I had the idea for a core rule in a Blood Angels thread that seemed to hit an ok approval rating, so I'll repost it here so the people not interested in BA can see.
-Who has the rule?
All Astartes. From scouts to special characters. Anyone who, in the fluff, got a gene-seed from a primarch and went through a dozen surgeries to turn their body into a war machine. This DOES include chaos marines.
-okay, what rule?
Closer to monster than man: Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.
-What is the design intent of this rule?
Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.
The intent of the rule is to up the survival rate of all marine models by 17% specifically against higher strength weapons. This would have no effect on any weapon strength 5 or lower. (But would have an effect on poison 2+, making it 3+ instead!)
Do they need this?
In my opinion, yes. Here, have a thread to yank the idea about.
Also, I would absolutely love to hear of any playtest results if someone decides to try the rule out in a game.
Sounds good but a bit strange. Maybe just make them all equivalent to plague marines with upgraded bolters to be like rapid fire 2/3? With appropriate point increase ofc.
Remove this bonus for weapons that cause instant death and you've got a fairly reasonable rule against autocannons and assault cannons. (and eldar in general.)
Remove this bonus for weapons that cause instant death and you've got a fairly reasonable rule against autocannons and assault cannons. (and eldar in general.)
That's exactly what the bonus is there for. Marines cost too much to be wounded at the same rate as gretchin. But making them T5 introduces a slew of problems. Marines wouldn't be able to kill each other, and smaller hordes would have a hell of a time trying to put them down. I mean, fluff-wise I could see it, but in games against masses of lasguns and cheap little s3 melee attacks, it might be a little over-the-top.
I believe the only design issue is the huge amount of s6+ in the game nowadays that treats marines like ratlings with armor, so that's specifically where this gun is aimed it.
How about any weapon of s5+ that does not inflict instant death either increases the roll it needs to wound by 1 (so 2+ becomes 3+) or re-rolls successful rolls to wound?
rohansoldier wrote: How about any weapon of s5+ that does not inflict instant death either increases the roll it needs to wound by 1 (so 2+ becomes 3+) or re-rolls successful rolls to wound?
As silvermk2 implied, there are a lot of special rules in the game, and cutting down on complications is important.
It's easy to remember: Hey I'm marines, I can't be swept.
It's annoying to try and remember say...soul blaze, a very poorly written rule. You might take some wounds and it might continue and we want you to wait to check for this at a time when you're not going to remember it.
It's easy to remember: Hey I'm marines, you have to wound me on at least 3's.
"s5-7 weapons wound me on 1 worse" is a little more complicated. Not much mind you, but it's definitely easier to overlook in the middle of a game.
I'm still of the opinion that marines should be at least a LITTLE better at surviving the big guns than gretchin. 33% survival as opposed to 17% really isn't asking all that much.
In order to match the fluff, Marines across the board certainly need buffs. That is not the issue.
The issue is just that it's not hard to get an army that includes as many Space Marines as your enemy has Orks, and this frequently happens.
As you can imagine, such battles would turn really silly really fast (Just look at the game Space Marine for what a single determined Marine with a CCW can do to a horde of Orks) or the Marine player would never ever be able to use more than a fraction of his collection unless he is facing other Marines.
GW apparently really likes the idea of being able to fill the board with Space Marines (And they want you to buy tons to get a suitably points-priced army) so Marines have rather pushed-down stats. I mean, a Guardsman Major or whatever (Company commander) can take three times as many gunshot wounds as a Marine in the same armour. seems fluffy breh
I can see no real way of fixing this at this point, especially not with the incredibly imprecise D6 system.
Honestly, I tried making 'fluff Marine' stats and played them against an Ork friend, and while we had fun and all, it just does not seem to work out in the current system.
I pray to the Dark Gods for a complete rules overhaul, honestly.
As a side note, the other T4 troops in the game are either much more resilient, or much cheaper. This is a factor at the heart of the issue.
Ork boys are a dime a dozen. Them dying in droves doesn't cost you the game.
Necrons survive 33% more of anything thrown at them regardless, 50% if you have an orb, so this change would NOT put marines over necrons in survivability.
Nurgle Daemons have a constant invuln, and are fairly cheap.
Out of all the T4 basic troops, it's just marine equivalents that get shafted by s6+, where the extra points they're paying for "increased survivability" on every model are totally wasted.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BrotherHaraldus wrote: In order to match the fluff, Marines across the board certainly need buffs. That is not the issue.
The issue is just that it's not hard to get an army that includes as many Space Marines as your enemy has Orks, and this frequently happens.
As you can imagine, such battles would turn really silly really fast (Just look at the game Space Marine for what a single determined Marine with a CCW can do to a horde of Orks) or the Marine player would never ever be able to use more than a fraction of his collection unless he is facing other Marines.
GW apparently really likes the idea of being able to fill the board with Space Marines (And they want you to buy tons to get a suitably points-priced army) so Marines have rather pushed-down stats. I mean, a Guardsman Major or whatever (Company commander) can take three times as many gunshot wounds as a Marine in the same armour. seems fluffy breh
I can see no real way of fixing this at this point, especially not with the incredibly imprecise D6 system.
Honestly, I tried making 'fluff Marine' stats and played them against an Ork friend, and while we had fun and all, it just does not seem to work out in the current system.
I pray to the Dark Gods for a complete rules overhaul, honestly.
O.O what codex do you have where your marines cost 6 points a model and come in sets of 30? Or what ork dex is he using? You sure someone mean didn't photoshop in an extra digit into the cost in his codex?
If marines are outnumbering orks at the start of a game, someone went crazy on their list building. Probably both people actually. The only races that ever hope to outnumber orks are bare-bones tyranids and Imperial guard/chaos cultists. And all of those have worse stats and performance.
Yes, I've played Space Marine, and I know an actual fluff marine would cost over like 100 points per model, before you even start getting to fluff captains like Titus, or fluff ridiculous guys like Mephiston, who took out an ork army alone with no weapons or armor, and Draigo who...well who's Draigo.
The issue is that the stats for the tabletop game are dumbed down to ATTEMPT to make the game balanced, so the guy NOT playing marines can win. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's a little off-balance. (No one is going to argue this, right?) Thus, a minor change. I don't think the game is so far from balanced that it needs a total rules overhaul. Just a few tweaks here and there.
One of the issues is, as has been said, marines pay a lot of points for survivability of their models, and their models DON'T survive. You don't get what you pay for. It's fine on the low end, as they do survive lasgun fire, heavy flamers, pretty much everything s5 ap4 and worse only kills 1 marine for every 3 of other models that would've died. That works since the marine tends to cost 2 or even 3 times more. But it isn't working on the higher end. Armies in general have gotten a ton of firepower that invalidates the upside to marines and chaos marines over other races' troops. Atsknf and the like isn't even an issue when the firepower just kills the unit like they were guardsmen or gretchin.
To put it another way...let's say you've been playing necrons for a long time, and a new edition and a rash of new codices come out, and everyone's GOOD weapons, the ones they take even if they're not facing necrons, all have the special rule "kills necrons dead: no reanimation protocols roll." That'd be a bit out of whack right? I mean, you're paying points for that rule, and it's getting invalidated all over the place. This is pretty much what's going on with marines.
It's easy to remember: Hey I'm marines, I can't be swept.
It's annoying to try and remember say...soul blaze, a very poorly written rule. You might take some wounds and it might continue and we want you to wait to check for this at a time when you're not going to remember it.
This is the reason people lose games. Every little point of damage you can do is good damage, no matter how obscure it is. Always make your opponent roll for things that are bad for him.
Jefffar wrote: Marines have things to make them more survivable as it is. T4 and 3+ Armour.
If your opponent is using anti-vehicle weapons on your infantry, maybe you should have more vehicles.
If my opponent is using anti-vehicle weapons on my infantry, he's using the wrong tools for the wrong job, and that's to my advantage. A lascannon will take the whole game to pay for itself if it's hitting one marine at a time. If I was bringing vehicles to a game where they had an overflow of anti-vehicle, I'd also tell them "merry christmas" when I deployed, because at that point they have a pretty massive advantage. That's not what's going on though.
They're not using anti-vehicle on the infantry, they're using really good anti-infantry on the infantry. Lots of shots, wound everyone on 2's. Doesn't matter how tough they are, with the exception of like...eldar wraithguard who they might wound on 3's or 4's, depending on the gun. The thing that makes those guns great is that they pull double-duty as light anti-tank/anti-flyer. If you really want to get down to the core of the problem, perhaps its more of "most army's str6-8 guns are undercosted," but that's a lot harder to fix.
That's one of the reasons that some people (including me) advocate running some dark horse lists that utilize land raiders, purely because of the metagame. Even outside tournament or competitive settings, people run the good guns that cover lots of bases without being really expensive. It's part of the reason dark eldar love their dark lances and necrons love their gauss. Cheap, and can handle literally anything, given enough rolls. People don't run tons of lascannons because they're expensive, and if you don't have a shot at a heavy vehicle, the lascannon probably isn't paying for itself. It's also only one shot, and still isn't all that reliable when it comes to tank hunting, without say...throwing it in an imperial fist dev squad for tank hunters special rule. I've won a handful of games now just because I brought Land Raiders, and killed off the one or two things in their army that could hurt it. One involved grabbing a relic, hopping inside, and sitting there.
Of course if you run into the guy who's prepared for that, you become the paper in a scissors vs paper match.
As for the quote above. The point is that the T4, and a large amount of times, the 3+ AREN'T GETTING USED, they're getting bypassed. Our reanimation protocols that we're paying for unwillingly on every model are getting nullified by a bunch of guns that say "no reanimation protocols."
At this point, if I could play a codex called "naked marines" that don't have to take power armor (and not have to pay points for it,) I probably would. Then I could have an "underwear tide" list and actually put up a decent fight with my infantry.
It's easy to remember: Hey I'm marines, I can't be swept.
It's annoying to try and remember say...soul blaze, a very poorly written rule. You might take some wounds and it might continue and we want you to wait to check for this at a time when you're not going to remember it.
This is the reason people lose games. Every little point of damage you can do is good damage, no matter how obscure it is. Always make your opponent roll for things that are bad for him.
No one bothers to HTH marines except Daemons and SW. Everyone else shoots them to death.
I don't see a reason why such would be necessary or warranted. Big guns are big guns for a reason.
A big HE tank shell will kill almost anything with terrifying effectiveness, you hit an 8 ton Elephant or a 180 pound Human with a 120mm HE shell from a tank, it's spaghetti sauce either way. likewise it shouldn't matter if you hit a Space Marine or a Grot with a Battlecannon, they should both be pasted fairly effectively. Likewise a Lascannon, capable of killing the most powerful tanks in the 41st millenium through their most defensible armor facings, aren't going to care about how much more resilient an SM's flesh is, it's still just flesh that's simply going to flash-boil into cauterized mist when hit by an energy weapon of such magnitude.
If you look at common infantry weapons and physical melee attacks, SM's are tremendously more resistant than a common human soldier. As they should be. However, there is a threshold where certain weapons are so powerful they just don't care, same concept as the Instant Death rule.
Vaktathi wrote: I don't see a reason why such would be necessary or warranted. Big guns are big guns for a reason.
A big HE tank shell will kill almost anything with terrifying effectiveness, you hit an 8 ton Elephant or a 180 pound Human with a 120mm HE shell from a tank, it's spaghetti sauce either way. likewise it shouldn't matter if you hit a Space Marine or a Grot with a Battlecannon, they should both be pasted fairly effectively. Likewise a Lascannon, capable of killing the most powerful tanks in the 41st millenium through their most defensible armor facings, aren't going to care about how much more resilient an SM's flesh is, it's still just flesh that's simply going to flash-boil into cauterized mist when hit by an energy weapon of such magnitude.
If you look at common infantry weapons and physical melee attacks, SM's are tremendously more resistant than a common human soldier. As they should be. However, there is a threshold where certain weapons are so powerful they just don't care, same concept as the Instant Death rule.
Marine vehicles basically suck in 6th. Especially against S 6/7. Try again.
To be fair, this is true for pretty much anyone that isn't Tau, Eldar or Necrons.
It's like people complaing about the ion cannon's overcharge (which is actually just a not as good battle cannon, so no, it's not cheesy or OP or LRBTs are too) killung marines. It's the primary weapon on a battle tank, iniantry won't survive a hit from it.
Martel732 wrote: Counter proposal? This is the best I've seen so far.
Leave things as they are. Your starting point of 'Marines die too easily' seems flawed and based on a very broad opinion so far. By all means, continue the discussion amongst yourselves as I will drop out now, but I wanted to make sure there was at least one dissenting opinion.
Basically, marines die exactly as fast as they should, given the weapons of the 40k universe. However, I'm also all for almost completely removing Feel No Pain; And They Shall Know No Fear being nerfed to the ground and other ideas that strip the game back a lot further than it is these days.
Martel732 wrote: Counter proposal? This is the best I've seen so far.
Leave things as they are. Your starting point of 'Marines die too easily' seems flawed and based on a very broad opinion so far. By all means, continue the discussion amongst yourselves as I will drop out now, but I wanted to make sure there was at least one dissenting opinion.
Basically, marines die exactly as fast as they should, given the weapons of the 40k universe. However, I'm also all for almost completely removing Feel No Pain; And They Shall Know No Fear being nerfed to the ground and other ideas that strip the game back a lot further than it is these days.
Game=/=fluff, otherwise Marines ought to get a lot higher stats than they do.
Martel732 wrote: Counter proposal? This is the best I've seen so far.
Reduce the strength of high RoF, weak AP weapons. With the exception of Baleflamers, everything that has AP3 or better is an anti-tank gun. Multilasers? Scatter lasers? Assault cannons?
These are all AP4 or worse. These are anti-infantry weapons. Highly effective anti-infantry weapons. In the case of these three weapons especially, their high Strength score is supposed to represent their insane rate of fire compared to equivalent weapons.
Remember, the Assault Cannon (S6) fires the same rounds as a Heavy Stubber (S4).
So, the answer to the problem of Marines being slaughtered by high strength anti-infantry weapons is to cap strength based on AP value. Say, anything with an AP of 4, 5 or 6 can only have a maximum Strength of 5. This has a similar effect to setting a maximum 'to wound' calculation, but keeps things more in line with sanity - a krak missile is still going to turn a Marine into chunky salsa, because anything powerful enough to ignore power armour is just going to go straight through a living creature, even one whose ribcage is as hard as steel (Which is still weaker than ceramite). Then for things like the Multilaser and Assault Cannon, push their rate of fire back up to represent their rate of fire, or give them Rending.
Leave things as they are. Your starting point of 'Marines die too easily' seems flawed and based on a very broad opinion so far. By all means, continue the discussion amongst yourselves as I will drop out now, but I wanted to make sure there was at least one dissenting opinion.
Basically, marines die exactly as fast as they should, given the weapons of the 40k universe. However, I'm also all for almost completely removing Feel No Pain; And They Shall Know No Fear being nerfed to the ground and other ideas that strip the game back a lot further than it is these days.
It sounds like you enjoy apocalypse games more, where models just fly off the table in droves and you don't really have to worry about individual statlines and the like.
I, for one, enjoy a bountiful amount of special rules, many varying armies, and general asymmetrical gameplay. Obviously some of the rules are clunky, like soul blaze, and should be streamlined a bit, but the overall scale of the game appeals to me, where the whole army and its synergy matters, but the individual models that make up the army also matter.
I think if you read the full fluff explanation of a marine's bio-engineering, you might have a different take on how much it should take to kill them. They're not really even human anymore. They're biological war-machines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and again, if anyone has any playtest data, I'd love to see it. I won't get a chance to play until I get through my work week.
I don't think any of this is a good idea. Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns. Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp? only exceptionally blast-resistant armour (so, terminators) has any chance of withstanding the forces that will crush a marine to bits inside his own suit, and that's only factoring in the shockwave from an explosion, not even the whole shrapnel and fire part. Something like an Autocannon wounds easily on a 2 because they not only have a high RoF (as Furyou mentioned) but fire large-caliber shells that once they -do- pierce the armour, they will (or, at least 5/6 times) instantly cause a fatal wound. The only protection is your suit, once it fails, you're done.
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
Sparkadia, are you arguing that Marines are fine gamewise because of fluff reasons or balance reasons?
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
Sparkadia wrote: Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns.
This wouldn't make them any tougher against standard infantry guns. Those tend to wound marines on 5's, 4's or 3's in the case of the really strong tau ones. I mentioned earlier that I find this to be working nice, and didn't want it messed with, so a toughness raise was out of the question.
Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
This suggestion wouldn't negate AP3, or change its function at all. Marines would still die when successfully wounded by ap3 or better.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp?
Because you roll low to wound? Two questions for you:
A: If a battlecannon/any big super cannon should instantly kill any infantry similar to strength D, why bother with not wounding on 1's?
B: Why exactly should a gretchin stand the same chance of living as a power-armored marine?
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
I'm using the fluff as an example for part of the reasoning, sure, but its just a support. The main argument in the crunch game is actual game balance. At the end of the day, in the actual game stats, the balance is the goal, fluff be damned.
Sparkadia wrote: I don't think any of this is a good idea. Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns. Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp? only exceptionally blast-resistant armour (so, terminators) has any chance of withstanding the forces that will crush a marine to bits inside his own suit, and that's only factoring in the shockwave from an explosion, not even the whole shrapnel and fire part. Something like an Autocannon wounds easily on a 2 because they not only have a high RoF (as Furyou mentioned) but fire large-caliber shells that once they -do- pierce the armour, they will (or, at least 5/6 times) instantly cause a fatal wound. The only protection is your suit, once it fails, you're done.
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
Okay, I'd be happy with the same restrictions as FNP. But that makes the ion accelerator a 83% fatal again.
Sparkadia, are you arguing that Marines are fine gamewise because of fluff reasons or balance reasons?
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
Marines already have poor offense. That's what's really killing them in 6th. They pay more for these "durable" models, so they have fewer dice the throw on their turn. The balance to this is that they are SUPPOSED to last longer. But that is no longer happening from what I've seen. On a per point basis, marines are less durable than Orks against non AP 3 shooting and even worse still against AP 3 or better.
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
If you want a hundred white ducks, and you have a 99 whites and one black, is it easier to paint all the whites black or the black one white? (no animals were harmed in this metaphor.)
I don't believe that marines are balanced for reasons I stated earlier, which in essence sums up to: each marine is paying a lot more to be just as tough as a sister of battle in the current game. Except without the 6+ invuln.
I think the idea itself is decent, actually. That said, it has its issues, but I've seen worse.
Battlecannons are also sorta OP compared to a Predator autocannon. Both are supposed to be the turret gun of a main battle tank. Those statlines, I mean lolwut? Pretty much my entire meta is agreeing that 72" range is weird and unnecessary.
But regardless. We might try this out. Plague Marines and Bikers would not be overly buffed by this, really, since most small arms wound them on 5+ anyway.
It will also, like the Walrus said, buff HB equivalents, something that is very needed.
liquidjoshi wrote: I instantly disagree with Marines getting more buffs. Wait until the next SM codex. They'll get stupid good again. Always do.
They just got a codex. And they are mediocre at best, and likely going to end up even worse than that, because there are many more codices left to drop in 6th.
Seems simpler enough to just give em a 6+ FNP. and bump up iron hands. they will become far more resilient against small arms while still dieing to things that are supposed to vaiporize them (battle cannon ion accelerator.)
6+ FNP is a lot less efficacious than not being wounded on a "2".
Wait, maybe not. Let me look at that.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Okay this rule would save a marine squad 4 wounds up front from a full scatter walker broadside, from 20 down to 16.
A 6+ feel no pain roll makes the save chance from 66.66% to 72.2%.
So against the full broadside, the proposed marines take 5.333 casualties and the FNP marines take 5.56 casualties. Standard marines are taking 6.67 casualties.
I guess the difference isn't that big.
Wow. Over 3 turns, a scatter walker squad will destroy TWO ENTIRE SQUADS of normal marines from 36" away, and cover doesn't help. And that is just a single heavy choice from the Eldar. This rule would make it a mere squad and a half. Yay us.
Sparkadia, are you arguing that Marines are fine gamewise because of fluff reasons or balance reasons?
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
niv-mizzet wrote:
Sparkadia wrote: Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns.
This wouldn't make them any tougher against standard infantry guns. Those tend to wound marines on 5's, 4's or 3's in the case of the really strong tau ones. I mentioned earlier that I find this to be working nice, and didn't want it messed with, so a toughness raise was out of the question.
Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
This suggestion wouldn't negate AP3, or change its function at all. Marines would still die when successfully wounded by ap3 or better.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp?
Because you roll low to wound? Two questions for you:
A: If a battlecannon/any big super cannon should instantly kill any infantry similar to strength D, why bother with not wounding on 1's?
B: Why exactly should a gretchin stand the same chance of living as a power-armored marine?
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
I'm using the fluff as an example for part of the reasoning, sure, but its just a support. The main argument in the crunch game is actual game balance. At the end of the day, in the actual game stats, the balance is the goal, fluff be damned.
My argument is that Marines are the 'baseline' which all infantry are measured from, and do not need any additional buffs. They are statistically good, with no weaknesses of any description, backed up by ATSKNF and access to Special/Heavy Weapons. They excel in every field, compared to other infantry. The problem is that the game demands that they are still able to be killed, so representing their unparalleled toughness (as shown in the fluff) would be impractical. I suppose my main beef with this is; why should Marines get this treatment but others do not? Why do Orks not get a 4+ FNP, considering they are unbelievably resilient and tenacious? How about Tyranids? They are also living war machines, their very engineering is designed to withstand damage equal to (or superior to) Spess Mahreens yet they do not get this rule?
This isn't taking a shot at either of you Haraldus or Mizzet, I just needed a way to put a method of comparison in. I mean no offence. I simply don't believe Marines, who already get plenty of "'free" power from things like Chapter Tactics, deserve this buff over other armies because of 'reasons'.
Then again, I am a renowned Marine hater. So, expect bias.
Sparkadia, are you arguing that Marines are fine gamewise because of fluff reasons or balance reasons?
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
niv-mizzet wrote:
Sparkadia wrote: Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns.
This wouldn't make them any tougher against standard infantry guns. Those tend to wound marines on 5's, 4's or 3's in the case of the really strong tau ones. I mentioned earlier that I find this to be working nice, and didn't want it messed with, so a toughness raise was out of the question.
Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
This suggestion wouldn't negate AP3, or change its function at all. Marines would still die when successfully wounded by ap3 or better.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp?
Because you roll low to wound? Two questions for you:
A: If a battlecannon/any big super cannon should instantly kill any infantry similar to strength D, why bother with not wounding on 1's?
B: Why exactly should a gretchin stand the same chance of living as a power-armored marine?
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
I'm using the fluff as an example for part of the reasoning, sure, but its just a support. The main argument in the crunch game is actual game balance. At the end of the day, in the actual game stats, the balance is the goal, fluff be damned.
My argument is that Marines are the 'baseline' which all infantry are measured from, and do not need any additional buffs. They are statistically good, with no weaknesses of any description, backed up by ATSKNF and access to Special/Heavy Weapons. They excel in every field, compared to other infantry. The problem is that the game demands that they are still able to be killed, so representing their unparalleled toughness (as shown in the fluff) would be impractical. I suppose my main beef with this is; why should Marines get this treatment but others do not? Why do Orks not get a 4+ FNP, considering they are unbelievably resilient and tenacious? How about Tyranids? They are also living war machines, their very engineering is designed to withstand damage equal to (or superior to) Spess Mahreens yet they do not get this rule?
This isn't taking a shot at either of you Haraldus or Mizzet, I just needed a way to put a method of comparison in. I mean no offence. I simply don't believe Marines, who already get plenty of "'free" power from things like Chapter Tactics, deserve this buff over other armies because of 'reasons'.
Then again, I am a renowned Marine hater. So, expect bias.
Well, you certainly got your wish this edition. I'm having flashbacks to 2nd. All I ask is that marines are worth the points we pay. Given the way 6th edition works, I don't think that they are, due to poor offensive output on a per point basis. ATSKNF doesn't matter anymore, because the Xenos just kill me to the man. No morale checks necessary. I just showed above what a single scatter walker squadron can do.
Sparkadia, are you arguing that Marines are fine gamewise because of fluff reasons or balance reasons?
I am not sure if I see what this thread is trying to do. Either it is trying to make Marines fluffy-tough (Almost entirely doomed to fail in the current system) or it tries to make them balanced gamewise (Which they arguably are, the issue is just that nobody sees it since there are other troops choices that are too good, and weapons that are too good at killing Marines for their steep cost, so Marines seem UP in comparison.)
niv-mizzet wrote:
Sparkadia wrote: Marines are already tough, and highly resilient to standard infantry guns.
This wouldn't make them any tougher against standard infantry guns. Those tend to wound marines on 5's, 4's or 3's in the case of the really strong tau ones. I mentioned earlier that I find this to be working nice, and didn't want it messed with, so a toughness raise was out of the question.
Things that are AP3 or less are designed for the very function of ignoring armour like this. The gun is made with the objective of killing people in mind, it is going to be pretty good at it.
This suggestion wouldn't negate AP3, or change its function at all. Marines would still die when successfully wounded by ap3 or better.
Why exactly would a battlecannon not turn a marine into pulp?
Because you roll low to wound? Two questions for you:
A: If a battlecannon/any big super cannon should instantly kill any infantry similar to strength D, why bother with not wounding on 1's?
B: Why exactly should a gretchin stand the same chance of living as a power-armored marine?
No, marines aren't as tough int he game as they are in the fluff. But neither is anything.
I'm using the fluff as an example for part of the reasoning, sure, but its just a support. The main argument in the crunch game is actual game balance. At the end of the day, in the actual game stats, the balance is the goal, fluff be damned.
My argument is that Marines are the 'baseline' which all infantry are measured from, and do not need any additional buffs. They are statistically good, with no weaknesses of any description, backed up by ATSKNF and access to Special/Heavy Weapons. They excel in every field, compared to other infantry. The problem is that the game demands that they are still able to be killed, so representing their unparalleled toughness (as shown in the fluff) would be impractical. I suppose my main beef with this is; why should Marines get this treatment but others do not? Why do Orks not get a 4+ FNP, considering they are unbelievably resilient and tenacious? How about Tyranids? They are also living war machines, their very engineering is designed to withstand damage equal to (or superior to) Spess Mahreens yet they do not get this rule?
This isn't taking a shot at either of you Haraldus or Mizzet, I just needed a way to put a method of comparison in. I mean no offence. I simply don't believe Marines, who already get plenty of "'free" power from things like Chapter Tactics, deserve this buff over other armies because of 'reasons'.
Then again, I am a renowned Marine hater. So, expect bias.
Well, you certainly got your wish this edition. I'm having flashbacks to 2nd. All I ask is that marines are worth the points we pay. Given the way 6th edition works, I don't think that they are, due to poor offensive output on a per point basis. ATSKNF doesn't matter anymore, because the Xenos just kill me to the man. No morale checks necessary. I just showed above what a single scatter walker squadron can do.
Then perhaps the amendments should look to fixing offensive rather than defensive potential, because relatively it is easier to fix. Buffing Bolters may turn out to be a bit much, but perhaps giving Marines more access to Special/Heavy would help. I don't play Marines (and never, ever, ever will) so I can't really relate to expensive infantry, or offer any real input for an efficient solution. What do you think?
I seem to have a history with not agreeing with Martel on much, even when I'd see him post while lurking, and not post myself.
On this, I agree with him heavily.
Lascannons can hit a ratling with no cover and not kill him. All I'm asking is: shouldn't a marine have a little bit better of a chance than the ratling? Even with this, the majority of marines hit by lascannons will still die. It wouldn't make them as resilient as say...necron foot soldiers, who boast an amazing 33% or even 50% (orb) survival rate against ap2 instadeath weapons, AFTER taking their 17% chance of just not getting wounded that every infantry gets.
Remember, I'm talking about rolling a TWO to wound failing. I'm not talking about someone rolling a 5 or 6 to wound, representing a beautiful headshot or removing everything from the torso up from existence. No, talkin' about a two here, as in, the next roll above "miserable auto-fail." So that would be...a near-miss that will still fry the troop from ridiculous heat? An arm hit? I don't see why it's so outlandish that one of the most expensive basic troops in the game could have a rule that says they survive a few more of those than the cheap throwaway troops.
And as martel said, getting to use atsknf implies that we survived the shooting. That's implying quite a bit.
I may want to seriously try playtesting "the nekkid marines" at some point, and I'll laugh when it actually performs well. How much do you think a marine statline without the power armor should cost? 7 or 8? Probably still above an ork boy, but not much.
"hen perhaps the amendments should look to fixing offensive rather than defensive potential, because relatively it is easier to fix. Buffing Bolters may turn out to be a bit much, but perhaps giving Marines more access to Special/Heavy would help. I don't play Marines (and never, ever, ever will) so I can't really relate to expensive infantry, or offer any real input for an efficient solution. What do you think? "
I disagree, because now we are getting into the issue of Imperial weapons, and more importantly, platforms, not being very good. What kind of changes to marine offense are going to let them handle Riptides, Screamerstars, WS, Jetseers? Or even more efficient troop choices?
The marines simply don't have the ranged throw weight to sling back at these Xeno lists. Part of this is marines are paying for gear that doesn't matter anymore and stats that don't matter anymore and armor that largely doesn't matter anymore. This means fewer guys holding guns, which means fewer dice going back at the Xenos.
Yeah, one of the main traits of marines is *supposed to be* individual model staying power 2nd only to the 'crons. They could get this buff twice over and still not eclipse them in that regard.
I like different armies with different strategies. I don't want the game to turn into a crazy shoot-fest where every unit that gets looked at dies on either side. At that point, we might as well go back to little wars by H.G. Wells, where there was only infantry, cavalry, and cannons on both sides. Because every army would just be all about offense. In magic terms, I'd like control, combo, and all-around decks to be a viable thing, not just a dozen different flavored of aggro.
niv-mizzet wrote: I seem to have a history with not agreeing with Martel on much, even when I'd see him post while lurking, and not post myself.
On this, I agree with him heavily.
Lascannons can hit a ratling with no cover and not kill him. All I'm asking is: shouldn't a marine have a little bit better of a chance than the ratling? Even with this, the majority of marines hit by lascannons will still die. It wouldn't make them as resilient as say...necron foot soldiers, who boast an amazing 33% or even 50% (orb) survival rate against ap2 instadeath weapons, AFTER taking their 17% chance of just not getting wounded that every infantry gets.
Remember, I'm talking about rolling a TWO to wound failing. I'm not talking about someone rolling a 5 or 6 to wound, representing a beautiful headshot or removing everything from the torso up from existence. No, talkin' about a two here, as in, the next roll above "miserable auto-fail." So that would be...a near-miss that will still fry the troop from ridiculous heat? An arm hit? I don't see why it's so outlandish that one of the most expensive basic troops in the game could have a rule that says they survive a few more of those than the cheap throwaway troops.
And as martel said, getting to use atsknf implies that we survived the shooting. That's implying quite a bit.
I may want to seriously try playtesting "the nekkid marines" at some point, and I'll laugh when it actually performs well. How much do you think a marine statline without the power armor should cost? 7 or 8? Probably still above an ork boy, but not much.
But Necrons are more expensive. Granted, their rule is tremendous, but they pay for it with a reduced save and if the whole unit dies in one phase (which as you claim is pretty common for units with this statline), their precious Reanimation was a waste of points entirely. I think Necrons generally get the good end of the survivability stick but not in a ludicrous way.
I get what you mean, and I agree in a way, but a D6 system is simply not good enough to represent the discrepancies in situations like this. I think this buff is too strong, but if this were a D20 system instead, it would be a great thing. Unfortunately, in 40K as it stands, it can't get a resounding yes from me.
I also think it will really put a damper on the fun for the other player. If my Guardsmen actually get a hit with the Lascannon on a Marine, but then it comes up with a 2 to wound and I'm all like "Aww Yiss" and the other player informs me that, no, because they are posterboys that doesn't hurt them, I would be both confused and displeased. I think the fact a Carnifex is more likely to get hurt by a Lascannon than a Marine is a bit far-fetched. How about a RipTide, this huge battlesuit, T6, is more likely to be hurt by the shot than a basic bloke in Power Armour. I can see where you are coming from, but it would need to be in a huge system overhaul, so that odd non sequiturs like that do not occur. Also this would have to be a thing for Tyranid Warriors, they suffer from a very similar fate to the poor Marine, but only moreso due to higher cost and Instant Death.
Look, I think it's a good idea. I just don't see it being practical for 40K as it exists today.
Martel732 wrote: Counter proposal? This is the best I've seen so far.
Reduce the strength of high RoF, weak AP weapons. With the exception of Baleflamers, everything that has AP3 or better is an anti-tank gun. Multilasers? Scatter lasers? Assault cannons?
These are all AP4 or worse. These are anti-infantry weapons. Highly effective anti-infantry weapons. In the case of these three weapons especially, their high Strength score is supposed to represent their insane rate of fire compared to equivalent weapons.
Remember, the Assault Cannon (S6) fires the same rounds as a Heavy Stubber (S4).
So, the answer to the problem of Marines being slaughtered by high strength anti-infantry weapons is to cap strength based on AP value. Say, anything with an AP of 4, 5 or 6 can only have a maximum Strength of 5. This has a similar effect to setting a maximum 'to wound' calculation, but keeps things more in line with sanity - a krak missile is still going to turn a Marine into chunky salsa, because anything powerful enough to ignore power armour is just going to go straight through a living creature, even one whose ribcage is as hard as steel (Which is still weaker than ceramite). Then for things like the Multilaser and Assault Cannon, push their rate of fire back up to represent their rate of fire, or give them Rending.
Furyou Miko wrote:No comments on my counter proposal in a page and a half of posts?
Was it just that cringeworthy?
Like Martel, I enjoy having a wide variety of weapons, effects, types, rates of fire ect. and I think this could reduce the sample size and homogenise weapons even more than they are now. It is still a nice idea, though. Better than anything I could come up with.
I also went back and looked at it, and I think it would be a nightmare to explain to new players. (Not that it's easy now)
It has a good spirit in mind, but for a game with this many rules, the KISS rule needs to be honored highly.
niv-mizzet wrote: I also went back and looked at it, and I think it would be a nightmare to explain to new players. (Not that it's easy now)
It has a good spirit in mind, but for a game with this many rules, the KISS rule needs to be honored highly.
Exactly right. It has good intent to fix a problem that does exist with Marines. I've introduce probably 6 or 7 people to this game (and I love it dearly) but boy, it is really tough to get someone standing on their own feet when it comes to all the rules. But we all need somebody to lean on, right?
But Necrons are more expensive. Granted, their rule is tremendous, but they pay for it with a reduced save and if the whole unit dies in one phase (which as you claim is pretty common for units with this statline), their precious Reanimation was a waste of points entirely. I think Necrons generally get the good end of the survivability stick but not in a ludicrous way.
They're actually 1 point cheaper than the new updated tactical marines, 3 points cheaper than an old BAtac marine, and a whopping 5 points cheaper per model than a BA assault marine. They can also come in groups of 20, or 10 in a MUCH sturdier (4hp 13 13 11) transport than a rhino. (or a damn dedicated flyer if they want it, but that's another story...) Chewing through 20 of them is a good deal more difficult than 10 marines. Unless you do some significant focus firing, you probably won't deny the squad their protocols, especially if a lord in the mid-back of the unit starts tanking with t5 and an armor or invuln upgrade to make sure at least one warrior survives. Or you could keep the 3+ armor by taking immortals, putting their cost at 1 point below the assault marines, that come with a s5 ap4 rapid fire gauss gun, or the ever popular six-shooting teslas, so at least part of the cost for them is the sweeter weaponry.
I also think it will really put a damper on the fun for the other player. If my Guardsmen actually get a hit with the Lascannon on a Marine, but then it comes up with a 2 to wound and I'm all like "Aww Yiss" and the other player informs me that, no, because they are posterboys that doesn't hurt them, I would be both confused and displeased.
I think it's a simple enough rule that you'd always remember it from the time it was leaked as a spoiler. They ARE the guys who, crunch-wise, are paying the most for survivability without being a space-tech-zombie.
I think the fact a Carnifex is more likely to get hurt by a Lascannon than a Marine is a bit far-fetched. How about a RipTide, this huge battlesuit, T6, is more likely to be hurt by the shot than a basic bloke in Power Armour. I can see where you are coming from, but it would need to be in a huge system overhaul, so that odd non sequiturs like that do not occur. Also this would have to be a thing for Tyranid Warriors, they suffer from a very similar fate to the poor Marine, but only moreso due to higher cost and Instant Death.
\o.o/ Too big a target and easy to aim for a weak spot? Those creatures (and mecha that somehow gets treated like one) don't have a bunch of redundant vital organs?
The Carnifex's durability is higher based on the fact that a minimum of 4 lascannons are needed to bring him down, and the riptide 5, but most likely much more. They may be more likely to take some damage from 1 shot, but the marine will die long before they do.
Again, I may have been using fluff to help people understand the theme of the rule, but the theory was born from the crunch. It all comes down to models getting shafted for their points costs. If the game is going to become like a mini apocalypse game where save and toughness ignoring blasts are flying every which way, I should probably sell the marines and settle down with a nice horde or invuln-reroll star, rather than be stuck with the guys who cost the most just to be pulled off the table and tossed back in the case.
Look, I think it's a good idea. I just don't see it being practical for 40K as it exists today.
I think somewhere, there's an alternate universe where it's already in effect, and most of the 40k players there have no problem with the fact that marines survive big shots slightly more often than dime-a-dozen infantry. And I bet these alternate universe marine armies are still just considered "middle of the road" quality for play.
As a side note, if a marine and a sister are standing in the open, the sister is actually more resilient than the marine against any s6 or higher.
niv-mizzet wrote: I had the idea for a core rule in a Blood Angels thread that seemed to hit an ok approval rating, so I'll repost it here so the people not interested in BA can see.
-Who has the rule?
All Astartes. From scouts to special characters. Anyone who, in the fluff, got a gene-seed from a primarch and went through a dozen surgeries to turn their body into a war machine. This DOES include chaos marines.
-okay, what rule?
Closer to monster than man: Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.
-What is the design intent of this rule?
Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.
The intent of the rule is to up the survival rate of all marine models by 17% specifically against higher strength weapons. This would have no effect on any weapon strength 5 or lower. (But would have an effect on poison 2+, making it 3+ instead!)
Do they need this?
In my opinion, yes. Here, have a thread to yank the idea about.
Also, I would absolutely love to hear of any playtest results if someone decides to try the rule out in a game.
This is an awesome way to make Space Marines durable like they should be and does not break it to much, of course slight point increases would have to take in affect. It does allow for some of the fluff about their toughness and durability to play in.
I personally don't have a problem with Space Marines current durability. Its not thats the problem, the problem is the current allies rules. At my FLGS we, well most of us, play pure army lists with no allies. I run Raven Guard chapter tactics with my space marines and out of my past 5 games, I have won 4 of them. I beat an Eldar player really badly, but I stole initiative on him and he failed his shield roll on his wave serpent, The other 3 games I won were all even until the end, against a tyranid player, tau player we both had one or two units alive at the end but I still won because of objectives. i lost to an Imperial guard player which was also a really close game.
So Space Marines as intended are still really durable its just with the allies system they do need this upgrade. Its an interesting thought and I am suprised no one came up with this before. I might see if my FLGS will want to test this out. They will most likely say no though since I am already that great of a player without this enhancmenet
Dat Guy wrote: I might see if my FLGS will want to test this out. They will most likely say no though since I am already that great of a player without this enhancmenet
By all means please do and report results. I'm a scientist at heart, so I love having more data points. Tell them "It's not a competitive game, just wanna test this rule." Alternatively, let them play the marines to test the rule, and use their army against yours. Try and take it down as hard as you can and see what you think.
I said it earlier, but I won't have time to playtest it until next week minimum, so I'd love to hear any other playtest attempts.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I think the idea itself is decent, actually. That said, it has its issues, but I've seen worse.
Battlecannons are also sorta OP compared to a Predator autocannon. Both are supposed to be the turret gun of a main battle tank. Those statlines, I mean lolwut? Pretty much my entire meta is agreeing that 72" range is weird and unnecessary.
You do realize that the battle cannon has been a 72" S8, MEQ-save-ignoring pieplate since 2nd edition (about 20 years now) right? It's a key element in an army of T3 5+sv lasgun toting weenies to make them capable. It's also an exceedingly simple weapon to defend against. A modicum of cover and minimal spread will reduce casualties even on a direct drastically, add in scatter and it's not very scary anymore.
niv-mizzet wrote: I seem to have a history with not agreeing with Martel on much, even when I'd see him post while lurking, and not post myself.
On this, I agree with him heavily.
Lascannons can hit a ratling with no cover and not kill him. All I'm asking is: shouldn't a marine have a little bit better of a chance than the ratling?
Not really.
If it'll cut through an AV14 tank, the difference between a Grot and a Space Marine should be trivial. One can look at it this way, a June Bug is an order of magnitude bigger than your average Ant. It's better armored, stronger (in absolute terms at least), and heavier. Arguably a far larger gap than between a human and a Space Marine. But if you're talking about which one is going to survive being stepped on better, well, none of that will matter, being stronger and larger and armored in this case makes zero difference because the force you're exerting on it with your foot is so huge that it just does not matter. About the only difference will be that you may hear an audible "crunch" with the beetle as opposed to the ant.
Vaktathi wrote: One can look at it this way, a June Bug is an order of magnitude bigger than your average Ant. It's better armored, stronger (in absolute terms at least), and heavier. Arguably a far larger gap than between a human and a Space Marine. But if you're talking about which one is going to survive being stepped on better, well, none of that will matter, being stronger and larger and armored in this case makes zero difference because the force you're exerting on it with your foot is so huge that it just does not matter. About the only difference will be that you may hear an audible "crunch" with the beetle as opposed to the ant.
It's more like a some...large-bug-that-I-don't-know-that-dies-when-stepped-on-because-I-don't-know-bugs and a cockroach though. And whereas I don't think I've ever failed to kill an ant in one try, I have failed to kill unidentifiable tougher bugs. Despite the order of magnitude difference, you could kill the ant by pressing a finger on it. You might have to make a fist or grab a shoe for the tougher one. At least I would because ew. They're both trivial, and you may not, but *I* notice a difference in the effort needed for dispatching them.
Anyway that's all just off-topic banter. The more important issue is the balance, not the realism or the fluff. I think it's a good rule that would make marine troops more worth their price-tag. Even if I had no fluff or realism basis beyond "lol magic," my main goal is making a slight mechanics adjustment to an issue that I think is a bit inefficient at the moment.
Well, I'll answer this way then, as both someone who plays IG and has Tau, Tyranid, and Eldar armies, and someone who routinely plays Chaos Space Marines and has enough loyalist stuff to run probably close to 4k of loyalist SM's and a Grey Knight army, I've never found such a rule really necessary, and if SM's got it then it would of course track through numerous other units like Tyranid Warriors and the like and just end up being a further mess.
The biggest problem right now (to me at least) is not really the survivability of the infantry but a lack of effective means to employ their "jack of all trades" utility. They're too slow to march across the board effectively (though not unique to SM's by any means), their transports are too easily killed and the changes to transport functionality remove too much of their primary utility, and there's just too many better alternative specialist units that can be made to get massive bonuses (e.g. Bikers with White Scars rules) and can be made to fill the same role as the Tac equivalents.
Welp, actually snuck in a quick game vs. Chaos marines with Blood Angels. As far as strength 6+ was concerned, I had 3 Las/plas razorbacks, a meltagun in each squad, 2 LRC's with assault cannons, and 2 meltas in each of those squads, a power fist priest, and Corbulo when he's furious charging. As well as krak grenades, which I pretty much always use 1 during shooting if I'm within 8". Additionally, a melta/assault cannon and missiles stormraven.
His strength 6+ was obliterator weapons, some mutilator weapons (he infiltrated them with Huron,) Huron's str 6 claw, Axe of blind fury on a lord, and power fists on Terminators with the lord, in a land raider with the typical lascannons.
Overall the rule saved us about a dozen wounds each throughout the whole game, half of which would've still allowed armor saves (non-rending assault cannon wounds.) Game ended turn 5, and he had only a few guys in combats left on the table. He did his fair share of damage throughout the game though. But I'd say in the loyalist vs. chaos matchup, the test rule made us both a bit more resilient, but didn't largely change the game at all. The wounds-that-would-have-been were spread out to maybe 2 a turn.
There WAS a time when I had the power fist priest roll two 2's to wound the raptors, saving him 2 guys immediately there.
There was also one point at which I had one of the big assault squads wiped out, BUT the priest and librarian survived. 17% more wounding would probably have downed one or the other, maybe both, but just barely. I also had a small assault squad stuck with a wounded nurgle obliterator that wouldn't go down. At the end of the game, just the sarge was left fighting it, and he would've been dead already if not for the not-wounded on 2's rule. All three razorbacks were pretty much sitting around at that point though, so if he did get out of the combat, he would've died, and it was big guns, so him staying safe in combat cost me a VP.
We didn't have time to do a fully documented test, as he had places to be and couldn't pull of anything more than a quick game, but our general impression was the same:
"huh, that's kinda neat" pretty much sums it up. He elaborated that it "pretty much felt like a normal game, and if I had snuck out the 2's from the wound rolls on all the s6+ without telling him, (he) probably wouldn't have noticed."
niv-mizzet wrote: Welp, actually snuck in a quick game vs. Chaos marines with Blood Angels. As far as strength 6+ was concerned, I had 3 Las/plas razorbacks, a meltagun in each squad, 2 LRC's with assault cannons, and 2 meltas in each of those squads, a power fist priest, and Corbulo when he's furious charging. As well as krak grenades, which I pretty much always use 1 during shooting if I'm within 8". Additionally, a melta/assault cannon and missiles stormraven.
His strength 6+ was obliterator weapons, some mutilator weapons (he infiltrated them with Huron,) Huron's str 6 claw, Axe of blind fury on a lord, and power fists on Terminators with the lord, in a land raider with the typical lascannons.
Overall the rule saved us about a dozen wounds each throughout the whole game, half of which would've still allowed armor saves (non-rending assault cannon wounds.) Game ended turn 5, and he had only a few guys in combats left on the table. He did his fair share of damage throughout the game though. But I'd say in the loyalist vs. chaos matchup, the test rule made us both a bit more resilient, but didn't largely change the game at all. The wounds-that-would-have-been were spread out to maybe 2 a turn.
There WAS a time when I had the power fist priest roll two 2's to wound the raptors, saving him 2 guys immediately there.
There was also one point at which I had one of the big assault squads wiped out, BUT the priest and librarian survived. 17% more wounding would probably have downed one or the other, maybe both, but just barely. I also had a small assault squad stuck with a wounded nurgle obliterator that wouldn't go down. At the end of the game, just the sarge was left fighting it, and he would've been dead already if not for the not-wounded on 2's rule. All three razorbacks were pretty much sitting around at that point though, so if he did get out of the combat, he would've died, and it was big guns, so him staying safe in combat cost me a VP.
We didn't have time to do a fully documented test, as he had places to be and couldn't pull of anything more than a quick game, but our general impression was the same:
"huh, that's kinda neat" pretty much sums it up. He elaborated that it "pretty much felt like a normal game, and if I had snuck out the 2's from the wound rolls on all the s6+ without telling him, (he) probably wouldn't have noticed."
I'll believe i'll be playing tonight against Marines. If my opponent is happy to, he can try it. I think it's OP, but we can playtest it anyway and see how it pans out. I beat them every time anyway (not Marines, just these particular Marine players), so it will be nice to mix it up.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: I think the idea itself is decent, actually. That said, it has its issues, but I've seen worse.
Battlecannons are also sorta OP compared to a Predator autocannon. Both are supposed to be the turret gun of a main battle tank. Those statlines, I mean lolwut? Pretty much my entire meta is agreeing that 72" range is weird and unnecessary.
You do realize that the battle cannon has been a 72" S8, MEQ-save-ignoring pieplate since 2nd edition (about 20 years now) right? It's a key element in an army of T3 5+sv lasgun toting weenies to make them capable. It's also an exceedingly simple weapon to defend against. A modicum of cover and minimal spread will reduce casualties even on a direct drastically, add in scatter and it's not very scary anymore.
niv-mizzet wrote: I seem to have a history with not agreeing with Martel on much, even when I'd see him post while lurking, and not post myself.
On this, I agree with him heavily.
Lascannons can hit a ratling with no cover and not kill him. All I'm asking is: shouldn't a marine have a little bit better of a chance than the ratling?
Not really.
If it'll cut through an AV14 tank, the difference between a Grot and a Space Marine should be trivial. One can look at it this way, a June Bug is an order of magnitude bigger than your average Ant. It's better armored, stronger (in absolute terms at least), and heavier. Arguably a far larger gap than between a human and a Space Marine. But if you're talking about which one is going to survive being stepped on better, well, none of that will matter, being stronger and larger and armored in this case makes zero difference because the force you're exerting on it with your foot is so huge that it just does not matter. About the only difference will be that you may hear an audible "crunch" with the beetle as opposed to the ant.
Eh, that it has been the same way for a long time does not mean it is right. After all, the rules are not designed after voting.
Guardsmen should compensate for s3 t3 5+ by being extraordinarily cheap, not by having some arbitrary strong big guns that you need to take to compensate for your footsoldiers. You should be able to run a 100% footsoldier list without being gimped.
Battle Cannons do not cut through AV14 tanks, they have a 1/3 chance of glancing them. That is not 'cut through'
Space Marine armour and overall resilience is commonly likened to light-medium tank durability. I can very well see a Space Marine surviving a few Lascannon shots, especially non-headshots, and to me it seems far more likely than the 1-in-6-chance that the game uses to represent 'very unlikely situations' such as a Grot surviving a direct, single-target hit from a Heavy Railgun.
I'll believe i'll be playing tonight against Marines. If my opponent is happy to, he can try it. I think it's OP, but we can playtest it anyway and see how it pans out. I beat them every time anyway (not Marines, just these particular Marine players), so it will be nice to mix it up.
At best, if you have the time, do a batrep (pics or just description, I ain't picky) and keep track of the wounds that got discounted from rolling 2's, that would have wounded otherwise, and if they were beating the armor's AP or not.
At worst, if you don't have time for a batrep, just jot down a tally. Also, a quick rundown of the lists. I'm guessing you'll be running orks, so it looks like your only weapons relevant to this will probably be power klaws, loota deffguns, and maybe deff rollas on wagons? Not sure what you have or run for your army.
I'll believe i'll be playing tonight against Marines. If my opponent is happy to, he can try it. I think it's OP, but we can playtest it anyway and see how it pans out. I beat them every time anyway (not Marines, just these particular Marine players), so it will be nice to mix it up.
At best, if you have the time, do a batrep (pics or just description, I ain't picky) and keep track of the wounds that got discounted from rolling 2's, that would have wounded otherwise, and if they were beating the armor's AP or not.
At worst, if you don't have time for a batrep, just jot down a tally. Also, a quick rundown of the lists. I'm guessing you'll be running orks, so it looks like your only weapons relevant to this will probably be power klaws, loota deffguns, and maybe deff rollas on wagons? Not sure what you have or run for your army.
I'll probably be running IG, at 1000 points. I'll bring along some real contenders (like Autocannon and naked Russes) to see how it plays out. I'll tell my mates to remind me to record the numbers. I'd take pictures, but my army is horribly underpainted and incomplete and I don't want to be unduly judged, haha.
Also to note, my opponents generally run fluffy or funziez lists, none of us are powergamers (if anyone was of the group, it would be me) and so the lists tend to be a bit... odd. For example, my last Marine opponent brought Vanguard Vets. The Executioner gave them what for, i'll tell you that much.
I'll do what I can. To be honest, I may end up forgetting about this until Monday next week as I only really check Dakka at work. We shall see how good my memory is, I guess.
niv-mizzet wrote: Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.
Exactly. This is how it should be, weapons like that are going to kill you no matter how tough you are. The only problem with the situation is that there's still a 1/6 chance of surviving a krak missile to the face no matter how low your toughness is. The solution is to remove the "a 1 always fails" rule and allow the to-wound chart to include a 1+. STR 7 vs. T4 = auto-wound.
Also, you're missing the fact that marines DO survive better in general, just against the things that a marine can plausibly survive. Against bolters/lasguns/etc T4 vs. T3 (or T1 for the babies) makes a huge difference.
niv-mizzet wrote: Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.
Exactly. This is how it should be, weapons like that are going to kill you no matter how tough you are. The only problem with the situation is that there's still a 1/6 chance of surviving a krak missile to the face no matter how low your toughness is. The solution is to remove the "a 1 always fails" rule and allow the to-wound chart to include a 1+. STR 7 vs. T4 = auto-wound.
Also, you're missing the fact that marines DO survive better in general, just against the things that a marine can plausibly survive. Against bolters/lasguns/etc T4 vs. T3 (or T1 for the babies) makes a huge difference.
That only works if the number of S6+ weapons decreases though. There's enough of it out there that Marines end up paying for survivability that won't ever get used. If the suggested rule were to be added to an FAQ, it could be removed again when the absurd number of S6+ multishot weapons have gone down (which isn't ever happening, but still).
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Battlecannons are also sorta OP compared to a Predator autocannon. Both are supposed to be the turret gun of a main battle tank. Those statlines, I mean lolwut?
You've got it backwards. The problem isn't the battlecannon (which isn't an amazing weapon), it's the fact that the Predator is stuck with a broken gun. It's a relic of an ancient edition when autocannons were a powerful weapon, and for some bizarre reason once GW has said "the Predator has an autocannon" that is indisputable fluff that can never be changed. It's stupid and the poor Predator needs an upgrade to be more than just a sad joke that you only take because it's so cheap.
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AlmightyWalrus wrote: There's enough of it out there that Marines end up paying for survivability that won't ever get used.
Remember the 3+ armor save? That thing that makes a huge difference when you're getting shot at with an AP 4 autocannon/scatter laser/etc? And remember all those basic infantry guns every army has? The fact that marines die to plasma doesn't mean that their survivability never matters.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: There's enough of it out there that Marines end up paying for survivability that won't ever get used.
Remember the 3+ armor save? That thing that makes a huge difference when you're getting shot at with an AP 4 autocannon/scatter laser/etc? And remember all those basic infantry guns every army has? The fact that marines die to plasma doesn't mean that their survivability never matters.
When being shot by an S7 weapon, a Marine has his T4 advantage over a Guardsman completely nullified. When S6+ weapons become the most common, taken in vast amounts, paying for T4 over T3 becomes less and less useful.
Armour saves have their own issues in that not paying for an Armour Save and just grabbing cover is free. When this coincides with the devaluation of T4, Marines become rather severely overcosted.
The problem isn't the marines, its the vast quantity of heavy weapons which in all honesty, *should* blow a marines guts out his ass with one shot, plus the 'all or nothing' approach of the AP system.
In 'real life' you wouldn't send this sort of warrior out against these sorts of weapons, because here his superhuman durability and power counts for very little in the face of guns that can level buildings. Same deal goes for Terminators, whose ancient and nearly impenetrable armour suits are laughable in an open battle.
Crunch-wise, I'd say the biggest issue is that AP system and the prevalence of high strength, long range pie plates that have nasty AP as well. If it was more like Fantasy, they'd still be getting a save most of the time, albiet a reduced one.
As for this rule, I'd prefer they had Feel No Pain, just because we don't need *more* rules that have such a similar effect.
Edit; bleh, Peregrine beat me to it. Not often I agree with the guy on fluff but this is one of those cases.
The solution is to remove the "a 1 always fails" rule and allow the to-wound chart to include a 1+. STR 7 vs. T4 = auto-wound.
Agree wholeheartedly. That ones always fail rule just adds more rolling to a slow and clunky game that doesn't need it.
Between this, converting cover to a BS modifier, making AP or strength degrade armour rather than just bypass it entirely, and then cutting back a bit on the amount of uber pieplate weapons, I reckon that would fix the issue
AlmightyWalrus wrote: When S6+ weapons become the most common, taken in vast amounts, paying for T4 over T3 becomes less and less useful.
So what exactly are these armies that don't take any basic infantry?
Armour saves have their own issues in that not paying for an Armour Save and just grabbing cover is free.
And cover is usually a 5+, not a 3+. Unless of course you GTG, in which case the cover save is no longer free. Not that it's free anyway, since being forced to use cover as your only defense limits your movement options, while MEQs can go wherever they want as long as there aren't a lot of AP 2/3 weapons to worry about.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: There's enough of it out there that Marines end up paying for survivability that won't ever get used.
Remember the 3+ armor save? That thing that makes a huge difference when you're getting shot at with an AP 4 autocannon/scatter laser/etc? And remember all those basic infantry guns every army has? The fact that marines die to plasma doesn't mean that their survivability never matters.
When being shot by an S7 weapon, a Marine has his T4 advantage over a Guardsman completely nullified. When S6+ weapons become the most common, taken in vast amounts, paying for T4 over T3 becomes less and less useful.
yes, but a Carnifex faces the same issues against a Lascannon as well, toughness stats aren't meant to apply to everything, just a range of things. T4 over T3 is still huge in melee combat, and against anything with a Rapid Fire and most Assault weapon types, T4 still has a notable advantge. S6/7/8+ weapon spam isn't anything new. Plasma guns and starcannons were order of the day in 3E and 4E, autocannons and scatterlasers have likewise usually always been pretty popular. There's not a whole lot new here.
Armour saves have their own issues in that not paying for an Armour Save and just grabbing cover is free.
such cover however does not match the casualty-reduction of a 3+ armor save in most cases, and means such units must stay in cover while the marines can afford to move in the open, granting a significant mobility advantage.
niv-mizzet wrote: Works for me! Yeah we have some people like that too. As seen above, where mutilators were involved in the chaos vs. BA game from this morning.
I would be fine with a 6+ FNP, but I'd also be fine without it. Agreeing with the above that hits from huge weapons don't really discriminate between enhanced soldiers and two month old babies. Also with the auto-wounding thing, but then... I'd like to once again point out that Strength D is survivable. Not that the tabletop strives to be terribly realistic, but, if a colossal machine aimed a mountain-sized weapon at me, I'd say that 16% to survive a direct hit from aforementioned mountain-sized weapon is pretty damn good odds. It's very strange scaling, for I'd say that my odds against surviving being shot by an extremely advanced standard infantry weapon from the 41st millenium (50%) are incredible, too. Even two-month-old babies have, at the very least, a 16% chance to outright survive being shot. Assuming that two-month-old babies are S1 T1, though, I would have approximately a 84% chance of surviving being punched by one, which is really bad odds.
niv-mizzet wrote: I seem to have a history with not agreeing with Martel on much, even when I'd see him post while lurking, and not post myself.
On this, I agree with him heavily.
Lascannons can hit a ratling with no cover and not kill him. All I'm asking is: shouldn't a marine have a little bit better of a chance than the ratling? Even with this, the majority of marines hit by lascannons will still die. It wouldn't make them as resilient as say...necron foot soldiers, who boast an amazing 33% or even 50% (orb) survival rate against ap2 instadeath weapons, AFTER taking their 17% chance of just not getting wounded that every infantry gets.
Remember, I'm talking about rolling a TWO to wound failing. I'm not talking about someone rolling a 5 or 6 to wound, representing a beautiful headshot or removing everything from the torso up from existence. No, talkin' about a two here, as in, the next roll above "miserable auto-fail." So that would be...a near-miss that will still fry the troop from ridiculous heat? An arm hit? I don't see why it's so outlandish that one of the most expensive basic troops in the game could have a rule that says they survive a few more of those than the cheap throwaway troops.
And as martel said, getting to use atsknf implies that we survived the shooting. That's implying quite a bit.
I may want to seriously try playtesting "the nekkid marines" at some point, and I'll laugh when it actually performs well. How much do you think a marine statline without the power armor should cost? 7 or 8? Probably still above an ork boy, but not much.
The only problem I have with this argument is that this can easily be brought up for orks, nids, daemons (yeah sure 2+ invuln but it gets somewhat diminished when SM would basically get a 2/3 chance of just shrugging off the shot as well. And they would also get cover if they hid behind it), and Necrons (as well as a few more possibilities). Although, if we do this where 2 is.... does rolling a 6 lead to explosions? Cause then I'm all in
I agree, StarTrotter. As a few others have said, giving Marines more survivability just highlights similar issues present in several other units (most notably Tyranid Warriors). I think that the reason why Marines have such a hard time isn't because of their cost or anything else; they're just too generalised to be effective at any one thing. That said, I haven't really noticed a problem with Marines being too tough.
Still, 6+ FNP would be fine. That's actually how I thought invulnerable saves worked (and my opponent wasn't sure, so went with it - we were both really new to the game), so I gave my Chaos Marines the Mark of Tzeentch (I only did this for one game before I realised my mistake!). It really didn't do much, although I believe it did save a lone Marine (with a melta) from Ratling Rending and a direct hit from a Battle Cannon. He didn't reach the Russ he was running for, sadly, but it was cool.
Finally, I'd like to point out that not all Marines get ATSKNF.
Seriously ATSKNF isn't really bad. What's that? You can still go to ground, retreat out of close combat, not get swept, and you laugh at terrify? Oh and you automatically regroup no matter what, get a free 3" movement and can shoot like normal? NICE!
Furyou Miko wrote: Lies and hearsay. ATSKNF is very important when playing against anyone except Tau.
Nope. My marines are dying, not getting swept or suffering fear effects.
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StarTrotter wrote: Seriously ATSKNF isn't really bad. What's that? You can still go to ground, retreat out of close combat, not get swept, and you laugh at terrify? Oh and you automatically regroup no matter what, get a free 3" movement and can shoot like normal? NICE!
Not all. I've voluntarily played without ATSKNF in effect and the difference was negligible. It's not the advantage it was in 3rd or 4th ed. Xeno shooting is too lethal for it to be of true importance. In fact, against superior assault lists, I WANT my guys to die to sweeping so I can shoot more. 6th ed is so shooty that ATSKNF is a nerf about half as often as it is a buff!
While I think its a novel idea to try and effect a certain balance it treats a symptom, and not the disease. That being the fact that there really is no points costing formula for balance. Points costs seems to be the biggest issue here, as it should be that x points worth of space marines is just as useful and z points worth of cultists both costing the same. Currently though the battles in this game are not between troops of two armies with other units supporting. It is support units fighting battles with troops scoring. This tilts the enitre value of troops more to those that survive better.
It was said earlier in this thread that if a lascannon is spending the game shooting at marines it will never "pay for its points". While I will agree that using a lascannon on marines might not be the most efficient use of the weapon, but unless I am missing something in the general costing of lascannons it would most definately kill more points of marines then it cost to add it to the army. This makes me ask is the problem that marines are not survivable enough or have high str low ap weapons simply become too prevelant?
There's an elephant and a mouse standing in the openfield. And they're hit with a battlecannon shell. Who has better chances to survive?
Making marines more resilient to high str weapons is simply illogical. Correct pricing for such weapons and you've fixed the problem. If you want to add this unique durability thing - you should increase the pointcost of marines.
There's an elephant and a mouse standing in the openfield. And they're hit with a battlecannon shell. Who has better chances to survive?
Making marines more resilient to high str weapons is simply illogical. Correct pricing for such weapons and you've fixed the problem. If you want to add this unique durability thing - you should increase the pointcost of marines.
Fair enough. That is a non-solution to the current meta problem, then. Correct pricing for S6+ would have been nice, but GW didn't do that.
There's an elephant and a mouse standing in the openfield. And they're hit with a battlecannon shell. Who has better chances to survive?
Making marines more resilient to high str weapons is simply illogical. Correct pricing for such weapons and you've fixed the problem. If you want to add this unique durability thing - you should increase the pointcost of marines.
Edge of the blast template? I'd say the elephant, but that he still should die most of the time, as opposed to the mouse, who should die even more often, as long as cover saves aren't involved.
BUT ONCE AGAIN, I have to point out, that the REALISM is NOT RELEVANT. THE GAME BALANCE IS. If we followed realism, the elephant AND the mouse would have a hell of a lot worse chances than 17%. See above for where someone extrapolated the babies example and concluded that a baby could kill them 17% of the time. Yes 40k rules sometimes don't make sense. It's not real.
Back on topic: I have a new data point. A 2k game of White Scars vs. more Chaos Space Marines.
This time, we tracked the numbers: In turn 1, the chaos ignored 1 wound that would've bypassed armor, and the white scars had 2 wounds uncounted due to rolling a 2 to wound. One would've allowed armor, and one would've allowed my 3+ jink after boosting.
In turn 2, another armor-ignoring wound failed against the chaos, while my scars got to discount 3 wounds that would've allowed armor saves.
In turn 3, 4 and 5, the chaos got to discount 4 more armor-ignoring wounds, while the scars got to ignore 1 armor-ignoring wound.
So, over the course of a 5 turn 2000 point battle, we both discounted exactly SIX otherwise-wounds each. 4 on me would've allowed 3+ armor, and 1 a 3+ cover. His wounds were all thunderhammer hits or melta shots in the clear.
I'm really REALLY not seeing op-ness there. (As a side note, It was purge the alien and relic combination, where I won 9-6 while he had some marines 1 turn from the relic, so it was quite a close game.)
niv-mizzet wrote: Edge of the blast template? I'd say the elephant, but that he still should die most of the time, as opposed to the mouse, who should die even more often, as long as cover saves aren't involved.
The correct answer is "both of them die 100% of the time".
BUT ONCE AGAIN, I have to point out, that the REALISM is NOT RELEVANT. THE GAME BALANCE IS.
First of all, yes, realism is relevant because the reason you play the game is that it represents a "real" battle in the 40k universe. If the rules are unrealistic and don't accurately (within a reasonable level of abstraction) represent what's happening on the "real" battlefield then the game isn't fun. Second, balance is relevant, but there isn't really any balance issue here. The only problem is that certain marine fanboys and people who don't understand statistics expect a MEQ/TEQ stat line to be near-invulnerable protection, and complain when it isn't.
Yep. The real problem here is GW's obsession with rolling dice. GW loves the idea of rolling pointless dice, even when the outcome very strongly favors one side the mere fact that dice are being rolled makes the game "exciting" and lets you imagine all the awesome things that could possibly happen. So instead of just having an automatic wound from a STR 10 weapon against a T2 grot you have to roll a 2+ and give the defending player that brief moment of hope that some of their models will survive. Or you'll see all kinds of "if a double 1 is rolled on 2D6 one randomly chosen model suffers a wound with normal saves allowed" rules, where it's pretty much irrelevant but it could still happen because we're rolling dice!!!!!!!.
Peregrine wrote: The only problem is that certain marine fanboys and people who don't understand statistics expect a MEQ/TEQ stat line to be near-invulnerable protection, and complain when it isn't.
Nice ad hominem.
'No, you don't need them to be buffed. You're wrong because you're fanboys.'
If GW won't nerf Tau/Eldar firepower, then buffing the resilience of those who suffer most from it seems nice. And Marines, who pay a significant amount of points for T4 3+ which is rendered irrelevant when the Ion Accelerators start raining, are some of those who get serious problems.
Not the only ones, mind you. Buffing Marines like that won't solve the problem itself. SoB also have problems, as do others.
But it would not be a negative change overall, and it would certainly do something to help.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: 'No, you don't need them to be buffed. You're wrong because you're fanboys.'
Sorry, but that's exactly what it is. Marines not being as powerful as you think they should be fluff-wise isn't a balance problem. And when "make marines tougher" proposals are also accompanied by an increase in point cost to account for their new durability it should be pretty clear that this isn't about fixing a balance problem.
If GW won't nerf Tau/Eldar firepower, then buffing the resilience of those who suffer most from it seems nice.
You're assuming that a problem exists to be fixed. It doesn't. Some MEQ units might be slightly too expensive, but this doesn't mean that all marines need to be tougher.
And Marines, who pay a significant amount of points for T4 3+ which is rendered irrelevant when the Ion Accelerators start raining, are some of those who get serious problems.
This isn't a problem. You're just assuming that the MEQ stat line should give you awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons, instead of just being good defense against basic weapons like bolters/lasguns/etc. You pay those points so that your opponent has to use heavy weapons to kill your basic troops effectively.
As has been stated, the purpose of this proposition is that Marines aren't good enough for their points. I don't know how it devolved into a realism discussion, but we should remember the crunch part.
That said, things like Ion Accelerators should still invalidate Marines, as it is effectively a large tank weapon.
EDIT:
Martel732 wrote: Heavy weapons are all the Eldar pack nowadays. There are no "light" weapons in the lists I face.
That is, unfortunately, not a failing on the Marines' part. Honestly the only real answer to that is to bring fewer Marines.
Peregrine wrote: Sorry, but that's exactly what it is. Marines not being as powerful as you think they should be fluff-wise isn't a balance problem. And when "make marines tougher" proposals are also accompanied by an increase in point cost to account for their new durability it should be pretty clear that this isn't about fixing a balance problem.
Increasing points costs do not have to be 100% proportional to the resilience increase, you know. There are other ways to adjust price. And what do you mean 'as powerful as I think they should be'? I never said what I thought they should be. I suggested improving resilience- not only Marine resilience, mind you, but this thread is about Marine resilience and they certainly need fixes- but I didn't specifically say to do 'X'.
Oh, and you admitting you're using ad hominem does not excuse it.
You're assuming that a problem exists to be fixed. It doesn't. Some MEQ units might be slightly too expensive, but this doesn't mean that all marines need to be tougher.
Yeah, when I see Tau or Eldar firepower tabling army after army effortlessly I start to think there might be a problem that needs to be fixed, actually.
Some units might be slightly too expensive? Sure, if ASMs were buffed to only cost 16 ppm, would you take them? If Vanguard vets got an incredible -3 ppm drop, would you take them?
Yeah, no. We need something else than slight points drops to solve this problem.
This isn't a problem. You're just assuming that the MEQ stat line should give you awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons, instead of just being good defense against basic weapons like bolters/lasguns/etc. You pay those points so that your opponent has to use heavy weapons to kill your basic troops effectively.
Big, nasty strawman. I never said that the MEQ statline should give 'awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons'. That is just your own imagination running rampant, and I'd prefer if you can get it under control as I'm not interested in debating your fantasies. I said that certain races and units have too much firepower and, if this won't be changed, then improving the resilience of certain other units and races might help counteract the problem. Besides, when heavy weapons are as available as they are, being 'forced' to use them is hardly a problem for the firer.
Frozen Ocean wrote: As has been stated, the purpose of this proposition is that Marines aren't good enough for their points. I don't know how it devolved into a realism discussion, but we should remember the crunch part.
That said, things like Ion Accelerators should still invalidate Marines, as it is effectively a large tank weapon.
EDIT:
Martel732 wrote: Heavy weapons are all the Eldar pack nowadays. There are no "light" weapons in the lists I face.
That is, unfortunately, not a failing on the Marines' part. Honestly the only real answer to that is to bring fewer Marines.
Fewer marines? Or more marines? Because there's not really that much in C:SM that stands up to massed S6/7 very well. Including most of our "tanks". And by "tanks" I mean cracker boxes.
I didn't say that there was some easy alternative to it, just that heavy weapons are always going to be effective against infantry. The solution isn't to make Space Marine infantry able to stand up to such powerful weapons, but to give them some form of actually viable heavy unit. Terminators, Dreadnoughts, Land Raiders and Predators are all mediocre. Terminators especially only really useful when used to bully things weaker than them; they're not good enough at "tanking" to take the amount of firepower your average enemy force will throw at them with ease. The toughest thing the SM Codex can field is a Land Raider - 200pts. Not only do the Tau have Riptides which are cheaper and better in every way (except transporting, but nobody cares), but the Tau also have access to actually good tanks/Heavy Support options in the Hammerhead and even the Broadside, while Marines have literally no good tanks (the Predator is a joke).
Funnily enough, you can achieve essentially what you wanted by using Iron Hands Chapter Tactics in the current Codex to get a 6+ FNP.
EDIT: You know, running Sniper Scouts might actually be decent. Rending spam for a bit cheaper than regular Marines. May as well wear a t-shirt if your power armour is irrelevant.
Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.
This isn't a problem. You're just assuming that the MEQ stat line should give you awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons, instead of just being good defense against basic weapons like bolters/lasguns/etc. You pay those points so that your opponent has to use heavy weapons to kill your basic troops effectively.
Big, nasty strawman. I never said that the MEQ statline should give 'awesome protection against even the heaviest weapons'. That is just your own imagination running rampant, and I'd prefer if you can get it under control as I'm not interested in debating your fantasies.
This. I've said it a few times, but again, this is a TWO on a six failing. As has happened in the two games we've tested so far, the overall effect of this is minimal, and barely noticeable, but better. A high tier army is still going to plow through the marines almost as fast as they do now. 17% better survivability against high strength weapons is not "marine fanboy wanting his troops to be immortal" territory. It's literally the smallest possible push. Unless you have dice that roll halves or thirds or something.
If you think this change is going to be "OMG HELL NO YOU CRAZY FANBOY! THAT'S WAY TOO OP" Feel free to playtest and report results.
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Frozen Ocean wrote: I didn't say that there was some easy alternative to it, just that heavy weapons are always going to be effective against infantry. The solution isn't to make Space Marine infantry able to stand up to such powerful weapons, but to give them some form of actually viable heavy unit.
33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."
It's "scraping by a little better."
Some of the people ITT seem to not be grasping that. In both games I've tested, the rule has actually been applied to discount a wound approximately 6 times per marine ARMY per ENTIRE GAME.
One extra side on the d6 is not much. Go ask ork players if they really give a damn if their lootas need to move and snap shot or just shoot normally. Most of them will tell you if the possible target is juicy enough, they'll move and snapshot for it any day of the week.
Finally got in a game against a triple-dip riptide tau with markerlight and ionhead sprinkles, while I was BA assault marine spam with hidden centers of librarians and priests, making this probably one of the most one-sided matches possible. (I told him it was ok since I wanted to see what happened when I was up against that much save-ignoring high str firepower.) Oh, and he went first and I failed to seize.
Turn 1: I ignored 6 ignore-armor-ignore-cover wounds, but still had massive casualties. One jump unit ran EIGHTEEN inches and left the board after a decent IA shot. (I did combat squad alllll over the place just to make him waste excess wounds from wound pools more often, since we were on emperor's will. -_-
Turn 2: I ignored 3 more ignore-armor-ignore-cover wounds. My forces are thinned, but I at least managed to cut down on some markerlight numbers with a few deep strikes.
Turn 3: Ignored 1 more that wouldn't have allowed armor or cover, and I was down to one and a half squads that made it to combat with some kroot, and some scouts hiding behind BLOS on my objective. Granted I'm losing because of first blood and WL kill anyway, but it'll be nice to at least hold my objective. With that in mind, my ASM's are just trying to stop his army from going over and snacking on the minimum set of scouts that I snagged with leftover points. (They didn't do too badly, considering they rended two wounds off a riptide on turn 1, before retreating to my objective.)
Turn 4: No wounds ignored, everyone but hiding scouts and a libby, priest, sarge, and single marine wiped. I DID down the most wounded riptide though.
Turn 5: Obvious slaughter of the 4 PA models that were now out of combat in the middle of his army. Hoping game ends to keep some VP/dignity.
Turn 6: scouts murdered. Tabled.
Yeah about par for the course in that matchup. All told I had 10 marines NOT die to markerlighted ionization due to rolling a 2 to wound through the whole game, in a game where my army was virtually all marines and his was heavy on save/cover ignoring high str firepower, so the prime example for a stress-test of this rule.
And the marines were still slaughtered to the man. >.> But the rule seems like a step in the right direction! It was like I had approximately 180 more points worth of marines thanks to it.
Martel732 wrote: Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.
As i've suggested once, add FNP 5+ and bolters being rapid fire 2/3 (or salvo 2/3), price them correctly - like 16-17 pts for a tactical marine (2-3 pts for fnp, 2 pts for better bolter) . And they are oki again, not over the top, not shifting meta too hard but look more fluffy and act good.
Yep, they'll still die to same things they die now but all basic troops have problems in current ruleset bar few exceptions. Especially offensive and mid-ranged. And mellee-oriented basic troops are even worse on their own. The point is, if you're adding buffs, they mustn't be free.
What if there were several rules akin to "...And they shall know no fear" that a player could choose to take instead? For example:
"Survival Instincts" - all Space Marine infantry models are allowed to take cover saves regardless of what weapon they are being attacked with. This includes weapons that would cause Instant Death or otherwise ignore armor saves. The unit must then take a morale test.
Or something like that. Either way, it increases the survivability of infantry and the loss of ATSKNF is pretty major, so I think something along these lines could work.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Survival Instincts is very much not something I'd associate with Astartes.
And you get cover saves against armour-ignoring weapons and ID weapons anyway, so what would be the point?...
Anti-markerlight rule
But hey, SM certainly do have survival instincts! If you've read the HH novels then there are tons and tons of instances where said marines use their heads to avoid throwing their lives away. One of my favorites was the WE captain Skrall hiding inside the WB battleship Furious Abyss - he employed guerrilla tactics for what seemed liked weeks inside that thing while avoiding and running from large groups of WB marines.
I wouldn't improve plague marines other than with a better bolter like i've proposed. Right now they cost +11 pts over regular csmiirc. This includes MoN, Fearless, FNP, Blight nades, 4+ poisoned blades but -1 Ini. All this stuff is well worth their pts if you ask me. So i'd just give them improved bolters for +1/+2 pts from what they cost now.
Don't know if +1 fnp is a good way to go. Though Miko's interpretation of WBB rule for marines is a great idea! Maybe, apothecaries and icons could give it. 5+ or 6+. It all requires some appropriate mathhammer to decide.
With a rule like that, I always find it better to state something specific than leave it ambiguous. I remember being confused about Necron Warscythes back when I was still playing that army because of the wording of invulnerable saves vs the Warscythe's ability to ignore all armor saves, including invulnerable ones. This actually caused arguments several times in a few of my games, so I just always try to be as specific as possible. Obviously I'm not a game designer and the rule would be re-written to the same effect, but I came up with it in 30 seconds, so it's not perfect by any means.
Martel732 wrote: Yes, it's mathematically close. But even BA with 5+ FNP are being massacred. Maybe making marine heavies better would do the trick. I don't have the answer.
This problem is a mix of the fact that you pay a simply RIDICULOUS amount to take one squad with a Sanguinary priest which is how you access that 5+ FNP and that that FnP roll is discounted by Instant Death weapons.
Now it is good that the Sanguinary priest can hand this buff out to multiple squads (if you clump them together) and he gives out Furious charge as well, actually kind of maybe making Assault marines competent on the charge (Assault marines receiving the charge will lose against any unit that actually wants to charge them since they are almost just Tactical marines, but I digress) thus splitting up the cost among more marines and lowering their ppm but the fact of the matter is that we still pay a premium to add that modicum of survivability that gets discounted by str 8+ weapons (which are usually AP3 or better) anyway.
So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?
In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.
liquidjoshi wrote: So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?
In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.
Now you're being intentionally obtuse.
A Conscript does not parry every third attack an Avatar or Bloodthirster makes.
The game mechanics are abstract, so odd scenarios like the one you mention can be sacrificed.
And neither scenario that I mentioned is odd. If a marine should just naturally be able to survive an Orbital bombardment better than, say, Ogryns or Orks, then my Riptide should just hit. Because reasons.
Justify to me why a marine should be more resilient to an OB than an Ork or Ogryn. Because, while it is abstract and silly sometimes, that doesn't justify creating more silly situations.
liquidjoshi wrote: So a marine should survive an Orbital Bombardment 1/3rd of the time? A direct hit. Which levels buildings, tanks, etc. A marine should survive that... why? Simply because it's a marine?
In that case, my Riptide should always hit, because it's a Riptide.
There is no always. If you markerlighted your riptide up to BS10, then you would hit 97% of the time. A ratling already survives an orbital bombardment 17% of the time, as does a gretchin, a human infant, a guardsman, a marine, a marine character who fails his invuln, or a tyranid warrior. A necron, assuming the squad doesn't get completely wiped, survives it an alarming 44% of the time, or 58% if there's a res orb present. If you get a nice cover ignoring blast on normal necrons while they have a res orb hanging out in back, you will kill less than half that you hit with anything short of strength D. Bear in mind that a necron warrior costs less than a tactical marine, and while he doesn't sport a 3+ save, atsknf and 4 initiative, he does have a better gun (that can hurt a land raider!) and max leadership.
Again, I refer you back to the baby example. If a baby enters close combat with you and throws a weak little baby punch, he will hit you on a (let's assume for hilarity that you have marine stats IRL) 5, wound you on a 6, and then you will die 1/3 of the time from that hit. After figuring in your ACTUAL REAL LIFE POWER ARMOR, you will die 4% of the time a baby flails at you. If 50 babies attack you, by odds you're dead. It only takes 25 if they get the charge. As a side note, you MISS the baby 33% of the time when striking back, and despite your overwhelming strength and killing intent, it still manages to live 17% of the time, totalling to a 55% chance that you will kill a baby with your attack. Oh, and you can only kill one baby per round, so all the others get to attack again. (This example is hilarious.)
WARHAMMER DOES NOT WORK ON REALISM. IT MIMICS IT. Eventually they have to drop part of the realism to actually have a game, or we'd have to call in a local physics professor to judge every match. I could go on and on about all the stupidly ridiculous situations that can come up in 40k in like 10%ish odds that, in real life, would literally be one-in-a-billion. Yes, if we were operating on realism, the shooting would be incredibly OP, and every silly crazy-advanced-tech gun would instantly kill anything it hit, and they'd have all kinds of targeting software that makes you hit with a HELL OF A LOT MORE than 66% of your shots. And that's the elite shooters in the universe only hitting 2/3's of the time, mind you.
And yes. Simply because it's a marine. Or more elaborated, because it's a model that is paying much more for survivability than most of the other models, and the points being paid to that effect are not functioning. IE in the current game it would be a better deal to just pay 8ish points a man for marines with no armor, and swarm taudar bases with loincloth-sporting hordes of men.
Yes, if the current game didn't have loads of high str shots going all over the place, this rule wouldn't be necessary. But certainly you would agree that rummaging through each codex trying to dumb down all the high firepower is MUCH MUCH MUCH (x100000) harder than having a one line rule that says "you don't wound marines or chaos marines on 2's."
It's literally the simplest possible rule. One line, always the same effect. Anyone who isn't slowed can grasp the rule on the first reading and apply it correctly in game, without even trying, with no errors.
I'm open to marines and chaos marines getting some other ability that helps their survivability for their steep point cost. I figure the single uncomplicated line is probably one of the best options though.
Justify to me why a marine should be more resilient to an OB than an Ork or Ogryn. Because, while it is abstract and silly sometimes, that doesn't justify creating more silly situations.
A combination of many genetic implants increasing survivability, armor that is akin to wearing a light vehicle, and a steep point cost with not much else to show for it than the prior two pieces of info?
All you've proven is that you want marines to survive, because they're marines. By that logic, Tau should always hit because they're Tau, Eldar should never count as being in LOS because they're Eldar, Necrons should get back up anyways because they're Necrons, Orks and Nids should be allowed to bring infinite models because They're Orks/Nids... see where I'm going here?
And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.
There's a point where it simply doesn't matter. Marines are tougher than other models; the meta has simply shifted so the guns that make that not matter are more prominent now.
Tl;DR: I disagree, shifting meta is the only "problem".
P.S. If you wouldn't mind not "shouting" at me (i.e. using all caps BECAUSE THEY MAKE COMMUNICATING IN A POLITE AND COURTEOUS MANNER SO EASY, RIGHT?), that'd be lovely, cheers
And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.
And now you pull a Peregrine.
Asinine strawmen won't convince anyone.
An OB wounding on a 3+ is not 'flat out ignoring' it.
By the way, as niv says above, even with his change a human infant would have a greater chance of surviving a weapon strike from a Phantom Titan Power Glaive than a Marine would have of surviving an OB, lols.
33% chance of not dying over the typical 17% is NOT "flat out ignoring." You're strawmanning here and making it sound like a squad of marines will be pristine and untouched after an OB blast. I have playtest data that suggests otherwise. They still got slaughtered when I ran a jump marine list against what was pretty much a hard counter from tau. (But at least some scouts in hiding made it to turn 6 before getting murdered!)
You seem to be advocating the "apocalypse style" of the game, where anything that a blast template touches just vanishes. If that's so, why not just play that way? Just tell your LGS that if something is instadeath, there's no roll to wound to get rid of that pesky 17% survival. As long as you're not messing with my LGS's house rules, what do I care?
I don't enjoy "D-strength blasts everywhere" apocalypse gameplay. I think the middle-game, IE not kill teams and not apocalypse, is where I find the most fun. You could bring big toys, but troops still matter. Apocalypse makes a lot of non-super-heavies insignificant, unless it's a unit that's really really good at alpha striking a titan from reserve or something. (or a flyer, since those titans have a hilariously hard time with flyers!) Unfortunately the high str guns prominence "meta-shift" that we've witnessed has moved the game closer to apocalypse gameplay style, where standard troops just get brushed off the table in droves, and can only contribute if they are good shooting, or have some gimmick giving them nigh immortality/we appear right in your face ability.
Also yep, yet another post calling marine fanboyism even when the rule in question also wants to help chaos.
If orks were the race paying as much as necrons for each man with no real offense, and a barely-functional focus on defense, I would be advocating this rule for orks instead sir. I don't actually care about the fluff, but I'd like to play a game where the players both get what they pay for in points, whether it's me or the guy on the other side of the table. And right now, one of the biggest offenders at failing at that is marine troops.
I find it very impolite to strawman to ridiculous extremes. The "logical conclusion" argument you put forth is quite ludicrous.
You admit yourself that the meta has shifted so that their increased survivability at an increased cost is largely superfluous. What would you give them in return for those wasted points then, that's easy to implement and doesn't require going through either all the marine codices or all the codices with the offending weapons, cherry picking specific things to change?
PS: I don't care what the internet thinks, I use caps in the same manner I use bold text, to draw attention to certain lines. In this case, a line that I've had to repeat several times now, since people keep trying to argue "muh realism" in a game that's about crazy space aliens and psychic humans. If you take offense to that, it's only your perception of it, not my intent.
33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."
It's "scraping by a little better."
That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.
33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."
It's "scraping by a little better."
That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.
33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."
It's "scraping by a little better."
That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.
Do you have playtest data to contribute sir? In a 2k game against a list designed to "stress-test" this rule, where I brought only marine bodies, and the opponent had high str good AP shots in abundance, aka a hard-counter to my list, the rule saved me 10 wounds. I still got slaughtered to the man. I would've still had models on the table if the game had ended at turn 5, although still obviously lost by a large margin. If you were to assume that some of those 10 wounds would've caused him to get to my last remaining guys a little quicker, then you could reasonably assume that the rule moved me from tabled in 5 to tabled in 6. Now granted, that's worth a whole 200 point jump assault squad, but this is a game where the rule came up about as often as possible. In the games with less high str weapons, it came up about 6 times per game, with some of those allowing armor saves. (thus by odds saving 3ish marines from otherwise-death in the whole game.)
I would argue that, after necrons, orks are the hardiest for their point cost, in our current game-state. Possibly daemons. Tough call there and lots of variables to consider.
edit: after a quick look, in terms of survivability for point-cost, I'd say only dark eldar troops, and the non-jetbike non-sniper troop choices from eldar are worse off, after being dumped out onto the field in this gamestate we have. And that's obviously with no special options taken. And those troops do still cost less and have other abilities to consider into their cost, IE they weren't costed FOR their survivability. Chaos basic marines are obviously neck and neck with the loyalists in this situation, and sisters are better than both, and cheaper. Guardsmen and cultists are super-cheap, so they rank up there...probably right near orks. They cost less, but have morale issues.
And really, I'm inclined to call in fanboyism when someone is arguing that a marine should flat out ignore an Orbital Bombardment, which can level buildings, make Land Raiders explode, and so on, simply by virtue of being a marine.
And now you pull a Peregrine.
Asinine strawmen won't convince anyone.
An OB wounding on a 3+ is not 'flat out ignoring' it.
By the way, as niv says above, even with his change a human infant would have a greater chance of surviving a weapon strike from a Phantom Titan Power Glaive than a Marine would have of surviving an OB, lols.
Rationalise that away, my good sir.
If you could drop the condescending attitude on a game of plastic shootbangs, that'd be wonderful. Also, calling out users by name? At least attempt to remember rule 1 mate, cheers
I have no reason to engage with the rest of your argument.
I have no reason to engage with the rest of your argument.
Well, you made your stance known, and, while I'm not sure of others, you have failed to convince me that it is the correct stance, as I found much of it to be built on a strawman argument. If you have nothing further, then we shall see you elsewhere on dakka. Happy gaming.
33% survival vs. the minimum 17% survival is NOT "standing up to them."
It's "scraping by a little better."
That's a pretty big survivability boost, lets not trivialize this. If it were trivial, it wouldn't be advocated as a solution to a perceived problem. You're dropping effective casualties by 20% against such weapons, for what are generally already the hardiest basic troops in the game. That's not small, especially as an across-the-board thing.
Necrons say sup.
Necron Warriors however are considerably more vulnerable to common heavy anti infantry weapons and lack SM morale special rules and lack the wargear and initiative of a MEQ unit, and can be swept in combat and lose their ability to come back, while the units that have 3+saves are notably more expensive than tactical marines (and equivalents like devastators, assault marines, etc) in most cases.
Do you have playtest data to contribute sir? In a 2k game against a list designed to "stress-test" this rule, where I brought only marine bodies, and the opponent had high str good AP shots in abundance, aka a hard-counter to my list, the rule saved me 10 wounds. I still got slaughtered to the man. I would've still had models on the table if the game had ended at turn 5, although still obviously lost by a large margin. If you were to assume that some of those 10 wounds would've caused him to get to my last remaining guys a little quicker, then you could reasonably assume that the rule moved me from tabled in 5 to tabled in 6.
Now granted, that's worth a whole 200 point jump assault squad, but this is a game where the rule came up about as often as possible. In the games with less high str weapons, it came up about 6 times per game, with some of those allowing armor saves. (thus by odds saving 3ish marines from otherwise-death in the whole game.)
I would argue that, after necrons, orks are the hardiest for their point cost, in our current game-state. Possibly daemons. Tough call there and lots of variables to consider.
Marines however, even if not point for point as survivable, have many other advantages over most of these units. They have special morale rules, they don't need to stick to cover as much and can thus remain more mobile, they can be effective in both CC or shooting instead of just one or the other for most units. They can footslog, run in a tank transport, drop pod in, or come in via flyer, etc. These things all matter, and, ultimately, they're still not particularly fragile units, on average, you need 54 BS4 S6+ shots to kill a 10man MEQ squad (assuming no AP3). That's not an insignificant amount of firepower.
I would ask, why do marines, which are probably the toughest all-around troops in the game, need such a survivability boost? I *play* a marine army and have never felt this necessary. A 20% increase in survivability against heavy weapons is warranted...why? Some MEQ units have problems but their root isn't survivability, at least not anymore so than it is for other units, but rather their ability to engage their tactical flexibility has been hammered through changes to transport and assault rules (the whole "we can outfight what we can't outshoot and outshoot what we can't outfight"). Many other units in the game are expensive and are wounded on 2+ against S6/7+ weaponry. What tabletop necessity is there for Marines to get such an ability? High strength gun spam isn't new, it's just different cycling through different armies. If you could survive the multilaser and heavy bolter spam of 5E IG mech lists, I'm not seeing where 6E Tau or Eldar are worse for marine infantry in that regard.
edit: after a quick look, in terms of survivability for point-cost, I'd say only dark eldar troops, and the non-jetbike non-sniper troop choices from eldar are worse off, after being dumped out onto the field in this gamestate we have. And that's obviously with no special options taken. And those troops do still cost less and have other abilities to consider into their cost, IE they weren't costed FOR their survivability. Chaos basic marines are obviously neck and neck with the loyalists in this situation, and sisters are better than both, and cheaper. Guardsmen and cultists are super-cheap, so they rank up there...probably right near orks. They cost less, but have morale issues.
And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.
The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now. If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.
When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?
(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)
Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.
When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?
(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)
Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.
It remains uncalled for in this situation, since nobody is arguing for what you are saying.
BrotherHaraldus wrote: Peregrine did exactly what you did previously in this thread, which is what I am referring to.
When you are 'inclined to call in fanboyism', then you're not following rule #1 very zealously yourself, now are you?
(Apologies if I appeared condescending btw, but after a while one tires of strawmen...)
Liquidjoshi's stance was much more valid than Peregrine's (which was, essentially "No you are a Marine fanboy that is all", and I think block caps were involved). There is a point where one can be fair to "call in fanboyism"; the Orbital Bombardment example is an extension of things people have been saying the whole thread, the "hit an elephant and a mouse with a battle cannon shell, both have exactly the same chance to survive", etc. While I personally don't think fanboyism is involved, Liquidjoshi is entitled to his opinion and he has arrived at that conclusion through reasonable means. It's not breaching rule 1 to suggest that someone is being a fanboy. If the somone was arguing for Marines to have a 2+ rerollable armour save, T6, four Wounds, WS/BS 9, "because they're Marines, and Marines never die", would it be unfair to say that they are being a fanboy/girl? I'm not saying that the OP is, just that it's okay to call someone a fanboy if you have reasonable cause.
I don't mind if marines get much more durable. Just saying that it must cost accordingly. Marines allready have lots of free buffs like chapter tactics, lessened pointcost, atsknf for basically 1 point. Just compare them to ork boyz. How much did a single marine cost in 4 edition? Around 15-17 iirc. And ork boy cost 6 pts. Now the same marine costs 13 pts and has chapter tactics. Ork boy still costs 6 and has nothing new. But the thing is that all this buffs to marines don't matter much when you're hit with such ammount of high-str shots.
Thus, i think that adding even extra free buffs for marines is not a way to go. If you're adding something - pay for it adequately. I just think that all this problems are here due to poor codex and core rules writing. Some things like riptides and wave serpents should cost more or be less deadly. Such things like random charges, overwatch, death of the closest should also shift the cost of all the units making ranged weapons more expensive like they should be. Can't you see that most ballance problems here are just from a wrong approach.
-"Here you go, shooty mobile guyz, get a free buff!"
The way it should be is:
-"We've made shooty mobile guyz deadlier. So they now cost a bit more/others cost a bit less".
6+ WBB is the old bionics wargear from 3e. it cost 10 points.
Yes, exactly. Their bionics make them more durable than normal Marines. This is in response to a post asking what Iron Hands should get, if regular Marines get FnP.
Vaktathi wrote:And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.
The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now. If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.
Nobody who's actually played against basic Sisters squads laughs at them.
Vaktathi wrote: Necron Warriors however are considerably more vulnerable to common heavy anti infantry weapons and lack SM morale special rules and lack the wargear and initiative of a MEQ unit, and can be swept in combat and lose their ability to come back, while the units that have 3+saves are notably more expensive than tactical marines (and equivalents like devastators, assault marines, etc) in most cases.
Yes, they have differences, however you are incorrect about immortals. They cost the same as core assault marines without a vet sergeant, and LESS than blood angel assault marines before considering the mandatory vet sergeant. They DO cost 3 points more than the new reduced price core tactical marine, without a vet sarge, however that 3 points buys you one of two extremely better guns. Many of their units don't have space marine equivalents without extreme changes, like being T5 relentless jump units for the devastators, so any comparison there is apples and moon rocks. Also, in this edition, NO ONE should be having trouble with large amounts of their crons being swept in combat. Unless you have a warscythe and MSS hiding in the unit, the troop units shouldn't be taking on tough combats, they should be shooting at them. Also they have Ld10 across the board, losing a combat by 1 or 2 shouldn't be a problem. If you have a unit get swept that you weren't just throwing away to hold up some guys, that would be a tactical error on the cron player's part.
I would ask, why do marines, which are probably the toughest all-around troops in the game, need such a survivability boost? I *play* a marine army and have never felt this necessary. A 20% increase in survivability against heavy weapons is warranted...why?
Y'know repeating the same question over and over doesn't actually help any. To answer that single question, because both the meta and general game-design has shifted in such a way that marine survivability is underpowered, and is not worth the points being paid for it.
Considering that these are the basic troops of several armies, this is a bigger problem than "having a bad unit somewhere in the back of your codex that you never take." You MUST take at least two units of these guys, so EVERY marine offshoot list is running into this problem. You may not notice it, perhaps because your local metagame is calmer waters, or you just haven't thought about it. The reason that marines should get a slight situational boost is because they're the ones having the most points invalidated in the current game, and it's far far far simpler to modify just them with a one line rule than it is to go across EVERY CODEX readjusting the point values properly. I was able to get my LGS to try out the one-line rule. There's no freaking way I can attempt to put up a 20 page errata for the game on the wall and expect people to try it.
Some MEQ units have problems but their root isn't survivability, at least not anymore so than it is for other units, but rather their ability to engage their tactical flexibility has been hammered through changes to transport and assault rules (the whole "we can outfight what we can't outshoot and outshoot what we can't outfight"). Many other units in the game are expensive and are wounded on 2+ against S6/7+ weaponry. What tabletop necessity is there for Marines to get such an ability? High strength gun spam isn't new, it's just different cycling through different armies. If you could survive the multilaser and heavy bolter spam of 5E IG mech lists, I'm not seeing where 6E Tau or Eldar are worse for marine infantry in that regard.
5th edition vehicles weren't made of paper, so they could reliably get the boys to the lines, even against a bunch of s6 multilasers. The difference there is that in the IG list, the marines weren't taking the hits, the rhinos and razorbacks were. Also heavy bolters aren't affected by this rule, so not sure why you mentioned them. Perhaps you misread it? Now, anything AV 12 or less goes up in smoke after one movement phase unless it has crazy rules or silly range. But you're aware of this already, or, as I said, your meta must be a very peaceful place.
And yet, the basic Sisters squads are laughed at. Guardsmen and Cultists are cheap because they hit like wet noodles and are exceedingly easy to kill or break and are vulnerable to mass-removal cover-ignoring weapons in ways SM's generally are not. Chaos Marines have to pay up quite a bit if they want to be able to ignore morale as effectively as loyalists. Necrons are either even more expensive or are vulnerable to common anti infantry weapons in ways SM's are not.
Sisters: nope. You may be listening to people scoff at the idea or fluff of sisters, but good sisters armies perform very well right now. Cheap power armor, every squad fearless and rerolling saves in CC, a warlord that almost certainly lives twice, and IS going to get a very nice heavy flamer shot lined up at least once, and you can do jack-all to stop it, and invuln saves everywhere. I've proxied sisters a few times now since their digital update, and it's been a shut-out every time, even against a Khorne-dogs daemon list. The amount of close range firepower they can bring to bear is dizzying.
Cultists/guardsmen: nope. Virtually every game I see with lots of cultists or guardsmen, they end up stubbornly holding an objective while the opponent is unable to kill enough of them. The weak point of these squads is melee units that can REACH them and sweep them, and, surprise surprise, those are few and far between in today's game. You generally HAVE to allocate more resources than the guards/cultist unit cost to get rid of them. If you just try to even-steven it, like say a rhino with a partial squad of marines, you're going to lose that sub-battle. And then there's zombie cultists...the kings of holding ground. Won't even get into them.
Chaos marines: Also benefit from the rule.
Necrons: How are they MORE vulnerable? That flies in the face of math, sir. And I already went over the cost fallacy.
The only issues really are with Eldar, Tau, and the core rules, and every army has issues with those things right now.
That's quite a lot of issues that can be improved with a one-line rule.
If you're playing against another MEQ army, or something like DE, would such an ability really be seen as necessary? I don't think it would.
Against another MEQ army, they both have the rule, so it's a wash. Game plays the same as always. Both playtests that were marines vs. chaos (both have the rule remember?), both armies saved the exact same number of wounds (6 both games) due to the rule. And some of those allowed armor still, so they really would've only lost about 3 extra guys each.
Dark Eldar: The rule would barely come up in this matchup. Disint cannons are s5, so wounding on 3's anyway. 90% of their guns are poison 4+, so that's no different. The only things I can find is if they ignored any vehicles you might have and started dark lancing troops. In which case the other dark eldar players should be smacking him, for one, and only the guys actually shot at by a dark lance even have a chance for the rule to apply. I wouldn't be surprised if an entire DE vs. marine game went by without the rule coming up once.
As above, the armies that aren't high str lots of shots spammy aren't affected. The rule has specifically targeted what I viewed as the problem area, and left other areas of the game completely alone. I think marines SHOULD die to lasguns, bolters, splinters, and high-velocity bug-spawn as often as they do now. That part has no change.
(You'd think that if I was a marine fanboy, I'd want it the other way around, where they're virtually immune to small arms and need to be shot with anti-tank to kill.)
So far my group has now playtested the rule several times, and everyone has found it acceptable, so next saturday we're probably just going to make it a permanent house rule. But then again, I consider my gaming group to be much more open minded than dakka.
I'm tellin ya, if the rule was already in the game for the last couple editions, half the detractors in this thread wouldn't blink twice at it. It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.
niv-mizzet wrote: It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.
No, it's the complete pointlessness of it. So far you have yet to establish that there is any problem besides "I want my army to be more powerful", so the fact that you're only asking for a small improvement instead of a big one doesn't make it any more reasonable.
niv-mizzet wrote: It's just "new proposed rule" syndrome that makes people look at it in a vacuum and misjudge how effective it is.
No, it's the complete pointlessness of it. So far you have yet to establish that there is any problem besides "I want my army to be more powerful", so the fact that you're only asking for a small improvement instead of a big one doesn't make it any more reasonable.
Peregrine sir, you've made your stance that you believe "I'm only in it for personal gain and dont care about balance" known. I and others have addressed that stance. If you remain unconvinced, then you remain unconvinced.
The only points I could possibly add at this point are:
-that even the xeno players in my group think the rule is great, simple, and a step in the right direction. And, -that you haven't given the rule a chance by play testing it.
If neither of those help you to be a little more receptive to the proposed rule, then we're just going to have to disagree on the issue. Have a good day sir. And I'll see you elsewhere on the forum.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
koooaei wrote: Well, let's say we all agreed on the rule: "Marines can be wounded on 3+ at best".
How much more will they cost with this buff? +1 pts/+2 pts?
0. The point is that they are already paying a lot for survivability but aren't any more survivable than a gretchin against what I view as "the problem weapons." It wouldn't be a problem if those weapons were somewhat rare on the battlefield, but they have become quite common, thus spotlighting the problem for many people to see. Even several detractors of the rule in this thread agree to this logic.
Bear in mind that there is no change whatsoever to s5 and below, or to higher str if the marine in question has higher toughness, such as bikes, plague marines/nurgle marines, nurgle bikers, Mephiston, Cassius, TWC, etc.
So a lasgun can still headshot a marine the same as now. A DE disintegrator cannon can still mow marines down, etc.
In a game with ork green tide, IG blob squads, many DE lists, tyranid swarms, and several others, the rule will barely come up, if at all. Against any other marine army list, you both have it, so it's even handed there. In games against the infamous tau/taudar, it should come up a few times, saving a couple marines here and there, and possibly giving the marine/chaos player just enough push to stand a chance.
Marines should be more resistant to small arms fire, but all the augmentation in the world isn't going to protect them from an explosive shell bigger than their own head.
This rule attempts to make them more vulnerable (comparitively) to small arms fire, and less vulnerable to being insta-gibbed by a weapon designed to kill tanks.
Space marines are walking tanks. Protecting them against anti-tank weapons specifically kinda defeats that.
Yeah, fluffwise that doesn't make sense, being tougher than a human being will not help you when you're been spread all over the battlefield in thousand little pieces.
Or your upper body has been disintegrated
Or the lascannon poked a hole through your helmet... and your head... and the other side of your helmet
Got in another game while using the rule. Chaos + some tau farsight enclave suits as allies against a razorback assault marine spam BA list with a corbulo/terminator squad in a raven.
Rule saved a total of 3 BA in the whole game. 2 would've gotten armor from missile pods shots, 1 would've gotten FNP from a plasma shot. So by odds, it saved me 1 marine in a 1200 point game, by all likelihood.
His plague marines, surprisingly, didn't benefit from the rule at all, even though by odds, they should've. Went after them with corbulo's thunder hammer squad, and the combat lasted a hilariously long 2.5 rounds. All of my failed wounds were 1's, not 2's, and he passed a ton of FNP's. (It wasn't until I had a libby prescience the termies that things started getting done.)
@miko. I disagree. I don't think marines should be more resistant to small arms fire or standard weapons.
I think the section of the game involving marines and small arms fire works fine. T4 and 3+ save IS resilient and is also appropriate for the point cost of the marines when we're dealing with weapons in the 3-5 str range. IE almost all troop choice weaponry. An average of 18 BS3 lasgun/autogun shots to kill one marine is pretty stout already. I realize that in fluff, it should take exceptionally stronger shots, but we're talking on the tabletop here, not in the books. So no, I don't think they need any kind of buff there. Their defenses that they pay mucho points for ARE coming into play.
And the rule isn't meant to "protect" them from anti-tank weapons, it helps them in weathering them the slightest possible bit better than things half their point cost or less. This wouldn't be an issue if marines' cost were because they were offensive powerhouses carrying awesome guns way beyond the other basic troops, but that's not the case. The marines are paying for survivability. And when a substantial amount of things ignore that survivability, the marines are then overcosted.
IE its like paying extra for move through cover when your LGS plays on flat no terrain tables all the time. You just have points that are being taxed from you for no reason.
Now if you're talking about the fluff, then sure, go nuts. Single marines should be able to charge a full squad of autogun chaos cultists and completely murder them. But that's fluff, not tabletop.
@bob If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.
If you ABSOLUTELY cannot live without a good fluffy way to describe the occurrence of a marine surviving a two-to-wound heavy weapon shot while it would've killed other, lesser-protected troops, then just imagine that the laser beam went right by his ribs and incinerated most of the power armor and his skin away, but he's still going on with high degree burns on his midsection. Or the krak missile exploding right by him has torn his armor to shreds, and now he has a concussion, and pieces of power armor are barely hanging on to him.
The dice rolls are abstract. You can describe them however you want. They aren't actually the important issue in this regard. I'm talking about points, point costs, and the performance that those costs demand.
You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?
How do you describe that in fluff?
However you do it, just think up something similar for the 2. Done and done.
Small arm's fire is very rarely the source of marine's problems. No one goes "Oh i'm going to buy 18 lasgun guardsmen (90 points) to kill a space marine", they think "ill buy 1 or 2 plasmaguns (maybe 30 points) to kill a space marine". Marines are durable enough against infantry level weapons that people train anti-tank weapons at them, which is where the problem comes from, since these weapons so often bypass the expensive 3+ armor and/or T4 they pay for.
Making them more resistant to small arm's fire just exacerbates this problem, as normal weapons will become even less effective, pushing people to aim yet more anti-tank weapons at the space marines to make an immediate impact, making the situation worse and worse. This really is a problem with pricing and availability of weapons rather than the stats of the marines, but that's a much harder problem to tackle. It may not make the most sense to make them more resistant to anti-tank weapons, but as a matter of balance i think its a step in the right direction.
That being said, this rule does double the probability of marines (and any other models who would receive it, cough tyranid warriors cough) surviving weapons that bypass their durability, while not buffing their survivability to truly ridiculous proportions. Definitely make sure this rule is bypassed by instant death though. If someone is willing to aim a S10 orbital strike on my marines, I'm perfectly fine with overkill of that level doing significantly more damage than weapons in the S6-7 range. This would remove the major benefit to tyranid warriors though...food for thought.
I would probably let it slide for no points as it's meant to correct a current problem with balance and is fairly minor, though i would much rather see it tied into a slight points cost increase (1-2 points) alongside some offensive buffs to make marines actually put out some good damage rather than just survive enemy fire while the elites and heavy support options handle most of the killing.
You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?
How do you describe that in fluff?
then just imagine that the laser beam went right by his ribs and incinerated most of the power armor and his skin away, but he's still going on with high degree burns on his midsection. Or the krak missile exploding right by him has torn his armor to shreds, and now he has a concussion, and pieces of power armor are barely hanging on to him.
But that doesn't mean that ''because they're Marines'' this should happen more often than it does for others, especially units tougher than marines (Nobz, Ogryns and whatnot)
Some people on this thread are so angry and hateful - remember you're arguing over a fictional wargame instead of a life or death situation. Nerd rage is the worst kind of rage there is...
But that doesn't mean that ''because they're Marines'' this should happen more often than it does for others, especially units tougher than marines (Nobz, Ogryns and whatnot)
Orks are cheap, they're not paying for survivability. Their point cost is tied up in furious charge, higher base attacks, and mob rule mainly. Nobs have an extra wound, and tend not to worry about losing that extra wound to a heavy weapon, as they have a couple dozen boys around them as shields. Ogryns are fairly expensive, but it takes 3 lascannon shots to bring one down. In the span of 3 heavy weapon shots, it's more likely that one of THOSE will fail to wound by rolling a 1 than it is for the marine to skirt death on a two.
It's not "because they're marines." It's "because their point costs and performance don't line up."
And you can't just lower their cost, or the other, cheaper troops, such as guardsmen and most of the xenos, will be overcosted compared to the marines. The only troops that pay similar prices to marines for survivability rather than mobility or fleet and power from pain or some other gimmick are the necrons, and they have a MUCH higher survivability than this rule could ever hope to give.
That leaves the two options being "go through all codices adjusting the prices of all high strength weapons," or "apply a one line rule to marines/chaos marines."
niv-mizzet wrote: Orks are cheap, they're not paying for survivability. Their point cost is tied up in furious charge, higher base attacks, and mob rule mainly.
So then why are we just ignoring the points marines have tied up in ATSKNF, high leadership, BS/WS 4, combat squads, chapter tactics, etc?
niv-mizzet wrote: If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.
No, it sounds like you hit them with a powerful weapon. Some weapons are just so powerful that "reduced to a pile of ash" is the result of ANY hit. The only reason you only wound on a 2+ instead of automatically is that GW is obsessed with rolling dice and declared that a 1 always fails so you always have to roll some dice and "see what happens" in your cinematic narrative. This is purely a game mechanic that is not at all supported by the fluff, unless you seriously want to argue that a marine standing next to a 50 megaton nuke has a 1/6 chance to survive without suffering any harm (just like a guardsman).
You know when you roll a melta shot right into a marine, score a precision shot with your character, and then roll a 1 to wound?
How do you describe that in fluff?
However you do it, just think up something similar for the 2. Done and done.
Or, if you're going to make house rules, you could just fix the ridiculous situation by making the to-wound chart include auto-wounds instead of stopping on a 2+. That way the melta shot will be realistic and there is no roll of a 1 to explain.
Or, we go with the direct opposite to your headcanon, and give all Marines a 2++ re-rollable.
Or, shock and horror, we go somewhere in between.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In addition, to give some perspective, I do not think that tank turrets like the predator autocannon needs buffing to Battle Cannon levels. Instead, the battle cannon and other equivalent artillery weapons like the Vindicator need nerfing (And reduced pt costs appropriately).
Why, you may ask?
Compare the Battle Cannon to an Ork Blitza-Bommer's bomb.
That bomb is larger than a Space Marine, considerably wider than a Battle Cannon turret.
It is S7 AP4.
A Battle Cannon should not hit harder than that. Ordnance might be OK though to reflect the force of a fired rather than dropped shell.
Before you say 'But ork tech is inferior!' let me remind you that said bomb is filled with high explosives, and the Blitza-Bommer's secondary weapons are the size of heavy stubbers but have firepower not far behind assault cannons.
The idea that IG should somehow have superior explosives is IG fanboyism, and nothing else. IG fanboys, agh. Truly the worst kind.
So then why are we just ignoring the points marines have tied up in ATSKNF, high leadership, BS/WS 4, combat squads, chapter tactics, etc?
That, and the loss of FC, mob rule, and 30 man squads does not justify the 8 point increase per model. The power armor is a large portion of the increased cost. And power armor works fine for its point cost. UNTIL the game becomes a spam of high str good ap shots flying around. Then you're better off taking boyz just because the first thing that hits you will kill you, regardless of your protection. This is fine in fluff, but when we're trying to balance a game, it could use some fixing.
niv-mizzet wrote: If you have split an enemy into a thousand pieces, disintegrated their upper body, or scored a perfect headshot with a heavy weapon, it sounds like you rolled well to wound, like a five or six. It does NOT sound like you rolled a two, which is currently the BARE MINIMUM to score a kill.
No, it sounds like you hit them with a powerful weapon. Some weapons are just so powerful that "reduced to a pile of ash" is the result of ANY hit. The only reason you only wound on a 2+ instead of automatically is that GW is obsessed with rolling dice and declared that a 1 always fails so you always have to roll some dice and "see what happens" in your cinematic narrative.
And that's your opinion, and I don't share it. Not only do I believe low rolls on the abstract dice show poorly placed hits or "movie-hero-zone" wounds like shoulder hits and burns, (the typical damage a movie hero would take so that he takes damage, but can still win,) but I also enjoy the dice aspect. Even if I'm a bit disappointed when I roll a 1 on a thunderhammer against guardsmen, I still believe that a guy who just barely took a melta shot on the side of the arm shouldn't die 100% of the time.
This is purely a game mechanic that is not at all supported by the fluff, unless you seriously want to argue that a marine standing next to a 50 megaton nuke has a 1/6 chance to survive without suffering any harm (just like a guardsman).
Yes, and this rule is strictly a game mechanic. If we were playing strictly by fluff with doses of realism, then any given footsoldier would die without any rolls as soon as someone looks at them. Granted, we'd also have marines in their light-tank-emulating armor that would be all but invincible to other standard troops. If you want to go that way, furyou miko made a proposed rule a week or so ago that may appeal to you. I don't like it, but hey, it's your game to play.
Or, if you're going to make house rules, you could just fix the ridiculous situation by making the to-wound chart include auto-wounds instead of stopping on a 2+. That way the melta shot will be realistic and there is no roll of a 1 to explain.
Go ahead and do that in your games then. No one's stopping you, (except maybe your opponent.) I don't think the situation is ridiculous from a game standpoint, and I think obsessing over realism in a game is bad design.
You've made it well known that you're not a fan of this proposed rule, and stated your points, I've stated my counterpoints. I remain unconvinced, and I'd assume that you remain the same as well, so as much as I love talking to you, I don't believe we have anything further to discuss in this thread. See you elsewhere on the forum.
Additionally, feel free to make your own proposed rule about ignoring the roll to wound on weapons where, realistically, death is a foregone conclusion.
Apparently, going from flak armour and a lasgun to power armour and a bolter is worth 4-5 points... (Guard Veteran: 6 points. Sister of Battle: 12 points)
niv-mizzet wrote: I had the idea for a core rule in a Blood Angels thread that seemed to hit an ok approval rating, so I'll repost it here so the people not interested in BA can see.
-Who has the rule?
All Astartes. From scouts to special characters. Anyone who, in the fluff, got a gene-seed from a primarch and went through a dozen surgeries to turn their body into a war machine. This DOES include chaos marines.
-okay, what rule?
Closer to monster than man: Due to the intense amount of alterations, the astartes' bodies are much better equipped to handle extreme damage that would place other races in mortal peril. As long as all models in the unit possess this special rule, any roll to wound made against a model with this rule automatically fails to wound on a roll of 2, in addition to the normal automatic failure of rolling a 1.
-What is the design intent of this rule?
Currently, if a unit of astartes models and a unit of 2 month old helpless babies (all stats .1) are out in the open, and each unit is hit by one of the following: battle cannon, ion accelerator, krak missile, lascannon, meltagun/fusion blaster, plasma, monstrous creature melee attacks, and many many more, there is no statistical difference between the marines and the pile of soon-to-be-dead babies. Assuming the same dice rolls, both units will go down at the same speed.
The intent of the rule is to up the survival rate of all marine models by 17% specifically against higher strength weapons. This would have no effect on any weapon strength 5 or lower. (But would have an effect on poison 2+, making it 3+ instead!)
Do they need this?
In my opinion, yes. Here, have a thread to yank the idea about.
Also, I would absolutely love to hear of any playtest results if someone decides to try the rule out in a game.
So S6+ is now no more effective against marines than S5? Yeah, not a good rule.
If a marine gets hit by a plasma weapon I should expect to wound on a roll of a 2+. Same for lascannon an anti-tank weapon.
Reducing the strength of weapons by 1 if it is over S5 might be a better compromise. Then heavy ordnance (S8+) and Plasma (which is intended to kill heavy infantry like marines) would still be potent.
Though I do agree with Peregrin that the roll of 1 always fail rule is silly when it comes to high strength weapons. Instant Death should be Instant Death.
niv-mizzet wrote: And that's your opinion, and I don't share it. Not only do I believe low rolls on the abstract dice show poorly placed hits or "movie-hero-zone" wounds like shoulder hits and burns, (the typical damage a movie hero would take so that he takes damage, but can still win,) but I also enjoy the dice aspect. Even if I'm a bit disappointed when I roll a 1 on a thunderhammer against guardsmen, I still believe that a guy who just barely took a melta shot on the side of the arm shouldn't die 100% of the time.
The first thing you have to remember is that being removed as a casualty does not mean death. It can also mean "incapacitated due to extreme pain or injury" Getting whacked at full strength with a kinetic field generating sledgehammer tends to do that. Likewise with melta - those things are painful.
Melta weapons and ordinance should still fail on a one cause no ones aim is perfect and a marine isn't gonna die if he sees that his pinkie toe has been vaporized.
Grey Knight Dillon wrote: Melta weapons and ordinance should still fail on a one cause no ones aim is perfect and a marine isn't gonna die if he sees that his pinkie toe has been vaporized.
Die? Probably Not.
Rolling on the ground and screaming in pain because he just lost a part of himself to something that's really hot? Yes.
As I typed before: casualty =/= death
A marine may be tough, but everyone has a breaking point. Besides, I doubt a melta would just take a toe. Maybe the whole foot.
Why do you favour marines more than any other troops? In current edition all troops are bad on their own. It's not a reason to buff someone explictly while letting others down. Marines allready have lots of free buffs over the others. Tha fact that infantry dies horribly to current meta shooting is not an excuse to buff just one type of infantry.
koooaei wrote: Why do you favour marines more than any other troops? In current edition all troops are bad on their own. It's not a reason to buff someone explictly while letting others down. Marines allready have lots of free buffs over the others. Tha fact that infantry dies horribly to current meta shooting is not an excuse to buff just one type of infantry.
koooaei wrote: Marines allready have lots of free buffs over the others.
I can't think of another troop choice that has as many special rules tacked on as even a basic Tactical marine.
The problem isn't that marines are bad or can't survive things, its that the Tau and Eldar books put out too much firepower for too little cost.
I'm not a fan of this idea for many reasons, but I think mostly because its simply a band-aid on the symptom, rather than trying to address the root cause.
I think it'd make the game far better for every codex if Eldar and Tau were brought into line. Marines, by comparison, would be more durable and worth the 14pts/model.
I can't think of another troop choice that has as many special rules tacked on as even a basic Tactical marine.
The problem isn't that marines are bad or can't survive things, its that the Tau and Eldar books put out too much firepower for too little cost.
I'm not a fan of this idea for many reasons, but I think mostly because its simply a band-aid on the symptom, rather than trying to address the root cause.
I think it'd make the game far better for every codex if Eldar and Tau were brought into line. Marines, by comparison, would be more durable and worth the 14pts/model.
Yes. The Tau and Eldar codices are ridiculous, especially when they are allied together.
I can't think of another troop choice that has as many special rules tacked on as even a basic Tactical marine.
The problem isn't that marines are bad or can't survive things, its that the Tau and Eldar books put out too much firepower for too little cost.
I'm not a fan of this idea for many reasons, but I think mostly because its simply a band-aid on the symptom, rather than trying to address the root cause.
I think it'd make the game far better for every codex if Eldar and Tau were brought into line. Marines, by comparison, would be more durable and worth the 14pts/model.
I agree with this. My ideas for "fixes" to marine durability usually involve changes like making ICs unable to join riptides, changing marker lights back to one token to remove one level of cover save, nerfing the serpent shield, and possibly a change to scatter lasers
They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
For most infantry, getting wounded on a 2+ by a weapon that then twinlinks the other weapons on the same model is ouchier than getting hit by a 4+ to wound weapon, even if it the gets rerolls.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
That's scary.
The difference being that a Scatter Laser can take on light armour effectively as well.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
That's scary.
The difference being that a Scatter Laser can take on light armour effectively as well.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
That's scary.
The difference being that a Scatter Laser can take on light armour effectively as well.
Yep, as I said - S value.
So they wreck infantry AND vehicles.
Kelly is truly the greatest codex writer
You said they were worse due to the S value; they're not.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
That's scary.
The difference being that a Scatter Laser can take on light armour effectively as well.
Yep, as I said - S value.
So they wreck infantry AND vehicles.
Kelly is truly the greatest codex writer
You said they were worse due to the S value; they're not.
Oh sorry, bit of a misunderstanding.
When I said worse, I meant worse to fight against it. Just as the outcome of a squad of marines getting shot by a plasma gun is worse than getting shot by an autocannon, since more of them die.
The scatter laser is indeed superior to the splinter cannon.
koooaei wrote: Why do you favour marines more than any other troops? In current edition all troops are bad on their own. It's not a reason to buff someone explictly while letting others down. Marines allready have lots of free buffs over the others. Tha fact that infantry dies horribly to current meta shooting is not an excuse to buff just one type of infantry.
koooaei wrote: Marines allready have lots of free buffs over the others.
Compare them with the closest equivalent - csm. For 1 pt you get atsknf and chapter tactix. No other troops get so much love as sm do except for tau and eldar. That's not a reason to make marines stronger for free.
About scatter lasers. Statistically, 3 walkers put around 15-16 wounds on anything with t4 or below. They have shoot and run, run and shoot, 5++, fleet and scout. And cost just 70 pts per one.
The Splinter Cannon had its place when there were Iron Armed MCs and FMCs on the table for the Tyranids. Not as quote as useful now-a-days, enough to certainly give the already better Scatter Laser more of a lead.
Furyou Miko wrote: They're too widely available and easily spammed. A Warwalker with a twin-linked scatter laser is reasonable and equivalent to an elite Sentinel. A War-walker with two separate scatterlasers puts out an insanely high volume of fire for a ridiculously cheap price.
Especially given that almost nothing else in the game can take two of the same weapon without twinlinking it. The other army that can do that lots only got the ability to do so in the codex that broke them.
So...they are like the venom cannons on the venoms then, except worse since they have a S value?
That's scary.
The difference being that a Scatter Laser can take on light armour effectively as well.
Yep, as I said - S value.
So they wreck infantry AND vehicles.
Kelly is truly the greatest codex writer
You said they were worse due to the S value; they're not.
Oh sorry, bit of a misunderstanding.
When I said worse, I meant worse to fight against it. Just as the outcome of a squad of marines getting shot by a plasma gun is worse than getting shot by an autocannon, since more of them die.
The scatter laser is indeed superior to the splinter cannon.
Well, why don't you playtest what you say? Suddenly tacticals become totally like ork boyz. Without kff, wagonz and psy-power buffs boyz are no good at all. And in marine codex they'll be plain worthless and overpriced. If you're sure it's wrong - prove it!
Tacticals are less efficient boyz with no kff, wagonz, or psy-power buffs. In the marine codex, they are indeed plain worthless and overpriced. This is proven every time some one fields tacticals.
