were a lot closer to 'middle of the road' when they were T4/W1/3+. Second only to Necron Warriors in 3rd/4th for the title of best troops in the game, able to take on elites like Aspect Warriors and still put up a fight against hyper-specialists like Genestealers, while mowing down hordes of Guardsmen or Termagants. Almost every army could field units that were better than basic Marines, but then the Marine elites were better still. And that was fine.
Having Primaris be the baseline turns things like Genestealers and Aspect Warriors into horde units by comparison, while Termagants, Guardians, Kabalites, Boyz, and Guardsmen become total chaff. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with the Primaris statline, but it being the basic Troops choice of the most-commonly-played faction makes everyone else's Troops feel irrelevant unless fielded in triple-digit numbers.
catbarf wrote: Having Primaris be the baseline turns things like Genestealers and Aspect Warriors into horde units by comparison, while Termagants, Guardians, Kabalites, Boyz, and Guardsmen become total chaff. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with the Primaris statline, but it being the basic Troops choice of the most-commonly-played faction makes everyone else's Troops feel irrelevant unless fielded in triple-digit numbers.
Exactly. Troops are a tax for a lot of factions because the Troops of the most played faction are twice as killy and four times as durable. It just doesn't feel right for a lot of non-SM players.
Yeah, personally thats in my proposed "stat spread" that had like 10 minutes of thought put into it I believe GW should allow for more playstiles to other armies. Having better nobz and tyranid warriors as troops and better inmortals for example makes primaris no more the (with the exception of custodes) more elite troop on the game, and allows players of those factions to play something more than pure horde style.
TBH I believe that Primaris Intercessors as baseline aren't that bad. 2 wounds, 2 attacks, a bolter with 2 shots at 15" with ap-1 and F4. All of that at 19-22ppm. It seems reasonable with other lesser troops costing 6-11 points. The problem is when you add chapter tactics, doctrines, bolter discipline, shock assault, rerrolls, etc...
I mean, yeah, it sucks that a banshee is worse than a Primaris but I think thats more a problem of banshees, that have been bad since ... like, nearly ever (I know in RT a banshee could kill 200 marines) and not the baseline Primaris intercessor statline. High Elves felt elite in Fantasy because the power scale of that game and universe was much lower, and again the baseline were not Chaos Warriors but normal humans. But compared with chaos warriors (the space marines of fantasy) Elves were in many cases worse, even Swordsmaster vs Chaos Chosen. Of course they had ways to fight back but stat per stat they were worse.
I can't agree that it feelt "right" that a basic tactical marine was outfighted by a ork boy and outshoot by a Tau Firewarrior when in the universe you have numbers of magnitudes more of those two extremely mediocre units (In fluff) than marines, specially when a tactical at the point of being a tactical has probably 100 years of experience as scout, assault, and devastator marine. And as we all know at this point , being an specialist is way better than being a generalist, specially if for being a generalist you are just mediocre at everything.
Thas the problem with Space Marines. They are always sold as the heroes of the imperium, this super soldiers that can triumph agaisnt the worse of odds.
Two points with this:
1) Even with their old statlines, they were still super compared to other humans. They shot better than guardsmen, they fought better than guardsmen, they were stronger than guardsmen, they were tougher than guardsmen, they had much better armour than guardsmen, they had much better weapons than guardsmen etc.
Even compared to the most elite guardsmen, like Scions, Marines were still better in almost every capacity.
However, whilst elite by the standards of humans, Marines were still hard pressed to fight against massive orks, hulking tyranid warriors, elite warriors of the Eldar, deathless machines etc.
Basically, Marines were highly elite relative to humans, but they weren't the most elite units to ever exist in the history of the universe. They might have been humanity's greatest hope, but it was still very much an uphill fight, and likely even a lost cause in the face of so many alien horrors.
However, since then Marines have transitioned into the most elite and awesome beings ever to grace the universe with their presence. Rather than meeting their match against many powerful aliens, those aliens (even their own supposed elites) must form into entire hordes just to be on even-footing with Marines.
2) Marines have long since ceased to be underdogs. So rather than stories of Marines fighting "against the worse of odds" and prevailing through skill, tactics and sheer determination and zealotry, we instead have ridiculous Doom-inspired power-fantasies of invincible supermen mowing down hordes of supposedly elite aliens, and casually crushing "terrifying" chaos daemons beneath their boots. This makes for atrocious stories (how can you possibly have meaningful tension when the protagonists are clearly the strongest beings in existence?), and even worse gameplay.
I don't disagree with any of that. I have stopped caring about warhammer stories a long time ago, specially those centered aroud bolter porn or the typical lore heroes.
Thats why I would prefer for ork nobz, necron inmortals, etc... to still be much superior troops than normal space marines. I don't have a problem with Necron Warriors, Ork Boyz, etc... being substantially inferior to normal baseline space marines when those armies have access to better troops than your average space marine.
As with all my "ideal scenarios", at least for me the biggest problems are still , Eldar. I just don't know how to make them elite without making them just Harlequins.
Basically for this, from Fantasy:
Spoiler:
Phoenix guard:
Chaos warrior:
Chaos chosen:
The most elite elven special unit was comparable to your "average" Chaos Warrior aka fantasy-marines.
Galas wrote: I can't agree that it feelt "right" that a basic tactical marine was outfighted by a ork boy and outshoot by a Tau Firewarrior
That was never the case, though. Marines have always been better one-on-one than any other faction's base troops, save for 3rd/4th Ed Necrons.
I mean, take the worst-case scenario, 10 Choppa+Slugga Boyz charging a unit of 10 Tacticals (so the Orks are getting +1S and +1A) in 4th Ed, when Boyz were really nasty.
Marines hit first due to I4, so:
10 Tacticals, 11 attacks, 5.5 hits, 2.75 wounds, 2.3 unsaved.
7.7 Boyz remain, 30.8 attacks, 15.4 hits, 7.7 wounds, 2.56 unsaved.
The Boyz barely kill more Marines despite them being specialized into close combat while the Marines are specialized into shooting, and in subsequent turns as the Boyz drop from S4/A4 to S3/A3 they get creamed by the basic Tacticals.
Now shooting, as compared to Fire Warriors.
10 Tacticals shooting Fire Warriors at Rapid Fire range get 19 shots, 12.67 hits, 8.45 wounds, 4.23 kills.
10 Fire Warriors shooting Tacticals at Rapid Fire range get 20 shots, 10 hits, 6.67 wounds, 2.23 kills.
The Tacticals are nearly twice as good at shooting as 4th Ed Fire Warriors given comparable numbers. Heck, they can sit at the narrow range band where the Fire Warriors are shooting twice while the Marines only get to shoot once, and they're still nearly on par.
You always needed either high-level specialists or superior numbers to beat Marines.
When people complained about the power of Marines, it wasn't that they lost to other races 1-on-1, it's that they felt that Marines weren't superior enough when compared to Marine-centric fluff that shows Marines taking on entire armies on their own (as opposed to, like, the intro from Dawn of War, which goes pretty much like that Ork comparison above, or Fall of Malvolion where a whole company of Lamenters dies in 40 minutes, or fluff from anyone else's perspective).
None of that has changed, it's just been pushed to an extreme. Getting 15 Boyz into combat with 10 Tacticals isn't enough anymore; you need 30 Boyz to make it in with 10 Intercessors, and start with a lot more than that since you'll inevitably lose a bunch to 30" Rapid Fire AP-1 shooting and Overwatch.
I mean, your comparison isn't really fair because you aren't using units with the same point cost. Of course 10 custodes infantry are better than 10 IG infantry. But when the statlines are badly designed and pointed, you feel like you are outnumbered and underpowered. I remember feeling like that with my dark angels at the beginning of 8th when I faced an Imperial Guard army (when they had a codex) and he had nearly as many tanks as I had marine infantry, betweent manticores, basilisks, leman russes, and then infantry squads and tempestus scions.
Point per point ork boyz and Tau firewarriors have always laughed on tacticals. I believe is disingenuous to present the argument of people that felt like space marines were basically schmucks as if they wanted them to be bolter-porn protagonists or movie marines.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, lets. Because we are working off stock troop comparisons apparently. But then lets compare.
You're the one who brought up warriors...
No it's not. 40 shots with character support shooting at 2+ BS with 3+ wounds and AP-2 cannot kill a 5 model unit of infantry. AND they have to get within 12" to do it. That is not a pretty good return. Thats a garbage return.
Those warriors cost 260 points and with support (the Necron codex relies on setting up webs of support to function) generate a 52% return on investment against TEQ. Terminators were also buffed specifically to become harder to kill, this is the goal of the changes made.
If they were against MEQ or PEQ such a unit becomes massive overkill and thus inefficient which is why you won't see 20 warrior bricks armed with gauss reapers. Proposed lists uses blocks of 20 with humble gauss flayers and then blocks of 10 with reapers in ghost arks to bring the pain where it's needed.
Lance845 wrote: Yes, lets. Because we are working off stock troop comparisons apparently. But then lets compare.
You're the one who brought up warriors...
No it's not. 40 shots with character support shooting at 2+ BS with 3+ wounds and AP-2 cannot kill a 5 model unit of infantry. AND they have to get within 12" to do it. That is not a pretty good return. Thats a garbage return.
Those warriors cost 260 points and with support (the Necron codex relies on setting up webs of support to function) generate a 52% return on investment against TEQ. Terminators were also buffed specifically to become harder to kill, this is the goal of the changes made.
If they were against MEQ or PEQ such a unit becomes massive overkill and thus inefficient which is why you won't see 20 warrior bricks armed with gauss reapers. Proposed lists uses blocks of 20 with humble gauss flayers and then blocks of 10 with reapers in ghost arks to bring the pain where it's needed.
You're the one who wanted more examples of how it takes like 750-1500 points of models to kill 1 5 model unit of marine infantry.
You are just wrong man. Nobody wants to be playing the game where stock infantry are useless. Nobody wants to play the game where it takes hundreds of shots to kill 5 models. Again, it's bad for the game.
Not to mention, it could be 260 points of Necron Warriors with buffs to kill five three-four Terminators, and therefore just over 350 to kill a squad. A squad that, mind you, costs only 190 points, as compared to 260+buffs.
Or it could be as hard as over 1,000 points (over 80 Warriors) to kill a five-man TEQ squad, if they have Storm Shields and Cover.
Galas wrote: I don't disagree with any of that. I have stopped caring about warhammer stories a long time ago, specially those centered aroud bolter porn or the typical lore heroes.
Thats why I would prefer for ork nobz, necron inmortals, etc... to still be much superior troops than normal space marines. I don't have a problem with Necron Warriors, Ork Boyz, etc... being substantially inferior to normal baseline space marines when those armies have access to better troops than your average space marine.
As with all my "ideal scenarios", at least for me the biggest problems are still , Eldar. I just don't know how to make them elite without making them just Harlequins.
Basically for this, from Fantasy:
Spoiler:
Phoenix guard:
Chaos warrior:
Chaos chosen:
The most elite elven special unit was comparable to your "average" Chaos Warrior aka fantasy-marines.
Unless I'm misremembering, Phoenix Guard did have a 4+ Ward save (equivalent to an invulnerable), which helped them considerably in terms of their elite status.
Regardless, I get what you're saying and I don't disagree.
Though I will say that this seems like one of the problems with splitting Harlequins off, as they're now competing with the other Eldar factions for mechanics and design space. Though even then, it does seem very difficult to represent Eldar without making even their elite units overly weak and fragile.
IMO the Initiative mechanic really needs to make a comeback. Firstly, so that Eldar can feel fast in more ways than an extra inch of movement (seriously, who even cares?), and secondly so that Power Fists and their equivalents can go back to having a meaningful downside. -1 to hit in the edition of rerolls and buff-stacking just isn't enough to make up for the power these weapons currently have over other melee weapons (not really an Eldar problem - just something that's been bothering me for a while ).
Anyway, I think it's worth noting that Elves and Dark Elves in WHFB tended to get their status from special rules, rather than from toughness or saves. e.g.:
Always Strikes First - Aside from doing the obvious, this rule also granted them rerolls to hit agaisnt any units with lower Initiative.
Reroll 1s to wound - I can't remember if High Elves got this, but Dark Elves definitely did
+1 to all cast rolls with their own magic lore
etc.
The trouble is, Initiative no longer exists, rerolls don't mean much when Marines can get the same anyway, and Dark Eldar don't have psykers, let alone their own lore of magic.
To put it another way, the main thing that was used to make Elves and Dark Elves feel more elite was already given to Marines in spades.
Galas wrote: I mean, your comparison isn't really fair because you aren't using units with the same point cost.
But that's the entire point of this conversation. We're not talking about point-for-point efficiency, we're talking about where individual Marines stand on the power scale. Per model Marines have historically been right where they should be, being better than anyone else's core troops but losing out to more specialized elite units, with a T4/W1/3+ profile. If they needed a points reduction to be worthwhile, that's another issue entirely, but in terms of design they were right at the middle of the road. They didn't need a second wound to get there.
Now Marines are at the very top, but since Marines are by far the most common army and the most common matchup is Marines-vs-Marines, it just means Marines are still the baseline average and nearly everything else exists on a scale of horde unit to worthless chaff.
JNAProductions wrote: Not to mention, it could be 260 points of Necron Warriors with buffs to kill five three-four Terminators, and therefore just over 350 to kill a squad. A squad that, mind you, costs only 190 points, as compared to 260+buffs.
Or it could be as hard as over 1,000 points (over 80 Warriors) to kill a five-man TEQ squad, if they have Storm Shields and Cover.
Is a 50% point efficiency in shooting not good enough? Should we even be answering terminators with basic troops rather than other elite or heavy support choices?
This isn't to mention that those 20 warriors may still have the option to charge something with +1 to the roll which could raise their single turn efficiency by even more.
JNAProductions wrote: Not to mention, it could be 260 points of Necron Warriors with buffs to kill five three-four Terminators, and therefore just over 350 to kill a squad. A squad that, mind you, costs only 190 points, as compared to 260+buffs.
Or it could be as hard as over 1,000 points (over 80 Warriors) to kill a five-man TEQ squad, if they have Storm Shields and Cover.
Is a 50% point efficiency in shooting not good enough? Should we even be answering terminators with basic troops rather than other elite or heavy support choices?
This isn't to mention that those 20 warriors may still have the option to charge something with +1 to the roll which could raise their single turn efficiency by even more.
In a good game? 50% return should be pretty damn good.
IMO the Initiative mechanic really needs to make a comeback. Firstly, so that Eldar can feel fast in more ways than an extra inch of movement (seriously, who even cares?), and secondly so that Power Fists and their equivalents can go back to having a meaningful downside. -1 to hit in the edition of rerolls and buff-stacking just isn't enough to make up for the power these weapons currently have over other melee weapons (not really an Eldar problem - just something that's been bothering me for a while ).
Before 8th came out I was working on a fan version of 7th.
In that version I had scrapped initiative as a stat for a system that included a couple keywords on weapons.
Similar to 8th, whoever charged/turn it was got to attack first.
But some weapons/units had "Swift" which let them attack first and others had "slow" that had them attack last. If 2 had the same keyword then they would default to the turn structure to determine who goes first. Essentially there were 6 initiative steps.
Current player swift Opponent swift Current play Opponent Current player slow Opponent slow
So tyranid Scything talons would be swift weapons while rending claws had no speed related keyword (do you want to hit first or hit better?) Certain Eldar weapons/units would generally have swift (probably even a majority) Power fist and crushing claws would have slow.
You don't need to add in the initiative stat which universally feths over certain armies (orks/necrons) and instead the key word just shifts the things that need to be shifted up or down a step so they can act as appropriate in the correct situation.
So every faction should get eradicators and the like?
No, I'd prefer every faction get toned down in lethality considerably.
I admit, I got a bit caught up in the arguing-never good, always bad.
My personal desire is for every Codex to be released in short order, with good internal and external balance, with tabling someone being a pretty difficult endeavor because lethality was dropped by a ton.
JNAProductions wrote: No, I'd prefer every faction get toned down in lethality considerably.
I admit, I got a bit caught up in the arguing-never good, always bad.
My personal desire is for every Codex to be released in short order, with good internal and external balance, with tabling someone being a pretty difficult endeavor because lethality was dropped by a ton.
You can literally quote me, in this thread, saying that Marines are over-tuned right now. My argument isn't that Marines are balanced, rather it's that they aren't over-tuned because they gained some durability.
If you couldn't back terminators with something capable of damage dealing overkill, they'd just get stuck in a tarpit all game; the same goes for 2W tactical squads. The issue is that Marines have other units that kill too much that enable these tough units to function.
JNAProductions wrote: No, I'd prefer every faction get toned down in lethality considerably.
I admit, I got a bit caught up in the arguing-never good, always bad.
My personal desire is for every Codex to be released in short order, with good internal and external balance, with tabling someone being a pretty difficult endeavor because lethality was dropped by a ton.
You can literally quote me, in this thread, saying that Marines are over-tuned right now. My argument isn't that Marines are balanced, rather it's that they aren't over-tuned because they gained some durability.
If you couldn't back terminators with something capable of damage dealing overkill, they'd just get stuck in a tarpit all game; the same goes for 2W tactical squads. The issue is that Marines have other units that kill too much that enable these tough units to function.
But, in order to tune the game back down, they need to loose those changes. If the lethality of the game goes down those extra wounds are insanity (it's insanity now but whatever). And as shown through examples here often units are not lethal enough despite throwing WAY too many dice.
Lance845 wrote: But, in order to tune the game back down, they need to loose those changes. If the lethality of the game goes down those extra wounds are insanity (it's insanity now but whatever). And as shown through examples here often units are not lethal enough despite throwing WAY too many dice.
The game is balanced around points, not what some players feel are too many dice.
Lance845 wrote: But, in order to tune the game back down, they need to loose those changes. If the lethality of the game goes down those extra wounds are insanity (it's insanity now but whatever). And as shown through examples here often units are not lethal enough despite throwing WAY too many dice.
The game is balanced around points, not what some players feel are too many dice.
As we are seeing with the new dexes, even points can´t help GW balance this game properly. Lance is completely right, the game is an absolute slog to play when you are rolling 100+ dice for several units to kill, wait for it, less than 10 marines. It's not just about balance, the game should be smooth to play too.
Castozor wrote: As we are seeing with the new dexes, even points can´t help GW balance this game properly. Lance is completely right, the game is an absolute slog to play when you are rolling 100+ dice for several units to kill, wait for it, less than 10 marines. It's not just about balance, the game should be smooth to play too.
Are you saying that Necrons aren't balanced against Marines? Have you played that match-up yet or...
Castozor wrote: As we are seeing with the new dexes, even points can´t help GW balance this game properly. Lance is completely right, the game is an absolute slog to play when you are rolling 100+ dice for several units to kill, wait for it, less than 10 marines. It's not just about balance, the game should be smooth to play too.
Are you saying that Necrons aren't balanced against Marines? Have you played that match-up yet or...
We are saying that none of this is balanced against anything and the current marine set up just exacerbates the situation.
A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
Castozor wrote: A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
So one bad unit is all it takes to ruin the game for you... If that's the case, why are you still here?
As for me, I have fun with the game and this forum. I can enjoy a flawed product.
Castozor wrote: A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
I think we. As a community need to make rules at the competitive level. Plus at the local level that deal with units like eradicators.
Like maybe. Ban them? That is what they do in other games when something is as insane as eradicators.
Castozor wrote: A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
So one bad unit is all it takes to ruin the game for you... If that's the case, why are you still here?
As for me, I have fun with the game and this forum. I can enjoy a flawed product.
More dodging from you it seems as expected. Eradicators are the most glaring flaw, but not the only one in the marine dex.
Castozor wrote: More dodging from you it seems as expected. Eradicators are the most glaring flaw, but not the only one in the marine dex.
I just said I have fun with the game even with its flaws and that was literally answering the question you put forth, but seeing as that wasn't good enough let us do this:
Yes, I enjoy 40k even with the flaws. I don't see rolling a bucket of dice as an issue because you can use an app for that in friendly games and, as much as I enjoy reading about them, I don't play in tournaments. Yes, Marines are over-tuned at the moment but I think it's due to units like Exterminators and Aggressors being too good and not due to the extra durability some units that were rarely used competitively were given in the new codex.
Castozor wrote: A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
What if the answer is both or neither? That's a very polarised opinion to uphold.
Castozor wrote: More dodging from you it seems as expected. Eradicators are the most glaring flaw, but not the only one in the marine dex.
I just said I have fun with the game even with its flaws and that was literally answering the question you put forth, but seeing as that wasn't good enough let us do this:
Yes, I enjoy 40k even with the flaws. I don't see rolling a bucket of dice as an issue because you can use an app for that in friendly games and, as much as I enjoy reading about them, I don't play in tournaments. Yes, Marines are over-tuned at the moment but I think it's due to units like Exterminators and Aggressors being too good and not due to the extra durability some units that were rarely used competitively were given in the new codex.
You also said in this thread that you don't look ahead to what impact these changes have on the broader game and other armies. So your opinion from your limited scope is only capable of counting for so much if you cant be bothered to try and measure the impact outside of your codex.
Castozor wrote: A single glance to eradicators tells me all I need to know, no need to wait for my own codex. But since you seem to be dodging it: do you actually enjoy the game or do you think it is nice to play by rolling boatloads of dice each turn for little to no return?
So one bad unit is all it takes to ruin the game for you... If that's the case, why are you still here?
As for me, I have fun with the game and this forum. I can enjoy a flawed product.
More dodging from you it seems as expected. Eradicators are the most glaring flaw, but not the only one in the marine dex.
then name the other "glaring issues" I think the eradicators horse has been well and truely beaten to death. it's ground meat at this point.
Castozor wrote: As we are seeing with the new dexes, even points can´t help GW balance this game properly. Lance is completely right, the game is an absolute slog to play when you are rolling 100+ dice for several units to kill, wait for it, less than 10 marines. It's not just about balance, the game should be smooth to play too.
Are you saying that Necrons aren't balanced against Marines? Have you played that match-up yet or...
Just thought I would put this quote here from another thread since it's relevant.
EightFoldPath wrote: A Sautekh 9th edition army gets: 51 data sheets (best of any dynasty by a good few) 35 strategems 7 warlord traits 9 relics 21 extras (12 arkana + 9 c'tan powers)
An Ultramarines 9th edition army gets (I ran out of fingers and toes several times so may have miscounted): 110 data sheets (116% more) 50 strategems (42% more) 18 warlord traits (157% more) 30 relics (233% more) 45 extras (7 chapter command upgrades with 7 more warlord traits and 7 more relics, 18 psychic powers, 6 litanies) (114% more)
The supplements are the mistake that keeps on giving.
Also, don't worry forgeworld will be coming soon to give Space Marines a much needed helping hand.
For Necrons in general:
Only 5 out of 51 data sheets are Core. Then they have Capotek and Destroyer Cult as alternatives. This is bad, as it splits the book into three groups that don't work with each other.
The command protocols are also really hard to use effectively, you are constantly thinking "wish I had this one last turn/ext turn". Then when you do get the right protocol, your unit isn't in range of any characters... Can't I just I have an extra AP on all my rapid fire and assault guns turn 2 and 3 no matter where I am standing?
Lance845 wrote: You also said in this thread that you don't look ahead to what impact these changes have on the broader game and other armies. So your opinion from your limited scope is only capable of counting for so much if you cant be bothered to try and measure the impact outside of your codex.
I'm going to make you quote me on that one.
The one thing I said is that we can't look at the Necron and Marine rules and compare them backwards to un-updated books. You cannot advance a game by looking backwards.
Lance845 wrote: Just thought I would put this quote here from another thread since it's relevant.
EightFoldPath wrote: A Sautekh 9th edition army gets:
51 data sheets (best of any dynasty by a good few)
35 strategems
7 warlord traits
9 relics
21 extras (12 arkana + 9 c'tan powers)
An Ultramarines 9th edition army gets (I ran out of fingers and toes several times so may have miscounted):
110 data sheets (116% more)
50 strategems (42% more)
18 warlord traits (157% more)
30 relics (233% more)
45 extras (7 chapter command upgrades with 7 more warlord traits and 7 more relics, 18 psychic powers, 6 litanies) (114% more)
The supplements are the mistake that keeps on giving.
Also, don't worry forgeworld will be coming soon to give Space Marines a much needed helping hand.
For Necrons in general:
Only 5 out of 51 data sheets are Core. Then they have Capotek and Destroyer Cult as alternatives. This is bad, as it splits the book into three groups that don't work with each other.
The command protocols are also really hard to use effectively, you are constantly thinking "wish I had this one last turn/ext turn". Then when you do get the right protocol, your unit isn't in range of any characters... Can't I just I have an extra AP on all my rapid fire and assault guns turn 2 and 3 no matter where I am standing?
What do fewer data sheets have to do with balance? You can't just quote numbers and claim imbalance just because Marines have more stuff than Necrons.
For one, no Marine list can take every data sheet in a single battle. Second lists are often locked in for the day when playing at a shop because you can only carry so much. In tournaments, your list is locked for the entire event. So unless every one of those extra sheets options is pure cheese you gain little competitive advantage by having them.
You also can't say that Core versus not core is broken as we have only two examples to go by and nobody has put in the actual games to do more than armchair theory-crafting thus far. It could be that an all Destroyer Cult list emerges as pure game destroying cheese even if that's rather unlikely.
But none of this matters because I've already said that Marines are too strong. I just disagree that the extra wounds for Old Marines is what breaks them. That horse had bolted with Primaris.
Castozor wrote: More dodging from you it seems as expected. Eradicators are the most glaring flaw, but not the only one in the marine dex.
I just said I have fun with the game even with its flaws and that was literally answering the question you put forth, but seeing as that wasn't good enough let us do this:
Yes, I enjoy 40k even with the flaws. I don't see rolling a bucket of dice as an issue because you can use an app for that in friendly games and, as much as I enjoy reading about them, I don't play in tournaments. Yes, Marines are over-tuned at the moment but I think it's due to units like Exterminators and Aggressors being too good and not due to the extra durability some units that were rarely used competitively were given in the new codex.
Ah you use an app, fair enough. I don't like using them, so I find rolling loads of dice annoying especially when the pay off is so low. Also it seems perhaps I phrased my question wrong if more than one person interprets it differently from what I meant. I was specifically referring to that dice rolling as being fun/good inclusion to the game. I agree the overall game is very fun despite the issues.
Lance845 wrote: Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.
I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications. Bringing other units in line with the new normal based on fluff or balance has ramifications. It not only doesn't make sense fluff wise (unless you start moving everyone else up also) it also doesn't help the game mechanically. It was a bad choice for the game. And I suspect down the line it's going to get worse. Worse for everyone who doesn't get moved up or worse for everyone when we all start throwing tons of dice to no effect. Unless they also make all weapons more lethal too. Then even though the numbers are bigger it won't actually have changed anything.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also nobody has said that old marines getting 2w is THE thing breaking marines. Its been argued that it is A thing that is breaking marines and that the ramifications of such a change are bad for the game.
Lance845 wrote: Oh, well I assumed that if synapse toughness is representing how the hive mind drives tyranid organisms to ignore paint hen the whole faction should be getting it shouldn't they? It's not like a warrior or a ravener would be driven differently then a gant.
Since we are using fluff to justify how rules should be written and what "feels right".
While I agree that a faction wide FnP would make sense for Tyranids, that would require a lot of reworking versus giving a bump to a horde unit that isn't seeing a lot of play. That also explains why I didn't go into every ramification that such a change would cause.
I am in this thread debating these things specifically because I think about ramifications. All marines having 2 wounds has ramifications. Bringing other units in line with the new normal based on fluff or balance has ramifications. It not only doesn't make sense fluff wise (unless you start moving everyone else up also) it also doesn't help the game mechanically. It was a bad choice for the game. And I suspect down the line it's going to get worse. Worse for everyone who doesn't get moved up or worse for everyone when we all start throwing tons of dice to no effect. Unless they also make all weapons more lethal too. Then even though the numbers are bigger it won't actually have changed anything.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also nobody has said that old marines getting 2w is THE thing breaking marines. Its been argued that it is A thing that is breaking marines and that the ramifications of such a change are bad for the game.
really? funny because we have an entire thread devoted to complaining about it titled "I don't think Marines should have two wounds"
Yes really. Amazingly this entire thread can be about the one issue. There are multiple threads about eradicators. Not because eradicators are the only problem, but because they are A problem.
I don't see an issue so far beyond Xenos factions not getting their new codexes yet, there might be plenty of D2 weapons and horde buff just waiting to roll out. But I am biased as a SW player... don't look at my sig.
Castozor wrote: Ah you use an app, fair enough. I don't like using them, so I find rolling loads of dice annoying especially when the pay off is so low. Also it seems perhaps I phrased my question wrong if more than one person interprets it differently from what I meant. I was specifically referring to that dice rolling as being fun/good inclusion to the game. I agree the overall game is very fun despite the issues.
I can see both liking and not liking a ton of die rolling. Some people love that chance to spike a roll and other people dislike all that rolling for little effect. Whatever we think, GW thinks rolling dice is the height of fun so I doubt that changes.
Castozor wrote: Ah you use an app, fair enough. I don't like using them, so I find rolling loads of dice annoying especially when the pay off is so low. Also it seems perhaps I phrased my question wrong if more than one person interprets it differently from what I meant. I was specifically referring to that dice rolling as being fun/good inclusion to the game. I agree the overall game is very fun despite the issues.
I can see both liking and not liking a ton of die rolling. Some people love that chance to spike a roll and other people dislike all that rolling for little effect. Whatever we think, GW thinks rolling dice is the height of fun so I doubt that changes.
rolling dice and beating the odds typically gives a brief feeling of adrenaline and excitement. so from that POV, strictly speaking, dice rolling can indeed be pleasurable but for that to be fun it needs to have an effect that is reasonable, shaving one wound off a warlord titan after rolling 600 dice...... yeah that's not gonna do it
Lance845 wrote: Or killing 5 terminators after rolling 300 dice instead of the statistical average 450.
you shouldn't be shooting terminators with lasguns anyway mind you
Even if thats all you are in range of/w ill be in range of before your lasguns get removed from the game ?
Right. Lasguns are str 3 and single shot. The gun I was referencing was str 4 and tripple shot. Those numbers are far worse with lasguns. And they don't get much better when it's a tac marine.
Lance845 wrote: Or killing 5 terminators after rolling 300 dice instead of the statistical average 450.
you shouldn't be shooting terminators with lasguns anyway mind you
Even if thats all you are in range of/w ill be in range of before your lasguns get removed from the game ?
Right. Lasguns are str 3 and single shot. The gun I was referencing was str 4 and tripple shot. Those numbers are far worse with lasguns. And they don't get much better when it's a tac marine.
terminators are intended to require anti-tank weapons to crack. one of the dumbest things about termies before 8th edition was how the most effective way to deal with them was just hose them with small arms fire. Marine players HATED it.
Lance845 wrote: Or killing 5 terminators after rolling 300 dice instead of the statistical average 450.
you shouldn't be shooting terminators with lasguns anyway mind you
Even if thats all you are in range of/w ill be in range of before your lasguns get removed from the game ?
Right. Lasguns are str 3 and single shot. The gun I was referencing was str 4 and tripple shot. Those numbers are far worse with lasguns. And they don't get much better when it's a tac marine.
terminators are intended to require anti-tank weapons to crack. one of the dumbest things about termies before 8th edition was how the most effective way to deal with them was just hose them with small arms fire. Marine players HATED it.
Hosing them with small arms fire was rarely the most effective way to deal with them unless they were sporting 3++ stormshields that made weapons intended to destroy them largely ineffective. Taking 36 lasgun shots to average a single dead terminator wasn't a terribly effective return on effectively two full squads of rapid-firing guardsmen. What was effective was spamming multi-shot S6+ weapons that wounded on 2's and could hit from halfway across the board
Lance845 wrote: Or killing 5 terminators after rolling 300 dice instead of the statistical average 450.
you shouldn't be shooting terminators with lasguns anyway mind you
Even if thats all you are in range of/w ill be in range of before your lasguns get removed from the game ?
Right. Lasguns are str 3 and single shot. The gun I was referencing was str 4 and tripple shot. Those numbers are far worse with lasguns. And they don't get much better when it's a tac marine.
terminators are intended to require anti-tank weapons to crack. one of the dumbest things about termies before 8th edition was how the most effective way to deal with them was just hose them with small arms fire. Marine players HATED it.
Hosing them with small arms fire was rarely the most effective way to deal with them unless they were sporting 3++ stormshields that made weapons intended to destroy them largely ineffective. Taking 36 lasgun shots to average a single dead terminator wasn't a terribly effective return on effectively two full squads of rapid-firing guardsmen. What was effective was spamming multi-shot S6+ weapons that wounded on 2's and could hit from halfway across the board
This. Anti tank weapons in the past were all single shot weapons. When the terminators invul save made that single shot a crap shoot spamming cheaper many shots was more effective. This is an issue unrelated to the number of wounds they have. Its related to the way the weapons work with stat lines and mechanics that are 40 years old.
It's just my opinion that the game has outgrown the D6 system. Stats are confined to math that can be resolved with a D6. Str v. T.
Swapping to D10's or D12's would add granularity that could resolve trying to compare a super human in the best armour available to an ork with a tshirt.
bfdhud wrote: It's just my opinion that the game has outgrown the D6 system. Stats are confined to math that can be resolved with a D6. Str v. T.
Swapping to D10's or D12's would add granularity that could resolve trying to compare a super human in the best armour available to an ork with a tshirt.
Which i can agree with IF they condense profiles from per model to per unit ala apocalypse. The availability of larger dice in quantities we would need with the current profile set up is not good.
Lance845 wrote: This. Anti tank weapons in the past were all single shot weapons. When the terminators invul save made that single shot a crap shoot spamming cheaper many shots was more effective. This is an issue unrelated to the number of wounds they have. Its related to the way the weapons work with stat lines and mechanics that are 40 years old.
One of the side effects of handing out strong invulns like candy is that it devalues high-power weapons and incentivizes high-volume mid-strength weapons.
We're seeing the same exact issue in 8th/9th despite the completely different AP system simply because GW has not learned the implications of their stat model.
bfdhud wrote: It's just my opinion that the game has outgrown the D6 system. Stats are confined to math that can be resolved with a D6. Str v. T.
Swapping to D10's or D12's would add granularity that could resolve trying to compare a super human in the best armour available to an ork with a tshirt.
I've played plenty of non-GW games that substantially differentiated troops without needing to use dice other than D6s. If a wargame wants me to break out the D12s so it can model 8% increments in armor effectiveness but has no modeling whatsoever of communications, intelligence, reconnaissance, armor facing, cohesion, or even the effects of range on gunfire, it is going down the wrong path as far as differentiating units.
If anything, higher granularity is more relevant to role-playing games or smaller-scale skirmish games, where variances in individual equipment are much more important. It's also great for large-scale games to reduce the number of distinct rolls required, so that complex stats can be boiled down into fewer rolls with more granular modifiers.
Apocalypse is a good reference point there because it doesn't use D12s to add more granularity to individual unit stats than exists in 40K; it uses them to reduce the amount of rolling required. Instead of having separate stats for strength, AP, and damage, they're all baked into a single D12 value for anti-infantry and another for anti-vehicle, and you only roll a couple of dice at a time. Then the game uses D12s for armor saves, but every two hits consolidates into a single D6 roll, so again it drastically reduces the number of rolls needed.
I would sooner french kiss a wasp nest than play a 40K variant where my 50pt Infantry Squads are each throwing 40+ D12s to resolve an attack. At the scale where we're deploying skyscraper-sized machines and fielding strategic artillery, the difference in physical toughness between a Space Marine and an Ork really does not matter, nor does the difference in armor protection between a Space Marine and a Sister of Battle. A battalion commander doesn't, and shouldn't, care about those things.
bfdhud wrote: It's just my opinion that the game has outgrown the D6 system. Stats are confined to math that can be resolved with a D6. Str v. T.
Swapping to D10's or D12's would add granularity that could resolve trying to compare a super human in the best armour available to an ork with a tshirt.
I actually think D8 would be a smoother transition as you don't have to bump as much in terms of stats BUT it offers a decent amount of granularity to offer stacking of modifiers.
Having 3-5 separate rolls involving 8 different statistics with at least 4 different types of conditional buff available for each roll just to determine the outcome of a single shooting attack provides plenty of granularity.
Diving into rivet-counting levels of granularity on individual rolls and mistaking it for game depth is bad design. Especially in a system that has reached a scale where subtle differences between stat values really don't (and shouldn't) matter to the big picture.
Edit: I mean, most of the time when people complain about lack of granularity, it's a fluff complaint, not a functional/gameplay one. Narratively, people expect a Space Marine to be mechanically more accurate than an Astra Militarum Veteran just out of principle. Functionally, a BS3+ Marine with a bolter, Bolter Discipline, and Doctrines is still a significantly better shooter than a BS3+ vet with a lasgun. We don't need a D12 system where the Marine can finally be properly represented as 8% more accurate than the Veteran to accomplish the desired effect.
Yeah, remember that 40k is a game where you play on a 42" wide board with 48" being a not-unusual range value for a weapon, and that weapon is exactly as effective firing at a model 1.01" away as it is firing at a model 48" away.
We've got I think A LITTLE BIT of room for adjustment before we need to change the kind of dice we use.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, something that made me laugh so much about Infinity when I first decided to give it a shot is that my buddy was talking up so hard how much more granular it was because it used D20s instead of D6s, and how much better that was, but there were SO MANY instances where Infinity basically just defaulted to "+/-3" on the D20 roll to make sure some penalty or bonus or whatever felt like it had some kind of effect.
....that's pretty darn close to _+/- 1/6. It's almost like, as in DnD, a +1 on a roll of a D20 doesn't feel like enough of a bonus to actually be satisfying.
Having 3-5 separate rolls involving 8 different statistics with at least 4 different types of conditional buff available for each roll just to determine the outcome of a single shooting attack provides plenty of granularity.
Diving into rivet-counting levels of granularity on individual rolls and mistaking it for game depth is bad design. Especially in a system that has reached a scale where subtle differences between stat values really don't (and shouldn't) matter to the big picture.
Edit: I mean, most of the time when people complain about lack of granularity, it's a fluff complaint, not a functional/gameplay one. Narratively, people expect a Space Marine to be mechanically more accurate than an Astra Militarum Veteran just out of principle. Functionally, a BS3+ Marine with a bolter, Bolter Discipline, and Doctrines is still a significantly better shooter than a BS3+ vet with a lasgun. We don't need a D12 system where the Marine can finally be properly represented as 8% more accurate than the Veteran to accomplish the desired effect.
You literally just described bloat of rules for the Marine when we should be against bloat.
Having 3-5 separate rolls involving 8 different statistics with at least 4 different types of conditional buff available for each roll just to determine the outcome of a single shooting attack provides plenty of granularity.
Diving into rivet-counting levels of granularity on individual rolls and mistaking it for game depth is bad design. Especially in a system that has reached a scale where subtle differences between stat values really don't (and shouldn't) matter to the big picture.
Edit: I mean, most of the time when people complain about lack of granularity, it's a fluff complaint, not a functional/gameplay one. Narratively, people expect a Space Marine to be mechanically more accurate than an Astra Militarum Veteran just out of principle. Functionally, a BS3+ Marine with a bolter, Bolter Discipline, and Doctrines is still a significantly better shooter than a BS3+ vet with a lasgun. We don't need a D12 system where the Marine can finally be properly represented as 8% more accurate than the Veteran to accomplish the desired effect.
You literally just described bloat of rules for the Marine when we should be against bloat.
They did not, those are merely the normal core blocks of the game as it stands. Dice modification as a mechanic is fine. A fundamental problem a lot of folks have in grasping dice games is that the shape of the randomizer is pretty much irrelevant beyond the quickness and transparency of probability calculations off the top of your head. If the designer wants a thing to happen 5 % of the time, you can twist any type of dice to produce that. A D6 is the most commonly found and easiest to use die (packs well, is easy to read, rolls well etc.) on Earth which fits its purpose in a game where you need to roll a lot of them AND it can be squeezed to produce a ton of mathematical tricks 40k doesn't even use. Beyond a broader range of basic results, there is nothing inherently better in other polyhedrons you couldn't get out of the humble D6. Most importantly, simply changing to such a broader range wouldn't do much good for the game in terms of adding depth or decision making, because then you'd just be using slightly modified probabilities for the exact same decisions that you made in the previous version.
And as has been noted above, there are piles of games that can produce interesting gameplay with the D6's just fine. Interesting mechanics aren't about the numbers, but the interactions and the decisions that lead into said numbers at the table. A coin flip is a fine mechanic for conflict resolution, if the gameplay that leads into that coin flip has already been meaningful and thought provoking. A coin flip, a D100 roll-off, a pool of dozen D20's or a bucket of every single Platonic solid with numbers on them aren't anything of note by themselves if the decisions attached to said throws aren't interesting already.
Karol wrote: Aren't they also the cheapest to make, so you can hike the price much higher for a bigger return too?
In theory. 'Custom dice' are more about the collectible factor than anything else.
For gameplay, nothing stops anyone from buying and using cheap dice- a bag of 50 16mm dice from Chessex is about $29. Their sets of 12 are $4 to $7 depending on the type. (Opaque being cheaper than translucent).
People wildly overpay for GW dice because they want to. And if you've bought starter sets over the years, you just have packs of dice laying around.
When I said the lethality of the game is too damn high waaaaaay back in 8th, I didn't think that durability should go up to meet it.
I thought that lethality should come down.
Durability increasing to meet lethality has several significant taxes on actual game execution. For example, I can envision a game where a single Terminator dyes to unit X, which has 30 shots, and a game where a single Terminator dyes to Unit X again, but this time with 300 shots. Those games are equal, in that Unit X kills a single terminator with all its shots, but they are obviously very different to actually play. Lethality should've come down, rather than durability going up.
Having 3-5 separate rolls involving 8 different statistics with at least 4 different types of conditional buff available for each roll just to determine the outcome of a single shooting attack provides plenty of granularity.
Diving into rivet-counting levels of granularity on individual rolls and mistaking it for game depth is bad design. Especially in a system that has reached a scale where subtle differences between stat values really don't (and shouldn't) matter to the big picture.
Edit: I mean, most of the time when people complain about lack of granularity, it's a fluff complaint, not a functional/gameplay one. Narratively, people expect a Space Marine to be mechanically more accurate than an Astra Militarum Veteran just out of principle. Functionally, a BS3+ Marine with a bolter, Bolter Discipline, and Doctrines is still a significantly better shooter than a BS3+ vet with a lasgun. We don't need a D12 system where the Marine can finally be properly represented as 8% more accurate than the Veteran to accomplish the desired effect.
You literally just described bloat of rules for the Marine when we should be against bloat.
They did not, those are merely the normal core blocks of the game as it stands. Dice modification as a mechanic is fine. A fundamental problem a lot of folks have in grasping dice games is that the shape of the randomizer is pretty much irrelevant beyond the quickness and transparency of probability calculations off the top of your head. If the designer wants a thing to happen 5 % of the time, you can twist any type of dice to produce that. A D6 is the most commonly found and easiest to use die (packs well, is easy to read, rolls well etc.) on Earth which fits its purpose in a game where you need to roll a lot of them AND it can be squeezed to produce a ton of mathematical tricks 40k doesn't even use. Beyond a broader range of basic results, there is nothing inherently better in other polyhedrons you couldn't get out of the humble D6. Most importantly, simply changing to such a broader range wouldn't do much good for the game in terms of adding depth or decision making, because then you'd just be using slightly modified probabilities for the exact same decisions that you made in the previous version.
And as has been noted above, there are piles of games that can produce interesting gameplay with the D6's just fine. Interesting mechanics aren't about the numbers, but the interactions and the decisions that lead into said numbers at the table. A coin flip is a fine mechanic for conflict resolution, if the gameplay that leads into that coin flip has already been meaningful and thought provoking. A coin flip, a D100 roll-off, a pool of dozen D20's or a bucket of every single Platonic solid with numbers on them aren't anything of note by themselves if the decisions attached to said throws aren't interesting already.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You literally just described bloat of rules for the Marine when we should be against bloat.
I may not like the current mechanism of representing Marine fire superiority, but functionally it illustrates the point that a Tactical can be significantly more powerful than a Veteran without needing further granularity to the statlines.
It's not like going to a D8 system so that Marines can hit on 3+ while Vets hit on 4+ would suddenly obviate the need for those bloated rules. They exist for coarse adjustment, not the fine-tuning that higher granularity can theoretically provide.
Having 3-5 separate rolls involving 8 different statistics with at least 4 different types of conditional buff available for each roll just to determine the outcome of a single shooting attack provides plenty of granularity.
Diving into rivet-counting levels of granularity on individual rolls and mistaking it for game depth is bad design. Especially in a system that has reached a scale where subtle differences between stat values really don't (and shouldn't) matter to the big picture.
Edit: I mean, most of the time when people complain about lack of granularity, it's a fluff complaint, not a functional/gameplay one. Narratively, people expect a Space Marine to be mechanically more accurate than an Astra Militarum Veteran just out of principle. Functionally, a BS3+ Marine with a bolter, Bolter Discipline, and Doctrines is still a significantly better shooter than a BS3+ vet with a lasgun. We don't need a D12 system where the Marine can finally be properly represented as 8% more accurate than the Veteran to accomplish the desired effect.
You literally just described bloat of rules for the Marine when we should be against bloat.
They did not, those are merely the normal core blocks of the game as it stands. Dice modification as a mechanic is fine. A fundamental problem a lot of folks have in grasping dice games is that the shape of the randomizer is pretty much irrelevant beyond the quickness and transparency of probability calculations off the top of your head. If the designer wants a thing to happen 5 % of the time, you can twist any type of dice to produce that. A D6 is the most commonly found and easiest to use die (packs well, is easy to read, rolls well etc.) on Earth which fits its purpose in a game where you need to roll a lot of them AND it can be squeezed to produce a ton of mathematical tricks 40k doesn't even use. Beyond a broader range of basic results, there is nothing inherently better in other polyhedrons you couldn't get out of the humble D6. Most importantly, simply changing to such a broader range wouldn't do much good for the game in terms of adding depth or decision making, because then you'd just be using slightly modified probabilities for the exact same decisions that you made in the previous version.
And as has been noted above, there are piles of games that can produce interesting gameplay with the D6's just fine. Interesting mechanics aren't about the numbers, but the interactions and the decisions that lead into said numbers at the table. A coin flip is a fine mechanic for conflict resolution, if the gameplay that leads into that coin flip has already been meaningful and thought provoking. A coin flip, a D100 roll-off, a pool of dozen D20's or a bucket of every single Platonic solid with numbers on them aren't anything of note by themselves if the decisions attached to said throws aren't interesting already.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
Dude, most of those rules you just quoted have nothing to do with the topic of dice mechanics, BD and SA just increase their number. What catbarf was talking about there was that the argument for the limited granularity of a D6 is utterly silly because the interesting bit, one attack sequence from start to finish, already has so many connecting mechanics from a spread of unit characteristics to dice modifiers to rerolls to whatever special rules various weapons have that the spread of distinct results is way wider than you'd ever need for it to be (many games do fine with a fraction of the probability space of 40k's sequencing). Changing the size of the die itself has nothing relevant to add to that when the granularity is already pretty dang high as a whole, if not at the moment of a singular die roll.
I also never said a thing about the price, because that is a nonfactor. If you like the other polyhedral forms aesthetically better than cubes, more power to you, but they aren't inherently mechanically any better or create any better play. all of that comes from the interactions in the mechanics. Lack of granularity is not a problem in the framework currently used.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
It's actually all related. When you're piling rules on top of rules to create depth, there was a problem with the initial system to begin with. The D6 was already limiting even in 4th! Bolters just stopped wounding after T6. Lasguns already couldn't touch T5 basically. The vehicle system has always been poorly handled. Fast forward several editions and we have an absolutely awful wounding system because of not only is the design team trying to create a simple system (yet failing at it because, you guessed it, bloat) but it scales absolutely horrible.
The point is simple and it's that the D6 just doesn't work for what people want out of the game.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
It's actually all related. When you're piling rules on top of rules to create depth, there was a problem with the initial system to begin with. The D6 was already limiting even in 4th! Bolters just stopped wounding after T6. Lasguns already couldn't touch T5 basically. The vehicle system has always been poorly handled. Fast forward several editions and we have an absolutely awful wounding system because of not only is the design team trying to create a simple system (yet failing at it because, you guessed it, bloat) but it scales absolutely horrible.
The point is simple and it's that the D6 just doesn't work for what people want out of the game.
30 bolters isn't designing for "depth", it's designing to sell product. Same with supplements.
And you're incorrect about wounding in 4th, Lasguns wounded up to T6 and Bolters up to T7. Also, it was fine. Arguably that gave more depth than the current paradigm.
You're argument is basically saying that ANY special rules mean that the underlying system is broken, which is just a poor argument on the face of it. There's nothing inherently wrong with special rules, the art is just in how/why they are applied. A unit getting an extra shot at 24" when standing still isn't breaking the bank, design wise, and it's certainly not some kind of proof that rolling D10s is in any way necessary.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
How is it bloat when everyone knows that most marine guns are going to have an assault, rapid fire and heavy version. And some stuff is just stupid like having a separate gravis captin and a gravis captin with a new gun, but I doubt that this makes people confused somehow.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
How is it bloat when everyone knows that most marine guns are going to have an assault, rapid fire and heavy version. And some stuff is just stupid like having a separate gravis captin and a gravis captin with a new gun, but I doubt that this makes people confused somehow.
Because having 30 guns with overlapping roles is totally unnecessary. You're looking at variations of a S4 anti-infantry weapon, which produce minor variations in result when firing at a target. You could probably cut it down to six weapons and achieve the same gameplay results to about 90%.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
How is it bloat when everyone knows that most marine guns are going to have an assault, rapid fire and heavy version. And some stuff is just stupid like having a separate gravis captin and a gravis captin with a new gun, but I doubt that this makes people confused somehow.
Because having 30 guns with overlapping roles is totally unnecessary. You're looking at variations of a S4 anti-infantry weapon, which produce minor variations in result when firing at a target. You could probably cut it down to six weapons and achieve the same gameplay results to about 90%.
Agreed - the current Marine dex has four entire pages in small print devoted to just weapon stats - twice as much as the original Rogue Trader list for the entire universe.
I personally like the detail of per model stats and overlapping weapons. Sure it's unnecessary duplication, but it adds a level of detail to the game that matches the lore.
Brother Castor wrote: I personally like the detail of per model stats and overlapping weapons. Sure it's unnecessary duplication, but it adds a level of detail to the game that matches the lore.
I'm not saying one can't enjoy the extra detail, I'm just saying it's unnecessary bloat from a design perspective. It's also another area of the game where the resolution of detail for Marines is turned waaay up over everybody else.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
It's actually all related. When you're piling rules on top of rules to create depth, there was a problem with the initial system to begin with. The D6 was already limiting even in 4th! Bolters just stopped wounding after T6. Lasguns already couldn't touch T5 basically. The vehicle system has always been poorly handled. Fast forward several editions and we have an absolutely awful wounding system because of not only is the design team trying to create a simple system (yet failing at it because, you guessed it, bloat) but it scales absolutely horrible.
The point is simple and it's that the D6 just doesn't work for what people want out of the game.
30 bolters isn't designing for "depth", it's designing to sell product. Same with supplements.
And you're incorrect about wounding in 4th, Lasguns wounded up to T6 and Bolters up to T7. Also, it was fine. Arguably that gave more depth than the current paradigm.
You're argument is basically saying that ANY special rules mean that the underlying system is broken, which is just a poor argument on the face of it. There's nothing inherently wrong with special rules, the art is just in how/why they are applied. A unit getting an extra shot at 24" when standing still isn't breaking the bank, design wise, and it's certainly not some kind of proof that rolling D10s is in any way necessary.
Amazing, Slayer's arguments of "them all being related" are just gripes about separate issues absolutely unrelated to his conclusion on the dice. That's impressive, honestly.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: It's actually all related. When you're piling rules on top of rules to create depth, there was a problem with the initial system to begin with. The D6 was already limiting even in 4th! Bolters just stopped wounding after T6. Lasguns already couldn't touch T5 basically. The vehicle system has always been poorly handled. Fast forward several editions and we have an absolutely awful wounding system because of not only is the design team trying to create a simple system (yet failing at it because, you guessed it, bloat) but it scales absolutely horrible.
If the real fix for the wounding system was to switch to a D12 so that we could allow bolters to wound T8 on a roll of 12... Then we could just bring back 6/4+ (IE roll a 6 followed by a 4+) to get the same probability on a D6. Clunky? Sure. More clunky to add a re-roll to a very niche scenario than to use D12s for all core mechanics? Absolutely not.
Like I said, I don't particularly like the execution of special rules as the answer for Marines. But ditch doctrines, turn Bolter Discipline into a single bonus shot at all ranges, and just bake Shock Assault into the profiles as +1A all the time, and now that's down to just one thematic special rule providing the requisite combat boost.
And in any case, special rules are not synonymous with bloat. Good designers produce simple systems with special rules where needed to achieve the desired impact. A simplistic system that relies on tons of special rules to provide depth and a complex system with numerous granular checks to resolve basic actions are both examples of bad design. 40K is somewhere leaning towards the worst of both worlds; advocating more granularity, more detail, more complex stat ranges to sub in for special rules is just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Get the game to where you don't need 8 different stats and 3-5 dice rolls just to resolve a basic shooting attack, and then we can talk about more granular die types as a mechanic. See: Apocalypse.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: the D6 just doesn't work for what people want out of the game.
Yeah, well, GW could release 10th Edition with every model having just an Attack stat and a Defense stat and resolving combat with D20s and a million special rules, and people would argue that the real problem is not using a D100 so that we can have the granularity to really represent the differences between troop types.
40K players have this odd tendency to zero in on chrome rather than assess design space more broadly; we want the Toughness stat to properly reflect that Marines are exactly 4.5% tougher than Orks, but the fact that a Nurgling three miles away is no harder to hit than a Titan looming over you doesn't seem to bother anyone. It's apparently a problem that a bolt shell's miniscule likelihood of incapacitating a tank in one shot wasn't accurately simulated, but having a horde of unruly Orks operate in lock-step unison with hive-mind level coordination is just fine. In short: If you have issues with the design space of the game, there are bigger fish to fry than the stat model.
As another reference point: Check out the Starship Troopers system by Andy Chambers. That system uses the interplay of different die types, additive bonuses, and multipliers to create a granular combat system without requiring more than two die rolls to execute a basic attack. It uses simple unit profiles, but the core mechanics have depth, with a lot of 'hooks' into which a curated set of special rules can interact.
What are you talking about? Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault, and Doctrines are THE definition of bloat LOL.
A: It's like you didn't even read what was being argued (or didn't understand it)
B: 30 types of bolter and 9 codex supplements are far worse bloat offenders than Bolter Discipline, Shock Assault and Doctrines.
How is it bloat when everyone knows that most marine guns are going to have an assault, rapid fire and heavy version. And some stuff is just stupid like having a separate gravis captin and a gravis captin with a new gun, but I doubt that this makes people confused somehow.
The number of different bolter weapons in the marine arsenal currently is equivalent to the total number of different ranged weapons used by the Tau.
You know, the faction that's existed since 3rd, and only used ranged weapons.
1/2 of those have been added to the game since the advent of 8th edition.
The definition of "rules bloat" I would put forth would be "rules added to the game that do not increase the decision making required to play the game, or rules for units that do not fulfil some new role required by a faction.
Scouts, Reivers, Infiltrators and Inceptors for example, all existing and fulfilling the exact same role idea of infiltration troops armed with anti-infantry weaponry that grab objectives or harass enemy units early.
They simply don't all need to exist, and 3/4 of them were added basically one on top of another.
The result of this is pretty obvious: rather than fixing the glaring issues with Reivers, GW released inceptors and infiltrators, and then because nobody was jumping ship from Scouts, and they didnt want to deal with the tantrum from their army of uberwhales when they - god forbid - replaced a marine option, they gave scouts worse rules to encourage the switch.
GW's been doing this for years. GW did this TO YOU.
1) GW adds new, unnecessary new marine thing to encourage whales to buy thing
2) Interest in new unneccessary marine thing reduces over time because it doesn't really fulfil a new role in the game beyond "more marines" and GW has already released 3 new unnecessary marine things
3) GW leaves thing in the game because getting rid of anything gets the marine players' panties in a twist but obviously doesn't spend a ton of time or energy on it because they're busy selling the new unnecessary marine thing
4) uninformed new customers deadend into the hobby by accidentally buying the old unnecessary marine thing, like you did, and then get frustrated because having minimum-effort rules is frustrating.
GW has made "human powerfantasy dudes in big space armor who are more elite than those OTHER armies" with some contrived cheap lore justification for years and years and years and editions upon editions, and every time they do, they shower the new one with a little bit of love and attention and then they slowly CRAM their rules further and further into the pile, grinding whatever distinguished them slowly into increasingly generic marine mush to clear out that design space so they can use it again for whatever 'new' thing they want to make.
It's telling that the Eldar get new Howling Banshee sculpts that replace the old models but preserve the old rules, but Space Marines get Eliminators to replace scout snipers (but they don't replace scout snipers).
Mr Morden wrote: Shock Assault is bloat - 90% of the time its +1 A for Marines - so just add it on to the stats.
But then they would actually have to price marines correctly and that would make them mad.
You mean primaris, no reason to be Mad at tacs or csm .
Yes because Primaris melee is such a huge issue LOL
You mean like Intercessors being AS GOOD point for point as Ork boyz in CC, while being significantly more durable and better at shooting?
Yeah, they can't spam CC units like horde factions, but a squad of 10 Intercessors are as good as a comparable value of ork boyz in CC and that is the problem.
You mean like Intercessors being AS GOOD point for point as Ork boyz in CC, while being significantly more durable and better at shooting?
Yeah, they can't spam CC units like horde factions, but a squad of 10 Intercessors are as good as a comparable value of ork boyz in CC and that is the problem.
Oh I didn't even realize that. That's pretty terrible.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
Thats a whole other can of worms that will be opened at a later date.
I am fine with marines having 2 wounds, its mostly the bloat of the codex where they have too many units to keep track of. Centurions, Aggressors, Tacticals, Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, Intercessors with Knives, Intercessors with Sniper Bolters etc. We have too much in the codex. Some things need to be cut and or merged into a single sheet. Assault Intercessors for example can be combined with intercessors and just have a single option "This entire squad may exchange all of their bolt rifles for a bolt pistol and chainsword" Wow look at that we cut out one entire profile!
I think 2 wounds on marines is fine, because multi wound weaponry exists in spades in every army. (power creep ahoy!)
So giving marines 2 wounds in addition to their now medicore +3 save makes a ton of sense from a balance and design prespective, but thats because GW has literally written itself into the corner ruleswise.
But I am skipping 9th edition in general cause its not shapping up to my liking at all. (lore and ruleswise)
I think a different wounding table with perhaps auto wound on more than twice or thrice the strength and failur to wound if toughness is more than twice your strength would help without going up in dice size. Also remove most of the easy to get wound modifiers, including transhuman effects, so the actual difference in str and T matters. Lower the amount of invulnerable saves as well and instead increase toughness or wounds to compensate. A unit should also not have multiple different defensive traits that make them good against every type of weapon profiles. If high T and wounds then they shouldnt have good ++ saves and hit modifiers etc.
A big problem right now are units like blade guard veterans and terminators(in DA at least) that have good saves and multiple wounds. Multiple wounds and good saves arent a problem since weapons like melta guns should be able to handle that. The problem is the access of 4++ and transhuman. It makes it so even the heaviest anti tank weapon mounted on a do minus class knight for 600+pts that hits only have a 1/4 chance to even deal damage. Not even thunder hammers with flat 3 damage are very good since now those units also have an easy way to get a 6+ fnp that make it so half the time you need a second attack to go through. You need 10-15 thunder hammer attacks to kill a single model in those units. Not even 10 DC with Thunderhammers can kill 210pts of Blade Guard Veterans under transhuman + apothecary. Mass fire weapons also dont really work due to 3w and 0+/1+/2+ saves. Not even mortal wounds work well. If you can kill 6bgv with mortal wounds and fnp you could as well kill a friggin knight.
It doesnt really matter the amount of wounds most units have or how the wounding chart look or what dice we use when we have profiles that nothing are good against. There should be a clear winner against every unit. High T countered by high S. Good save by high AP. Hard to hit with invul but low t and w by massed fire or autohit weapons. Could have more units with different saves(regular and ++), hit modifiers and fnp depending on if it is against shooting or melee.
If this was fixed you could remove a lot of the shots in the game and lower the overall lethality so not everything gets vaporized unless they have insane defensive profiles. More like how it used to be. When you didnt need 20 melta shots because your target shrugged off 90% of them.
You are also saying these stats are not too big of an issue because "melta guns" can handle that. Another issue is not every faction has access to "melta guns". It's fine when like you say, you have multiple wounds, or good t or good save. It's even okay when you have 2 of the 3. But you can't have it all. But multiple wounds with good saves also need to be kept at a minimum to compare to other factions availability of weapons. Maybe that is a issue with the factions and they need to get more tools. But also maybe the SM need to have their tools stripped down too.
Again, squatting Old Marines actually fixes or goes a long way towards fixing a ton of problems with how insane marines are. Both in the sheer volume of weapon/unit profiles and the broke ass way their units work at this point.
You mean like Intercessors being AS GOOD point for point as Ork boyz in CC, while being significantly more durable and better at shooting?
Yeah, they can't spam CC units like horde factions, but a squad of 10 Intercessors are as good as a comparable value of ork boyz in CC and that is the problem.
Oh I didn't even realize that. That's pretty terrible.
Yeah, a lot of SM players want you to casually forget that their basic TAC troops choice is as good as dedicated CC options.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
If an army is out fought by one type of army and out shot by another type of army, then it will be a very bad army all in all. Because while others will be able to play their skews, the marine skew would be vs the majority of the field, not to mention what really good armies.
You are not going to be finding much sympathy among marine players telling them that their army should be bad vs all the ways other armies play their stuff. And only good if their opponents decide to play their army the wrong way. And I can tell you that with a large does of certanity that telling a marine player that his army is okey as long as his tau opponent plays a tau melee list, is not going to make the marine player happy or willing to want nerfs or changes to his rules.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
If an army is out fought by one type of army and out shot by another type of army, then it will be a very bad army all in all. Because while others will be able to play their skews, the marine skew would be vs the majority of the field, not to mention what really good armies.
You are not going to be finding much sympathy among marine players telling them that their army should be bad vs all the ways other armies play their stuff. And only good if their opponents decide to play their army the wrong way. And I can tell you that with a large does of certanity that telling a marine player that his army is okey as long as his tau opponent plays a tau melee list, is not going to make the marine player happy or willing to want nerfs or changes to his rules.
That is not what he said. He said the Marines should be pretty good but not the best at all things so that when they come up against somebody they can hit them in their weakness.
The Tau crumple in Melee and the SM should be able to capitalize on that because they can't match them in shooting. And the orks should thrive in melee (arguably...) and SM should capitalize on their weakness to shooting and beat them where they can't hold up. Jack of all trades, master of none, Good at each, and adaptable to whats needed. Middle of the road.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
If an army is out fought by one type of army and out shot by another type of army, then it will be a very bad army all in all. Because while others will be able to play their skews, the marine skew would be vs the majority of the field, not to mention what really good armies.
You are not going to be finding much sympathy among marine players telling them that their army should be bad vs all the ways other armies play their stuff. And only good if their opponents decide to play their army the wrong way. And I can tell you that with a large does of certanity that telling a marine player that his army is okey as long as his tau opponent plays a tau melee list, is not going to make the marine player happy or willing to want nerfs or changes to his rules.
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
Huh? what no thats not right at all you have it mixed up Orks should have better melee cause they are a melee faction, Tau should be better at shooting. Space marines have and always will be the vanillia faction not the best at everything but they have a solid jack of all trades approach meaning they excel at nothing and are a master of none.
Which is what marines should remain. Suggesting otherwise is balantly out of flavor for space marines.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Middle of the road ABSOLUTELY describes the marine in terms of entire armies capabilities. There are definitely more shooty armies. There are definitely more punchy armies. There are there are definitely some tougher armies (custodes) but nobody is tough, shooty, and punchy together. Being able to do it all means they can't do any of it the best. Not without extreme cost and reduced model count (again, see custodes). At the model count and cost marines are at they should be adaptable as their big strength.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
Thats a whole other can of worms that will be opened at a later date.
I am fine with marines having 2 wounds, its mostly the bloat of the codex where they have too many units to keep track of. Centurions, Aggressors, Tacticals, Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, Intercessors with Knives, Intercessors with Sniper Bolters etc. We have too much in the codex. Some things need to be cut and or merged into a single sheet. Assault Intercessors for example can be combined with intercessors and just have a single option "This entire squad may exchange all of their bolt rifles for a bolt pistol and chainsword" Wow look at that we cut out one entire profile!
I think 2 wounds on marines is fine, because multi wound weaponry exists in spades in every army. (power creep ahoy!)
So giving marines 2 wounds in addition to their now medicore +3 save makes a ton of sense from a balance and design prespective, but thats because GW has literally written itself into the corner ruleswise.
But I am skipping 9th edition in general cause its not shapping up to my liking at all. (lore and ruleswise)
Which is why I think we need consolidation of Primaris and Manlet Marine profiles soon.
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
Huh? what no thats not right at all you have it mixed up Orks should have better melee cause they are a melee faction, Tau should be better at shooting. Space marines have and always will be the vanillia faction not the best at everything but they have a solid jack of all trades approach meaning they excel at nothing and are a master of none.
Which is what marines should remain. Suggesting otherwise is balantly out of flavor for space marines.
This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
Huh? what no thats not right at all you have it mixed up Orks should have better melee cause they are a melee faction, Tau should be better at shooting. Space marines have and always will be the vanillia faction not the best at everything but they have a solid jack of all trades approach meaning they excel at nothing and are a master of none.
Which is what marines should remain. Suggesting otherwise is balantly out of flavor for space marines.
This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
Then their cost needs to increase to give them the correct amount of models. Right now they can field too many models for what they can do.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Middle of the road ABSOLUTELY describes the marine in terms of entire armies capabilities. There are definitely more shooty armies. There are definitely more punchy armies. There are there are definitely some tougher armies (custodes) but nobody is tough, shooty, and punchy together. Being able to do it all means they can't do any of it the best. Not without extreme cost and reduced model count (again, see custodes). At the model count and cost marines are at they should be adaptable as their big strength.
Adaptable how? By getting outshot in gunfights? Getting out hacked in melee? It doesn't work. The only way to compete in an area is to be as good as your opponent in that area.
The way it works in this game is points efficiency of removing models. Plasma guns and dissie cannons can make a really good living removing marines. Where they get a fraction of the points shooting orks.
Mr Morden wrote: Shock Assault is bloat - 90% of the time its +1 A for Marines - so just add it on to the stats.
But then they would actually have to price marines correctly and that would make them mad.
You mean primaris, no reason to be Mad at tacs or csm .
Yes because Primaris melee is such a huge issue LOL
You mean like Intercessors being AS GOOD point for point as Ork boyz in CC, while being significantly more durable and better at shooting?
Yeah, they can't spam CC units like horde factions, but a squad of 10 Intercessors are as good as a comparable value of ork boyz in CC and that is the problem.
TIL a 20 point Primaris is the same per point as 2 Orks when it comes to melee, even though the latter obviously has way more attacks even with the range loadout
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Middle of the road ABSOLUTELY describes the marine in terms of entire armies capabilities. There are definitely more shooty armies. There are definitely more punchy armies. There are there are definitely some tougher armies (custodes) but nobody is tough, shooty, and punchy together. Being able to do it all means they can't do any of it the best. Not without extreme cost and reduced model count (again, see custodes). At the model count and cost marines are at they should be adaptable as their big strength.
Adaptable how? By getting outshot in gunfights? Getting out hacked in melee? It doesn't work. The only way to compete in an area is to be as good as your opponent in that area.
The way it works in this game is points efficiency of removing models. Plasma guns and dissie cannons can make a really good living removing marines. Where they get a fraction of the points shooting orks.
You don't compete in their arena of mastery. You hit them in their arena of weakness.
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
Huh? what no thats not right at all you have it mixed up Orks should have better melee cause they are a melee faction, Tau should be better at shooting. Space marines have and always will be the vanillia faction not the best at everything but they have a solid jack of all trades approach meaning they excel at nothing and are a master of none.
Which is what marines should remain. Suggesting otherwise is balantly out of flavor for space marines.
This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
Then their cost needs to increase to give them the correct amount of models. Right now they can field too many models for what they can do.
Okay good then - at least we agree in principle now. Certain marine units cost too little. Agreed. I think the real issue though is that most horde units cost too much.
Unit1126PLL wrote: That just goes back to the classic fluff discussion. "How powerful should a Marine be?"
IMHO, very middle of the road. Outfought by orks, outshot by tau, but able to outshoot the orc and outfight the tau.
Clearly, others disagree.
There's another issue here with Eldar that I won't get into...
You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Middle of the road ABSOLUTELY describes the marine in terms of entire armies capabilities. There are definitely more shooty armies. There are definitely more punchy armies. There are there are definitely some tougher armies (custodes) but nobody is tough, shooty, and punchy together. Being able to do it all means they can't do any of it the best. Not without extreme cost and reduced model count (again, see custodes). At the model count and cost marines are at they should be adaptable as their big strength.
Adaptable how? By getting outshot in gunfights? Getting out hacked in melee? It doesn't work.
Ostensibly by being elite veteran super warriors with the experience, tools, and capabilities to shape the battle and react to opponents such that they don't find themselves trying to outshoot shooty opponents or outchop choppy opponents, not by literally being the best at everything all the time. There have always been things that will outfight Marines in certain types of combat, even "elite" marines, like Genestealers, where that imbalance is an inherent fundamental cornerstone of Space Hulk, where the ultra-experienced and lavishly equipped 1st Company Terminators get absolutely hosed if a Genestealer gets within claws reach, only specialists with purpose built melee weaponry and additional skills can stand against the Genestealers in melee.
But what about all non-marine armies? Should armies not have strengths and weaknesses? If I follow what you're saying, a Marine army should out-shoot a Tau army and out-punch an Ork army. So how do you design the Tau and Ork armies to make them compete?
Huh? what no thats not right at all you have it mixed up Orks should have better melee cause they are a melee faction, Tau should be better at shooting. Space marines have and always will be the vanillia faction not the best at everything but they have a solid jack of all trades approach meaning they excel at nothing and are a master of none.
Which is what marines should remain. Suggesting otherwise is balantly out of flavor for space marines.
This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
Then their cost needs to increase to give them the correct amount of models. Right now they can field too many models for what they can do.
Okay good then - at least we agree in principle now. Certain marine units cost too little. Agreed. I think the real issue though is that most horde units cost too much.
I disagree on that point. For multiple reasons.
1) The turn structure. As long as the game is IGOUGO your attacks is not what a unit can do but what your army can do. If marines are good at everything then their points need to increase to put less bodies on the board so that their total army at x point level is not capable of putting out the output they do each turn. Right now marines are too much. They need a lower body count if they are going to stay as capable on a per model basis.
2) Giving me another 10 horde models isn't going to kill any more marines. Giving me another 20 horde models MIGHT start killing 1 more marine a turn. The gap between capability is too high. I don't need more models to hit with I need less bodies to kill.
3) It's bad game play to hurl so many dice for so little effect. It's better for the actual game for marines to get weaker or have less bodies so each actual impact has greater effect.
Xenomancers wrote:You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Xenomancers wrote:This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
I think you've completely misunderstood Unit's point, because that's exactly what they were suggesting. Individually Marines should be better at fighting than Orks and better at shooting than Tau. Collectively, meaning for the points, Marines should be worse than Orks at melee and worse than Tau at shooting. As an army, they should be middle of the road.
As far as I can tell- and I couch it that way because it seems utterly ridiculous on the face of it- some Marine players expect that their Marines will be not only individually superior, but collectively just as strong as more specialized armies, and bristle at the idea of Orks being able to out-fight them and Tau being able to out-shoot them.
You cannot reasonably expect a generalist army to be as good as a specialist army in their area of specialty. Beating them in their area of weakness is a necessity.
Denegaar wrote: Not sure about Orks, but I'm pretty sure you need 10 Wyches to kill a Primaris Intercessor. Maybe 8 of them if they are high.
That's roughly 90-110 pts of melee based models to kill a 20 pts dude.
A 20% return isn't terrible
No, it's not. But...
If it's the other way around, 10 Primaris Intercessors (the shooty ones) kill at least 5 Wyches. thats 200 to 55 points, more or less a 28% return. Your shootty Troops are better in combat than my melee ones.
Intercessors are probably undercosted, and wyches are probably overcosted. That's how it is... and it doesn't feel fair. But Wyches are way cooler than Intercessors, that's for sure.
But right now the pendulum has swung too far, and we have generalist units like Intercessors out-fighting Boyz or Wyches while out-shooting Tau, which is nuts.
And wouldn't be the most insane thing in the world if they were more reasonable in their durability. But they are not. They have the wounds, the armor save, the toughness, and the Ld. Effectively they have no weakness.
It brings them closer to the lore representation of Marines, which im all for. We may see more multi damage weapons in upcoming dexes. The problem would be in the points, hopefully theyll be priced correctly
Xenomancers wrote:You see to think a marine is a guardsmen. That is why. Which is clearly not what a marine is. Middle of the road does not describe a marine.
Xenomancers wrote:This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
I think you've completely misunderstood Unit's point, because that's exactly what they were suggesting. Individually Marines should be better at fighting than Orks and better at shooting than Tau. Collectively, meaning for the points, Marines should be worse than Orks at melee and worse than Tau at shooting. As an army, they should be middle of the road.
As far as I can tell- and I couch it that way because it seems utterly ridiculous on the face of it- some Marine players expect that their Marines will be not only individually superior, but collectively just as strong as more specialized armies, and bristle at the idea of Orks being able to out-fight them and Tau being able to out-shoot them.
I don't think orks are a good example here.They are really a well rounded army in terms of what they can do - they are really very good at shooting which is just ironic because they have bad BS.
Custodes are a better example. If custodes get significant melee off against marines its over and theres nothing more that a unit of wardens would rather slice through than a unit of primaris marines. The primaris stand no chance in that matchup. Nor should they. Just imagine the difference in quality there and how useless the primaris are there. Why would it be any difference with primaris marines fighting gaurdsmen? or orks? It shouldn't.
Units have roles. It's like rock paper scissors.
Want to slaughter marines in melee - bring incubi/ custodians/ or mega nobbs. Don't expect to fight them with chaff. Marines MURDER chaff. It is their job. I know it sounds silly with 40 point eradicators running around but you have to bring your armies elite stuff to face primaris units. Primaris are an elite type unit that excells at killing chaff. Bring elite type units that excell at killing elites and youll come out on top.
So what is the purpose of all these horde type units? Well...to take up space...slow things down...tie things up while your killers get work done. This is stuff elite armies can't do because they dont have these type units. If these strategies aren't effective it is an issue with the horde units themselves IMO. Cause I have no problem killing marines with the right units.
Mr Morden wrote: Shock Assault is bloat - 90% of the time its +1 A for Marines - so just add it on to the stats.
But then they would actually have to price marines correctly and that would make them mad.
You mean primaris, no reason to be Mad at tacs or csm .
Yes because Primaris melee is such a huge issue LOL
You mean like Intercessors being AS GOOD point for point as Ork boyz in CC, while being significantly more durable and better at shooting?
Yeah, they can't spam CC units like horde factions, but a squad of 10 Intercessors are as good as a comparable value of ork boyz in CC and that is the problem.
TIL a 20 point Primaris is the same per point as 2 Orks when it comes to melee, even though the latter obviously has way more attacks even with the range loadout
4 Primaris Intercessors are 80pts. I can field 10 Orkz for that same price.
Each side goes in tandem, nobody goes 1st.
10 Orkz in CC (Choppas) get 30 attacks, 20 hits, 10 wounds and 3.33 dmg for 1 dead intercessor and 1 wound.
4 Intercessors get 12 attacks, 8 hits 4 wounds and 3.33 dmg for 3 dead boyz.
Orkz did 20pts of ACTUAL damage, and 30pts of dmg if you include wounds.
Intercessors did 24pts of ACTUAL damage.
Orkz lost 30% efficiency.
Intercessors lost 25% efficiency.
Intercessors are literally AS good as Choppa boyz in CC. If you make them Shoota boyz its hands down intercessors, as the boyz lose 1/3rd of their attacks.
At range, those choppa boyz get gunned down. 4 Intercessors = 8 shots, 5.3 hits, 2.6 wounds for basically 2-3 dead boyz at 30' range, the choppa boyz can't even shoot with 12' pistols, And the Shoota boyz are ranged 18' so will also be out of range.
Denegaar wrote: Not sure about Orks, but I'm pretty sure you need 10 Wyches to kill a Primaris Intercessor. Maybe 8 of them if they are high.
That's roughly 90-110 pts of melee based models to kill a 20 pts dude.
A 20% return isn't terrible
A 20% return isn't terrible, but its not what you would expect from a unit designed to function in 1 specific phase. If Aggressors only managed a 20% return in the shooting phase they would never be played. So intercessors getting 25-30% in CC is more than acceptable because they are also as good in the shooting phase. Choppa boyz on the other hand, useless in the shooting phase, should probably do a bit better in the CC phase.
Xenomancers wrote: This does not work in practice and is actually not what marines are. Marines excell at everything. The way you handle it is by giving them less models to work with. Thats why we call them elites.
I agree 100%. Marines, 1 for 1, should be better than most other infantry/troop models. But NOT point for point and that is what I am talking about. 80pts of intercessors should not be performing AS well in CC as 80pts of Choppa boyz who specialize in CC and who lack ranged options worth mentioning.
Denegaar wrote: Not sure about Orks, but I'm pretty sure you need 10 Wyches to kill a Primaris Intercessor. Maybe 8 of them if they are high.
That's roughly 90-110 pts of melee based models to kill a 20 pts dude.
A 20% return isn't terrible
No, it's not. But...
If it's the other way around, 10 Primaris Intercessors (the shooty ones) kill at least 5 Wyches. thats 200 to 55 points, more or less a 28% return. Your shootty Troops are better in combat than my melee ones.
Intercessors are probably undercosted, and wyches are probably overcosted. That's how it is... and it doesn't feel fair. But Wyches are way cooler than Intercessors, that's for sure.
Which shooty ones? They have three different guns and the option for the Grenade Launcher.
Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
Denegaar wrote: Not sure about Orks, but I'm pretty sure you need 10 Wyches to kill a Primaris Intercessor. Maybe 8 of them if they are high.
That's roughly 90-110 pts of melee based models to kill a 20 pts dude.
Sounds like power armor is doing it's job. How many gaurdsmen do whyches kill compared to primaris marnes per point?
Yeah man, it was a comparison of a "good at shooting" Troop vs a "good at fighting" Troop. The "good at shooting" one fights better. Wyches are made for fighting, they are pointless at shooting.
Fighting vs T3 the Wyches are more efficient, of course, but I think we still have a point complaining.
If we weren't talking in a vacuum, those Guardsmen would be pushing up the daisies long before the Intercessors got to charge...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Which shooty ones? They have three different guns and the option for the Grenade Launcher.
I thought we were talking about the combat phase here, how does the ranged weapon enter into the conversation? I'm not sure if it has something to do with the models fighting capabilities.
I was refering to the "normal" Intercessor, not the "assault" one.
Xenomancers wrote: Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
The thing is durability has no inherent value on it's own. It has value when coupled with offense or force multiplying output.
SM have durability WITH offensive output. If you gave 1 ork boy with no changes to their WS/BS/Str or weapons the same T/Sv/W/Ld as a primarus marine they would not be worth the same amount of points. Because just because it takes the same amount of damage to kill the ork the ork isn't capable of the same amount of output.
Because of that, the value of durability increases exponentially with increases in offensive ability.
If ork weapons and WS/BS get better, even if they got JUST as good as a primaris marine, their weak durability means they would still cost much less because that offensive output can be removed from the board much faster. Again, their weak durability has exponential cost in relation to offense.
SM have seen both increases in durability AND increases in offensive output since 8th codex 2.0. But they have not seen the exponential increases in cost to accommodate it.
Denegaar wrote: Not sure about Orks, but I'm pretty sure you need 10 Wyches to kill a Primaris Intercessor. Maybe 8 of them if they are high.
That's roughly 90-110 pts of melee based models to kill a 20 pts dude.
Sounds like power armor is doing it's job. How many gaurdsmen do whyches kill compared to primaris marnes per point?
Yeah man, it was a comparison of a "good at shooting" Troop vs a "good at fighting" Troop. The "good at shooting" one fights better. Wyches are made for fighting, they are pointless at shooting.
Fighting vs T3 the Wyches are more efficient, of course, but I think we still have a point complaining.
If we weren't talking in a vacuum, those Guardsmen would be pushing up the daisies long before the Intercessors got to charge...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Which shooty ones? They have three different guns and the option for the Grenade Launcher.
I thought we were talking about the combat phase here, how does the ranged weapon enter into the conversation? I was refering to the "normal" Intercessor, the "not assault one".
A primaris marine is a good at shooting and good at melee troop. They specialize at killing light infantry at all ranges essentially Think about it this way. Every unit has another unit that makes it useless. Intercessors have almost no anti armor ability and are pretty weak against anything that is t5 or better or anything that can take away their save. Those units rek primaris marines. So should primaris marines lose without contest to those kinds of units but not be better against light infantry and chaff? Thats the way I see it.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
Xenomancers wrote: Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
The thing is durability has no inherent value on it's own. It has value when coupled with offense or force multiplying output.
SM have durability WITH offensive output. If you gave 1 ork boy with no changes to their WS/BS/Str or weapons the same T/Sv/W/Ld as a primarus marine they would not be worth the same amount of points. Because just because it takes the same amount of damage to kill the ork the ork isn't capable of the same amount of output.
Because of that, the value of durability increases exponentially with increases in offensive ability.
If ork weapons and WS/BS get better, even if they got JUST as good as a primaris marine, their weak durability means they would still cost much less because that offensive output can be removed from the board much faster. Again, their weak durability has exponential cost in relation to offense.
SM have seen both increases in durability AND increases in offensive output since 8th codex 2.0. But they have not seen the exponential increases in cost to accommodate it.
Hits the nail on the head.
We are making these comparisons because in a 1vs1 battle those SMTAC intercessors are out performing or at the least matching a dedicated CC unit in CC.
A primaris marine is a good at shooting and good at melee troop. They specialize at killing light infantry at all ranges essentially Think about it this way. Every unit has another unit that makes it useless. Intercessors have almost no anti armor ability and are pretty weak against anything that is t5 or better or anything that can take away their save. Those units rek primaris marines. So should primaris marines lose without contest to those kinds of units but not be better against light infantry and chaff? Thats the way I see it.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
Your argument isn't holding up. You are stating that Your TROOPS choice should be as good or better as a TAC unit in CC than a dedicated CC Troop unit like Ork choppa boyz. But that is ok because your TAC troops unit isn't good vs armor. Where as those boyz are just as useless vs armor but die to those intercessors in ranged combat in droves and are just as good in CC.
Xenomancers wrote: Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
The thing is durability has no inherent value on it's own. It has value when coupled with offense or force multiplying output.
SM have durability WITH offensive output. If you gave 1 ork boy with no changes to their WS/BS/Str or weapons the same T/Sv/W/Ld as a primarus marine they would not be worth the same amount of points. Because just because it takes the same amount of damage to kill the ork the ork isn't capable of the same amount of output.
Because of that, the value of durability increases exponentially with increases in offensive ability.
If ork weapons and WS/BS get better, even if they got JUST as good as a primaris marine, their weak durability means they would still cost much less because that offensive output can be removed from the board much faster. Again, their weak durability has exponential cost in relation to offense.
SM have seen both increases in durability AND increases in offensive output since 8th codex 2.0. But they have not seen the exponential increases in cost to accommodate it.
They really havn't gotten much in terms of durability. It is just their offense that increased a great deal with + attacks and bonus AP in certain rounds. Plus stratagems.
Gravis did go to 3 wounds (which is a good change IMO) Gravis at 2 wounds was an actual joke. Like...barely gave a defensive boost vs the stuff thats already good at killing a primaris marine. In this 9th 3ed codex mini marines did go to 2 wounds but did see a big cost increase. The are essentially going to be all you see now. (Hope you guys like sterngard.)Plus there is also the issue that books don't all come out at once. Marines have doctrines. other armies don't and will soon be getting something similar for free.
The reality is the game - the way they release the armies in the game is a joke. It is intentionally unbalanced by releasing the codexes staggered.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
Oh man, I have fun with the game! I love my models and I love to play them. I fight vs a lot of Admech and Craftworlds, so my Wyches have their weekly dose of pain. Of course if I want to kill Marines I send Incubi... that was not the point of my post.
And I talk about DE because is the army I know how to play, so I'm more comfortable giving those examples, but I'm pretty sure other Xenos have the same problems.
Xenomancers wrote: Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
The thing is durability has no inherent value on it's own. It has value when coupled with offense or force multiplying output.
SM have durability WITH offensive output. If you gave 1 ork boy with no changes to their WS/BS/Str or weapons the same T/Sv/W/Ld as a primarus marine they would not be worth the same amount of points. Because just because it takes the same amount of damage to kill the ork the ork isn't capable of the same amount of output.
Because of that, the value of durability increases exponentially with increases in offensive ability.
If ork weapons and WS/BS get better, even if they got JUST as good as a primaris marine, their weak durability means they would still cost much less because that offensive output can be removed from the board much faster. Again, their weak durability has exponential cost in relation to offense.
SM have seen both increases in durability AND increases in offensive output since 8th codex 2.0. But they have not seen the exponential increases in cost to accommodate it.
Hits the nail on the head.
We are making these comparisons because in a 1vs1 battle those SMTAC intercessors are out performing or at the least matching a dedicated CC unit in CC.
A primaris marine is a good at shooting and good at melee troop. They specialize at killing light infantry at all ranges essentially Think about it this way. Every unit has another unit that makes it useless. Intercessors have almost no anti armor ability and are pretty weak against anything that is t5 or better or anything that can take away their save. Those units rek primaris marines. So should primaris marines lose without contest to those kinds of units but not be better against light infantry and chaff? Thats the way I see it.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
Your argument isn't holding up. You are stating that Your TROOPS choice should be as good or better as a TAC unit in CC than a dedicated CC Troop unit like Ork choppa boyz. But that is ok because your TAC troops unit isn't good vs armor. Where as those boyz are just as useless vs armor but die to those intercessors in ranged combat in droves and are just as good in CC.
They aren't better though. They are better against boys. They aren't better against geensteelers. Choopas boys do a lot more total damage than priamris do. That is my point. The way I see it you are complaining that a unit loses to a unit it should lose to. Orks will beat geensteelers - geensteelers beat marines. True marines aren't dedicated melee unit. They are also a shooting unit and they pay extra for that. Now you start to deal with the too many eggs in 1 basket problem. Where that plasma gun starts getting better and better the more points go onto that 2 wound primaris that is going to have almost all of its "really good stats" completely ignored. It's a tricky business.
Xenomancers wrote: Well - the orks do do significantly more damage to orks than marines do.
How many choppa boys do choppa boys kill? Compared to marines per point. You have to look at all this stuff. I'm not saying you dont have a point.
Marines slaughter orks green tide. In both phases. Is that fair? Nah I don't think so. Boys cost too much. Probably need an upgrade on the choppa to make them do more damage to elites.Charge them a bit less for weapons that rarely hit. That kinda stuff.
The thing is durability has no inherent value on it's own. It has value when coupled with offense or force multiplying output.
SM have durability WITH offensive output. If you gave 1 ork boy with no changes to their WS/BS/Str or weapons the same T/Sv/W/Ld as a primarus marine they would not be worth the same amount of points. Because just because it takes the same amount of damage to kill the ork the ork isn't capable of the same amount of output.
Because of that, the value of durability increases exponentially with increases in offensive ability.
If ork weapons and WS/BS get better, even if they got JUST as good as a primaris marine, their weak durability means they would still cost much less because that offensive output can be removed from the board much faster. Again, their weak durability has exponential cost in relation to offense.
SM have seen both increases in durability AND increases in offensive output since 8th codex 2.0. But they have not seen the exponential increases in cost to accommodate it.
They really havn't gotten much in terms of durability. It is just their offense that increased a great deal with + attacks and bonus AP in certain rounds. Plus stratagems.
Gravis did go to 3 wounds (which is a good change IMO) Gravis at 2 wounds was an actual joke. Like...barely gave a defensive boost vs the stuff thats already good at killing a primaris marine. In this 9th 3ed codex mini marines did go to 2 wounds but did see a big cost increase. The are essentially going to be all you see now. (Hope you guys like sterngard.)Plus there is also the issue that books don't all come out at once. Marines have doctrines. other armies don't and will soon be getting something similar for free.
The reality is the game - the way they release the armies in the game is a joke. It is intentionally unbalanced by releasing the codexes staggered.
So first, gravis gaining a wound, old marines gaining a wound, and terminators gaining 2 is all valued at a exponential increase in cost to their OLD offensive output. But then they also all got increases in offensive output beyond that so those extra wounds are worth EVEN MORE.
If for example durability 1 + offense 1 = cost 2
Then durability 1 + offense 2 = cost 4
The durability is more valuable per a unit of offense because it means that offense can do more.
So when SM basically went for 1+1=2 to 2+2=4 it should have actually been 2+2=7 or 8
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Why do we insist on calling 20 point units basic? That is not basic. Cost more than most armies elite infantry. Like there are plenty of wargames out there where...everyones infantry is basically the same like in ww2 simulators. It would make sense what you are saying there. Here in 40k it does not make sense.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Why do we insist on calling 20 point units basic? That is not basic. Cost more than most armies elite infantry. Like there are plenty of wargames out there where...everyones infantry is basically the same like in ww2 simulators. It would make sense what you are saying there. Here in 40k it does not make sense.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Why do we insist on calling 20 point units basic? That is not basic. Cost more than most armies elite infantry. Like there are plenty of wargames out there where...everyones infantry is basically the same like in ww2 simulators. It would make sense what you are saying there. Here in 40k it does not make sense.
No. Custodes cost 44 point per model for their troops. Thats an elite troop. Termagants cost 5. Thats a horde. At 20 PPM marines are basic middle of the road troops. If they are going to perform like elites then they need increases in costs. If they are going to stay this cheap they need to be easier to kill or not as effective.
They aren't better though. They are better against boys. They aren't better against geensteelers. Choopas boys do a lot more total damage than priamris do. That is my point. The way I see it you are complaining that a unit loses to a unit it should lose to. Orks will beat geensteelers - geensteelers beat marines. True marines aren't dedicated melee unit. They are also a shooting unit and they pay extra for that. Now you start to deal with the too many eggs in 1 basket problem. Where that plasma gun starts getting better and better the more points go onto that 2 wound primaris that is going to have almost all of its "really good stats" completely ignored. It's a tricky business.
...To summarize what you just said. You think its fine that your TAC UNIT when fighting against ork boyz can outperform them in shooting, durability and when they finally get into CC they actually match them point for point? That to you is "TAC" and fine because those Ork boyz can beat up Genestealers in CC where as intercessors lose to genestealers in CC.
4 GS are 60pts. In CC they get 12 attacks, hitting on 3s wounding on 4s at -1AP, wound rolls of 6 are -4AP. So 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds with 1 likely being -4 AP (no save allowed). Against the 3 others 1.5 goes through. So 4 GS kill 1 intercessor.
3 Intercessors are 60pts. In CC get 9 attacks, 6 hits 3 wounds, against a 5+ 2 dead Genestealers.
intercessors lost 1 model, maybe 1 extra wound 20, possibly 30 on the top end.
GS lost 2 models or 30pts.
Wow Xeno...
Your argument is flawed from the start, claiming a TAC unit should be as good as a CC unit in CC is just ridiculous (Point for point comparison) And your next argument is just as wrong.
They aren't better though. They are better against boys. They aren't better against geensteelers. Choopas boys do a lot more total damage than priamris do. That is my point. The way I see it you are complaining that a unit loses to a unit it should lose to. Orks will beat geensteelers - geensteelers beat marines. True marines aren't dedicated melee unit. They are also a shooting unit and they pay extra for that. Now you start to deal with the too many eggs in 1 basket problem. Where that plasma gun starts getting better and better the more points go onto that 2 wound primaris that is going to have almost all of its "really good stats" completely ignored. It's a tricky business.
...To summarize what you just said. You think its fine that your TAC UNIT when fighting against ork boyz can outperform them in shooting, durability and when they finally get into CC they actually match them point for point? That to you is "TAC" and fine because those Ork boyz can beat up Genestealers in CC where as intercessors lose to genestealers in CC.
4 GS are 60pts. In CC they get 12 attacks, hitting on 3s wounding on 4s at -1AP, wound rolls of 6 are -4AP. So 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds with 1 likely being -4 AP (no save allowed). Against the 3 others 1.5 goes through. So 4 GS kill 1 intercessor.
3 Intercessors are 60pts. In CC get 9 attacks, 6 hits 3 wounds, against a 5+ 2 dead Genestealers.
intercessors lost 1 model, maybe 1 extra wound 20, possibly 30 on the top end.
GS lost 2 models or 30pts.
Wow Xeno...
Your argument is flawed from the start, claiming a TAC unit should be as good as a CC unit in CC is just ridiculous (Point for point comparison) And your next argument is just as wrong.
Wow it's almost as though Genestealers are bad vs multiwound models, big think time
They aren't better though. They are better against boys. They aren't better against geensteelers. Choopas boys do a lot more total damage than priamris do. That is my point. The way I see it you are complaining that a unit loses to a unit it should lose to. Orks will beat geensteelers - geensteelers beat marines. True marines aren't dedicated melee unit. They are also a shooting unit and they pay extra for that. Now you start to deal with the too many eggs in 1 basket problem. Where that plasma gun starts getting better and better the more points go onto that 2 wound primaris that is going to have almost all of its "really good stats" completely ignored. It's a tricky business.
...To summarize what you just said. You think its fine that your TAC UNIT when fighting against ork boyz can outperform them in shooting, durability and when they finally get into CC they actually match them point for point? That to you is "TAC" and fine because those Ork boyz can beat up Genestealers in CC where as intercessors lose to genestealers in CC.
4 GS are 60pts. In CC they get 12 attacks, hitting on 3s wounding on 4s at -1AP, wound rolls of 6 are -4AP. So 12 attacks, 8 hits, 4 wounds with 1 likely being -4 AP (no save allowed). Against the 3 others 1.5 goes through. So 4 GS kill 1 intercessor.
3 Intercessors are 60pts. In CC get 9 attacks, 6 hits 3 wounds, against a 5+ 2 dead Genestealers.
intercessors lost 1 model, maybe 1 extra wound 20, possibly 30 on the top end.
GS lost 2 models or 30pts.
Wow Xeno...
Your argument is flawed from the start, claiming a TAC unit should be as good as a CC unit in CC is just ridiculous (Point for point comparison) And your next argument is just as wrong.
Wow it's almost as though Genestealers are bad vs multiwound models, big think time
Why should a powerful CC unit, one that doesn't have much durability and has no shooting, perform the same in melee as a unit that's shooty, durable, and punchy?
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Wyches aren't some badass CC unit though.
They used to be, and in fact used to actually be very capable against Space Marines in particular in CC in previous editions, removing an attack from paired weapons (so no True Grit, no BP/CCW attacks, etc) and sporting a 4+ invul in CC with high initative and a multi-attack armor-save ignoring Agonizer that allowed the squad leader to smack anything on a 4+ regardless of their weeny S3, and were halving enemy WS for attacks back at them, plus the effects of combat drugs. In 3E/4E, that unit was entirely capable of engaging many Marine units and coming out on top it they were utilized properly (and would die horribly if not).
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Wow it's almost as though Genestealers are bad vs multiwound models, big think time
They keep getting worse and worse vs. marines.
Aspect Warriors getting worse and worse vs Mariness.
Necrons getting worse and worse vs. Marines.
There's a trend here. . . big think time, Slayer.
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
I know you probably just want to be able to play your wyches and there is a sea of power armor out there and it's not fun for you. It would be a lot more fun if there were more gaurdsmen and geensteelers on the table for you. wyches do pretty good against those things.
So "F your models because I play Intercessors."?
Wyches should be good against Space Marines, or at the very least not useless. There's no reward in delivering your badass CC units only to have them fold against your opponents basic troops.
Wyches aren't some badass CC unit though.
They used to be, and in fact used to actually be very capable against Space Marines in particular in CC in previous editions, removing an attack from paired weapons (so no True Grit, no BP/CCW attacks, etc) and sporting a 4+ invul in CC with high initative and a multi-attack armor-save ignoring Agonizer that allowed the squad leader to smack anything on a 4+ regardless of their weeny S3, and were halving enemy WS for attacks back at them, plus the effects of combat drugs. In 3E/4E, that unit was entirely capable of engaging many Marine units and coming out on top it they were utilized properly (and would die horribly if not).
Dark Eldar weren't really a good army for most players and games in general anyway with that early codex. Not sure how you're even proving a point here.
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
Basically nothing you said is true.
Do you think Necron Warriors and Immortals are tougher vs. Marines than they were 15 years ago?
Same for Aspect Warriors, Wyches, etc. in terms of a combination of resilience and striking power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: When I played against DE back in the day, I recall Wyches getting a 4++ in CC, hitting first with a high initiative, and Marines only having one attack back unless they charged, which was rare.
Xenomancers wrote:A primaris marine is a good at shooting and good at melee troop. They specialize at killing light infantry at all ranges essentially Think about it this way. Every unit has another unit that makes it useless. Intercessors have almost no anti armor ability and are pretty weak against anything that is t5 or better or anything that can take away their save. Those units rek primaris marines.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Wow it's almost as though Genestealers are bad vs multiwound models, big think time
I've got it, guys! All you need to do to beat Primaris is spam T5+ models that deal multiple wounds and have the AP to ignore Marine armor saves.
So don't bother with any of your basic infantry, they're worthless. Use them to hold objectives. Yeah, they get blown off the table by basic Bolt Rifles let alone Aggressors (even after the nerf) so that doesn't actually work, but pretend it does.
And don't bother with anti-infantry specialists either, they're worthless too unless they've got D2. Sorry Aspect Warriors, sorry Genestealers, sorry Flayed Ones, you were great at killing Marines in Warhammer 40,000 but this is Marinehammer 40,200 and times have changed, baby! You'd best find another game*.
In fact, don't even bother bringing anything that's not a tank. I mean, what the feth else are you gonna find that has T5+ and D2+ and ignores armor and doesn't get murdered by Bolt Rifles?
But don't worry, this is balanced- after all, to balance out their basic fething infantry hard countering 95+% of the infantry in the game, surely they won't have any reliable way to counter your tanks. Not like, oh, deep striking infantry with grav weapons, or heavy infantry with double-tapping multi-meltas, or bikes with multi-meltas, or flat D4 thunder hammers. That might be a bit too much!
*- Although actually, come to think about it, 'find a game against armies that aren't Space Marines played by clueless apologists' actually is a pretty solid strategy!
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
Basically nothing you said is true.
Do you think Necron Warriors and Immortals are tougher vs. Marines than they were 15 years ago?
Same for Aspect Warriors, Wyches, etc. in terms of a combination of resilience and striking power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: When I played against DE back in the day, I recall Wyches getting a 4++ in CC, hitting first with a high initiative, and Marines only having one attack back unless they charged, which was rare.
How does that compare to now?
They've fluctuated. Immortals are definitely in a better spot due to the new point cost for the same save and T5 they had in the 3rd edition codex AND being troops. The RP they currently have is more powerful than 3-5 + 8th, and about the same to less powerful than the 7th edition iteration. Being tougher to Marines though, absolutely compared to the disaster of the 8th iteration. The current RP + T5 is a god send, especially with the revamped weapons too.
Also Wyches required a gak ton of points put into them in order to actually do anything to even Marines. No they weren't good and yes people have rose tinted glasses on with that disaster of a codex.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Insectum7 wrote: As a primary marine player for 20+ years, Marine players are embarrassing. Thank god I bought a Tyranid army.
The only thing embarrassing is your constant defense of the Tactical Marine unit entry.
Dark Eldar weren't really a good army for most players and games in general anyway with that early codex. Not sure how you're even proving a point here.
Dark Eldar were fantastic against Marines in that era. They were *awful* in a larger meta-sense, but I actually never beat Dark Eldar in 4E with my CSM's, they were really good at engaging and tying up "elite" armies, the smaller the model count and more exotically armed the better (they made mockeries of many Nidzilla lists that just ran their bare minimum 2 Troops back then), and conversly, the weenier and more mundanely armed, the worse it went for the Dark Eldar.
And the point was that Wyches were at one point a badass CC unit capable of taking on Marines, and it's the SM's that have changed significantly more than the Wyches.
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
Basically nothing you said is true.
Do you think Necron Warriors and Immortals are tougher vs. Marines than they were 15 years ago?
Same for Aspect Warriors, Wyches, etc. in terms of a combination of resilience and striking power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: When I played against DE back in the day, I recall Wyches getting a 4++ in CC, hitting first with a high initiative, and Marines only having one attack back unless they charged, which was rare.
How does that compare to now?
They've fluctuated. Immortals are definitely in a better spot due to the new point cost for the same save and T5 they had in the 3rd edition codex AND being troops. The RP they currently have is more powerful than 3-5 + 8th, and about the same to less powerful than the 7th edition iteration. Being tougher to Marines though, absolutely compared to the disaster of the 8th iteration. The current RP + T5 is a god send, especially with the revamped weapons too.
Like. . . Just No. Like laughably No. Like pants-on-head No.
Immortals were 28 points a pop in 3rd against the Marine 15 and they were 100% worth it, being arguably the best infatry in the game.
Dark Eldar weren't really a good army for most players and games in general anyway with that early codex. Not sure how you're even proving a point here.
Dark Eldar were fantastic against Marines in that era. They were *awful* in a larger meta-sense, but I actually never beat Dark Eldar in 4E with my CSM's, they were really good at engaging and tying up "elite" armies, the smaller the model count and more exotically armed the better (they made mockeries of many Nidzilla lists that just ran their bare minimum 2 Troops back then), and conversly, the weenier and more mundanely armed, the worse it went for the Dark Eldar.
And the point was that Wyches were at one point a badass CC unit capable of taking on Marines, and it's the SM's that have changed significantly more than the Wyches.
So basically your opponent was tailored against you.
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
Basically nothing you said is true.
Do you think Necron Warriors and Immortals are tougher vs. Marines than they were 15 years ago?
Same for Aspect Warriors, Wyches, etc. in terms of a combination of resilience and striking power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: When I played against DE back in the day, I recall Wyches getting a 4++ in CC, hitting first with a high initiative, and Marines only having one attack back unless they charged, which was rare.
How does that compare to now?
They've fluctuated. Immortals are definitely in a better spot due to the new point cost for the same save and T5 they had in the 3rd edition codex AND being troops. The RP they currently have is more powerful than 3-5 + 8th, and about the same to less powerful than the 7th edition iteration. Being tougher to Marines though, absolutely compared to the disaster of the 8th iteration. The current RP + T5 is a god send, especially with the revamped weapons too.
Like. . . Just No. Like laughably No. Like pants-on-head No.
Immortals were 28 points a pop in 3rd against the Marine 15 and they were 100% worth it, being arguably the best infatry in the game.
You're really not disproving my point by just shouting "no" and hoping your echo chamber will back you up.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
In 3.5Ed Wyches were 13ppm (with Wych weapons) to Marines' 15ppm. They had the same WS, but their Wych weapons forced anyone below S6 to halve their WS for attacks against the Wyches, and denied the attack bonus for having a pistol+CCW. In melee they were I6 and had a 4+ invuln, plus drugs, which gave them 12" charge, +1WS, +1S, ASF, re-roll all misses, or +1A.
So on the charge they had 3 (potentially 4) attacks, hit first, and most infantry were only getting one attack back, with power weapons not mattering thanks to the invuln. Man-for-man (not just point-for-point!) they were better than Marines in melee, and that's in an edition where Dark Eldar were generally regarded as weak.
But yeah I guess when your perspective comes from an edition where even the elites of other armies are now crap compared to you basic infantry, of course they don't seem like badass CC units. Go fething figure.
Dark Eldar weren't really a good army for most players and games in general anyway with that early codex. Not sure how you're even proving a point here.
Dark Eldar were fantastic against Marines in that era. They were *awful* in a larger meta-sense, but I actually never beat Dark Eldar in 4E with my CSM's, they were really good at engaging and tying up "elite" armies, the smaller the model count and more exotically armed the better (they made mockeries of many Nidzilla lists that just ran their bare minimum 2 Troops back then), and conversly, the weenier and more mundanely armed, the worse it went for the Dark Eldar.
And the point was that Wyches were at one point a badass CC unit capable of taking on Marines, and it's the SM's that have changed significantly more than the Wyches.
So basically your opponent was tailored against you.
No...that's just how the army worked, kinda always perversly has been, their abilities were oriented around ignoring toughness, not caring about armor (either for themselves or for their squad special weapons), and degrading enemy capabilities. Well, against big powerful elite units, that's great. That was a frustrating thing for Marines to fight. Those abilities matter a lot less when fighting stuff like Guardsmen, who in turn find many weapons that are often less effective against elite armies are able to work wonderfully well against DE not only in anti-infantry but also anti-tank roles (such as multilasers, grenade launchers, heavy bolters, and autocannon). GW's just inflated the capabilities of Marines to the extent that Wyches don't work anymore in that role.
Keep in mind, at this point we've gone from "Wyches aren't some badass CC unit though." to "Dark Eldar weren't really a good army for most players and games in general anyway" and now to "So basically your opponent was tailored against you. " in trying to explain away why Wyches, a unit that once were capable of engaging Marines successfully in CC, can't now.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
Because the game sure needs to be MORE lethal.
And this is the point I was making like 5 pages ago. If marines get more durable then everyone else either needs to get more durable or they need to get more killy. And there we are. Increased lethality to keep up.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Which is bad for the game IMO, but I'm sure you agree Lance. Primaris were the first mistake, buffing all other marines to that level makes sense but should not have been done in the first place.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
Because the game sure needs to be MORE lethal.
And this is the point I was making like 5 pages ago. If marines get more durable then everyone else either needs to get more durable or they need to get more killy. And there we are. Increased lethality to keep up.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
Because the game sure needs to be MORE lethal.
And this is the point I was making like 5 pages ago. If marines get more durable then everyone else either needs to get more durable or they need to get more killy. And there we are. Increased lethality to keep up.
Which is bad for the game IMO, but I'm sure you agree Lance. Primaris were the first mistake, buffing all other marines to that level makes sense but should not have been done in the first place.
Funny how the conversation veered away from the fact that the Space Marine Basic troops choice is better at basically everything than everyone elses troops in their specialty....I wonder if Intercessors are better at ranged combat than Tau Firewarriors on a pt for pt basis as well.
20 Firewarriors = 180pts same as 9 Intercessors.
20 FW get 20 shots at 30' range S5. So against Intercessors thats 20 shots, 10 hits, 6.66 wounds and 2.22 dmg, so 1 dead intercessor.
9 Intercessors get 18 shots at S4 -1AP at 30' range so thats 18 shots, 12 hits, 8 wounds and 5.33 dead Tau.
Intercessors lose a bit more than 1 intercessor, call it 22-23pts
Tau lose 45+ pts.
Wow, so Intercessors are better at shooting than Tau, and as good as genestealers/ork boyz in CC. Amazing.
I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
Lance845 wrote: I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
Yep, definitely not the Eradicators disintegrating everyone's vehicles and heavy infantry while Aggressors mow down hordes of infantry and Intercessors out shoot Tau fire warriors and fight ork boyz and genestealers on an equal footing in CC. Totally those damn old marines that are the problem right now.
catbarf wrote: Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
To be fair, in Space Hulk it really doesn't make much sense for the marines to wear Terminator armor as it slows them down and reduces their ability to reposition in the tight areas while providing practically no protection against Rending Claws. Sometimes when I am playing as the Blood Angels, I think maybe it would have been better to just go in with loin cloths and combi-flamers.
Lance845 wrote: I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
From this thread I assumed you thought this but I disagree personally. An army that can field this many models should not have them at 2 wounds and with this many kill power at both range and CC. Sure 3/4 attacks at S4 AP0 doesn't sound impressive until you compare to quite a few other armies out there and consider these same models are vastly superior at range at well.
Lance845 wrote: I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
Yep, definitely not the Eradicators disintegrating everyone's vehicles and heavy infantry while Aggressors mow down hordes of infantry and Intercessors out shoot Tau fire warriors and fight ork boyz and genestealers on an equal footing in CC. Totally those damn old marines that are the problem right now.
Castozor wrote:
Lance845 wrote: I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
From this thread I assumed you thought this but I disagree personally. An army that can field this many models should not have them at 2 wounds and with this many kill power at both range and CC. Sure 3/4 attacks at S4 AP0 doesn't sound impressive until you compare to quite a few other armies out there and consider these same models are vastly superior at range at well.
Thats why I said costed correctly.
Right now the marine dex is in this weird middle ground where they have to find ways to keep the old marines relevent for internal balance reasons which is both making old marines too powerful with extra wounds and making primaris too powerful by undercosting them. Once the options are stripped down to purely what the primaris can field you can get rid of all the not primaris auras and other bull gak and adjust their points up to where they should be.
I totally agree that marines are undercosted for what they do. But even when you look at the number of models in a unit it's obvious that primaris are meant to be a more elite version of SM. They start at 3 models a unit instead of 5. Their weapons are better. Gravis doesn't come with a invul save by default unlike terminators (which is a good thing). Primaris by themselves is a better concise army thats more in line with everyone elses breadth of options and WHEN COSTED CORRECTLY (important) can be a kind of middle ground between an actual average middle ground army and the truely elite armies like custodes and harelquinns.
But step 1 of getting there is to shed all the extra baggage. Old marines need to get squatted asap.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
Oh boy, funny you say that.
See, in the 3rd Ed rulebook's index army lists, Genestealers counted as having power weapons, which totally ignored armor saves. If you got into melee with Terminators, they died.
This was a little bit too much, though, so in the 3rd Ed codex they get Rending- a rule specifically for them, which said that on a 6 to hit, an attack automatically wounded with no armor save allowed. This kept them pretty spicy, but not as ridiculous.
Then someone had the brilliant idea to give Rending to the Assault Cannon, and the thing was so busted that GW responded by nerfing Rending to occur on a wound roll of 6 rather than a hit roll.
And that marked the start of a long stagnation in mediocrity, with Genestealers being one of the least popular Tyranid units from 4th until 7th. In 8th they got enough of a price cut to be worthwhile, and now the Xenomorph-esque killing machines that used to make Terminators Know Some Fear are a horde unit that loses to goddamn Intercessors, and that's one of our better units.
In other words: Marines being given overpowered rules is why we couldn't have nice things even circa 2005. Nihil novi sub solus.
What do you mean Necrons were getting worse and worse? Did you pay attention to Immortals and Warriors AT ALL with the new Necron codex? Wyches were also always gak vs Marines, so somehow this is shocking for you?
Also Aspect Warriors can't have gotten worse than Marines since we literally don't have a codex yet, or did you already forget how Marines got worse each time a new Eldar codex was released LOL
Basically nothing you said is true.
Do you think Necron Warriors and Immortals are tougher vs. Marines than they were 15 years ago?
Same for Aspect Warriors, Wyches, etc. in terms of a combination of resilience and striking power.
Automatically Appended Next Post: When I played against DE back in the day, I recall Wyches getting a 4++ in CC, hitting first with a high initiative, and Marines only having one attack back unless they charged, which was rare.
How does that compare to now?
They've fluctuated. Immortals are definitely in a better spot due to the new point cost for the same save and T5 they had in the 3rd edition codex AND being troops. The RP they currently have is more powerful than 3-5 + 8th, and about the same to less powerful than the 7th edition iteration. Being tougher to Marines though, absolutely compared to the disaster of the 8th iteration. The current RP + T5 is a god send, especially with the revamped weapons too.
Like. . . Just No. Like laughably No. Like pants-on-head No.
Immortals were 28 points a pop in 3rd against the Marine 15 and they were 100% worth it, being arguably the best infatry in the game.
You're really not disproving my point by just shouting "no" and hoping your echo chamber will back you up.
Read the second part then. The part with quantitative model value.
They can shoot better than an Ork Boy or a Genestealer-that's fine. But they also fight better them, while being more durable.
Who says they're living up to their fluff? If anything the individual Marine would basically be Custodes level and Custodes beyond even that.
You want to follow lore THAT strictly that's on all y'all.
Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
You know Movie Marines was a joke list, right? Like, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment that the crazy heroic feats in Marine-centric novels aren't really consistent with the lore but are fun to read anyways.
Genestealers need a buff quite independantly of Marines IMHO. the fluff for GS's describes them "Tearing through even terminator armor like it was tissue paper" but... they can't do that, at least not reliably. I'd honestly buff Gene stealer rending claws (I'd proably call them something differant to avoid buffing other units with them) a straight up -4 AP instead of that silly "only on a 6" stuff that would mean basicly they're tearing apart space marine armor like it's not even there, and make terminators reliant on their invul save. that would make GS's TERRIFYING in close combat as they'd outright ignore armor.
Oh boy, funny you say that.
See, in the 3rd Ed rulebook's index army lists, Genestealers counted as having power weapons, which totally ignored armor saves. If you got into melee with Terminators, they died.
This was a little bit too much, though, so in the 3rd Ed codex they get Rending- a rule specifically for them, which said that on a 6 to hit, an attack automatically wounded with no armor save allowed. This kept them pretty spicy, but not as ridiculous.
Then someone had the brilliant idea to give Rending to the Assault Cannon, and the thing was so busted that GW responded by nerfing Rending to occur on a wound roll of 6 rather than a hit roll.
And that marked the start of a long stagnation in mediocrity, with Genestealers being one of the least popular Tyranid units from 4th until 7th. In 8th they got enough of a price cut to be worthwhile, and now the Xenomorph-esque killing machines that used to make Terminators Know Some Fear are a horde unit that loses to goddamn Intercessors, and that's one of our better units.
In other words: Marines being given overpowered rules is why we couldn't have nice things even circa 2005. Nihil novi sub solus.
In 3rd ed they were the only non monster unit able to tear open a vehicle I always regretted building a set of each hormogaunt, termagaunt, and spine fist gaunt for my troops... should have just had genestealers.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're really not disproving my point by just shouting "no" and hoping your echo chamber will back you up.
No, his points make a lot of sense and yours don't with the constant goalpost-moving.
No goal posts were moved. Insectum asked if Immortals were in a better spot compared to the basic Marine for this edition, and I went through and said yes they are. Ball is in his court now.
A lot of people missed my point it seemed. To wit:
- The Marine army should not be able to out-CC [Melee Force] (I'm talking generically here because people don't like the ork example, but we can put Slaanesh Daemons or World Eaters in here; the specific army is irrelevant). -- Getting into melee and board control should be a win condition for these fighty armies against a Marine army. -- The Marine army's win condition is to attrit the enemy sufficiently through a combination of ranged attacks and striking first in melee where possible that the melee army cannot succeed.
- The Marine army should not be able to out-Shoot [Shooting Force] (I'm talking generically here again, but we can put Tau or Imperial Guard in here; the specific army is irrelevant). -- Attriting the Marine army sufficiently through ranged attacks and using board control should be a win condition for a shooty army. -- The Marine army's win condition is to close into melee with the shooting force to degrade its capabilities, destroy its assets, and wrest board control from it.
This most accurately reflects the Marines from the fluff on the tabletop, where they use their strategic and tactical flexibility to force the engagement to happen on their terms. Marines should be a mobile (every squad in a Rhino) force whose primary strength on the tabletop isn't raw statlines (though they should still be above average) but rather is threefold: firstly force concentration, i.e. the ability to put huge amounts of force into small spaces. This is achieved through having slightly more powerful models that are fewer in number, so more combat power (ideally represented by "points" but not in reality currently) can be concentrated into a single area of the board at the player's discretion. Secondly, mobility, to quickly shift that localized, temporary combat power superiority to meet emergent battlefield conditions, and shock - both in terms of inflicting targeted damage to important enemy assets which will shock and unbalance the opposing player, but also the ability to quickly take and secure board space before relocating to the next objective area.
Of course, GW's game doesn't get at these aspects very well currently because the game design is so shallow, meaning that marine players will either have to be very skilled (since achieving those three strengths mentioned above will be more difficult than piloting other armies, which is the situation that CWE are in now I believe) or the codex and units will simply have to be SUPER GREAT (like they are now).
The current state of marines, I would argue, is a direct consequence of the game being far too shallowly designed to permit the "fluff" strengths of Marines to shine. - Concentrating combat power is trivial on such a tiny board - without any space to spread out, every army's combat power is by default concentrated. It takes a VERY skilled player to use the terrain to spot potential fissures where an army can be engaged piecemeal. - Mobility matters little, again on such a small board but also due to oversimplified deep-strike rules (always 9" whether you're a Marine or a Daemon; the old system of risk-reward and then allowing marines to mitigate risk with a drop pod was much better), oversimplified combat mechanics in which there is no ability to maneuver in response to e.g. enemy charges, shots, or other actions (due to the IGOUGO system), meaning that marines are quite easy to pin down unless, again, piloted by a very skilled player. - Shock against a skilled opponent is very difficult to achieve, and the incredibly high lethality of all of 40k in general means that few armies have "critical assets" that can be struck; such a unit would just be a weakness, unless it has a special rule ensuring its survivability (which in turn makes it difficult for the marines to take out as well). Furthermore, board space is so small that it is almost impossible to secure ground and move on; Marine units become tethered to objectives which robs the force of its ability to concentrate.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're really not disproving my point by just shouting "no" and hoping your echo chamber will back you up.
No, his points make a lot of sense and yours don't with the constant goalpost-moving.
No goal posts were moved. Insectum asked if Immortals were in a better spot compared to the basic Marine for this edition, and I went through and said yes they are. Ball is in his court now.
Don't try and pull that gak with me. He was talking about power levels of individual models vs. each other, and you avoided answering that question because it would show him to be right. It was a classic goal post move and I'm not having it.
catbarf wrote: Man, I forgot how in Space Hulk the Marines don't bother bringing Terminator armor or even ammo because they can just punch through the hordes of Genestealers in their basic power armor. That was some real great lore.
To be fair, in Space Hulk it really doesn't make much sense for the marines to wear Terminator armor as it slows them down and reduces their ability to reposition in the tight areas while providing practically no protection against Rending Claws. Sometimes when I am playing as the Blood Angels, I think maybe it would have been better to just go in with loin cloths and combi-flamers.
Being Terminators still gives them more protection than Power Armor, as well as providing them a higher rate of fire and the ability to punch through hardened doors. (Power Armored Space Marines had a -2 to their combat score because they lacked protection and didn't have power fists)
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're really not disproving my point by just shouting "no" and hoping your echo chamber will back you up.
No, his points make a lot of sense and yours don't with the constant goalpost-moving.
No goal posts were moved. Insectum asked if Immortals were in a better spot compared to the basic Marine for this edition, and I went through and said yes they are. Ball is in his court now.
Don't try and pull that gak with me. He was talking about power levels of individual models vs. each other, and you avoided answering that question because it would show him to be right. It was a classic goal post move and I'm not having it.
Myes. Slayer: "if it takes ten Genestealers to kill a marine because mArInNeS aRe aWeSoMe, that's fine as long as the points work out. F the selling points of other factions."
Lance845 wrote: I actually think primaris is the solution. Scrap all old marines. Primaris is a clean slate with less units and and smaller cleaner slate of weapons. They can be costed correctly and act with a unified theme. SM work well as a primaris army. It's the rest of the old line on top of them thats muddying the water right now.
I agree about you when you say lethality is too high and the game would be better designed if it goes down. But not about this; SM firstborn armies are currently amazing: tons of viable options but nothing overpowered and I'm really looking forward to my SW supplement. Meanwhile playing SW with no primaris (as I have none) is a lot of fun.
No classic marines lists were an issue in 8th as soon as all the other factions got their codex and no classic marines lists were an issue when SM 2.0 was released. If anything I'd remove primaris unit, not classic marines ones.
Insectum7 wrote: Myes. Slayer: "if it takes ten Genestealers to kill a marine because mArInNeS aRe aWeSoMe, that's fine as long as the points work out. F the selling points of other factions."
In a vacuum, that'd be ok, but it's clear it causes cascading problems throughout the game system if that's true. The other issue is that GW wants to have its cake and eat it too, with Astartes being powerful, elite troops that are worth multiple troops of other factions, but they don't want them to be a truly elite faction so they can sell more models. The solution, then, seems to be to undercost them so they're overpowered.
People compare units attacking each other a bit too much in here. It is fine that marines beat equal points or more of lesser troops because as soon as someone points plasma guns or equivalent at them they melt 2-4x as fast point for point. If armies were 100% basic troops with only their basic weapons fighting against each other such comparison would be fine. But armies arent like that. Marine troops can crush many times their amount of point in guardsmen bodies but if plasma tank commanders get to shoot at them then they pay 15pts extra a model for a 6+ compared to a guardsman.
Marines with 2 wounds and an increase in price isnt really more Durable than a few weeks ago. Marines will have less models on the table and their opponents will have more damage 2 and above weapons in their lists as well.
As playing one of the marine chapters that arent the strongest I have really felt this. As there are more marines in the meta it gets harder for my guys to survive since everyone will have weapons that are good at marines. Perhaps the ork boys dont kill many of my guys but they are in the way of those mek gunz in the back that just melts my poor and very expensive Blood Angels.
Marine troops are the best at killing others troops but also the best targets for the specialized units in other armies to get easy points back.
This most accurately reflects the Marines from the fluff on the tabletop, where they use their strategic and tactical flexibility to force the engagement to happen on their terms. Marines should be a mobile (every squad in a Rhino) force whose primary strength on the tabletop isn't raw statlines (though they should still be above average) but rather is threefold: firstly force concentration, i.e. the ability to put huge amounts of force into small spaces. This is achieved through having slightly more powerful models that are fewer in number, so more combat power (ideally represented by "points" but not in reality currently) can be concentrated into a single area of the board at the player's discretion. Secondly, mobility, to quickly shift that localized, temporary combat power superiority to meet emergent battlefield conditions, and shock - both in terms of inflicting targeted damage to important enemy assets which will shock and unbalance the opposing player, but also the ability to quickly take and secure board space before relocating to the next objective area.
Of course, GW's game doesn't get at these aspects very well currently because the game design is so shallow, meaning that marine players will either have to be very skilled (since achieving those three strengths mentioned above will be more difficult than piloting other armies, which is the situation that CWE are in now I believe) or the codex and units will simply have to be SUPER GREAT (like they are now).
The current state of marines, I would argue, is a direct consequence of the game being far too shallowly designed to permit the "fluff" strengths of Marines to shine.
This.
It's a systemic problem where the fluff that properly separates factions is about their strategic capabilities but the game as it stands is more of a pub brawl simulator. If all we have to work with is a small town square where everyone gets to hit everyone all the time, you can go only so far before degenerating into an inane competition about who is stronger in weightlifting or faster in running to the scrum we all end up at anyway. Things that separate proper elites like marines or aspect warriors from more rigid waves of imperial guard or easily provoked ork hordes are related to command and control, ability to keep going after taking losses and reliability that they won't simply bugger off or sit there twiddling their thumbs when ordered. None of that is present in 40k, unlike say, Epic Armageddon, where you really get to feel the distinction between reliable elites with mobility for days securing your victory while the masses slowly grind each other down in the trenches as they get obliterated under artillery fire.
Not even a single week has passed, and we have TWO Codex drops.
I play Deathwatch, and I'm pretty sure what I saw was a solid nerf. Though, I am doing travel so I can't particularly say I've tested it.
Then again, let's be very honest- it's not like most people here are testing it, either. Between the Beer Bug and the fact that it's not been out that long- I doubt there's been extensive looks into the weaknesses and strengths of Space Marines.
And I'm not sure why people consider Space Marines are 'mid tier'. Sisters of Battle, Scions- those struck me as the 'mid-tier' troops. I mean, there's ONE army that pushes out infantry troops scarier than Space Marines and that's Custodes- so now the game fits with the lore. Prior to this, the running joke was that the newb goes out, reads a bunch of stuff about Space Marines, and finds out that they really aren't that great on the tabletop. That was probably the big punch in the gut for a lot of people.
We haven't seen where the other Armies are at, except Necrons- and let me tell you, Necrons were scary enough that I certainly kept my half of the Indomitus boxed set.
I know it sounds cliche', but "Be patient, let's wait and see". Anyone who expected Space Marines to see a MASSIVE nerf when their book dropped was deluding themselves.
Other armies will get their books, and I'm fairly certain- Space Marines are the stick that all other armies will be measured against, the baseline metric.
And honestly, for what it's worth- if I ever find you out there in the wild, and you STILL think Space Marines are OP compared to your army? I'll let you fudge in a few hundred points and balance it out, I'm not worried about losing. I genuinely want everyone to get a good Codex, new models, and a massive keg of pineapple soda for free just because.*
- The Marine army should not be able to out-CC [Melee Force] (I'm talking generically here because people don't like the ork example, but we can put Slaanesh Daemons or World Eaters in here; the specific army is irrelevant).
-- Getting into melee and board control should be a win condition for these fighty armies against a Marine army.
-- The Marine army's win condition is to attrit the enemy sufficiently through a combination of ranged attacks and striking first in melee where possible that the melee army cannot succeed.
- The Marine army should not be able to out-Shoot [Shooting Force] (I'm talking generically here again, but we can put Tau or Imperial Guard in here; the specific army is irrelevant).
-- Attriting the Marine army sufficiently through ranged attacks and using board control should be a win condition for a shooty army.
-- The Marine army's win condition is to close into melee with the shooting force to degrade its capabilities, destroy its assets, and wrest board control from it.
This most accurately reflects the Marines from the fluff on the tabletop, where they use their strategic and tactical flexibility to force the engagement to happen on their terms. Marines should be a mobile (every squad in a Rhino) force whose primary strength on the tabletop isn't raw statlines (though they should still be above average) but rather is threefold: firstly force concentration, i.e. the ability to put huge amounts of force into small spaces. This is achieved through having slightly more powerful models that are fewer in number, so more combat power (ideally represented by "points" but not in reality currently) can be concentrated into a single area of the board at the player's discretion. Secondly, mobility, to quickly shift that localized, temporary combat power superiority to meet emergent battlefield conditions, and shock - both in terms of inflicting targeted damage to important enemy assets which will shock and unbalance the opposing player, but also the ability to quickly take and secure board space before relocating to the next objective area.
Of course, GW's game doesn't get at these aspects very well currently because the game design is so shallow, meaning that marine players will either have to be very skilled (since achieving those three strengths mentioned above will be more difficult than piloting other armies, which is the situation that CWE are in now I believe) or the codex and units will simply have to be SUPER GREAT (like they are now).
The current state of marines, I would argue, is a direct consequence of the game being far too shallowly designed to permit the "fluff" strengths of Marines to shine.
- Concentrating combat power is trivial on such a tiny board - without any space to spread out, every army's combat power is by default concentrated. It takes a VERY skilled player to use the terrain to spot potential fissures where an army can be engaged piecemeal.
- Mobility matters little, again on such a small board but also due to oversimplified deep-strike rules (always 9" whether you're a Marine or a Daemon; the old system of risk-reward and then allowing marines to mitigate risk with a drop pod was much better), oversimplified combat mechanics in which there is no ability to maneuver in response to e.g. enemy charges, shots, or other actions (due to the IGOUGO system), meaning that marines are quite easy to pin down unless, again, piloted by a very skilled player.
- Shock against a skilled opponent is very difficult to achieve, and the incredibly high lethality of all of 40k in general means that few armies have "critical assets" that can be struck; such a unit would just be a weakness, unless it has a special rule ensuring its survivability (which in turn makes it difficult for the marines to take out as well). Furthermore, board space is so small that it is almost impossible to secure ground and move on; Marine units become tethered to objectives which robs the force of its ability to concentrate.
Anyways, some thoughts.
I think this is a good point, and echos something I've been saying since early 8th. Namely, that the major problem with these editions is that the core rules have no depth whatsoever. They still read like introductory rules for new players, introducing them to the basic game while leaving out all the complex mechanics and interactions.
Except that there are no complex mechanics or interactions. So all the game can offer is ten millions ways to reroll 1s, and a card game mechanic which is so disconnected from everything else that you might as well be resolving the outcome of games by playing Yugioh.
Unit1126PLL wrote: It's telling that the Eldar get new Howling Banshee sculpts that replace the old models but preserve the old rules, but Space Marines get Eliminators to replace scout snipers (but they don't replace scout snipers).
Its telling about the long term future of Scouts and Old Marines maybe.
I believe the game would be better with intercessors at something like 30-35 points. And make other stuff a little expensive with a couple of buffs to balance it. (And we also reduce the amount of models with proper cost increases instead of this travesti of cost increase GW say it did for 9th)
The problem with marines as Lance said is that in general, Primaris are much more limited than non-primaris marines, but now non primaris have the deffensive statlines of primaris with all of the offensive power of non primaris marines, theres a reason why most competitive lists always spam non-primaris units with the exception of buffed intercessors that have been an OP unit since before codex 2.0 with bolter discipline and shock assault. But now I'll say that Intercessors are a troop option that excells at killing chaff. I believe some people has had a negative reaction agaisnt that statement from Xeno but is the reality right now. We can discuss if that should be how they play. The reality is right now they are too good and even kill more specialized and elite troops, and they shouldnt.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
Now, about the "outfight by orks and outshoot by Tau", theres a flaw in that reasoning. The first one is that orks aren't a CC army, they are a mixed army just like marines, they can be CC, Shooting or a mix of both, so in that I believe they should be actually the middle of the road xeno army, just like marines. They are able of making everything. Of course, in an army you can have specialized troops, elite CC troops and elite Shooting troops that should be good at what they do, but in general as an army, Orks aren't a CC army.
Now about Tau. The problem with an army as Tau agaisnt a "balanced jack of all trades marine" army is that Tau as a pure shooting army are designed to compete agaisnt a pure meele army to not get wrecked. Thats when old rules like JSJ , skimmers, fly, etc... enter in play. That makes them be able to fight agaisnt meele armies. The problem with that is when a shooting army fights agaisnt Tau (Like for example Imperial Guard), with mediocre meele, they lose in the shooting fight and then also on the meele fight because they aren't as specialized and dont have the tools to actually kill Taus in meele. And I'm a Tau player, but thats the bigger flaw I see in that kind of reasoning.
In general, I agree that armies should have playstiles, but I don't think an army should be balanced around how they lose or win agaisnt an opponent (They should win agaisnt X by shooting, agaisnt Y by meele), and just make sure they have a viable playstile that feels nice to play and to win the missions.
But I agree with Unit1126PLL. The game can't represent how marines are supposed to play so the only thing they have going for them is stat bloat because they are super-soldiers and pure dice flexing agaisnt enemies. Thats also a problem for Eldar but at least they have psychic going for them.
Galas wrote: I believe the game would be better with intercessors at something like 30-35 points. And make other stuff a little expensive with a couple of buffs to balance it. (And we also reduce the amount of models with proper cost increases instead of this travesti of cost increase GW say it did for 9th)
Maybe they are worth 20 when 9th is finished, in 2 years.
Right now, if you compare with the rest of the factions Troops (barring Necrons, maybe), they are undercosted.
The problem is that the only people that knows that are playtesters and GW themselves. We the plebs have no information and we are here to whine about unfairness.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: Not even a single week has passed, and we have TWO Codex drops.
I play Deathwatch, and I'm pretty sure what I saw was a solid nerf. Though, I am doing travel so I can't particularly say I've tested it.
Then again, let's be very honest- it's not like most people here are testing it, either. Between the Beer Bug and the fact that it's not been out that long- I doubt there's been extensive looks into the weaknesses and strengths of Space Marines.
And I'm not sure why people consider Space Marines are 'mid tier'. Sisters of Battle, Scions- those struck me as the 'mid-tier' troops. I mean, there's ONE army that pushes out infantry troops scarier than Space Marines and that's Custodes- so now the game fits with the lore. Prior to this, the running joke was that the newb goes out, reads a bunch of stuff about Space Marines, and finds out that they really aren't that great on the tabletop. That was probably the big punch in the gut for a lot of people.
We haven't seen where the other Armies are at, except Necrons- and let me tell you, Necrons were scary enough that I certainly kept my half of the Indomitus boxed set.
I know it sounds cliche', but "Be patient, let's wait and see". Anyone who expected Space Marines to see a MASSIVE nerf when their book dropped was deluding themselves.
Other armies will get their books, and I'm fairly certain- Space Marines are the stick that all other armies will be measured against, the baseline metric.
And honestly, for what it's worth- if I ever find you out there in the wild, and you STILL think Space Marines are OP compared to your army? I'll let you fudge in a few hundred points and balance it out, I'm not worried about losing. I genuinely want everyone to get a good Codex, new models, and a massive keg of pineapple soda for free just because.*
*Except for Tau players.
I added up the points for my deathwatch army where every single model gained +1W, and it wasn't free, let me tell you.
It was 75 points less XD. I threw in a second imperial assassin and a supporting unit for my allied inquisitorial forces.
And yeah, playing it against some Blood Angels definitely felt like a crazy godzilla fight where if either of us had had any other army it would have been hilariously one-sided. In the end, the battle was basically won by hidden storm shield dudes and hidden terminators in my KT's so blood angel units would meatslap into my dudes, deal like 12 AP-1 wounds, and I'd lose like 1.5 guys and just swing back and slaughter them with my free chainswords that dish out 4 AP-1 attacks when someone charges me.
It's a bad fething joke, my dude, I played through the silliest eras of 7th edition and this is stupider than when the decurion first dropped, or the first time I played against an all-summoning 7th ed chaos army, or the first time I played against necron flyerspam in 6th.
the_scotsman wrote: I added up the points for my deathwatch army where every single model gained +1W, and it wasn't free, let me tell you.
It was 75 points less XD. I threw in a second imperial assassin and a supporting unit for my allied inquisitorial forces.
And yeah, playing it against some Blood Angels definitely felt like a crazy godzilla fight where if either of us had had any other army it would have been hilariously one-sided. In the end, the battle was basically won by hidden storm shield dudes and hidden terminators in my KT's so blood angel units would meatslap into my dudes, deal like 12 AP-1 wounds, and I'd lose like 1.5 guys and just swing back and slaughter them with my free chainswords that dish out 4 AP-1 attacks when someone charges me.
It's a bad fething joke, my dude, I played through the silliest eras of 7th edition and this is stupider than when the decurion first dropped, or the first time I played against an all-summoning 7th ed chaos army, or the first time I played against necron flyerspam in 6th.
I'm not seeing it. In fact, up against my usual adversaries- which is a pretty fair mix?
I'm coming out about the same. Now, this is only like 3 games, rather rushed- so there's margin for error.
But it's still... about like it was before.
the_scotsman wrote: I added up the points for my deathwatch army where every single model gained +1W, and it wasn't free, let me tell you.
It was 75 points less XD. I threw in a second imperial assassin and a supporting unit for my allied inquisitorial forces.
And yeah, playing it against some Blood Angels definitely felt like a crazy godzilla fight where if either of us had had any other army it would have been hilariously one-sided. In the end, the battle was basically won by hidden storm shield dudes and hidden terminators in my KT's so blood angel units would meatslap into my dudes, deal like 12 AP-1 wounds, and I'd lose like 1.5 guys and just swing back and slaughter them with my free chainswords that dish out 4 AP-1 attacks when someone charges me.
It's a bad fething joke, my dude, I played through the silliest eras of 7th edition and this is stupider than when the decurion first dropped, or the first time I played against an all-summoning 7th ed chaos army, or the first time I played against necron flyerspam in 6th.
I'm not seeing it. In fact, up against my usual adversaries- which is a pretty fair mix?
I'm coming out about the same. Now, this is only like 3 games, rather rushed- so there's margin for error.
But it's still... about like it was before.
How much do you generally use Vets/firstborns vs Primaris?
the_scotsman wrote: How much do you generally use Vets/firstborns vs Primaris?
Off the top of my head- I generally try to have a good split, usually max 2-3 squads of Primaris to hold objectives and lay down gunfire.
Mostly with regular vets, I run either straight-up 'beat squads' or just straightforward gun-monkeys to clear guys off (crutching heavy on Storm Bolters and Shields as you do, used to rely more heavily on Frag Cannons).
Eradicators and Eliminators seemed to work well for me last time- though the best I've done, I pulled it off with 2 Spectrus kill teams rather than Intercessors.
Adeptus Doritos wrote: And I'm not sure why people consider Space Marines are 'mid tier'. Sisters of Battle, Scions- those struck me as the 'mid-tier' troops.
Just to address this point, if you look back to 3rd-5th Ed the infantry hierarchy was something like this:
Better than Marines- Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, Cult CSM, Chosen, Tyranid Warriors, Tau battlesuits, Ogryns, Wraithguard, Incubi
Comparable to Marines- Necron Warriors, Aspect Warriors, Battle Sisters (yes, a little worse, but same offensive firepower), 'flashier' Orks (Lootas, Flash Gitz, etc), CSM, Genestealers, Wyches
Worse than Marines- Guardsmen, Storm Troopers, Guardians, Orks, Fire Warriors, Termagants/Hormagaunts, Kabalites, etc
Basically most armies had three tiers of troops- your common chaff, your above-average elites, and then your experts. Marines were on par with the elites; still outclassed by the best experts available to other factions, and tended to lose to more specialized elites of comparable cost, but could bully the chaff and be surprisingly tenacious against elites and experts. Playing against them, they certainly felt like an elite army when units like Aspect Warriors that could butcher their way through the chaff units were seriously challenged by even basic Tacticals. Plus Marines then had their own experts in addition to the elites, so most armies had some nice interplay between different power levels, with Marines being generally more powerful but not universally so.
In the current game, it's something more like this:
Better than Marines- Custodes, Grotesques, bigger Tau battlesuits, Ogryns, Wraithguard (latter three by a smaller margin than before)
Comparable to Marines- Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, Cult CSM, Chosen, Tyranid Warriors, Incubi
Worse than Marines- Battle Sisters, Guardsmen, Scions, Guardians, Aspect Warriors, Orks, Fire Warriors, Necron Warriors, Termagants/Hormagaunts, CSM, Genestealers, Wyches/Kabalites/Wracks
You see the difference? Now Marines are on par with the experts, and bully both the chaff and the ostensible elites. The units that outclass Marines are exclusively non-humanoid things on 40+mm bases with lots of wounds and attacks, and then even those have trouble against the Marine elites (eg Bladeguard). If you're on a 25mm or 32mm base, you're now chaff, even if your fluff portrays you as an elite badass and even if you used to eat Marines for breakfast. The interplay of different power levels is largely gone; most infantry are now just different flavors of inferior horde units relative to Marines.
Sadly primaris are here to stay. Normal marines becoming two wounds may or may not point to a future demise where only primaris remain, but is not like GW is gonna make primaris 1 wound in the foresable future. Is not like GW is not open to nerfing or removing stuff from marines, look at the primaris tanks all losing FLY or something like that. But making primaris 1 wound, when they were especifically made to have 2 wounds and "Thats how proper marines should be!" seems very much unlikely. And, I mean, Intercessors had been crap since the beginning of 8th edition until the 2.0 Codex, so is not like intercessors are unbalanced just because they have 2 wounds, 2 attacks and -1 ap on their bolters.
Galas wrote: Sadly primaris are here to stay. Normal marines becoming two wounds may or may not point to a future demise where only primaris remain, but is not like GW is gonna make primaris 1 wound in the foresable future. Is not like GW is not open to nerfing or removing stuff from marines, look at the primaris tanks all losing FLY or something like that. But making primaris 1 wound, when they were especifically made to have 2 wounds and "Thats how proper marines should be!" seems very much unlikely. And, I mean, Intercessors had been crap since the beginning of 8th edition until the 2.0 Codex, so is not like intercessors are unbalanced just because they have 2 wounds, 2 attacks and -1 ap on their bolters.
So, when should we expect the update to the lore of the eldar that makes it clear that while they have superhuman speed and reflexes, it's nothing compared to the lightning-fast tae bo kicking style of space marine Hellblasters fighting in melee while they hold plasma cannons?
I just can't wait for their fix to the eldar to be "they're always -1 to hit" and then everyone is constantly Advancing, moving and firing heavy weapons, and shooting combiweapons at eldar units because of the modifier cap
Adeptus Doritos wrote: And I'm not sure why people consider Space Marines are 'mid tier'. Sisters of Battle, Scions- those struck me as the 'mid-tier' troops.
Just to address this point, if you look back to 3rd-5th Ed the infantry hierarchy was something like this:
Better than Marines- Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, Cult CSM, Chosen, Tyranid Warriors, Tau battlesuits, Ogryns, Wraithguard, Incubi
Comparable to Marines- Necron Warriors, Aspect Warriors, Battle Sisters (yes, a little worse, but same offensive firepower), 'flashier' Orks (Lootas, Flash Gitz, etc), CSM, Genestealers, Wyches
Worse than Marines- Guardsmen, Storm Troopers, Guardians, Orks, Fire Warriors, Termagants/Hormagaunts, Kabalites, etc
Basically most armies had three tiers of troops- your common chaff, your above-average elites, and then your experts. Marines were on par with the elites; still outclassed by the best experts available to other factions, and tended to lose to more specialized elites of comparable cost, but could bully the chaff and be surprisingly tenacious against elites and experts. Playing against them, they certainly felt like an elite army when units like Aspect Warriors that could butcher their way through the chaff units were seriously challenged by even basic Tacticals. Plus Marines then had their own experts in addition to the elites, so most armies had some nice interplay between different power levels, with Marines being generally more powerful but not universally so.
In the current game, it's something more like this:
Better than Marines- Custodes, Grotesques, bigger Tau battlesuits, Ogryns, Wraithguard (latter three by a smaller margin than before)
Comparable to Marines- Necron Immortals, Ork Nobz, Cult CSM, Chosen, Tyranid Warriors, Incubi
Worse than Marines- Battle Sisters, Guardsmen, Scions, Guardians, Aspect Warriors, Orks, Fire Warriors, Necron Warriors, Termagants/Hormagaunts, CSM, Genestealers, Wyches/Kabalites/Wracks
You see the difference? Now Marines are on par with the experts, and bully both the chaff and the ostensible elites. The units that outclass Marines are exclusively non-humanoid things on 40+mm bases with lots of wounds and attacks, and then even those have trouble against the Marine elites (eg Bladeguard). If you're on a 25mm or 32mm base, you're now chaff, even if your fluff portrays you as an elite badass and even if you used to eat Marines for breakfast. The interplay of different power levels is largely gone; most infantry are now just different flavors of inferior horde units relative to Marines.
+1 to post
Expanding on the highlighted bit: Tenacity was their major advantage, and boy did it make them fight differently. ATSKNF was an amazing rule, because it largely meant that Marines just never, ever, stopped fighting. It was brilliant. Being able to pin units in place and deny the opponent a squad-turn while maneuvering reinforcements in to place was a phenomenal ability, and it had so much more character than "bigger-armor-dude-with-bigger-gun-shoots-and-punches-more,-hur."
With 8th Edition and Primaris GW has seemed to just toss that legacy out the window and favored superhero stats for basic troops instead. It's so sad.
Klickor wrote: People compare units attacking each other a bit too much in here. It is fine that marines beat equal points or more of lesser troops because as soon as someone points plasma guns or equivalent at them they melt 2-4x as fast point for point. If armies were 100% basic troops with only their basic weapons fighting against each other such comparison would be fine. But armies arent like that. Marine troops can crush many times their amount of point in guardsmen bodies but if plasma tank commanders get to shoot at them then they pay 15pts extra a model for a 6+ compared to a guardsman.
Except plasma guns are 1dmg, so now that Marines are 2 wounds each, your opponent either has to risk losing his model/weapon 1/6th of the time, or shoot twice as often to kill that same Tactical Marine....and of course that completely ignores the fact that your basic marine still gets a 1/6th chance to save against that Plasma gun. Compare that to my ork boyz. 6 plasma hits = 4W against both. Against Marines its 3.333 dmg, for 1 dead marine and 1 wounded Marine. Against my ork boyz thats 4 dead boyz. So you lost 18pts in tacs and I lost 32 in Boyz.
Klickor wrote: Marines with 2 wounds and an increase in price isnt really more Durable than a few weeks ago. Marines will have less models on the table and their opponents will have more damage 2 and above weapons in their lists as well.
Except it 100% is. the price did not go up enough to justify the increase in durability. Against basic S4 fire your Marines just became twice as durable, against Plasma you are now twice as durable, the benefit of having an apothecary just went up 2 fold. So you are now significantly more durable and your price only went up a few points comparatively. How much were Tactical marines before they got 2 wounds? 15pts? and what are they now? 18? So they went up in price 20% So how would you feel if my Orkz went to 2 wounds each for 1-2pts each. so 9ppm Ork boyz with 2 wounds. Not a big deal right? I mean, they paid about the same amount as Tactical Marines did.
Klickor wrote: As playing one of the marine chapters that arent the strongest I have really felt this. As there are more marines in the meta it gets harder for my guys to survive since everyone will have weapons that are good at marines. Perhaps the ork boys dont kill many of my guys but they are in the way of those mek gunz in the back that just melts my poor and very expensive Blood Angels.
Ahh yes, the ubiquitous $50 mek gun. Of which, every ork army has 18. Disregarding the fact that to field a max size count of them costs roughly $1,000 (not exaggerating). Those mek gunz are 40ppm with the best setup and get 2 shots a turn each at 48' range and hit on 4s, wound on greater than or equal to T on 2D6. They are basically stationary (3' movement) and while cheap, T5, 6 wounds with a 5+ save is AS durable as Gravis models. On average they kill 1 infantry model a turn. On top of everything else...they are considered by most ork players to be one of, if not THE best unit in our entire codex. They don't benefit from kulture, they don't benefit from stratagems and are prohibitively expensive in regards to $$$. Also, as soon as you touch them in melee they cease to function.
Klickor wrote: Marine troops are the best at killing others troops but also the best targets for the specialized units in other armies to get easy points back.
yep, I prefer shooting my anti-vehicle weapons at infantry instead of...vehicles. *Obvious sarcasm* They are not the best target for specialized units in my army. 100pts of lootas can barely kill 1 on average, less so if they are in cover. Most of my buggies can kill 1 or so a turn etc.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
How are they "Much better" at shooting? Your standard Tac is 18 compared to an intercessor at 20. They have basically the same gun except the intercessor gets -1 AP. The only thing better is that the tacs can take a special and heavy weapon.
Galas wrote: Now, about the "outfight by orks and outshoot by Tau", theres a flaw in that reasoning. The first one is that orks aren't a CC army, they are a mixed army just like marines, they can be CC, Shooting or a mix of both, so in that I believe they should be actually the middle of the road xeno army, just like marines. They are able of making everything. Of course, in an army you can have specialized troops, elite CC troops and elite Shooting troops that should be good at what they do, but in general as an army, Orks aren't a CC army.
You are correct, Orkz are NOT a CC army, they are a CC army with what used to be considered a ridiculous # of ranged attacks that usually missed (BS5+) However, Ork boyz equipped for CC are a CC unit. IE they get +1 attack and gain another attack if they are 20+ models. Most of the auras and buffs they get are geared towards CC. Hell, our biggest character gives +1 attack on the charge. So when I equip ork boyz for CC as opposed to shooting I am running around with 8ppm troops with 3, possibly 4 attacks in CC each. Between 7th and now my troops have gone up 33% in price and gained...basically nothing except standard S4 as opposed to S4 on the charge. Those Tactical Marines on the flipside have gone up 22% i believe (14pts to 18pts) and gained more shots from bolter drill, a 2nd wound, +1 attack on the charge, doctrines and a few other things I am probably forgetting.
So yeah, Ork boyz used to mulch Tacticals in CC, they would die to long ranged fire but when they finally got into CC they would earn their points back. now? not so much. But even if you disregard this because intercessors aren't tacticals and whatever other arguments you have, the fact remains that intercessors are Point for point better at shooting than ork boyz geared towards shooting and point for point better at CC than ork boyz geared towards CC. So no matter how I equip my troops, they lose. Xeno tried to make a BS argument that this was OK because Ork boyz killed genestealers but genestealers beat intercessors....which turned out to be false. Intercessors are better in CC than fething genestealers. We have a problem here.
Galas wrote: Now about Tau. The problem with an army as Tau agaisnt a "balanced jack of all trades marine" army is that Tau as a pure shooting army are designed to compete agaisnt a pure meele army to not get wrecked. Thats when old rules like JSJ , skimmers, fly, etc... enter in play. That makes them be able to fight agaisnt meele armies. The problem with that is when a shooting army fights agaisnt Tau (Like for example Imperial Guard), with mediocre meele, they lose in the shooting fight and then also on the meele fight because they aren't as specialized and dont have the tools to actually kill Taus in meele. And I'm a Tau player, but thats the bigger flaw I see in that kind of reasoning.
That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
The "extra baggage" we need to get rid of are the players and armchair designers who think that they can dictate when someone else's models are no longer usable within the game. Those people can get in the bin.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
How are they "Much better" at shooting? Your standard Tac is 18 compared to an intercessor at 20. They have basically the same gun except the intercessor gets -1 AP. The only thing better is that the tacs can take a special and heavy weapon.
The Special/Heavy/Combi is a huuuge difference in damage output.
Grav Cannon vs. Marines .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 x 4 = 2.9
Five RFing Bolt Rifles vs. Marines .666 x .5 x .5 x 10 = 1.66
The single heavy weapon does nearly twice the work of an entire five man squad. On top of the Grav Cannon, you get three bolt guns and a Combi-Plasma. Four boltguns if you decide to fire the combi-bolter as well, and since to-hit mods cap out at -1, there might be no detriment to firing it.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
How are they "Much better" at shooting? Your standard Tac is 18 compared to an intercessor at 20. They have basically the same gun except the intercessor gets -1 AP. The only thing better is that the tacs can take a special and heavy weapon.
You answered yourself A single 10 point heavy weapon in a 5 man squad (that makes them both 5 man cost the same) puts tacticals very much ahead in shooting vs intercessors.
SemperMortis wrote: That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
Wait, when did firewarriors become 'specialists?' They're guardsmen with better guns.
Marines have always (since tau were introduced) been better ranged combatants than firewarriors, tau just had a higher strength, longer range gun.
Now, if you want to complain about the sudden advance of Imperium rifle technology, carry on.
But don't pretend firewarriors are or have ever been high tier experts.
SemperMortis wrote: That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
Wait, when did firewarriors become 'specialists?' They're guardsmen with better guns.
Marines have always (since tau were introduced) been better ranged combatants than firewarriors, tau just had a higher strength, longer range gun.
Now, if you want to complain about the sudden advance of Imperium rifle technology, carry on.
But don't pretend firewarriors are or have ever been high tier experts.
What do you call a unit with crap CC abilities, but a gun that's better than a basic Marine weapon?
SemperMortis wrote: That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
Wait, when did firewarriors become 'specialists?' They're guardsmen with better guns.
Marines have always (since tau were introduced) been better ranged combatants than firewarriors, tau just had a higher strength, longer range gun.
Now, if you want to complain about the sudden advance of Imperium rifle technology, carry on.
But don't pretend firewarriors are or have ever been high tier experts.
As infantry, Fire Warriors specialize in shooting. They certainly don't have any skill in CC or are particularly durable. They came to the table as a faction whose basic weapon had a range and strength greater than the basic weapon of any other army, at the time making them superior to Space Marines in terms of basic weapon threat.
TBH even playing Tau it always felt a little cheap that Firewarrior pulse rifle was better than space marines bolter.
And playing agaisnt my friend Imperial Guard it always feelt too... cheap, firing my firewarriors agaisnt imperial guardsmen. Poor guys, they had no chance. Now I'm not happy that intercessors eat for breakfast my firewarriors with their bolter discipline but...
SemperMortis wrote: That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
Wait, when did firewarriors become 'specialists?' They're guardsmen with better guns.
Marines have always (since tau were introduced) been better ranged combatants than firewarriors, tau just had a higher strength, longer range gun.
Now, if you want to complain about the sudden advance of Imperium rifle technology, carry on.
But don't pretend firewarriors are or have ever been high tier experts.
What do you call a unit with crap CC abilities, but a gun that's better than a basic Marine weapon?
Nothing in particular. Its a good gun, but they lose to hit and gain to wound. Their real value has always been that you can have more firewarriors than marines. That doesn't scream 'specialist' to me. It doesn't even hint at it.
Galas wrote: TBH even playing Tau it always felt a little cheap that Firewarrior pulse rifle was better than space marines bolter.
Gods. . . Why?
I started playing warhammer 40k as a Tau and they are my biggest army, they are my second favourite because I fell in love with Custodes (So even having Dark Angels as a third army you can understand how I feel about 3 wound T5 marines that cost 2/3 what a basic custodian does and do double the damage at both meele and range), but lets say that theres one thing I agree with Irbis, and its that in most of their history, Tau fluff and rules writter make the most bolterporn-lovers marine writters look like noobs by comparison.
Tau are supposed to be this new race that has no fear to try and developt new technology, and for example they made it great with the Tau Plasma vs Imperial Plasma pre 8th, Tau was weaker but safer and Imperial more powerfull but risky. But theres just no reason why a pulse rifle, a weapon made by a 6000 year old race, the weapon they arm their basic troop with (And even gift to humans and kroot), that has literally no drawback, is extensely availible, is better than the bolter, the sacred weapon designed in the age of the Emperor, to arm his super-soldier legions. I could have accepted the extra range because, like, the weapon is quite a bit longer and all of that, but the extra strenght compared with a bolter? Why?
And then you have a ton of Tau weaponry thats much more powerfull than literally the best imperial weaponry and is, again, like... why? Are humans so useless that they weren't capable of doing relic weapons in the Dark Age of Technology that can compete with Tau weapons? The Admech spends all their budget on titans? Lets say I'm one of those "I prefer my Tau tanks than my Tau mechas" Tau players.
SemperMortis wrote: That doesn't explain why intercessors as a basic troops choice are better than firewarriors at RANGED COMBAT! lol
This is the problem, SM players are currently running around with a basic troops choice that out performs specialist armies troops choices IN THEIR SPECIALTY!
Wait, when did firewarriors become 'specialists?' They're guardsmen with better guns.
Marines have always (since tau were introduced) been better ranged combatants than firewarriors, tau just had a higher strength, longer range gun.
Now, if you want to complain about the sudden advance of Imperium rifle technology, carry on.
But don't pretend firewarriors are or have ever been high tier experts.
What do you call a unit with crap CC abilities, but a gun that's better than a basic Marine weapon?
Nothing in particular. Its a good gun, but they lose to hit and gain to wound. Their real value has always been that you can have more firewarriors than marines. That doesn't scream 'specialist' to me. It doesn't even hint at it.
I feel people is overusing the term specialist a little bit. I mean, not in any way this is anything to justify Intercessor or Marine superiority, but theres a difference between "Being mediocre at just one thing" and "Being an specialist in one thing". Tau Firewarriors, Ork choppa boyz unsupported, Cultists, Imperial Guard Infantry, are basic troopers, that can normally only do one thing (Fight or shoot), but they are normally pretty mediocre at it, they are in no way specialists. And they should not be, they are troops. The problem is the power upgrade of marine troops that have become much better than many specialists and by that metric just mulch mediocre troops. And that would be fine, as I said many times, in Fantasy Chaos Warriors destroyed nearly all troops in the game with the exception of Ogres, but they were "never" OP because of that. The problem always comes with point costs, and extra crap and rules that you put on top ,as shown by Intercessors going from crap to OP without a single change to their statline in a single edition.
Galas wrote: TBH even playing Tau it always felt a little cheap that Firewarrior pulse rifle was better than space marines bolter.
Gods. . . Why?
I started playing warhammer 40k as a Tau and they are my biggest army, they are my second favourite because I fell in love with Custodes, but lets say that theres one thing I agree with Irbis, and its that in most of their history, Tau fluff and rules writter make the most bolterporn-lovers marine writters look like noobs by comparison.
Tau are supposed to be this new race that has no fear to try and developt new technology, and for example they made it great with the Tau Plasma vs Imperial Plasma pre 8th, Tau was weaker but safer and Imperial more powerfull but risky. But theres just no reason why a pulse rifle, a weapon made by a 6000 year old race, the weapon they arm their basic troop with, that has literally no drawback, is extensely availible, is better than the bolter, the sacred weapon designed in the age of the Emperor, to arm his super-soldier legions. I could have accepted the extra range because, like, the weapon is quite a bit longer and all of that, but the extra strenght compared with a bolter? Why?
And then you have with a ton of Tau weaponry thats much more powerfull than literally the best imperial weaponry and is, again, like... why? Are so useless the Humans that they weren't capable of doing relic weapons in the Dark Age of Technology that can compete with Tau weapons? Lets say I'm one of those "I prefer my Tau tanks than my Tau mechas" Tau players.
Bolters are not very sophisticated, and they're certainly not technological pinnacles of the DAoT or anything. Heck, in 2nd edition Orks could use Bolters. The point of a Bolter is that it can be mass produced and makes a big S4 bang. They're common things on IG vehicles, disposable turrets, and in hive gangs. They're weapons of war for an Imperium that doesn't respect scientific progress, and has forgotten so much of it's past technological prowess.
Tau have flying tanks*, drones, smart missiles, actively races forward with technology and presumably cares far more about individual soldiers than the Imperium does about the Guardsmen. It makes total sense that there could be a personal weapon that outshines the Bolter, it's just a matter of cost and will. Technically the Imperium could give every soldier a Plasma Gun, the only reason they don't is cost.
Plus, a Fire Warrior is worse off than a Marnie is every other area of ability, strictly worse off across the board. Why would it be so bad to give them just one area in which they were at least marginally better?
*Yes, of course the Imperium has flying tanks now but F all that #$%t.
Inter T1 16 shots
32/3 hits
64/9 wounds
128/27 failed saves
4.74 dead Fire Warriors, rounding DOWN to 4.
FW T2 16 shots
8 hits
16/3 wounds
16/9 failed saves
Total of 2 dead Intercessors
Inter T2 14 shots
28/3 hits
56/9 wounds
280/54 or 140/27 failed saves
5.19 more dead Fire Warriors, for a total of 10 now (rounding up this time).
Two turns in, and two Intercessors are dead. But half the Fire Warriors are.
If the Fire Warriors move closer to try to get Rapid Fire, that'll put them in charge range of Intercessors, meaning they'll get hosed harder. Intercessors are also more durable and have access to a lot more buffs.
Intercessors shoot better than a Fire Warrior, point for point. I can check the math against other targets, but outside of T8 models and T4 or T5 models that use Invulns instead of Armor, I don't think the Fire Warriors will come out ahead. And it's not a contest who fights better or is more durable.
Galas wrote: TBH even playing Tau it always felt a little cheap that Firewarrior pulse rifle was better than space marines bolter.
Gods. . . Why?
I started playing warhammer 40k as a Tau and they are my biggest army, they are my second favourite because I fell in love with Custodes, but lets say that theres one thing I agree with Irbis, and its that in most of their history, Tau fluff and rules writter make the most bolterporn-lovers marine writters look like noobs by comparison.
Tau are supposed to be this new race that has no fear to try and developt new technology, and for example they made it great with the Tau Plasma vs Imperial Plasma pre 8th, Tau was weaker but safer and Imperial more powerfull but risky. But theres just no reason why a pulse rifle, a weapon made by a 6000 year old race, the weapon they arm their basic troop with, that has literally no drawback, is extensely availible, is better than the bolter, the sacred weapon designed in the age of the Emperor, to arm his super-soldier legions. I could have accepted the extra range because, like, the weapon is quite a bit longer and all of that, but the extra strenght compared with a bolter? Why?
And then you have with a ton of Tau weaponry thats much more powerfull than literally the best imperial weaponry and is, again, like... why? Are so useless the Humans that they weren't capable of doing relic weapons in the Dark Age of Technology that can compete with Tau weapons? Lets say I'm one of those "I prefer my Tau tanks than my Tau mechas" Tau players.
Bolters are not very sophisticated, and they're certainly not technological pinnacles of the DAoT or anything. Heck, in 2nd edition Orks could use Bolters. The point of a Bolter is that it can be mass produced and makes a big S4 bang. They're common things on IG vehicles, disposable turrets, and in hive gangs. They're weapons of war for an Imperium that doesn't respect scientific progress, and has forgotten so much of it's past technological prowess.
Tau have flying tanks*, drones, smart missiles, actively races forward with technology and presumably cares far more about individual soldiers than the Imperium does about the Guardsmen. It makes total sense that there could be a personal weapon that outshines the Bolter, it's just a matter of cost and will. Technically the Imperium could give every soldier a Plasma Gun, the only reason they don't is cost.
Plus, a Fire Warrior is worse off than a Marnie is every other area of ability, strictly worse off across the board. Why would it be so bad to give them just one area in which they were at least marginally better?
*Yes, of course the Imperium has flying tanks now but F all that #$%t.
It would be like having Orks equiped with better meele weapons than space marines (And in some editions choppaz were better than space marines knives or chainswords because reasons) . The point of the Tau is that compared with the imperium they have more refined technology that sacrifices potency for other virtues: Range, being safe, etc... but the Imperium is miles ahead technologically than the Tau, not just in the technology they had in the Dark Age of Technology or in the Great Crusade, but even today their technology can look more brutish than Tau but it is much more powerfull with the exception of extremely low tier and common stuff like lasguns.
The Tau fluff of "The Imperium is fielding Warlord titans but we are destroying them with just a single Tau flyer because lol" , as I said, read more like Tau fanfiction, and it did get even worse with the Damocles gulf campaing books.
I like my Taus as the newcomers that try to be the nice guys and play safe. I don't like anime taus with stronger, faster, and better equipement than nearly everyone, even Eldar and Necrons because "lol gundams". Maybe you don't agree with bolters being better than Pulse rifles but avenger shuriken catapults? Gauss flayers? They had their armor penetration bonuses but I would argue the pulse rifle was a all around better weapon with higher strenght and a significant range difference.
Inter T1 16 shots
32/3 hits
64/9 wounds
128/27 failed saves
4.74 dead Fire Warriors, rounding DOWN to 4.
FW T2 16 shots
8 hits
16/3 wounds
16/9 failed saves
Total of 2 dead Intercessors
Inter T2 14 shots
28/3 hits
56/9 wounds
280/54 or 140/27 failed saves
5.19 more dead Fire Warriors, for a total of 10 now (rounding up this time).
Two turns in, and two Intercessors are dead. But half the Fire Warriors are.
If the Fire Warriors move closer to try to get Rapid Fire, that'll put them in charge range of Intercessors, meaning they'll get hosed harder. Intercessors are also more durable and have access to a lot more buffs.
Intercessors shoot better than a Fire Warrior, point for point. I can check the math against other targets, but outside of T8 models and T4 or T5 models that use Invulns instead of Armor, I don't think the Fire Warriors will come out ahead. And it's not a contest who fights better or is more durable.
The math is nice but I don't think anyone said that Firewarriors were better at shooting than Intercessors. Intercessors are the best troop in the game without a doubt.
Galas wrote: TBH even playing Tau it always felt a little cheap that Firewarrior pulse rifle was better than space marines bolter.
Gods. . . Why?
I started playing warhammer 40k as a Tau and they are my biggest army, they are my second favourite because I fell in love with Custodes, but lets say that theres one thing I agree with Irbis, and its that in most of their history, Tau fluff and rules writter make the most bolterporn-lovers marine writters look like noobs by comparison.
Tau are supposed to be this new race that has no fear to try and developt new technology, and for example they made it great with the Tau Plasma vs Imperial Plasma pre 8th, Tau was weaker but safer and Imperial more powerfull but risky. But theres just no reason why a pulse rifle, a weapon made by a 6000 year old race, the weapon they arm their basic troop with, that has literally no drawback, is extensely availible, is better than the bolter, the sacred weapon designed in the age of the Emperor, to arm his super-soldier legions. I could have accepted the extra range because, like, the weapon is quite a bit longer and all of that, but the extra strenght compared with a bolter? Why?
And then you have with a ton of Tau weaponry thats much more powerfull than literally the best imperial weaponry and is, again, like... why? Are so useless the Humans that they weren't capable of doing relic weapons in the Dark Age of Technology that can compete with Tau weapons? Lets say I'm one of those "I prefer my Tau tanks than my Tau mechas" Tau players.
Bolters are not very sophisticated, and they're certainly not technological pinnacles of the DAoT or anything. Heck, in 2nd edition Orks could use Bolters. The point of a Bolter is that it can be mass produced and makes a big S4 bang. They're common things on IG vehicles, disposable turrets, and in hive gangs. They're weapons of war for an Imperium that doesn't respect scientific progress, and has forgotten so much of it's past technological prowess.
Tau have flying tanks*, drones, smart missiles, actively races forward with technology and presumably cares far more about individual soldiers than the Imperium does about the Guardsmen. It makes total sense that there could be a personal weapon that outshines the Bolter, it's just a matter of cost and will. Technically the Imperium could give every soldier a Plasma Gun, the only reason they don't is cost.
Plus, a Fire Warrior is worse off than a Marnie is every other area of ability, strictly worse off across the board. Why would it be so bad to give them just one area in which they were at least marginally better?
*Yes, of course the Imperium has flying tanks now but F all that #$%t.
It would be like having Orks equiped with better meele weapons than space marines .
It wouldn't be like that at all. Orks don't have hover tanks and robotic AIs as standardized equipment for millions/(billions?) of soldiers.
The whole damn point/identity of the Tau was that they had sophisticated technology which progressed and was used under a different doctrine. As opposed to the Imperium which was suspicious of advancement, had forgotten a lot of technology, and used what they had in often brutal and backwards-thinking ways.
You are underselling the power of the Imperial technology, Insectum7. Theres a reason why in the "who scifi universe would win" 40k is always on top.
I'll admit, the difference between Imperial and Tau technology is much more clear in the high end scale. Tau lacks the spacecraft power and world-destroyer weaponry the Imperium has, or all the cool relic equipement that stuff like Custodes use. But like, with the exception of Custodes and Assasins, Space Marines use the best equipement the Imperium has. That does not mean every marine uses the best equipement, but a terminator armor, and a relic one like Cathapracti, is more advanced and just better than any suit the Tau have. Even if the rules doesnt reflect that.
And Ork technology have for example the best teleportation and shield technology in the galaxy with maybe the exception of Necrons, so is not like they aren't a technologically advanced race.
But I'll admit this is a little off topic so I'll stop this tangent.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
How are they "Much better" at shooting? Your standard Tac is 18 compared to an intercessor at 20. They have basically the same gun except the intercessor gets -1 AP. The only thing better is that the tacs can take a special and heavy weapon.
The Special/Heavy/Combi is a huuuge difference in damage output.
Grav Cannon vs. Marines .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 x 4 = 2.9 Five RFing Bolt Rifles vs. Marines .666 x .5 x .5 x 10 = 1.66
The single heavy weapon does nearly twice the work of an entire five man squad. On top of the Grav Cannon, you get three bolt guns and a Combi-Plasma. Four boltguns if you decide to fire the combi-bolter as well, and since to-hit mods cap out at -1, there might be no detriment to firing it.
now change the target to Ork boyz, firewarriors, basically any faction that isn't the designated target for a Grav cannon...aka Space Marines. That grav cannon is 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.77 wounds for 1-2 dead boyz. + 4 RF bolt guns for 8 shots, 5.32 hits, 2.66 wounds and 2.2 dead orkz, total 3-4 dead orkz with the likelihood being closer to 4.
5 intercessors get 10 shots, 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and 3-4 dead ork boyz. So not a whole lot of difference. We are talking about a small % difference. compared to losing 5 CC attacks. Also, you lose 6' range forgot about that.
Galas wrote: You are underselling the power of the Imperial technology, Insectum7. Theres a reason why in the "who scifi universe would win" 40k is always on top.
I'll admit, the difference between Imperial and Tau technology is much more clear in the high end scale. Tau lacks the spacecraft power and world-destroyer weaponry the Imperium has, or all the cool relic equipement that stuff like Custodes use. But like, with the exception of Custodes and Assasins, Space Marines use the best equipement the Imperium has. That does not mean every marine uses the best equipement, but a terminator armor, and a relic one like Cathapracti, is more advanced and just better than any suit the Tau have. Even if the rules doesnt reflect that.
And Ork technology have for example the best teleportation and shield technology in the galaxy with maybe the exception of Necrons, so is not like they aren't a technologically advanced race.
But I'll admit this is a little off topic so I'll stop this tangent.
Despite having access to some incredible technology, the Imperium still uses tanks that wouldn't look out of place in WW1/2. Whether or not the Imperium and Tau have comparable technology is only half of the game here. The other half is how they choose to use the technology. The Lasgun is impressive technology, sure, but the reason it's chosen over the Bolter for Guardsmen has to do with costs and logistics. The Bolter is chosen for Space Marines instead of the Plasma Gun for some other set of reasons. The Tau developed and deployed the Pulse Rifle to their soldiers for their own reasons. Arguably doctrine plays a larger part than technology in determining who gets what weapons.
From what I understand, the Pulse Rifle is a type of plasma weapon. The Tau simply decided it was in their best interest to develop and deploy a low-grade plasma weapon to their infantry. The Imperium could do the same if it wanted to, they just don't.
JNAProductions wrote:Tau Fire Warriors are, what? 9 points each?
So compare them to 9 Intercessors. 20 Fire Warriors.
If they stand still, giving FW first turn...
Oh, it gets worse than that , because you're also neglecting Bolter Discipline and Doctrines, which give the Intercessors a leg up.
In practice, it's real common for Intercessors to gun down Fire Warriors from 24" before they ever get into Rapid Fire range.
Edit: Apparently I can't read and didn't notice that 20 Fire Warriors were getting 20 shots, or that Bolter Discipline came into effect T2. My bad. Carry on.
Galas wrote: The math is nice but I don't think anyone said that Firewarriors were better at shooting than Intercessors. Intercessors are the best troop in the game without a doubt.
Scroll back. There have been several people complaining that Fire Warriors out-shot Marines and feel that this shouldn't be the case.
Galas wrote:You are underselling the power of the Imperial technology, Insectum7. Theres a reason why in the "who scifi universe would win" 40k is always on top.
I think you're overselling the tech level of the Imperials' mass-produced weapons. The Imperium switched from Volkite to bolters (for Marines, mind you) because the latter was cheap and easily manufactured. The surviving weapons that are true, high-tech relics from the DAoT are things like plasma guns, and those are issued in very limited numbers and treated as practically sacred.
Basic autoguns are explicitly comparable to 20th-century firearms (well, as of 2nd they were), with lasguns being advantageous primarily because they're light and supply their own ammunition- the Imperium fights with manufacturing capacity, logistical support and attrition, not individual high-tech. It's completely in-character for the upstart tiny race with negligible manpower and supply lines to put the very best tech they can muster into the hands of every line trooper, while the Imperials jealously guard their equivalents and instead rely on mass-produced equipment that's just good enough to get the job done.
That's been the core thematic difference between the Tau and the Imperium ever since their introduction.
Galas wrote:You are underselling the power of the Imperial technology, Insectum7. Theres a reason why in the "who scifi universe would win" 40k is always on top.
I think you're overselling the tech level of the Imperials' mass-produced weapons. The Imperium switched from Volkite to bolters (for Marines, mind you) because the latter was cheap and easily manufactured. The surviving weapons that are true, high-tech relics from the DAoT are things like plasma guns, and those are issued in very limited numbers and treated as practically sacred.
Basic autoguns are explicitly comparable to 20th-century firearms (well, as of 2nd they were), with lasguns being advantageous primarily because they're light and supply their own ammunition- the Imperium fights with manufacturing capacity, logistical support and attrition, not individual high-tech. It's completely in-character for the upstart tiny race with negligible manpower and supply lines to put the very best tech they can muster into the hands of every line trooper, while the Imperials jealously guard their equivalents and instead rely on mass-produced equipment that's just good enough to get the job done.
That's been the core thematic difference between the Tau and the Imperium ever since their introduction.
But space marines are like, not line troopers? You have a million marines on the galaxy. "THEY WILL THE BEST OF MY SOLDIERS (Until primaris lol). MY ANGELS OF DEATH".
But as I said, with the Imperium out of question, Tau have in many cases better weaponry than Eldar and Necrons. And that makes even less sense. As I said, I'm a Tau player, I like them, the aesthetics, the fluff, etc... I just feel like in general the rules writter are a little too... fanboys about them. It looks like ages ago but theres a reason why rules wise the Tau have been the most hated race everywhere since 5th edition. All that hate was unreserved in fluff terms or aesthetics terms, of course, stupid complaints, but the rules one had in some cases some ground.
JNAProductions wrote: No, I gave them Bolter Discipline and Doctrines. Otherwise, they'd have half (T1) or less than that (T2) of the damage they're actually doing.
You're right. I got scrambled on the # of shots and didn't realize you brought in Doctrines on T2. When I've seen Tau and Marines fight it's usually been T2 where most of the killing happens so I figured it'd be relevant from the outset.
Just running the numbers, if the Fire Warriors make it into Rapid Fire range and Tactical Doctrine is active, then 9 Intercessors average 6.67 kills (33%), while 20 Fire Warriors average 2.22 kills (25%). So even then, they still lose. In fact, it looks like even without Doctrines or Bolter Discipline at all, the Tau still lose by a very narrow margin (26% to 25%).
Which is to say that the shooting-specialized Tau infantry lose, on a point-for-point basis, to the all-rounder Marine infantry even before the freebie abilities are taken into account.
I would arguee Tacticals right now are much better than Intercessors. They are weaker at CC ok but they are much better at shooting.
How are they "Much better" at shooting? Your standard Tac is 18 compared to an intercessor at 20. They have basically the same gun except the intercessor gets -1 AP. The only thing better is that the tacs can take a special and heavy weapon.
The Special/Heavy/Combi is a huuuge difference in damage output.
Grav Cannon vs. Marines .666 x .666 x .83 x 2 x 4 = 2.9
Five RFing Bolt Rifles vs. Marines .666 x .5 x .5 x 10 = 1.66
The single heavy weapon does nearly twice the work of an entire five man squad. On top of the Grav Cannon, you get three bolt guns and a Combi-Plasma. Four boltguns if you decide to fire the combi-bolter as well, and since to-hit mods cap out at -1, there might be no detriment to firing it.
now change the target to Ork boyz, firewarriors, basically any faction that isn't the designated target for a Grav cannon...aka Space Marines. That grav cannon is 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.77 wounds for 1-2 dead boyz. + 4 RF bolt guns for 8 shots, 5.32 hits, 2.66 wounds and 2.2 dead orkz, total 3-4 dead orkz with the likelihood being closer to 4.
5 intercessors get 10 shots, 6.66 hits, 3.33 wounds and 3-4 dead ork boyz. So not a whole lot of difference. We are talking about a small % difference. compared to losing 5 CC attacks. Also, you lose 6' range forgot about that.
So what? Intercessors are good at killing cheap stuff. Tacticals are also good at killing cheap stuff, and WAY better at killing more expensive stuff. Tacticals can also do both at the same time, using Bolters to kill the cheap stuff and Specials/Heavies to kill expensive stuff.
Galas wrote: But space marines are like, not line troopers? You have a million marines on the galaxy. "THEY WILL THE BEST OF MY SOLDIERS (Until primaris lol). MY ANGELS OF DEATH".
But by Imperial standards, they're still mass-produced. They're constantly creating more Marines. They churn out Predators and Rhinos for their use. Their weapons are standardized across an entire Imperium. They're not barely-understood DAoT relics; they're practical and simple enough for any industrialized planet to produce.
Like, I'm not even making a subjective argument here; the fluff reason for Marines adopting bolters is explicitly that they can be mass-produced and Volkite couldn't. They're the same guns that Imperial Guard are regularly equipped with. Heck, I've got art of a Storm Trooper with what looks exactly like an Astartes bolter.
Compare the way Marines treat bolters with how they treat Terminator armor or plasma guns. It's a pretty big difference.
Galas wrote: But as I said, with the Imperium out of question, Tau have in many cases better weaponry than Eldar and Necrons. And that makes even less sense. As I said, I'm a Tau player, I like them, the aesthetics, the fluff, etc... I just feel like in general the rules writter are a little too... fanboys about them. It looks like ages ago but theres a reason why rules wise the Tau have been the most hated race everywhere since 5th edition. All that hate was unreserved in fluff terms or aesthetics terms, of course, stupid complaints, but the rules one had in some cases some ground.
What are they supposed to have, then?
I mean, they've already been downgraded to Guard-level ballistic skill. They have no melee to speak of. They're not especially durable. Fluff-wise, they don't have numbers. If the high-tech weaponry is taken away, what makes them more than just Guard with skimmers? The idea of the gunline that lives or dies on whether they can keep the enemy away from melee has been a core part of their identity since their inception; taking that away just to ensure that the Imperium is always best at everything seems questionable.
But as I said, with the Imperium out of question, Tau have in many cases better weaponry than Eldar and Necrons. And that makes even less sense.
That's because the Necron and Eldar basic weapons took some incredible hits. Shuriken Catapults should be way better than they are.
Necron Gauss Weapons are/were potentially way more interesting, as they were arguably not about destroying things, but about harvesting atoms and life-force to feed their gods. In which case it's not really a "basic weapon".
I'm not saying Tau should not have high tech. Stealth suits for example are pretty a good representation of high tech that is a little more interesting than "bigger and more powerfull guns". Drones are other good way of showing the use of AI and a different take on technology.
The combined way of making war with markerlights to buff the shooting of other units, to using long range missiles is very reminiscent from Battletech for example, and it is interesting both from fluff and from gameplay mechanic, and it looks like "modern" way of fighting, with spotters, etc... theres many ways of representing the Tau being high tech, making their weapons more powerfull in damage because yes is the laziest. And I'll say again, Tau are my biggest army, my first one, and my favourite from a fluff and aesthetic perspective.
I believe Insectium7 you are not arguing in a very honest way in relation with what I'm saying, cutting explanations to reduce them and taking just the introduction, and arguing with native speakers in a lenguage that isn't your native one is hard enough ,so as I said before now I'll stop this tangent about Tau.
To summarize my opinion in the marine debate about their power: I don't dislike Intercessors in theory. I believe many troops should be better than them, like Inmortals, etc... and I believe theres a place for upgrading many units in the game without starting a strat creep or bloat , but making the game much more granular and different in statlines. Many pages ago I said how I would divide the statlines of most infantry of the game and there were many more powerfull than marines ones.
The main point though is that the SM troop choice outperforms everyone elses troops choices. Kind of relevant to game balance dont you think?
Intercessors out shoot boyz and beat them in melee point for point
Same with genestealers and Tau firewarriors.
So the question is do they need a price hike or are those troops going to receive buffs in the near future to compensate for the fact that they are literally sub par now in comparison.
Galas wrote: The combined way of making war with markerlights to buff the shooting of other units, to using long range missiles is very reminiscent from Battletech for example, and it is interesting both from fluff and from gameplay mechanic, and it looks like "modern" way of fighting, with spotters, etc... theres many ways of representing the Tau being high tech, making their weapons more powerfull in damage because yes is the laziest. And I'll say again, Tau are my biggest army, my first one, and my favourite from a fluff and aesthetic perspective.
I believe Insectium7 you are not arguing in a very honest way in relation with what I'm saying, cutting explanations to reduce them and taking just the introduction, and arguing with native speakers in a lenguage that isn't your native one is hard enough ,so as I said before now I'll stop this tangent about Tau.
Well I apologize for being difficult but I can't get behind the idea that Tau can't have a basic weapon that's more powerful than a bolter. It makes their infantry interesting, and in the past has made facing off against Tau line infantry interesting because there was an intrinsic threat to them. As catbarf says, without the Pulse Rifle Fire Warriors would just sorta become Guardsmen, or maybe lousy Dire Avengers. The Pulse Rifle gives the unit, and the faction, a distinctness in identity which I'd prefer not to lose.
And Space Marines just being better than everybody at everything is really, really, boring and stupid.
Galas wrote: The combined way of making war with markerlights to buff the shooting of other units, to using long range missiles is very reminiscent from Battletech for example, and it is interesting both from fluff and from gameplay mechanic, and it looks like "modern" way of fighting, with spotters, etc... theres many ways of representing the Tau being high tech, making their weapons more powerfull in damage because yes is the laziest. And I'll say again, Tau are my biggest army, my first one, and my favourite from a fluff and aesthetic perspective.
I believe Insectium7 you are not arguing in a very honest way in relation with what I'm saying, cutting explanations to reduce them and taking just the introduction, and arguing with native speakers in a lenguage that isn't your native one is hard enough ,so as I said before now I'll stop this tangent about Tau.
Well I apologize for being difficult but I can't get behind the idea that Tau can't have a basic weapon that's more powerful than a bolter. It makes their infantry interesting, and in the past has made facing off against Tau line infantry interesting because there was an intrinsic threat to them. As catbarf says, without the Pulse Rifle Fire Warriors would just sorta become Guardsmen, or maybe lousy Dire Avengers. The Pulse Rifle gives the unit, and the faction, a distinctness in identity which I'd prefer not to lose.
And Space Marines just being better than everybody at everything is really, really, boring and stupid.
I mean with FP0 and with the new wound tables is not like the Pulse Rifle is that deadly weapon it used to be, so is not really relevant and I was not like advocating for it to be nerfed. I have like 70 fire warriors so yeah I love to use them like red coats in lines of infantry advancing and shooting anything that gets in front of them. Fire Warriors where what sold me into tau, that and Piranhas (I have 6-7 of those and I really hate having multiples of something so that is relevant). What I said was less about marines and more about my friend imperial guardsmen, playing Tau agaisnt them always felt dirty because until 8th they were basically Imperial Guard but better. But I really disagree about the notion than the high-tech and modern feel to Tau is achieved by having Weapons with more strenght and not with all the others things I mentioned.
Spoiler:
SemperMortis wrote: The main point though is that the SM troop choice outperforms everyone elses troops choices. Kind of relevant to game balance dont you think?
Intercessors out shoot boyz and beat them in melee point for point
Same with genestealers and Tau firewarriors.
So the question is do they need a price hike or are those troops going to receive buffs in the near future to compensate for the fact that they are literally sub par now in comparison.
Personally my preference would be for the equilibrium between low cost troops like boyz, kabalites, Firewarriors and Intercessors to be achieved with removing some of the bloat rules space marines have and point costs. And the balance between Intercessors and more elite troops like inmortals, Aspect Warriors, etc... should be achieved by stat upgrades to those combined with repointing and the , as I said, nerf to marine bonuses.
Galas wrote: What I said was less about marines and more about my friend imperial guardsmen, playing Tau agaisnt them always felt dirty because until 8th they were basically Imperial Guard but better.
Isn't that the point? I mean, on the one side you have a totalitarian war machine that throws expendable troops into the meat grinder armed with just the most cost-efficient equipment. And on the other, you have soldiers individually treated as valuable, equipped with the best technology their race can muster.
Then you bring in units like Scions, and now they've got similar protection, and while their main weapons aren't quite as powerful they bring ancient high-technology relics into the mix and sheer experience that the naive Tau lack.
And in all cases, those technological upstarts are just one successful bayonet charge away from finding themselves in hand-to-hand, where suddenly those primitive, expendable conscripts are their equals.
I play Guard and I like the Tau out-shooting me- while costing half again as much. It means we use our infantry for very different purposes; theirs are actual combatants arranged as line troopers, mine are meatshields for the heavy weapons that do the real work. They have mobility, range, and precision high-lethality, while I have sledgehammer brutality and crushing resilience. Having high-power shooting is an essential part of that equation.
I really enjoyed that they managed to bring another humanoid race into the game that feels as uniquely different from the human factions as the Eldar or Orks do. I think it would be a shame for them to lose any part of what makes them different. I mean, you already have a lower-tech alien race fighting alongside them- that's the Kroot.
JNAProductions wrote: No, I gave them Bolter Discipline and Doctrines. Otherwise, they'd have half (T1) or less than that (T2) of the damage they're actually doing.
You're right. I got scrambled on the # of shots and didn't realize you brought in Doctrines on T2. When I've seen Tau and Marines fight it's usually been T2 where most of the killing happens so I figured it'd be relevant from the outset.
Just running the numbers, if the Fire Warriors make it into Rapid Fire range and Tactical Doctrine is active, then 9 Intercessors average 6.67 kills (33%), while 20 Fire Warriors average 2.22 kills (25%). So even then, they still lose. In fact, it looks like even without Doctrines or Bolter Discipline at all, the Tau still lose by a very narrow margin (26% to 25%).
Which is to say that the shooting-specialized Tau infantry lose, on a point-for-point basis, to the all-rounder Marine infantry even before the freebie abilities are taken into account.
Hey but chapter master got moved to one core unit per turn and costs pts ratehr than CP!!!! That evens it out surely!
Galas wrote: What I said was less about marines and more about my friend imperial guardsmen, playing Tau agaisnt them always felt dirty because until 8th they were basically Imperial Guard but better.
Isn't that the point? I mean, on the one side you have a totalitarian war machine that throws expendable troops into the meat grinder armed with just the most cost-efficient equipment. And on the other, you have soldiers individually treated as valuable, equipped with the best technology their race can muster.
Then you bring in units like Scions, and now they've got similar protection, and while their main weapons aren't quite as powerful they bring ancient high-technology relics into the mix and sheer experience that the naive Tau lack.
And in all cases, those technological upstarts are just one successful bayonet charge away from finding themselves in hand-to-hand, where suddenly those primitive, expendable conscripts are their equals.
I play Guard and I like the Tau out-shooting me- while costing half again as much. It means we use our infantry for very different purposes; theirs are actual combatants arranged as line troopers, mine are meatshields for the heavy weapons that do the real work. They have mobility, range, and precision high-lethality, while I have sledgehammer brutality and crushing resilience. Having high-power shooting is an essential part of that equation.
I really enjoyed that they managed to bring another humanoid race into the game that feels as uniquely different from the human factions as the Eldar or Orks do. I think it would be a shame for them to lose any part of what makes them different. I mean, you already have a lower-tech alien race fighting alongside them- that's the Kroot.
I wasn't exactly talking from a "feeling" perspective and more of a balance one. Hammerheads popping leman russes like it was nothing and then infantry being mulched by my infantry always felt a little oppresive, but that was editions ago so it has no relevance to today. But I'll repeat, theres much more reasons why Tau feel good to play, and different than Imperial Guard being both "human" like shooting armies , I believe you two are leaning a little too hard in the basic weapon having +1 or -1 point of strenght. That kind of minutiate is not really that relevant. Is like that guy that said that if "THE OLD WORLD" is literally fantasy but with movement trays to use round AoS bases in square formations it would absolutely change the feeling of the game because old 20mm square based miniatures use now 25mm round ones.
I really enjoyed playing Tau in 8th with the Farsight suplement of CA. Movile, short ranged shooting armies, high risk high reward are my favourite, extremely tactical. Breachers are probably my favourite troop in the game.
SemperMortis wrote: The main point though is that the SM troop choice outperforms everyone elses troops choices. Kind of relevant to game balance dont you think?
Intercessors out shoot boyz and beat them in melee point for point
Same with genestealers and Tau firewarriors.
So the question is do they need a price hike or are those troops going to receive buffs in the near future to compensate for the fact that they are literally sub par now in comparison.
Based on the minor and precisely targeted nerfs in the codex, I suspect the latter. Which is going to be an extremely annoying wait.
My understanding, or at least my hope based on what we've seen so far, is that 9th edition is overall supposed to have a substantially higher overall level of power than 8th. The weapon upgrades suggest this, as does the improvement in the Necron codex (Even if this codex isn't as good as the Marine one).
The problem in many ways stems from the fact that SM 2.0 was designed with 9th edition codex strength in mind; by comparison to the others, it contains horsebuggering levels of power. Everyone else (With the possible exception of SoB, which released later) has been stuck in 8th edition levels of power until Necrons just now. SM 9th fixed an edge unit or two, smoothed out a few problems, then added a couple of new ones; but overall their level of power has not really dropped a full order of magnitude since SM 2.0, so I presume this to be the intended default state of 9th edition. We are not in a fundamentally place from the past year where the Marines are just ahead of nearly all others, and that has not changed, so everyone else will just have to be buffed to compensate.
Supposedly they have all the books playtested; supposedly one of these playtesters is capable of enough mathhammer to be minimally aware that, as others seem to have demonstrated, Tau Firewarriors are incapable of outshooting an Intercessor, and Daemonettes without guns can't outdo them in melee, and would rewrite rules to fix this. If GW is capable of that much, then the problem is that these apparently playtested books have not been released in any form. The clinging to an old, staggered physical print model for what is either stubbornness or greed is making the game balance incredibly awkward, like if you underwent puberty by having every body part in turn reach adult size before the next one started growing. There is no reason we should have to "wait and see."
SemperMortis wrote: My trust in GW's "Playtesting" is the same amount of trust I would place on a Cruise Ship Named Titanic reaching its intended destination.
I hate to bring it back up, but one of these "Playtesters" is the renowned Reece who is famous for being wrong...all the damn time.
Not gonna argue that; it's not much. But it's basically all we've got.
SemperMortis wrote: My trust in GW's "Playtesting" is the same amount of trust I would place on a Cruise Ship Named Titanic reaching its intended destination.
I hate to bring it back up, but one of these "Playtesters" is the renowned Reece who is famous for being wrong...all the damn time.
Not gonna argue that; it's not much. But it's basically all we've got.
No it's fething not.
I don't understand this stockholm syndrome bull that people have with GW. You have your dollars and your time. Stop payng GW for a subpar product, take your plastic toys and your friends, and go play a different rule set with better rules. You don't owe GW gak and you absolutely do not have to eat their scraps of a crap product.
SemperMortis wrote: My trust in GW's "Playtesting" is the same amount of trust I would place on a Cruise Ship Named Titanic reaching its intended destination.
I hate to bring it back up, but one of these "Playtesters" is the renowned Reece who is famous for being wrong...all the damn time.
Not gonna argue that; it's not much. But it's basically all we've got.
No it's fething not.
I don't understand this stockholm syndrome bull that people have with GW. You have your dollars and your time. Stop payng GW for a subpar product, take your plastic toys and your friends, and go play a different rule set with better rules. You don't owe GW gak and you absolutely do not have to eat their scraps of a crap product.
Oh, don't misunderstand me, I'm not giving them a goddamn goatlicking cent at the moment. I'm with you on this. I'm 3D printing minis I've customized in Blender and I'm not paying for those overpriced pieces of colorful, rapidly errata'ed shitpaper they call codexes. But in terms of hoping for GW to release rules that aren't crap, given that the rules are largely already written, then the only chain of logic that leads to the game eventually balancing out in an official capacity in the forseeable future is if all the codexes are substantially increased in power to match the spectrum of SM 9th.
SemperMortis wrote: My trust in GW's "Playtesting" is the same amount of trust I would place on a Cruise Ship Named Titanic reaching its intended destination.
I hate to bring it back up, but one of these "Playtesters" is the renowned Reece who is famous for being wrong...all the damn time.
Not gonna argue that; it's not much. But it's basically all we've got.
No it's fething not.
I don't understand this stockholm syndrome bull that people have with GW. You have your dollars and your time. Stop payng GW for a subpar product, take your plastic toys and your friends, and go play a different rule set with better rules. You don't owe GW gak and you absolutely do not have to eat their scraps of a crap product.
But what if I enjoy the game, have fun with it, and then go with my group of friends to big tournaments where everybody plays the same game? And , at the same time, I play other rulesets that are more balanced and I also like?
Is being critical with the game incompatible with having reasonable expectations about what it is and what isnt and having fun with it?
I'm sorry but when you, and many like you, reach the point of reducing all the reasons of playing GW games to emotional manipulation, attacking the people that enjoys playing those games, you lose all kind of moral ground you could claim.
).
It's also another area of the game where the resolution of detail for Marines is turned waaay up over everybody else.
