Hey..
So, I'll first add that I don't play Space Marines at all or an imperial army really.

Anyway, from a fluff standpoint, aren't SM supposed to be extremely durable in combat? I always hear stories of them holding off hundreds of enemies each and just never dying. I realise that the game and fluff are very different things, but I feel like it should be represented more.
Usually in a game, if I see a tactical squad/assault squad on the board near me, I'm typically not worries about it as 3+ saves become less and less dependable in current 40k.

I think it'd be a good idea to maybe double the points and give all standard marines +1 toughness an +1 wound.
What do you guys think? Yay? Or nay?

Okay so firstly consider that a bonus of +1 in a score represents a huge difference in fluff capability.

Untrained conscripts have BS 2, professional soldiers BS 3. Having BS 4 is literally that same difference again.

A difference of T 3 to T 4 is by definition the difference between the toughness of a baseline human and a Space Marine.

Marines have improved stats from a guardsman almost across the board. The statistical difference between them and a standard professional soldier is massive.

They might seem superficially bland for being the baseline you measure up and down from, but at the end of the day that is in game terms what they are: Average, with other humans being weaker but more numerous, and many factions able to field troops who are equal to marines in some or even most respects.

The thing is, marines do reflect the fluff with their stats - the threats to mankind are just THAT scary.

Also T5 W2 would mean Nurgle bikers would be T7 W2... *shudder*

I think almost every one army basic infantry unit is W1? Having a SM at 1W really contradicts the fluff but... that's the fact

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Also T5 W2 would mean Nurgle bikers would be T7 W2... *shudder*

Not as bad as certain T7, 4W, 3+/5++, MCs as a troops choice
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/The_Horus_Heresy/Mechanicum/Mechanicum_Troops/CASTELLAX_BATTLE_AUTOMATA.html

Hell no

No.

Dear lord no!

Do you realize how broken it would be for me to be able to field my gladius with 50+ Marines and transports if they were T5 2Ws each?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Edit. I see you also mentioned making them 28ppm.

They would actually suck if you did that.

Answer is still no.


A better fix would be a rule that treats all weapons fired at them as -1S if it doesn't ignore their armor save.

Free Six up invul save...for when 3+ armor is not enough.

Okay, thanks everyone. Fair enough points.

I submit that the 40K system lacks the granularity needed to model everything they have put into this game.

 Filch wrote:
Free Six up invul save...for when 3+ armor is not enough.

Stop trying to turn Space Marines into Sisters dammit.

I'd be against it for reasons mentioned above... and for 1 more.
If GW ever did this you can be assured that BA would stay T4 W1.

No, the weapons are just too overpowered and kill everything from conscripts to super soldiers far too easily.

It would be great if it worked.

Unfortunately the current state of the game revolves around them being T4 W1.

So sadly not.

Just run the fething movie marines list holy gak man.

I've actually been kicking around ideas regarding ways to boost marines. A few problems with making them T5 with 2 wounds:

* At 28 ppm, you might have relatively tough guys, but also won't have nearly enough firepower coming out of marine squads thus encouraging people to lean on things like thunderfires, centurions, etc. even more heavily.

* Two wounds really aren't that hard to keep track of (I tried it out with some homebrewed Thousand Sons rules), but they do add another thing to keep track of.

*T5 is nice, but you still get blown away on foot by a bunch of the same weapons that make foot marines hard to pull off currently.

So far, I'm leaning towards cooking up a rule set that gives them "plot points" (need a different name) that you gain for doing sufficiently "cool" things (like winning challenges, holding objectives despite overwhelming fire, etc.) You can spend them to get movie marine style saves (rerollable 3+ armor and a 3+ invuln) for the rest of a turn, to boost your killing power for a turn, or to pull off cool chapter and unit specific stunts (like turning Salamander flamers into torrents). In theory, the plot points would be few enough in number that you wouldn't just have your entire army running on god mode all game, but common and potent enough to make marines feel more badass.

Movie Marines also seem like cool rules though, and I'm hoping to run them in some friendly games soon.

There's an argument to be made that spess muhreens shouldn't be treated like special snowflakes who get extra bonuses just because. My response to that is that, in the same way eldar are fast, tau are shooty, and orks are numerous, the marines' "thing" is that they're essential Gary Stues, and I'm okay with that. So long as it's executed in a fair, fun manner.

Hell no, movie marines is only acceptably if you're taking the piss and pretending you're in a movie, they're not meant to be fluffy marines. Stick to T4 and W1

Movie marines are definitely over the top (though they look reasonably well balanced for their points). Still, it seems more satisfying to have a handful of marines that each look badass as they take on ten times their number than to have almost as many marines as guardsmen on the table who die at the drop of a hat.

Ten guardsmen with lasguns can consistently kill a single marine when in rapid fire range. Special and heavy weapons kill marines quite a bit faster. It's hard to see that happen and go, "Oh yeah. No. That was totally worth the time and resources it took to put that guy on the field."

Which isn't to say marines should be unkillable, and it isn't to say they aren't more duable/killy than a guardsman. It's just that the difference you see on the tabletop doesn't make them *feel* appropriate for their fluff. My eldar feel fast. Tau feel like they're using advanced tech to compensate for their physical weakness. 'Crons feel durable. Chaos feels chaotic (even if I hate the random rolling.) On paper, marines should feel like plot-armored BAMFs that make even the nastiest gribblies in the galaxy cautious. Even a standard tac marine should be brutally powerful. Instead, they feel like slightly better armored normal humans that depend on the occassional special weapon to do all the work while their standard troops struggle to hurt anything.

Wait, a single marine being killed by a whole squad of guardsmen sets you off? There's your problem right there.

Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

I don't think anyone is saying marines need to be "better" as far as winning games. I think the OP's point (and my own) is that space marines just don't feel like, well, space marines. In fact, the OP's suggestion to increase their toughness and wounds but significantly increase their points cost might actually make them less competitive as you'd have significantly fewer points points to spend on fancy guns. T5 W2 marines would last a lot longer, but bolters are still bolters. You'd end up with units that were harder to kill, but you'd also have significantly less board presence and firepower. you'd be extremely vulnerable to tarpitting, guns with high strength and/or low AP would still tear through you pretty quickly. You'd probably lose points worth of models at a slightly slower rate, but you'd also have way less firepower to send back at the enemy.

@Bobthehero: Let me put it this way: It currently takes 10 guys with lasguns to kill one marine. I'd rather it take twice as many guys to kill that marine, but have that marine be worth twice as many points. The reason being that that one marine would (theoretically) feel like more of a BAMF but still come out costing his player the same number of points when he died.

To me, it's not about marines not being strong enough to stomp on my opponents and make them have a bad time. It's about marines not feeling like the mini-bosses they're depicted as. Currently, they feel like IG vets with better gear. I'd rather they be more expensive and feel like an elite-but-scary force that can count on its basic gunmen (bolter marines) to pose a serious threat.

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

Whoa. Chill out. As I said, I don't even play any imperium. It was just a suggestion. I'm not a fangirl of them at all (Eldar, DE and Harlequins for me). I just thought it'd make the squads more imposing maybe.
I'm sorry if I made you angry.
:/

Wyldhunt wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

I don't think anyone is saying marines need to be "better" as far as winning games. I think the OP's point (and my own) is that space marines just don't feel like, well, space marines. In fact, the OP's suggestion to increase their toughness and wounds but significantly increase their points cost might actually make them less competitive as you'd have significantly fewer points points to spend on fancy guns. T5 W2 marines would last a lot longer, but bolters are still bolters. You'd end up with units that were harder to kill, but you'd also have significantly less board presence and firepower. you'd be extremely vulnerable to tarpitting, guns with high strength and/or low AP would still tear through you pretty quickly. You'd probably lose points worth of models at a slightly slower rate, but you'd also have way less firepower to send back at the enemy.

@Bobthehero: Let me put it this way: It currently takes 10 guys with lasguns to kill one marine. I'd rather it take twice as many guys to kill that marine, but have that marine be worth twice as many points. The reason being that that one marine would (theoretically) feel like more of a BAMF but still come out costing his player the same number of points when he died.

To me, it's not about marines not being strong enough to stomp on my opponents and make them have a bad time. It's about marines not feeling like the mini-bosses they're depicted as. Currently, they feel like IG vets with better gear. I'd rather they be more expensive and feel like an elite-but-scary force that can count on its basic gunmen (bolter marines) to pose a serious threat.

I don't buy the Marine BAMF point, I think they're great shocktroops, but nothing else.

If you wanted to make space Marines feel like BAMFs then either use my suggestion above or you could increase them to around 19ppm and replace the bolters profile with the grenade launchers profile.

Or do both and make them around 24ppm.

For me, it was more about when I play games against them, a tactical/assault squad coming near isn't really all that imposing, where as, if they were all T5 and 2 wounds, I'd definitely be a little more fearful of them.
But oh well.

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

Says the guy who plays eldar. What so instantly winning 9/10 of the time isn't good enough for you?

Marines for Chaos and Loyalists do need some tweaks. As it is, cultists are preferable to either of them. It is literally better to field a bunch of raving lunatics with shovels then use a space marine. I do think that T5 and 2 wounds is not the right answer, but it's certainly a more constructive solution than angry rhetoric.

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

Says the guy who plays eldar. What so instantly winning 9/10 of the time isn't good enough for you?

Marines for Chaos and Loyalists do need some tweaks. As it is, cultists are preferable to either of them. It is literally better to field a bunch of raving lunatics with shovels then use a space marine. I do think that T5 and 2 wounds is not the right answer, but it's certainly a more constructive solution than angry rhetoric.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

Edit: I'm not being sarcastic either. Haha.

I'd say if anything of those, it'd have to be one or the other and a point boost. Either as they are and 2w or T5, For nurgle if the basic marines go T5 they should go 2w, so either way nurgle marines would be T5 2W.

Well here is a little math for perspective.
10 guardsman vs 5 tactical marines( assuming no cover)

Guardsmen
( rapid fire range)
20x 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/3= 1.1 unsaved wounds

10 x 1/2 x 1/3 x1/3= 0.56 unsaved wounds

Tacticals
Rapid fire range
10 x 2/3 x 2/3= 4.4 unsaved wounds

5 x 2/3 x 2/3= 2.2 unsaved wounds

Realistically you probably would have 5+ cover so 1/3 of the wounds caused on the guardsman would be saved.

 Harley Quinn wrote:


Thanks for the constructive criticism.

Edit: I'm not being sarcastic either. Haha.

Looking back I probably should put more down than just that I disagree XD.

The multiwounds I think would help the most. It would give them more durability but still make you respect heavy weapons. T5 is too easy to abuse as chaos thanks to the mark of nurgle. Overall though, it's a good starting point to improve the individual threat of each marine.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Well here is a little math for perspective.
10 guardsman vs 5 tactical marines( assuming no cover)

Guardsmen
( rapid fire range)
20x 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/3= 1.1 unsaved wounds

10 x 1/2 x 1/3 x1/3= 0.56 unsaved wounds

Tacticals
Rapid fire range
10 x 2/3 x 2/3= 4.4 unsaved wounds

5 x 2/3 x 2/3= 2.2 unsaved wounds

Realistically you probably would have 5+ cover so 1/3 of the wounds caused on the guardsman would be saved.

I myself find it fairly amusing how the guardsmen are shot by five guys with rapid-fire mini-grenade launchers at very short range, caught outside of cover, and yet not even half of the guys manage to get any kills at all.

Shouldn't a situation like that result in a massacre?

 n0t_u wrote:
I'd say if anything of those, it'd have to be one or the other and a point boost. Either as they are and 2w or T5, For nurgle if the basic marines go T5 they should go 2w, so either way nurgle marines would be T5 2W.

Huh, didn't even think of this.

I had a similiar discussion with my friends (sleep deprived)

2Wounds 3Toughness EternalWarrior

I can't remember exactly but we had a slight point increase. It seems silly but the extra wound/eternal warrior let them really much with elite style units. But the reduced toughness let them get overwhelmed eventually horde tactics.

DaKrumpa wrote:
I had a similiar discussion with my friends (sleep deprived)

2Wounds 3Toughness EternalWarrior

I can't remember exactly but we had a slight point increase. It seems silly but the extra wound/eternal warrior let them really much with elite style units. But the reduced toughness let them get overwhelmed eventually horde tactics.

I feel like the T3 would make SM seem too weak, even with the W3 and Eternal Warrior. It's like them having the same resilience to guard.

Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

Which is why I would actually say that T4, W2 with no eternal warrior would be just fine for Marines - of course, that is predicated on them going back up to at least 16 points per model, preferably even 18.

Ah, okay then. I see your point.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

Which is why I would actually say that T4, W2 with no eternal warrior would be just fine for Marines - of course, that is predicated on them going back up to at least 16 points per model, preferably even 18.

As tough as 3 guardsmen against ap1&2&3. As tough as 9 guardsmen against ap4&5 and as tough as 6 guardsmen against ap6&-. Assuming no cover.

While I get the notion of having them reflect the lore better, I think it would make actually playing SM less fun. Almost every model would become 2 wounds and sharp price increases across the board, so you'd be less flexible and have less models on the table while having to track wounds for most of your models.

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

Truth? I'm 30 and I'm a Space Marine fan/player. When I was a teenager I played Necrons.
SM have an awesome variety of models from GW,FW and 3rd parties, they're quite flexible in what kind of lists you can build, they have unlimited possibilities in terms of fluff and can ally themself with all the other imperial factions. They're cheap to get into (decent model counts, ebay availability) and not that hard to learn - a basic Tac Marine detachment is pretty good for learning the ropes.

That's why there are so many SM players.

Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Generally, the Ork collective psychic powers are proportional to their numbers, and outside of specialised weirdboyz it never manifests as directly as psychic lightning or the like.

But why is this relevant?

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

Well RAW only the highest ML model is counted for any unit, so there isn't any difference

nekooni wrote:

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

Well RAW only the highest ML model is counted for any unit, so there isn't any difference

Oh, right. Haha.
I tried, at least.

Making ork boys squads brotherhood of psykers with an increase of mastery level by 1 for every 10 models would be more likely IMO.

Making orks mastery level 1 psykers doesn't really work for me. Their "psychic" passive effects (like red things going faster, guns not running out of ammo, etc.) are all fairly subtle. Actual psychic powers tend to be quite a bit more flashy. When something explodes around non-weirdboy orkz, it's not generally because of psychic. It's because someone threw a grenade or something.

That said, I do like the idea of a, "Powa of da Waaaagh!" detachment wherein at least one weird boy is mandatory, but you generate bonus warp charges the more orks you include in the detachment.

That, or give weirdboyz a rule that gives them +1 warp charge for every 10 boyz in a squad with them.

Ork Psychic dice generation is fine if we only had the free HQ slots to bring more Weirdboyz or some formation of multiple Weirdboyz.

+1 warp charge per 10 boyz in the unit would be hilarious in a green tide. 2 Weirdboyz, 150 Orks, 34+D6 dice. Time to start some daemon summoning.

 Harley Quinn wrote:
For me, it was more about when I play games against them, a tactical/assault squad coming near isn't really all that imposing, where as, if they were all T5 and 2 wounds, I'd definitely be a little more fearful of them.
But oh well.

I'm really happy to read this. I think it is the most important thing about all the armies. What's the scariest an army can get without giving me no chance at all to win against it? From this perspective, if I'm playing against marines and I want it to be really hard, t5 w2 is pretty good. I kdo not like that a melta gun or other s8 weapon wouldn't insta kill them, from the perspective of the "having a chance" portion of the scenario. I think it's good to have tools, and not have all te tools just shut down.



If you are assuming you can use these rules, why in heck would anyone think the plague marineNd mark of nurgle rules would also be the same as they are now? How would that be so obvious? They mark of nurgle would have /different rules/.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

You do understand that melta and plasma would be just as important for people who don't have scat bikes right? Because str 6+ ap3+ is what it takes to kill Marines if they were T3 W3? It would actually cause more elite builds outside SM because to combat SM people will want S6+ large blast templates. Green tide players won't be able to play due to the meta shift. Good times.

Harley, it's a good idea, but as someone mentioned GW needs to make better rules.

T3 W3 3+ EW is as tough as three guardsmen, becauise Instant Death from S6 weapons doesn't matter if the model its shooting at is EW. Reading comprehension, please.

Well, it does still matter from the perspective of denying FNP, but I'm not sure how relevant that is outside of pathological cases.

Toughening Marines is very tricky from a game play perspective. If they are as good as 20 guardsmen then a balanced game involves a small marine army or a massive guard army. If the game is a massive guard army, it bogs down due to too many models. If it is a small marine army, tactics and manouvers become less dynamic. One or two squads of Marines doesn't give many options in how to interact on the board. So unfortunately the super duper awesomeness that Marines are supposed to be in the fluff is toned down.

Now since it is a pet peave of mine to say in essence that idea is no good or can't work to posts in the rules board, (instead an effort should be made to help OPs find a functional way to modify the game to fit their cinematic vision) I'll try to offer some thoughts on how to work with the proposed concept.

The first thing that needs to be done to make the idea work is to increase the damage output of the marines, or alternatively don't double points cost. Just making them tougher without making them killier doesn't work.

Couple thoughts on how to do this. One is a change to how bolter weapons work. The Eldar basic weapon got a tweak to make it more interesting. Why not do the same for the Marine's basic weapon. My thought is a rule that treats all bolter misses as strength 1/2 (rounding up), AP- hits. So regular bolter misses are S2 hits, heavy bolter misses are S3 hits. The bolter becomes more effective against troops but not against vehicles.

I also think Marines could be given more ability to move and fire effectively. So heavy weapons being able to fire on the move. Not sure how to implement that due to unfamiliarity with the current edition.

They probably would also need two close combat attacks in their profile to ward against tarpitting.

I would also consider making squads smaller (something like min 3, max 8) to keep the unit idea of 40k intact while still allowing numerous tactical choices in game. Maybe make a squad one or two teams of 3 or 4 Marines. If you take one team, one member can take one of meltagun, plasma gun, flamer. If you take two teams one of the cannon weapons can be taken as well.

And for context, I'm not a Marone fan boy. I think they are one of the least interesting armies personally, but don't mind brain storming ways to make them match the fluff better.

Then Krak grenades and missiles should have the same rule, their explosion is much more powerful.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Then Krak grenades and missiles should have the same rule, their explosion is much more powerful.

They're not fragmentation weapons like bolters though.

Cheeky answer borrows from Starseige Tribes:

My plasma cannon says no one is immortal.

So no, Marines should not have two wounds or be toughness 5.

From a gameplay perspective, they are toughness 4 while most things are toughness 3. You could perhaps make the case for Terminators and Centurions to be T5 due to their armor, but base marines no.

The base Tau weapon is a plasma weapon, it shouldn't need a 4+ to wound a marine. Making them T5 would mean bumping up a lot of weapons STRs thus negating the drive to making all Marines T5.

Frankly a Heavy Bolter and similar 5-7 STR weapons should work like they do vs power armor marines.

Multi-wound models bog the game down and make it look bad due to the counters strewn across the table.
Nobz are supposed to be tougher than marines. Therefore if a marine is T5 W2 then a Nob would have to be T6 W3 at least.

A much better solution to the discord between fluff and crunch would be to increase the lethality of standard infantry weapons, a point that fans have been trying to get across to GW since the 90s. A direct hit from a futuristic death ray on an unarmored, uncovered human soldier only has a 50% chance of temporarily incapacitating the human.
This is because 40k was originally based on a transplanted fantasy rule set, replacing WHFB's bows and crossbows with lasguns and bolters respectively. I know arrows and muskets can inflict some nasty wounds, but the little kid in me wants death rays and exploding-rocket-guns to be a little bit more impressive.

I'm thinking all ranged weapons should use the current rending rules, inflicting automatic wounds that ignore armor on a wound roll of 6. That way even marines have to play it smart and use cover. Then every weapon could have its S bumped up and its AP bumped down by 1. Then discard rapid fire entirely, turning RF weapons into assault 2 and doubling the RoF of storm and hurricane bolters. Maybe turn salvo weapons into assault as well.
This isn't really much of a buff for marines in particular. To make tac marines useful as something other than cannon fodder for the special weapon guy you would need to give them a special rule, like an extra shot at close range or the ability to ignore cover when you roll a 6 to hit.

To make close combat a little bit more practical I think units should be able to fire snap shots while charging as well as when being charged.

The "holding off hundreds of enemies alone," "a company conquering a planet" stuff cannot be represented on the table top because it is absurd. You can't simulate it because it is impossible without giving Marines superman-like abilities.

You can write the words "100 Marines conquered the planet." but you cannot actually simulate it, because it is impossible.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Haruspex wrote:
Multi-wound models bog the game down and make it look bad due to the counters strewn across the table.
Nobz are supposed to be tougher than marines. Therefore if a marine is T5 W2 then a Nob would have to be T6 W3 at least.

A much better solution to the discord between fluff and crunch would be to increase the lethality of standard infantry weapons, a point that fans have been trying to get across to GW since the 90s. A direct hit from a futuristic death ray on an unarmored, uncovered human soldier only has a 50% chance of temporarily incapacitating the human.
This is because 40k was originally based on a transplanted fantasy rule set, replacing WHFB's bows and crossbows with lasguns and bolters respectively. I know arrows and muskets can inflict some nasty wounds, but the little kid in me wants death rays and exploding-rocket-guns to be a little bit more impressive.

I'm thinking all ranged weapons should use the current rending rules, inflicting automatic wounds that ignore armor on a wound roll of 6. That way even marines have to play it smart and use cover. Then every weapon could have its S bumped up and its AP bumped down by 1. Then discard rapid fire entirely, turning RF weapons into assault 2 and doubling the RoF of storm and hurricane bolters. Maybe turn salvo weapons into assault as well.
This isn't really much of a buff for marines in particular. To make tac marines useful as something other than cannon fodder for the special weapon guy you would need to give them a special rule, like an extra shot at close range or the ability to ignore cover when you roll a 6 to hit.

To make close combat a little bit more practical I think units should be able to fire snap shots while charging as well as when being charged.

Oooo! Interesting thoughts there! I like that.

@Maniac_nmt: Couldn't the argument be made that a plasma-based weapon shouldn't need a 4+ to wound anything not made out of metal (and maybe even things made out of metal too)?

@Alcibiades: While you're correct, there is definitely a middleground between "holding off hundreds of enemies alone," and the current level of marine potency. Personally, I like the idea of something a few steps removed from movie marines where the model count is low (but not movie marine low), and each model feels like a "miniboss" rather than just an especially well armored guard vet.

Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

A Lasgun is a lot scarier to a Marine than a Guardsman already, but when it feels like everything that's shooting is plasma or better, it doesn't seem to matter.

If it were harder/costlier to field S6+ and/or AP3-, and harder/costlier to run t6+/AV12+ models with 4+ wounds/HP, or 2+ saves, perhaps then Marines would feel more like Marines.

FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

 angelofvengeance wrote:
FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

That might work, but how would Iron Hands chapter tactics work? :/

This has been discussed over and over OP. All thats gonna happen is a bunch of IG players are gonna chime in and say how marines aren't acutally that strong and that current marines are OP. Even though marines are so bad they are avoided like plague in competitive settings - unless they get relentless grav cannons or come with free razorbacks.

Fact of the matter is in the current game we have - the survivability you you pay for is mostly wasted. Loading up on wounds cheap wounds and abusing cover nets you much better surviability per point than 3+ saves.

I don't think T5 is needed but 2 wounds at about a 6 point increase would go a long way. It would make marines viable damage soakers. People will cry about this but it would put marines back on the map as being viable table top units and it would also suit the fluff better.

T5 2W? Enjoy killing it with lasguns....

You would need a whole platoon to kill one squad.

And then we get into the 'Viable compared to what' conversation.

Do we want Tacs to be auto-win vs 90% of the units in the game so that they can "be competitive" with the top 10%? And what about the unit it will now push out of the top 10%?

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 angelofvengeance wrote:
FNP might be good for SM/CSM. Would fit the idea that Astartes can shrug off wounds that would kill a lesser being. At 5+ it's not an absolute cert that you'll pass the test.

That might work, but how would Iron Hands chapter tactics work? :/

Err... better FNP? Since they like to chop bits off themselves and replace with bionics?

Isn't there already a way for SM's to get a 1+ fnp on a character?

 Hawky wrote:
T5 2W? Enjoy killing it with lasguns....

You would need a whole platoon to kill one squad.

What kinda gard squad doesn't have plasma guns? Also - what kind of gard army doesn't have wyverns?

Wyvern won't do well, you're going to need basilisks

 Bobthehero wrote:
Wyvern won't do well, you're going to need basilisks

Wyvern will still chew up t5 models. it comes with shred. Then theres basalisk, battle cannons, imperial knights, wraithgard, demolisher cannons, ect...

Literally an endless list of crap that would dismiss these marines easily. OFC - good old plasma cannons too...

Don't IG have a tank that puts out 5 plasma blasts?

At the chance of getting hot. And 2W means that STR 8 won't dismiss them easily.

Maybe just 2W sounds better with a point increase.

It was just me putting it out there, just to see what people thought.

What about the just giving SM models in PA or TA a re-rollable armor save? It greatly increases their survivability against things that are not at least AP 3, but they still die easily against weapons that can puncture 3+ armor.

Thus they will still seem like a armored shock force that are incredibly hard to kill with normal small arms fire but still die if you hit them with high armor penetrating weapons.

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

 bomtek80 wrote:
What about the just giving SM models in PA or TA a re-rollable armor save? It greatly increases their survivability against things that are not at least AP 3, but they still die easily against weapons that can puncture 3+ armor.

Thus they will still seem like a armored shock force that are incredibly hard to kill with normal small arms fire but still die if you hit them with high armor penetrating weapons.

Oh, I like this one. I think it'd be great.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

You wouldn't use it on anything because it would be the shittiest upgrade ever.

 Xenomancers wrote:
This has been discussed over and over OP. All thats gonna happen is a bunch of IG players are gonna chime in and say how marines aren't acutally that strong and that current marines are OP. Even though marines are so bad they are avoided like plague in competitive settings - unless they get relentless grav cannons or come with free razorbacks.

Fact of the matter is in the current game we have - the survivability you you pay for is mostly wasted. Loading up on wounds cheap wounds and abusing cover nets you much better surviability per point than 3+ saves.

I don't think T5 is needed but 2 wounds at about a 6 point increase would go a long way. It would make marines viable damage soakers. People will cry about this but it would put marines back on the map as being viable table top units and it would also suit the fluff better.

What, and regular Tactical Marines that get 18+ points worth of gear, stats and rules at 14 points are not good? When compared to the Guardsmen?

Okay, let us do the maths.

As things currently stand I need a full platoon within Rapid Fire range to kill 4 Marines. Throw in 5 Plasma guns. Now it is 7.5 Marines dead, along with two Guardsmen whom overheated their guns. Finally add in a line of FRFSRF. Now that is 9.5 Marines dead.
Congratulations, I just threw an entire platoon geared for MEQ busting at your one cheap Tactical Squad and even with 45 Lasguns and 5 Plasmaguns failed to wipe out 10 Marines. That is 280 points worth of IG failing to remove even 140 points worth of Marines from the table.

Now let us upgrade the Marines to T5 and 2 Wounds. The 45 Lasguns do 3 wounds - 1 Marine dead, 1 injured. The Plasmaguns do 4 wounds - 3 Marines dead and 1 wounded and two Guardsmen also dead through overheating. Finally FRFSRF adds in an extra 1 wound.
4 Marines dead from an entire MEQ busting Platoons worth of shooting.

As for your comments about Marines not being seen in competitive settings, well I think we can all see that you have never been to any competitive events have you? Space Marines are the most played army out of all the forces within 40K and I can guarantee you that at any competitive event that you should wish to go to you will see at the very least 40% minimum of the players will be using Space Marines. Why? Because they are THAT good. The Space Marine army list is one of the most diverse and flexible around and they also receive more love from GW than any other faction out there.
Your troops are tough, they are survivable and they can really put the hurt downrange, so why do we have this constant and continuous whining from SM players wanting more? And the arguement is always "Well in the fluff Marines always win" or "In the fluff 10 Marines wipe out an entire army" or "In the fluff Marines blah blah blah [insert endless blather about how good Marines are here]".
This game is not the fluff. Accept it. You cant be the best all the time. Your Marines are not special snowflakes and despite what GW says the other non Marine players - yes those peasants - are not there to powder your privileged backside on demand (IE roll over and die, losing the game to your all conquering Marines). They are there to have fun.

And we Imperial Guard players are sure as hell not here to be mocked and made fun of. We have a terrible codex with almost no viable units and yet the idea that the Guard should be effective and actually able to stand up to the Mary Sue Marines seems to be beyond the capacity of your kind to grasp. "Whats this, Imperial Guard peasants wanting to be able to stand on an equal footing with we lords? How DARE they!". Well too bad. You can not have everything your way just because you play an army of special snowflake Mary (or Marty) Sues whom never lose because G dubs days so. Sorry kiddo but your going to have to accept that we IG players are allowed to have an equal footing with you.

And as for this Eldar and Necron nonsense, do you really think that you are the only ones affected? Well, your not. Try coming down to the trenches once in a while, we in the Guard get stomped by you top tier codexes regularly but we do not complain anyway near as much as you lot. Hell, we get back in there and actually modify our tactics (Yes, that is a new word isnt it) to fight these and you know what? We actually win sometimes. Sure, it isnt often and our opponents often just breeze over us but we win sometimes and when we do, damn but does it feel good.

All in all quit whining. Seriously, just stop it. You are in a really good place with that codex of yours. And the next time you feel the urge to whine because Special Snowflake Bobinius Maximum with his Bolter from Tactical Squad Sueus was killed by a lucky lasgun shot stop for a moment and actually look at the codexes such as the Imperial Guard and the Sisters of Battle. Maybe play a few games with them.
Then think long and hard.

@MasterOfOrdinance: I realize you're mostly replying to xenomancer there, but there are a few things about your post I'd like to point out.

First of all, most of the posters in this thread (including Harley, the original poster) aren't trying to approach this from the standpoint that marines as an army are too weak. Most of the posters seem to be saying that they'd be fine with a completely horizontal shift if it made the marines reflect their fluff a bit better. That is to say, they aren't asking for the marine army as a whole to be better but for guys in power armor to feel less squishy and to have their points costs modified appropriately to reflect this.

It's not that we're saying marines aren't good enough or that your guard army is too good compared to marines. We're just saying that it's sort of unfluffy and disappointing when the marines end up dying to the first lasbolt that gets sent their way.

Take, for example, the numbers you crunched in which the guard killed off 9.5 marines. You're absolutely right in feeling that that's a ton of firepower being used to underwhelming effect. On the other hand, the marine player basically just lost 10 marines when he got too close to a platoon of guardsmen. If that scenario happens 10 more times across the span of whatever war the marines are fighting in, they should theoretically end up losing their entire company in short order.

And say they shot back at that same guard platoon as they were dying. You'd see something like:
7 bolters double-tapping for 14 attacks for 9.38 hits for 6.28 wounds.

Then let's say they have two plasmas and a combi-plas in the squad (using plasma because it's more generally useful than a melta or flamer), you'll have 6 shots, 4 hits, for something like 3.5 wounds.

So all together you're looking at about 10 wounds. Now the scenario you laid out was 140 pts of marines versus 280 points of guardsmen, so let's double that and say 20 wounds from a second plasma marine squad. And then there's a good chance the guard ignore a big chunk of those wounds with cover or something. The marines would ignore a few plasma wounds with cover too, to be fair.

Considering guardsmen are about half the cost of a marine, isn't killing 10 marines and losing 20 guardsmen a pretty good exchange?

Eh. I'm letting myself get off-topic. My point is that losing 10 marines every time they get close to a group of guardsmen just doesn't mesh with the advertising that comes on the marine tin. And then you add in t hings like ordnance that just makes marines evaporate (which, to be fair, it probably should), and you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out why anyone would bother making these marine guys if you're killing twice as much as a guardsman but using up ten times the resources.

Marines are advertised as an extreme elite army. Mechanically, they're more like a semi-elite army that serves as the scale other armies are measured against. They're the "Mario" army rather than the army with a low model count and high efficacy per guy. Thus the desire for a horizontal shift in marine power that makes the marines feel more durable.

For the record, I very rarely play my marines, instead preferring my eldar, dark eldar, or harlies. I play my marines about as often as I play my 'nids or my new chaos army. So this isn't just a marine player complaining that his marines aren't curb stomping his friends enough.

 Bobthehero wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

You wouldn't use it on anything because it would be the shittiest upgrade ever.

Which now means Tac Squads don't have to worry about Plasma, and get a lot more survivable in the shooting phase.

Obviously you can find a middle ground, I'm just trying to illustrate a point here.

Wyldhunt wrote:
@MasterOfOrdinance: I realize you're mostly replying to xenomancer there, but there are a few things about your post I'd like to point out.

First of all, most of the posters in this thread (including Harley, the original poster) aren't trying to approach this from the standpoint that marines as an army are too weak. Most of the posters seem to be saying that they'd be fine with a completely horizontal shift if it made the marines reflect their fluff a bit better. That is to say, they aren't asking for the marine army as a whole to be better but for guys in power armor to feel less squishy and to have their points costs modified appropriately to reflect this.

It's not that we're saying marines aren't good enough or that your guard army is too good compared to marines. We're just saying that it's sort of unfluffy and disappointing when the marines end up dying to the first lasbolt that gets sent their way.

Take, for example, the numbers you crunched in which the guard killed off 9.5 marines. You're absolutely right in feeling that that's a ton of firepower being used to underwhelming effect. On the other hand, the marine player basically just lost 10 marines when he got too close to a platoon of guardsmen. If that scenario happens 10 more times across the span of whatever war the marines are fighting in, they should theoretically end up losing their entire company in short order.

And say they shot back at that same guard platoon as they were dying. You'd see something like:
7 bolters double-tapping for 14 attacks for 9.38 hits for 6.28 wounds.

Then let's say they have two plasmas and a combi-plas in the squad (using plasma because it's more generally useful than a melta or flamer), you'll have 6 shots, 4 hits, for something like 3.5 wounds.

So all together you're looking at about 10 wounds. Now the scenario you laid out was 140 pts of marines versus 280 points of guardsmen, so let's double that and say 20 wounds from a second plasma marine squad. And then there's a good chance the guard ignore a big chunk of those wounds with cover or something. The marines would ignore a few plasma wounds with cover too, to be fair.

Considering guardsmen are about half the cost of a marine, isn't killing 10 marines and losing 20 guardsmen a pretty good exchange?

Eh. I'm letting myself get off-topic. My point is that losing 10 marines every time they get close to a group of guardsmen just doesn't mesh with the advertising that comes on the marine tin. And then you add in t hings like ordnance that just makes marines evaporate (which, to be fair, it probably should), and you find yourself scratching your head trying to figure out why anyone would bother making these marine guys if you're killing twice as much as a guardsman but using up ten times the resources.

Marines are advertised as an extreme elite army. Mechanically, they're more like a semi-elite army that serves as the scale other armies are measured against. They're the "Mario" army rather than the army with a low model count and high efficacy per guy. Thus the desire for a horizontal shift in marine power that makes the marines feel more durable.

For the record, I very rarely play my marines, instead preferring my eldar, dark eldar, or harlies. I play my marines about as often as I play my 'nids or my new chaos army. So this isn't just a marine player complaining that his marines aren't curb stomping his friends enough.

I get where you are coming from and I can understand. Actually, I should apologise for my rant. It was not entirely called for, although in all honesty the amount of whining that many SM players seem to be doing lately because something goes wrong for them or doesnt work out how they want it to or some unit or vehicle is not "da bestest" is just reaching stupid levels.

Right now we have a situation where an Imperial Guard army will struggle to compete with a Space Marine army of equal points values, as I illustrated above. That was a bare bones 10 man tactical squad and it survived an entire platoons worth of MEQ busting firepower. That was firepower from 5 fully upgraded Imperial Guard infantry sections which come, to now that I have done the maths again, 325 points (5 x Infantry Sections @ 50 points each) + (5 x Plasma Guns @ 15 points each) failing to kill off a 140 point Space Marine section (I was assuming that neither side was in cover, the Guard where blobbed so as all to receive the order and all where in rapid fire range - something that rarely happens on the battlefield).
Sure, we can throw in our Ordnance and Tanks too and we kill off 1 Tactical squad per every two tanks on average - assuming that the Marines are in the open - but this is once again bad trade as we are talking 280+ points to kill A squad which costs 140 points.

Whilst I can see where you are coming from with the thematic thing the game does not revolve around the fluff as much as all that. Tougher Space Marines, even at a points increase, would be too good. They would be next to impossible to kill off with our regular infantry and our tanks would struggle to make a dent in the multi wound models whilst our heavy weapons with multiple shots would be prioritised and picked off - and this would be incredibly easy to do as we lack high ROF heavy weapons that are good for marine busting.
Our only hope would be to lean even heavier on the crutch that is the Melta Vet section and the few tank designs that we have which are actually usable for their massive price, and this is something that many of us are already being forced to do.

Right now the average Space Marine is in a good place. He is 4+ points cheaper than he should be for all that gear and those rules, he has a good stat line and his armour is some of the best issued to basic infantry in the game - IE he actually gets a save against most weapons - whilst his gun is fairly average.
To add to this once per game (or twice if he is using the Smurf chapter tactics) he can reroll all rolls of a 1 to hit whilst his heavy weapon toting brethren can move and fire to full effect.

He is in a really good place. He does not need buffing any more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Perhaps the problem is less the survivability vs small arms, and more the availability of both heavy weapons, and things that require substantial heavy weapons to drop?

Interesting idea! Let's imagine we triple the price of a Plasma gun to 45pts.

You're not going to want to waste that kind of investment on targeting a poor 70pt Tac Squad, right?

No. Plasma is too expensive as it is, especially for the Guard. Stop trying to remove the counters to your Infantry.

to the OP, No. That is all.

For all the passing and moaning from guard players, they don't realize how good they have it compared to blood angels.

Tac marines are terrible in the current meta. Actually they have been terrible since fifth edition. They have above average durability and craps firepower in a game about firepower, not durability.

No one is using vanilla marines for tac squads. They are using white scars, Skyhammer formations, grav stars, etc. The tac squads is one of the worst units in that book now.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
to the OP, No. That is all.

Hmmm.. Yes. I see what you mean. Very thought provoking.
Hahaha.

Martel732 wrote:
For all the passing and moaning from guard players, they don't realize how good they have it compared to blood angels.

Tac marines are terrible in the current meta. Actually they have been terrible since fifth edition. They have above average durability and craps firepower in a game about firepower, not durability.

No one is using vanilla marines for tac squads. They are using white scars, Skyhammer formations, grav stars, etc. The tac squads is one of the worst units in that book now.

I.... I.... I...
Look son, have you ever played the Imperial Guard? Once? I wish I had a 3+ armour save and high S and T and that my Infantry where no wiped from the board by just about every basic infantry weapon out there.

Yes, I have. A few times. You just have to understand what you are looking at. One big issue is that everything gets wiped in 7th ed and it's all about who can wipe the fastest. As I said, tac marines became garbage in 5th and have been garbage ever since, even with the price drop.

Guardsmen are actually more efficient against scatterlasers, which is now a big, big deal since most Eldar lists have at least 25 of the things. The basic infantry weapons you are worried about don't matter so much.

If what you claimed were remotely true, BA wouldn't be god awful. But they are. Worse than the AM for sure.

I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

If I could play you, I would give you my BA and slaughter you over and over with the AM. BA are hardly well armed. That's their biggest flaw atm, actually. They basically don't participate in the shooting phase unless you load up on grav bikers. In which case, why bother to play BA?

"Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman."

Not for their points. Not the way the game works now. Basically the AM pay 5 pts per troop to die miserably and the marines pay 14 pts per troop to die miserably. Both units are very weak in 7th ed. Marines have greandes, S4, WS 4, bolt pistols, and ATSKNF, but none of these "upgrades" mean anything when every power list plans to shoot me off the table before assault ever happens. Which they do.

Also, an AM leafblower list still works against BA. That's how bad BA are right now.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I will believe that when I see it. A static army without any real armour or firepower on its Infantry better off than a fast moving well armed and armoured army in this day and age?

Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman.
Besides, Eldar Scat Spam kills everything anyway. Is the fault of that codex, not of the other ones.

If I could play you, I would give you my BA and slaughter you over and over with the AM. BA are hardly well armed. That's their biggest flaw atm, actually. They basically don't participate in the shooting phase unless you load up on grav bikers. In which case, why bother to play BA?

"Regular tac marines are waaaayyyyy above the average Guardsman."

Not for their points. Not the way the game works now. Basically the AM pay 5 pts per troop to die miserably and the marines pay 14 pts per troop to die miserably. Both units are very weak in 7th ed. Marines have greandes, S4, WS 4, bolt pistols, and ATSKNF, but none of these "upgrades" mean anything when every power list plans to shoot me off the table before assault ever happens. Which they do.

Also, an AM leafblower list still works against BA. That's how bad BA are right now.

Nope, I would easily stomp you.... You seem to be forgetting that the only way a Guardsman survives is through cover. With but one exception ever basic weapon out there ignores our armour. Your BA's bolters ignore my armour entirely, whereas my squads might have 1, 3 at the most, weapons that ignore yours. Shot for shot, your marines will win in a firefight, even if we go equal points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and the Leafblower?
That was Imperial guard allied with the Inquisition. It was a broken codex being used to make a mediocre codex work.

"Nope, I would easily stomp you.... "

I rarely lose to BA. A few ST 8 AP 3 blast hits and many BA builds are completely crippled. Doubling out many BA models at once is really bad for us because it turns off FNP that many lists cough up points for. BA have no chance in a firefight against AM. In fact, I'd go as far to say that BA can't beat ANY codex in 7th in a firefight.

"You seem to be forgetting that the only way a Guardsman survives is through cover."

Overcosted units aside, I think you may be misinterpreting your own unit's roles. Guardsmen are there to die. Take advantage of that by using bubblewrap and ablative units with no equipment to absorb assaults. When I play AM, I don't care if the guardsmen die. Big difference in philosophy.


"That was Imperial guard allied with the Inquisition"

No, it wasn't, because 5th didn't have allies.

You guys should get together and do a battle report of it.

Personally I think Tactical Marines suck %&$* but the codex as a whole is very good.

Basically good things for codex space marines are bs4 scouts, grav-bikes, grav devastators, thunderfire cannons, grav centurions, chapter master smash fether, free transport formation, and the crazy librarian formation, and of course who could forget the almighty skyhammer?

BA basically have to ally in ALL of that crap to be strong. Not really fair is it?

AM don't really have it very good either though. Both codices are behind the power curve.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
You guys should get together and do a battle report of it.

Personally I think Tactical Marines suck %&$* but the codex as a whole is very good.

Basically good things for codex space marines are bs4 scouts, grav-bikes, grav devastators, thunderfire cannons, grav centurions, chapter master smash fether, free transport formation, and the crazy librarian formation, and of course who could forget the almighty skyhammer?

BA basically have to ally in ALL of that crap to be strong. Not really fair is it?

AM don't really have it very good either though. Both codices are behind the power curve.

Somewhat unnecessary. If he but lists what he thinks he's going to take from C:BA to defeat the AM, I can probably describe how I will stop it with a TAC AM list. AM still have a few good things, BA have even fewer good things. That's the difference.

Tactical marines are great in a vacuum comparison against guardsmen, but the game isn't played that way.

It's also worth noting that, while balance even (and especially) in a competitive environment is important, not everyone plays super competitively. Scatter bikes eliminating big chunks of marines every turn is an issue if your opponent brings scatter bikes. My local group has one guy with scatterbikes, and he mostly saves them for tournament games.

The things I face that generally make marines on foot a non-issue are devastators and fast melee stars like thunderwolves or meganobz in truks.

I bring this up as a reminder that potential changes to marine durability should also be considered in environments where scatbikes and wraith knights and demicompanies aren't a thing. Especially since we're having this discussion on a board for homebrew rules that would mos likely not be tournament-permissable anyway.

Fast melee stars are a thing as well. Good melee units will wipe up tacs and guardsmen equally well, except the marine player loses 3 times more per model.

I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

This is the exact problem with tactical marines. They look so awesome against guardsmen, though!

Martel732 wrote:
5th didn't have allies.

Yes it did. Both Daemonhunters and Sisters of Battle had rules for allying to other Imperial armies in their 3rd edition Codices, which were still current (and I use that word loosely) in 5th edition.

Okay. But leafblowers werent reliant on those books.

Problem is, finding a special rule that could apply to all bolter weapon variants that will make the basic boltgun better without making one or another variant hilariously OP is beyond my brain. Shred comes to mind, but is almost too much. Changing the base bolter to a higher strength or better ap invalidates some variants elsewhere.

The boltgun is in a pickle because of the lack of granularity in the game. S4 shooting is too ineffective in general in 7th ed, but adding a very potent special rule is clearly too much. There is nothing between S4 and S5, which is where the boltgun should be, imo. It should be stronger than the marine punching.

Martel732 wrote:
The boltgun is in a pickle because of the lack of granularity in the game. S4 shooting is too ineffective in general in 7th ed, but adding a very potent special rule is clearly too much. There is nothing between S4 and S5, which is where the boltgun should be, imo. It should be stronger than the marine punching.

Generally, if more granularity is needed, you would give the weapon or unit something like Preferred Enemy which makes the weapon better than strength 4 but not quite as good as strength 5. Currently, that doesn't really work because it's redundant with various special rules available to marines. Personally, I'd be all for reinventing marines as more expensive with both better defenses and better gun. Like Movie Marines, but less extreme.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

Trust me, your Bolters can murder my Infantry sections.

BTW, worked out how many Lasgun shots it takes to kill a 10 man Tactical squad: 200 exactly. That is 50 Guardsmen rapid firing over two turns.

 master of ordinance wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

Trust me, your Bolters can murder my Infantry sections.

BTW, worked out how many Lasgun shots it takes to kill a 10 man Tactical squad: 200 exactly. That is 50 Guardsmen rapid firing over two turns.

That may be correct, but lets not forget the easy access you have to things like orders FRFSRF or psykers to give rending to those shots.

OT:From a balance perspective I think all infantry guardsman could easily drop their price by 1ppm so your average guardsmen becomes4ppm, vets become 9ppm, and have conscripts go to 2ppm, but peoples wallets may not agree with me.

 master of ordinance wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

Trust me, your Bolters can murder my Infantry sections.

BTW, worked out how many Lasgun shots it takes to kill a 10 man Tactical squad: 200 exactly. That is 50 Guardsmen rapid firing over two turns.

Not if the bolters never get to range. Last time I checked, IG heavy weapons out-range bolters badly. Furthermore, guardsmen are the sweetest spot for boltguns and boltguns STILL aren't worth bringing, imo.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

Trust me, your Bolters can murder my Infantry sections.

BTW, worked out how many Lasgun shots it takes to kill a 10 man Tactical squad: 200 exactly. That is 50 Guardsmen rapid firing over two turns.

Not if the bolters never get to range. Last time I checked, IG heavy weapons out-range bolters badly. Furthermore, guardsmen are the sweetest spot for boltguns and boltguns STILL aren't worth bringing, imo.

Ugh, dont. Been trying to find a use for my HWT's for ages now. They just... dont.

My favorite fluff vs stat comparison...

You always read about orks tearing humans apart with their bare hands, and even tearing space marines apart...but they represented at S3.....and every guardsman is also S3...leading to believe, all of my guardsmen should be able to tear eachother in half, along with all T4 models as well.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I still think most of the problem is the weakness of bolter weapons. Marines wouldnt die so badly if they could kill some dudes that would shoot at them next turn. It would increase their survivability by decreasing that of their opponents. Bolt weapons need a special rule.

Trust me, your Bolters can murder my Infantry sections.

BTW, worked out how many Lasgun shots it takes to kill a 10 man Tactical squad: 200 exactly. That is 50 Guardsmen rapid firing over two turns.

Not if the bolters never get to range. Last time I checked, IG heavy weapons out-range bolters badly. Furthermore, guardsmen are the sweetest spot for boltguns and boltguns STILL aren't worth bringing, imo.

Ugh, dont. Been trying to find a use for my HWT's for ages now. They just... dont.

Mass up autocannons. It works. I've faced lists with 30+ autocannons. That's all my transports dead in one turn, and 30+ power armor saves a turn just from those guys.

I dont see how SM players could be complaining about Bolters being too weak...They shred over half of the other basic troop types in the game with ease...Marines also have the above average statline across the board, and a bolt pistol allowing for moving and firing and moving and charging...I would like to know exactly what it is your Bolters arent killing that they are designed to be killing? Av10? not a problem, 5+ or 6+ armor not a chance. T 3/4/5 models no issues here....

Please help me understand what the problem is...

 Tenzilla wrote:
I dont see how SM players could be complaining about Bolters being too weak...They shred over half of the other basic troop types in the game with ease...Marines also have the above average statline across the board, and a bolt pistol allowing for moving and firing and moving and charging...I would like to know exactly what it is your Bolters arent killing that they are designed to be killing? Av10? not a problem, 5+ or 6+ armor not a chance. T 3/4/5 models no issues here....

Please help me understand what the problem is...

No one fields basic troop types. I face armies of WKs, scatterbikes, and units riding in waveserpents. Necrons don't care about boltguns because they get two saves against them. Other marines don't care because Skyhammer is raping you much faster than boltguns can kill back. There are no good targets there for boltguns and tacs can only field one heavy, which is usually passed over for special weapons. Basically, S4 24' rapid fire on a 14 pt model is anemic firepower in a game where a 23 pt model gets four S6 shots.

My boltguns? I play daemons... I have an outside perspectice on the weakness of a boltgun. I've had lasguns shoot my lord of change out of the air and kill him in one volley and have never hesitated to place him directly beside a tac squad. I realize however that AM is an outdated codex and is behind the power creep. But i dont believe it should be the standard we compare things to.

Boltguns will kill chaff units and that's it. Ive played against alot of space marines and can tell you that for the points, the weakness of a bolter makes tac marines durability and overall utility too low. I can easily bring the right weapons to bear against them without much fear of meaningful retaliation. That's the point i'm making. They arent "my boltguns."

I will say that I think guardsmen need a boost as well.. But this isnt a thread about that, is it?

Like i said...designed to kill, I dont try to use my lasguns to kill MCs....IF a bolter is underpowered what is a slugga/lasgun/splinter rifle etc etc

I also consistently ignore other tac squads with my BA and have very rarely been burned.

Again, the idea behind the IG is that full tac squads don't get anywhere close to your lines without a drop pod.

I guess it seems a moot point, you dont have to take tac squads. But are complaining about them being beaten by other set ups.
Maybe the issue is list building? I dont think there is any issue with the bolter, I think the issue is detachments/formations/and unbound. The rules, and stats were not designed to be played as such.

 Tenzilla wrote:
I guess it seems a moot point, you dont have to take tac squads. But are complaining about them being beaten by other set ups.
Maybe the issue is list building? I dont think there is any issue with the bolter, I think the issue is detachments/formations/and unbound. The rules, and stats were not designed to be played as such.

Scouts fare no better, though, and those are the troop choices for most marine lists. There is a big issue with the bolter when most lists can ignore its existence. Which they do.

Well I for one would start the fix of tacticals by making combi-weapons a 5pt upgrade. And making combi-flamers S5.

Plus 2 specials/ heavies per 5.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Well I for one would start the fix of tacticals by making combi-weapons a 5pt upgrade. And making combi-flamers S5.

Plus 2 specials/ heavies per 5.

Two special/heavy per 5 would help a lot for sure. Boltgun is still garbage, but you have less of them.

Martel732 wrote:

 Tenzilla wrote:
I guess it seems a moot point, you dont have to take tac squads. But are complaining about them being beaten by other set ups.
Maybe the issue is list building? I dont think there is any issue with the bolter, I think the issue is detachments/formations/and unbound. The rules, and stats were not designed to be played as such.

Scouts fare no better, though, and those are the troop choices for most marine lists. There is a big issue with the bolter when most lists can ignore its existence. Which they do.

What you are doing is comparing a single troop choice to an entire army. Yes IG guns will blow it apart from a distance, not a regular platoon of the same point value though. Show me a 14 point troop model that is superior to a tac marine....you are asking for a troop choice to be balanced to compete with a walker or a tank....It just simply isnt going to happen. 40K has never been a very balanced game.

Boltguns, in all the games i've played, have never killed anything meaningful, yet when i remove them from the board somehow i can feel the opponents list suffering because of the points sunk into the tac marines. There just isnt enough damage output there. I dont think they need a huge boost, just a little bit.

The durability skew just isnt working for them, to the point where their 3+ saves are almost a weakness because everyone plans to be able to kill a high amount of MEQ's per turn. It would be nice for them to be able to threaten things before they die, at least. Every other basic troop type in the game still feels threatening, yet i relish the moments when i get a chance to hit a full squad of tac marines. I literally dont have to think about defending against them because as soon as the right weapon gets there, they're gone. And they arent cheap.

 Tenzilla wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Tenzilla wrote:
I guess it seems a moot point, you dont have to take tac squads. But are complaining about them being beaten by other set ups.
Maybe the issue is list building? I dont think there is any issue with the bolter, I think the issue is detachments/formations/and unbound. The rules, and stats were not designed to be played as such.

Scouts fare no better, though, and those are the troop choices for most marine lists. There is a big issue with the bolter when most lists can ignore its existence. Which they do.

What you are doing is comparing a single troop choice to an entire army. Yes IG guns will blow it apart from a distance, not a regular platoon of the same point value though. Show me a 14 point troop model that is superior to a tac marine....you are asking for a troop choice to be balanced to compete with a walker or a tank....It just simply isnt going to happen. 40K has never been a very balanced game.

Simply isn't going to happen? Scatterbike? Necron warrior?

I'd argue that for the role that they play, guardsmen are superior to tac marines. They are paying fewer pts/wound to accomplish very little. Marine armor means little when I can ignore the squad with few negative consequences. Tacs always die after the real threats are mopped up. They are a total liability.


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AncientSkarbrand wrote:
Boltguns, in all the games i've played, have never killed anything meaningful, yet when i remove them from the board somehow i can feel the opponents list suffering because of the points sunk into the tac marines. There just isnt enough damage output there. I dont think they need a huge boost, just a little bit.

The durability skew just isnt working for them, to the point where their 3+ saves are almost a weakness because everyone plans to be able to kill a high amount of MEQ's per turn. It would be nice for them to be able to threaten things before they die, at least. Every other basic troop type in the game still feels threatening, yet i relish the moments when i get a chance to hit a full squad of tac marines. I literally dont have to think about defending against them because as soon as the right weapon gets there, they're gone. And they arent cheap.

And tac marines fare no better against real CC units than guardsmen. And since assault marines are just tac marines with a knife, they suck in CC as well. The suckitude of the tac marine gets propagated down to everything based off of them as well. What units are good marine lists build around? Bikes and centurions. Not tacs, devs, and asm.

So your problem with bolter and tac marines is that you cant butcher other marines with a bolter the way that bolter butcher lesser troops?

how are lasguns in anyway better then bolters? or 2 guardsmen better then a space marine?

You are not making fair comparisons here....the necron warrior has one advantage to a space marine...where the space marine is superior in every other way....and you pay for it....

Now I am not saying that bolter and tac marines are the best things out there.....but for what they are and what they cost they are perfectly fine. Why are people not taking tac marines anymore?

Why are lists built around other things? because 40k is not balanced. But you cant expect to have your troops magically buffed or your guns buffed because something else does their job better.

As far as people coming prepared to kill MEQs...its because for so long SM have been above the rest, and people are compensating for it. That doesnt mean you should have better weapons or more durability, to kill your marines I have to pay 15 points for a plasma gun on top of my 10 pt vet....and he still dies if you look at him the wrong way...I pay 25 pts to possibly kill a 14 pt model...hoping I dont kill myself first...does that sound balanced?

 Tenzilla wrote:
So your problem with bolter and tac marines is that you cant butcher other marines with a bolter the way that bolter butcher lesser troops?

how are lasguns in anyway better then bolters? or 2 guardsmen better then a space marine?

You are not making fair comparisons here....the necron warrior has one advantage to a space marine...where the space marine is superior in every other way....and you pay for it....

I absolutely am making fair comparisons.

"Lesser" troops often have more effective support systems around them which prevent the boltguns from getting within range. Boltguns can not harm said support systems, and so the net result is that boltguns are worthless in those matchups. My marines are never going to boltgun the guardsmen to death before their heavy weapons have laid waste to my list.

Lasguns aren't better, but the price per wound fielded is better. Guardsmen are better at soaking scatterlaser fire and guardsmen in cover are better at soaking everything that doesn't ignore cover. And cover is free, last time I checked.

The necron warrior has but one advantage, yes, but that advantage makes it worth fielding over a tac marine. The tac marine is superior in ways that don't matter. I can kill a LR or even an IK with Necron warriors. Tac marines have zero chance. That's the only advantage that matters in 7th. Not grenades. Not WS. Not Init. Not ATSKNF. Shooting. That is what the game is now.

I disagree. I think a necron warrior is in many ways better than a tac marine. Twice as durable, their guns can wound anything, same range, characters buff their durability, good transport options for their role, base LD10, and their RP lets guys who should be dead swing in the combat they died in.

In what way is a space marine superior?

Martel732 wrote:


I absolutely am making fair comparisons.

"Lesser" troops often have more effective support systems around them which prevent the boltguns from getting within range. Boltguns can not harm said support systems, and so the net result is that boltguns are worthless in those matchups. My marines are never going to boltgun the guardsmen to death before their heavy weapons have laid waste to my list.

Absolutely not fair comparisons. You are comparing a unit of tac marines.....to what I assume is an entire gun line...


Where are your support systems? My cheaper wounds wound 17% easier and save 50% less...


Take a drop pod....take a librarian, a land raider allies whatever......you have support options. point for point Sm are superior to most other troops that is the bottom line...if you have trouble fielding them with positive results that is not because they are underpowered...

Where are your support systems? My cheaper wounds wound 17% easier and save 50% less...



Automatically Appended Next Post:

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I disagree. I think a necron warrior is in many ways better than a tac marine. Twice as durable, their guns can wound anything, same range, characters buff their durability, good transport options for their role, base LD10, and their RP lets guys who should be dead swing in the combat they died in.

In what way is a space marine superior?

Not twice as durable......Ld 10 can be chalked up to ATSKNF...buff are outside the scope of troops, as well as transports...the one advantage is the ability to hurt nearly anything.

TBH I feel (and I am quite biased on this point, but still) that the best thing that could happen to Tactical Marines would be upping the ease of getting into melee, because that way one would actually get to use the relatively superior melee prowess that one's paying for.

Marine support systems for the most part are awful. There is the crutch thst is the drop pod and then bikes and cents. Everything built off a rhino hull sucks because s6 high rof is a thing.

Furthermore your analyses aren't factoring in points cost or cover. Its fine. Many players have to be shown why tacs suck, they cant be told.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
TBH I feel (and I am quite biased on this point, but still) that the best thing that could happen to Tactical Marines would be upping the ease of getting into melee, because that way one would actually get to use the relatively superior melee prowess that one's paying for.

But tacs are bad in melee.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The efficacy of marines is completely predicated on a handful of tricks, formations, and a fw psyker. Take those away and you have blood angels. Arguably the second worst list in the game.

If the grandiose claims about tacs were true, blood angels wouldnt be nigh unplayable.

Martel732 wrote:
Marine support systems for the most part are awful. There is the crutch thst is the drop pod and then bikes and cents. Everything built off a rhino hull sucks because s6 high rof is a thing.

Furthermore your analyses aren't factoring in points cost or cover. Its fine. Many players have to be shown why tacs suck, they cant be told.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
TBH I feel (and I am quite biased on this point, but still) that the best thing that could happen to Tactical Marines would be upping the ease of getting into melee, because that way one would actually get to use the relatively superior melee prowess that one's paying for.

But tacs are bad in melee.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The efficacy of marines is completely predicated on a handful of tricks, formations, and a fw psyker. Take those away and you have blood angels. Arguably the second worst list in the game.

If the grandiose claims about tacs were true, blood angels wouldnt be nigh unplayable.

Again I never said tacs were competetive. OR balanced. I said point for point compared to other troop choices...they are superior, you are the one who is not taking point into consideration....you are saying guardsmen are better.....because of the long range firepower....which is hardly the case with plain guards men...perhaps you dont know what the stat line of a marine vs a guardsman is? 4 is better than 3....3+ is better than 5+ AP5 is better than Ap -......Hands down.....and that is why marines are more expensive.....Next we may be giving terminators 3 or 4 wounds because they cost so many points and the ease of access to AP 2 weapons??

You are acting like tacs are the bees knees. They are in practice awful. Guardsmen have the huge advantage of not pretending to be something they are not.

130 points of guards men...PCS 2 IS 25 total fellas....
140 points of Tac marines...

Outside of rapidfire range...mathematically IG are lucky to kill 1 marine....

Marines will kill on average 3-4 guardsmen a turn..

Sounds like the marines are the better of the 2...less than half the bodies doing 4 times the damage...

Why can you not see how it boils down to the individual unit and their stats?

Units are not created to interact the same with every other unit in the game...you have to look at the smaller picture. Unit by unit basis, not Tac squad vs. stompa IT doesnt work that way....

I understand your point completely that they are underwhelming in the face of other units...but you cannot dismiss the reasons they are what they are..

 Tenzilla wrote:
130 points of guards men...PCS 2 IS 25 total fellas....
140 points of Tac marines...

Outside of rapidfire range...mathematically IG are lucky to kill 1 marine....

Marines will kill on average 3-4 guardsmen a turn..

Sounds like the marines are the better of the 2...less than half the bodies doing 4 times the damage...

Why can you not see how it boils down to the individual unit and their stats?

Units are not created to interact the same with every other unit in the game...you have to look at the smaller picture. Unit by unit basis, not Tac squad vs. stompa IT doesnt work that way....

I understand your point completely that they are underwhelming in the face of other units...but you cannot dismiss the reasons they are what they are..

I'm looking at the big picture vs all possible matchups, not as guardsmen vs marines. Marines are ironically at a sweet spot against guardsmen. Against many other foes, however, the guardsmen are far more point efficient.

" IT doesnt work that way.... "

It absolutely does work that way in an actual game. That's the problem. Tac squads get ignored because they can't cause significant damage to units I care about. When I play IG, I don't care about my infantry anyway, because I know they will die. They're priced to die. That makes them predictable and actually easier to use.

I'm dismissing them because I'd rather pay 5 pts/model to die than 14 pts/mode to die.

I mean come on, tac squads aren't even good at killing IG heavy weapon teams because they are always bubblewrapped, always have cover fromt the guardmen in front of them and the marines can't physically reach double tap range because of all the guardmen in the way.

And those Lasguns get in range of your "squishy" stuff more easily?

TFC. Droppod. Tiggy. Conclave. Skyhammer.

IG isn't the only faction with support options. AV12 front armor may beat AV11, but AV11 side armor and 35 pts are very strong factors too.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shuriken Catapults, Avenger versions, Splinter Rifles, Lasguns, shooty gaunts, autoguns. All as bad or worse at popping transports as boltguns.

Only Necrons and Tau do better.

"And those Lasguns get in range of your "squishy" stuff more easily? "

No, they are just paying fewer points to accomplish nothing. Tac marines are paying a lot of points for the illusion of efficacy, while having virtually none in the current reality of 7th ed. Naked guard squads are much better at soaking any assaults that get through than tac marines. Of course, more assaults get through against standard marine lists because the firepower of a traditional marine list is terrible in 7th ed.

In a game of scatbikes and WKs, I wouldn't count on lasguns generating a single wound anymore. They are just a cheaper tax than tac squads.

"TFC. Droppod. Tiggy. Conclave. Skyhammer. "

Funny I don't see any of those except drop pod for BA. If tac squads were all that, BA should be fine. Right? Right?!

 Tenzilla wrote:
Like i said...designed to kill, I dont try to use my lasguns to kill MCs....IF a bolter is underpowered what is a slugga/lasgun/splinter rifle etc etc

Sluggas are cheap and a pistol (thus useful in melee)
Lasguns are cheap
Splinter rifles ignore the armor of many T3 units, and they're fantastic at hurting high toughness units. Against marines, they're on par with bolters, and that's probably when they're at their least effective. I am quite happy with my splinter weapons.

To continue, pulse rifles are longer ranged, can threaten light vehicles pretty well, and come on cheaper-than-marine-or-else-twin-linked platforms.
Gauss rifles are threatening to a wider variety of vehicles and some MCs (though not reliable against the latter)
Dire Avenger Shuriken Catapults can be fired the same turn you assault and have a chance to pseudo-rend.
Kroot weapons can potentially do precision shots that pseudo-rend.
Shootas use Ork Ballistics Skill.

I don't generally agree with Martel, but he's not wrong about bolters being unimpressive. They're worse in every way to pulse and gauss rifles. They have extremely niche advantages over avenger catapults (which are better in most regards). They do outperform a small number of basic infantry weapons, but the models with those weapons are generally quite a bit cheaper, which would be less of an issue if bolters were always helpful (see below).

They also prevent you from assaulting and don't do a thing against the vehicle your plasma/meltagun and krak grenade are shooting at, so it's easy for them to either get in your way (preventing assaults) or be useless (unable to hurt vehicles).

Personally, I'd rather like to see bolters become 12" assault 2 and 24" heavy 3. It would give you a small boost in firepower if you gave up your mobility (thus making them something of a threat to, say, incoming orks). It would also let you shoot two shots and still assault thus bringing more of the marine's advantages that he's paying for to bear. Currently, a marine that shoots his bolter is giving up the ability to hide in close combat afterwards. With an assault bolter, you still aren't doing a ton of damage with just your shooting, but you have the option of assaulting the target unit to benefit from your higher strength and initiative and any melee weapons you put on your sargeant. Assault 2 plus a charge basically means that you're getting 4 strength 4 attacks in a single turn with a normal marine, which is actually pretty alright. Especially since it lets you avoid being shot at on the following turn (provided melee continues).

Naked min Tac marines: 70pts
Naked min DAvenger unit: 65pts
Naked min Guardian unit: 90pts
Naked min Necron Warrior unit: 120? Pts?

Of course the Avenger Shuriken Catapult is stronger than the Boltgun. They trade t4 3+ s4 krak frag and the ability to take special and/or heavy weapoms for BF and to upgrade from the Boltgun to that weapon. It certainly should be better.

Of course the Gauss is better, sometimes. A few less points for the same survivability (exactly the same for most weapons, a little better for some, and a lot worse for others), no access to special/heavy weapons, no grenades, and substantially worse CC ability. It certainly shouldn't be worse!

Of course the pulse rifle is better. They're Tau. Fire Warriors. Their two strengths are firepower at range, and ranged firepower. Its all they are.

Splinter Rifle is a different beast. There is a gakton of different T3 models out there, with all kinds of saves. Regardless of saves, as they have the same AP as Boltguns, they do worse v any T3 target than boltguns. The same to T4. But better vs anything T5+. They sure do seem better, in large part because nobody fields elitest T3 models (watch Warrior/Venom spam vs Swordwind sometime - its hilarious!). Because they get their asses kicked by Tac Marines. Tac Marines may not be top of the stack, but they are certainly above so much else that is also not top of the stack. The strength of Splinter is because everyone takes things that Boltguns suck against. Hardened targets. Which are either high T, which splinter rocks, or mid/high AV, that Boltguns can't touch.

There are standard issue weapons that are better than Boltguns, but only a few of them, and they generally pay for them. The problem is that everyone fields hard targets, against which most small arms are ineffective. The problem isn't unique to Boltguns.

All that crap except the 3+ save that other people are giving up for better guns is functionally useless for tacs in 7th ed. S4, WS, greandes, bolt pistol, and ATSKNF are basically worthless on a battlefield where I'm being cut to pieces before I can get to assault. Or I'm forced to assault WKs.

". Tac Marines may not be top of the stack, but they are certainly above so much else that is also not top of the stack"

A nice sentiment, but functionally irrelevant.

" The problem isn't unique to Boltguns"

Except Gauss, bladestorm, and splinter give those weapons efficacy against this strategy. Marine players are left with many models that are purely a tax.

" Because they get their asses kicked by Tac Marines"

I don't think that's the reason.

The bolter is definatly the "standard" that other weapons are weighed against. Be it fire warrior rifles, necron gauss, splinter rifles, shuriken catapults whatever racial gun "they" get is always a "flavour" away from "bolt gun effectiveness" usually with a "topping" to add to the flavour to make them better is some respects.

This has definately made the bolt gun less useful.

Personally if they made bolt guns ifnore cover that would be enough. And maybe gave tacticals +1A as a combat doctrine

I really think that the game needs further granulation in order to give the boltgun and marines in general a proper mathematical niche. 40k has reached the limit of what can be done with D6 and a stat line that ranges from 2-5 typically. The only thing keeping marines off the scrap heap are things that people hate, and certainly none of the canonical marine units.

If Shuriken Catapults (Avenger or otherwise), Splinter Rifles, Gauss Blasters were really that amazing, they'd be a lot more common.

If they were a lot more common, their counters - Boltguns and Heavy Bolters - would be a lot better.

At the end of the day, Tac Marines may not be competitive, but they can do an amazing job of countering most other troops. Especially troops with the aforementioned "Boltgun +1" weapons.

Bharring wrote:
If Shuriken Catapults (Avenger or otherwise), Splinter Rifles, Gauss Blasters were really that amazing, they'd be a lot more common.

If they were a lot more common, their counters - Boltguns and Heavy Bolters - would be a lot better.

At the end of the day, Tac Marines may not be competitive, but they can do an amazing job of countering most other troops. Especially troops with the aforementioned "Boltgun +1" weapons.

You used the word tac marine and amazing in the same sentence. Now I know you are talking gibberish.

Again, if tac marines were so good, BA would be doing great. We can even give them FNP! /snark

I never claimed that bolters +1 were AMAZING, the units with those weapons are just harder to turn into a pure tax.

Sometimes I really don't get you, Martel.

I claim that Marines aren't competitive, but they are better than many other things. You point out that this is incorrect because BA aren't top dog by just fielding tacs. How does that follow? I am *explicitly* not claiming Tacs are OP.

Also, please read a sentence that contains words before assuming everything that is said is gibberish, just because two words are in the sentence. By the same token, wouldn't you necessarily regard your own posts as gibberish?

"I am *explicitly* not claiming Tacs are OP. "

But you are providing scenarios for their usefulness that just don't occur on real tables. Tac marines are one of the worst taxes in the game, imo.

"Also, please read a sentence that contains words before assuming everything that is said is gibberish"

That was sarcasm. Although the idea of tac marines being amazing at anything is pretty laughable.

" How does that follow?"

Not directly, but basically every unit the BA (not grav bikers) can field is a failure on some level. This is apparent due to their position in the codex pecking order. Tac marines are one of those units.

If their usefulness "doesn't occur on real tables", how do you think things lower in the pecking order feel?

A 5man Tac Marine squad with a Lascannon is much cheaper and much better at AT potshots in the back than 10 Guardians with a Brightlance. So why are Guardians a better tax? And no, the Guardians are *not* more survivable per point vs the vast majority of firepower.

Just because Guardsmen come in at 5ppm naked, and Dire Avengers can come in squads of 5, doesn't mean everyone can pay 25 points for Troops aside from Marines.

Marines are expensive. If you want a min tax unit, there are scouts (or other codexes). If you want them to do something, they certainly can do things better than most troops per points.

Shoot TEQs? A Plas squad outperforms Necron Warriors, Kalabites, Guardians, and Wyches easily. DAs do a little better per pt.
Shoot GEQs? Almost any Tac squad outperforms Guardians, Wyches, and Dire Avengers. Give them a flamethrower or even the crappy Heavy Bolter, and they're outperforming Necron Warriors and Kalabites easily.
Popping vehicles? Laughably better than DAs, Guardians, Kalabites, and Wyches. Depending on kit and target, can also be much better than Necron Warriors.
Assault? Beat the pants off almost any non-Assault unit in the game. Doesn't 3 Marines wipe 10+ DA, Guardians, Kalabites, or Guardsmen with ease, if they can make it in?
Survive? Well, Marines lose to Guardsmen per point. When shot with s6+. But when taking small arms? Or even with Scatter Lasers, Marines lose fewer points per shot than DAs, Guardians, Kalabites, Wyches,*Orks* if not in cover. That 3+ actually does a lot. The T4 does too, against small arms. An S4 shot kills exactly *twice* as many DAs or Fire Warriors as it does Marines. Marines really are much more survivable, especially when not everything is s6+ and ap3- at the same time. Necron Warriors and Guardsmen might be more survivable to the big guns, but in both cases that's their schtic.

So, if you want to actually use Marines, they may not be competitive, but they can still outperform most other troops in the game.

If you just want to minimize your troops, though, why use Marines at all. You could go Scouts (55pts min tax vs 51 for CWE or 54 for Tau), but really you're an IK player without the models.

Marines are one of very many troops that aren't competitive. But they beat almost everything else on that list. And having all the things you're best at killing also not be competitive certainly doesn't make you more competitive.

"why use Marines at all."

Why indeed. To get Skyhammer and gravstars, of course.

"But they beat almost everything else on that list. "

Only when properly equipped. And only when that equipment is tailored to the situation. A situation you don't know about ahead of time, usually. And that equipment costs additional points.

Equipping tac marines is like a shell game that you usually can't win. I've leaned toward melta, but that's certainly not a universally good choice.

I'm not sure that a melta tac squad is "much better" than a squad of Necron warriors because of the AP 1 nerf.

You left off MCs. I assume this was an oversight, but splinter and bladestorm are quite nice against MCs, and don't require expensive upgrade weapons.

" But when taking small arms? "

What are these small arms you speak of? Who uses them anymore?

"So why are Guardians a better tax?"

I'd never use foot guardians, but I'd say pseudo rending is a pretty good answer.

And you forgot the most important comparison: scatterbikes. The troop by which all others are judged.

Yeah. Shuriken, Pulse, and Splinter both outperform Bolt when it comes to MCs. Gauss too, but only for T8+.

Another way of looking at it:
When shooting a Dreadknight, a Boltgun has, even en masse, a nearly zero chance of doing anything. A Shuriken round has twice the odds, but are still boned.
Conversely, in CC, the weilder of the shuriken has a nearly zero chance of doing anything. The Boltgun user has a three times nearly zero chance (assuming no Furious Charge, or any CC weapons.

Neither are a good solution, even if one is better than the other.

Now Splinter weapons *are* great against MCs. That's the one place they excel.

(Marines don't need to be "properly equipped" to beat most of those. Give a Malta gun to Tacs and they still slaughter Wyches. Give a Plasma to Tacs, and they still do damage to GEQs. Give a Flamer to Tacs and they can still whoop almost any vehicle that wanders too close. Better numbers by picking the right tool, but tend to be better vs secondary targets with the wrong tool than most other units.)

Ever play Kill Team Martel?

How do Tacs perform?

Yoyoyo wrote:
Ever play Kill Team Martel?

How do Tacs perform?

Nope. I can't imagine they are very good at that, either, though.

Scatterbikes dominate Kill Team.

In terms of troops that is.

If Scatterbikes are the scale upon which we measure, sure Tacs are bad, but why focus on them instead of the piles of other troops that are so much worse, especially against Scatterbikes?

(Not that Scatterbikes are the right place to balance at.)

And aside from Scatterbikes?

I get what you're saying, but that's going to affect every troop in the game, not just Tacs.

Bharring wrote:
If Scatterbikes are the scale upon which we measure, sure Tacs are bad, but why focus on them instead of the piles of other troops that are so much worse, especially against Scatterbikes?

(Not that Scatterbikes are the right place to balance at.)

I focus on them because that's what I go up against. A lot.

I meant why focus on buffing Tacs as opposed to buffing units that lose to Tacs and lose harder to scatterbikes than Tacs.

Yoyoyo wrote:
And aside from Scatterbikes?

I get what you're saying, but that's going to affect every troop in the game, not just Tacs.

There's more to it though. If we expand the picture a bit, the Eldar troops unlock Wave Serpents. What do marines unlock? Tanks easily hull pointed out by scatter bikes. Granted, vanilla marines can get FREE transports. This leaves SW and BA tacs in the cold.

So the Wave Serpent the DAs unlocked is twice as hard for the Scatter Bikes to kill as a Rhino, but costs 3-4 times as much.

The Devilfish is twice as hard on the front, just as hard on the side, but just as hard on the side. For more than double.

The Raider is easier for the Bikes to kill, but still more expensive.

The Chimera is twice as hard to kill on the front, half again as easy to kill on the side. Costs a bunch more than a Rhino, too.

"Tacs are worse cause the Rhino is crap" forgets that the Rhino is 35pts.

Bharring wrote:
So the Wave Serpent the DAs unlocked is twice as hard for the Scatter Bikes to kill as a Rhino, but costs 3-4 times as much.

The Devilfish is twice as hard on the front, just as hard on the side, but just as hard on the side. For more than double.

The Raider is easier for the Bikes to kill, but still more expensive.

The Chimera is twice as hard to kill on the front, half again as easy to kill on the side. Costs a bunch more than a Rhino, too.

"Tacs are worse cause the Rhino is crap" forgets that the Rhino is 35pts.

But the WS is actually quite hard for marines to kill. Ideally, an Eldar list wouldn't bother with DA, guardians, or WS. Pure scatterbikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
I meant why focus on buffing Tacs as opposed to buffing units that lose to Tacs and lose harder to scatterbikes than Tacs.

I don't tacs buffed, because there is no mathematical niche for them. I'd prefer if they were just gone at this point. Move bikes out of fast attack and make them troops for astartes marines. Bikes as troops works for Eldar, right?

Guess what the following can do to a Rhino:
Guardians
Dire Avengers
Kalabites
Wyches
Guardsmen
?

Absolutely nothing.

Sure, naked Tacs have only a small chance of popping a Serpent outside CC, but that's still loads better than most troops shooting at a Rhino.

Bharring wrote:
Guess what the following can do to a Rhino:
Guardians
Dire Avengers
Kalabites
Wyches
Guardsmen
?

Absolutely nothing.

Sure, naked Tacs have only a small chance of popping a Serpent outside CC, but that's still loads better than most troops shooting at a Rhino.

They're still not even close to worth their points in an actual game. Again, DA and guardians are totally replaced by scatbikes. Scatbikes lay waste to even IK. Which is actually pretty amusing if it weren't so sad.

I'd certainly settle for just getting rid of tacs and replacing them with bikers at this point. Grav biker troops are certainly fair compared to scatbikes.

So wouldn't DAs and Guardians need a buff before Marines then, if they're worse than Tacs?

(Assuming we wanted to buff Marines to Scatter Bike levels)

Bharring wrote:
So wouldn't DAs and Guardians need a buff before Marines then, if they're worse than Tacs?

(Assuming we wanted to buff Marines to Scatter Bike levels)

I'm still not super sold they are actually worse than tacs in practice. The Eldar codex already has access to scatterbikes, so they should be last on the list for buffs. And I repeat that I'm not advocating for buffs for tactical marines other than maybe a points drop. A side effect of tac marines being terrible is that the crappiness is propagated down to assault marines and devastator marines. All squads that are basically garbage in 7th ed. None of the best marine units are based off the base marine anymore for a good reason.

By that token, IoM factions have access to Skyhammer. So do Xeno and Chaos factions (CtA isn't so bad for deep strikers).

That's a terrible answer.

Bharring wrote:
By that token, IoM factions have access to Skyhammer. So do Xeno and Chaos factions (CtA isn't so bad for deep strikers).

That's a terrible answer.

If you say so. I'm admittedly very, very bitter about the Eldar codex and the thought of buffing anything else in that book makes my stomach turn. The Eldar already have the two best units in the game. Everything else is almost academic after that.

The long list of advantages you claim tacs have don't ever seem to manifest in actual games for some reason, either. Funny that.

You have your explanations, and I have games going back to 1994. Tacs were good in 3rd and 4th. Useless in all other editions for various and sundry reasons.

Tell that to Wyches? Or Carbine Fire Warriors?

Bharring wrote:
Tell that to Wyches? Or Carbine Fire Warriors?

No one uses those units, so it's a moot point. Being useful against non-units isn't a strength. A unit has to be useful against things people actually use.

No, but maybe Terminators?

What makes Wyches non units, but not Tacs?

 Lord Corellia wrote:
No, but maybe Terminators?

What about terminators? They are one of the few marine units actually WORSE than tac marines.

My advice. Consider "fluff" marines and "tabletop" marines as seperate enteties for the purposes of evaluation. The former is as they're supposed to be in that universe. The latter is what they're reduced to in order to make a practically playable tabletop game:

And for the purposes of the game, that's a good thing.1 marine is quoted to be the equal of a hundred human soldiers. So imagine if their stats represented that. 5000 guardsmen would be needed to fight 50 marines. Not too appealing, and probably unfun.

I've often thought about what their stats would be. Somethign like this:
WS5 BS5 S5 T5 W2 I4 A2 LD9 Save 2+ on a D20! Bolters would be S5 Rapid fire bullet hoses

Bharring wrote:
What makes Wyches non units, but not Tacs?

I suppose the sheer number of marine players that still trot out tactical squads/GH. Lack of better choices for the marines. With the 5th ed BA codex, I never used tac squads, so they became a non-unit for me. When given a real alternative, I never use tac squads.

Martel732 wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
No, but maybe Terminators?

What about terminators? They are one of the few marine units actually WORSE than tac marines.

They could maybe do with T5 and 2 wounds. Mostly though, their damage output is too high and their weapons are mismatched (gun with pretty good range and an expensive cc weapon)

 Lord Corellia wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Lord Corellia wrote:
No, but maybe Terminators?

What about terminators? They are one of the few marine units actually WORSE than tac marines.

They could maybe do with T5 and 2 wounds. Mostly though, their damage output is too high and their weapons are mismatched (gun with pretty good range and an expensive cc weapon)

Did you mean damage output was too low? Their durability sucks for the points as well.

I'm still sticking with the idea that this problem can't be fixed without additional granularity and a lot more play testing.

Martel732 wrote:
Did you mean damage output was too low? Their durability sucks for the points as well.

I'm still sticking with the idea that this problem can't be fixed without additional granularity and a lot more play testing.

D'oh, yeah I meant "isn't too high" lol. Part of the problem is that somehow GW figure a stormbolter should be 5 pts. Then there's the fact that everyone has a power fist. I think someone worked it out either here or in another thread that they basically pay 10pts for that, and it's overkill to have 5 in a squad. Not only that, it makes them all swing last meaning they'll always be hit.

Yeah, terminators have a lot of problems.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
My advice. Consider "fluff" marines and "tabletop" marines as seperate enteties for the purposes of evaluation. The former is as they're supposed to be in that universe. The latter is what they're reduced to in order to make a practically playable tabletop game:

And for the purposes of the game, that's a good thing.1 marine is quoted to be the equal of a hundred human soldiers. So imagine if their stats represented that. 5000 guardsmen would be needed to fight 50 marines. Not too appealing, and probably unfun.

I've often thought about what their stats would be. Somethign like this:
WS5 BS5 S5 T5 W2 I4 A2 LD9 Save 2+ on a D20! Bolters would be S5 Rapid fire bullet hoses

Agreed. I spent a lot of work trying to make them fit in, but in order to make Avatars and Gretchin fit in the same game while keeping it fluffy, the D6 system breaks incredibly fast.

So we'll have a game where the Avatar is surprisingly likely (not likely, but surprisingly non-unlikely) to be beaten by Conscripts in melee, because that game functions.

...Well, functions somewhat, anyway.

I recommend the RPGs for those who want to immerse themselves in some more granularity and stats that match the background.

I think there can be an argument for changing the stats for the basic Marine. These are my two cents... T5 and 2W would be a good way to go, but I think it should be due to their equipment rather than their bodies. My proposal is to have Powered armor increase the toughness by 1 and grant an extra wound in the process. So sisters of battle would also benefit from this same rule. Scouts would be T4 and 1W. You could then change the bolt weapon rules a little to reflect their superior killing power. Still S4 AP5, but each failed save against them would grant 2 wounds (due to the round exploding in the target) or maybe two saves are taken against bolt weapons... Treat the Marines as T4 for double strength weapons (so the armor does not improve their survivability there, just against weaker weapons) and the situation is resolved. Chaos Marines can instant kill Imperial Marines and vice versa. I would also add that Chainswords should be AP 5, and that a SM smacking someone with their bolter or fist should be AP 6. Charge 30-40 points per Marine, and have fluffier Marines.... That may have come out wrong... Then again, I think there are many changes to the SM codex that would make them more entertaining- then again I liked the 4th edition codex's create your own chapter stuff, which is where I would take it if it were me... Just saying... Now you guys can tel me I'm an idiot...

I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

I think that atleast Terminators should be T5 and W2, not so sure about the normal marines though..

 master of ordinance wrote:
I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

Have you at all read what Martel is saying or are you still projecting?

 master of ordinance wrote:
I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

If you have to throw a squad in the way of some TWC, would you rather throw away 50 pts or 140 pts? 50 pts or 95 pts?

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

If you have to throw a squad in the way of some TWC, would you rather throw away 50 pts or 140 pts? 50 pts or 95 pts?

This also doesn't take into account that 30 Guard firing 90 Lasgun shots are probably going to kill a ton of those marines by sheer volume before they even get to assault. And against shooting, Guard should be utilizing cover.

So, eh.

To humor everyone.

Assume nobody wants to assault, but get into Rapid Fire easily.

Lasguns kill (1/2)(1/3)(1/3) marines per shot. 1/18.
Boltguns kill (2/3)(2/3)(1) Guardsmen per shot. 4/9.

So, with Guardsmen shooting first. 30 vs 10.
30x2x(1/18) = 3+1/3 dead Marines.

Shooting second, though 6+2/3 kill:
(20/3)x2x(4/9) = 160/27. 6 dead Guardsmen.

Marines lose that firefight, assuming the IG player fails no Morale (SM failing morale isn't a big thing here). Not a route, but a win.

If Marines instead decide to assault, they kill 3 by shooting, then take 1 more casualty in Overwatch. They make it in at 27 to 5+2/3 (needing less than 6" on 2d6). Then:

(17/3)x2x(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) = (34/3)(8/27) = 272/81 = about 3+1/3 dead Guardsmen.

23+2/3 Guard strike back doing:
(71/3)x1x(1/2)(1/3)(1/3) = (71/54) dead Marines.

Marines win combat by 2. If Guardmen somehow make every check for the rest of the game, its close, but odds are tiny (testing on -2 is likely to fail, but the 6+ times Guard will need to test it all but guarantees they will fail).

So Guard win by a little if they shoot first in Rapid Fire range and Marines refuse to assault.

Marines win if they aren't stupid.

And that assumes IG have the tactical advantage. Let's try Marines having it (same range means it could go either way):

Marines shoot first. 10vs30.
10x2x(4/9) is 80/9 dead. 8+8/9.

Guard shoot back.
(190/9)x2x(1/18) = 380/162 = about 2+1/3.

It'll take a while for Marines to finish the Guard if they decide never to assault, but they win eventually by a large margin. Assuming IG never break in shooting, at which point SM win easily.

Looking at all this, there are situations where the IG win, but Marines are usually the winner in most situations, point for point.

When comparing troops head to head.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Why is it cheaper to sacrifice a, say 10-man 90pt min squad than a 5man 70pt squad? More for either, fully kitted, of course.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

If you have to throw a squad in the way of some TWC, would you rather throw away 50 pts or 140 pts? 50 pts or 95 pts?

If you are using your Tacticals as 10 man throw aways then you are using them in the wrong way.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I was reading through and I noticed that someone claimed that the Imperial Guard had better troops than the Marines.

Just a reminder but three sections of Guardsmen (30 soldiers, 150 points) will be massacred by 10 Tacticals (10 Marines, 140 points) in every damn situation. The Marines will suffer at worst 50% casualties.

Congratulations, you just invalidated your own arguement.

If you have to throw a squad in the way of some TWC, would you rather throw away 50 pts or 140 pts? 50 pts or 95 pts?

If you are using your Tacticals as 10 man throw aways then you are using them in the wrong way.

Okay, then. 5 man with plasma gun, combi-plas. The point is that no amount of tac marines can beat TWC or Wraiths. The same goes for guardsmen. So again, who do you want to be run over? Cheap ass guardsmen or expensive tac marines?

An Orc Warboss and Demon Prince is toughness 5, so no.

I'd lean towards them having 2 wounds though because of the 2 hearts.

Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

A Wraith kills guardsmen at:
(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) nonrends (8/27) +
(2/3)(1/6)(1) rends (1/9)
Or 11/27 per attack

Kills a Marine at:
(1/2)(2/3)(1/3) nonrends (1/9) +
(1/2)(1/6)(1) rends (1/12)
Or 21/108

Even at nearly their worst, the Marines take *half* the losses against this undercoated abomination.

To exacerbate problems, Wraiths have a *very* good chance to sweep even a 30 man blob in one round, even higher against two.

The Marines, on the other hand, can't be swept. Even if they break, the Marines merely regroup and keep shooting. And the odds are that both the PG and combi will survive. If they don't break, it'll take an equally costed Wraith unit much longer to mulch through the Marines than it'll take to sweep the Guardsmen, on average.

And that 30man blob costs a bit more than that 5man plas squad.

The sm in books: Massacres 500 humans naked and doesn't give a dam

sm in game: Shot gun to the chest = dead

They need to be w2

@Martel: While I acknowledge that you have some good points, I think it's also important to remember that you apparently play in a hellish meta where nothing but skyhammer, scatbikes, and wraithknights exist. Even in our local tournament scene, we only have one player who does the scatterbie + wriath knight combo, and I never see anything that nasty in friendly games.

So while yes, scatterbikes are OP, they shouldn't blind us to the existence of less awful-to-face lists. And before someone says, "But they exist, so everything has to be based off them!" I'll say no. Everything does not. There are many players who don't play competitively or who do play competitively but don't face scatterbike list after scatterbike list. In friendly games especially you are more than welcome to let your opponent know you'd rather not face a scatterbike and wraithknight list. Your opponent, while understandably disappointed that they don't get to use their shiny toys, has no inherent right to smash your list into the pavement just because he put together a net list.

@Bharring: I generally agree with you on topics like this. You may recall that we were on the same "side" in the "is bladestorm OP" thread a while back. That said, I do feel you may be overlooking certain logistics where tac marines are concerned. Yes, marines have plenty advantages that things like dire avengers or fire warriors don't, and yes they tend to live longer than said avengers or fire warriors as I don't play in Martel's meta where every weapon is either a battle cannon or a scatter laser. That said, many of their advantages conflict with one another in some way.

Their rapid fire guns can't be used the same turn that they charge to take advantage of their grenades, strength, WS, and initiative. Their moderate anti-tank ability, while far from terrible, means that their strength 4 guns get to do nothing while the meltas/plas shoot, and the guy lobbing a krak grenade has a good chance of not doing much damage against many common vehicles.

Marines have their strengths, but the unit lacks synergy within itself. It can't leverage all of its strengths at once very easily, and even if it does, you're probably still paying for a couple of boltguns or some melee ability that you won't get to use that turn. The fact that 7th is a shooty edition doesn't help either. Despite their armor, marines have a hard time not evaporating to the point of being ineffective offensively if you have to sit around being shot at for a turn before you can assault.

Which is why I wish they had assault weapons or some other way of leveraging their strengths all at once. A mild price hike (back up to 14ish point I think) would be pretty reasonable if you could assault after shooting (thus getting 4 strength 4 attacks off of a normal guy in a single turn). I don't feel giving tacs an option for a close combat wepaon and pistol in addition to their bolters (ala chaos marines) would be unreasonable either. 5 strength 4 attacks per model at a total of, say, 16 points per guy doesn't seem too ridiculous to me.

I'm disappointed when I look at how marine points have gone down in the last few Vanilla Marine books. I'd much rather see marines go up in price and be more threatening than go down in price but remain ineffective. Someone mentioned earlier that they don't like the idea of a single marine being worth 100 guardsmen, and I can certainly get behind that, but I'm not opposed to a squad of marines feeling more scary than they currently do.

Again, I'm in the "Movie Marines But Less So" camp.

Bharring wrote:
A Wraith kills guardsmen at:
(2/3)(2/3)(2/3) nonrends (8/27) +
(2/3)(1/6)(1) rends (1/9)
Or 11/27 per attack

Kills a Marine at:
(1/2)(2/3)(1/3) nonrends (1/9) +
(1/2)(1/6)(1) rends (1/12)
Or 21/108

Even at nearly their worst, the Marines take *half* the losses against this undercoated abomination.

To exacerbate problems, Wraiths have a *very* good chance to sweep even a 30 man blob in one round, even higher against two.

The Marines, on the other hand, can't be swept. Even if they break, the Marines merely regroup and keep shooting. And the odds are that both the PG and combi will survive. If they don't break, it'll take an equally costed Wraith unit much longer to mulch through the Marines than it'll take to sweep the Guardsmen, on average.

And that 30man blob costs a bit more than that 5man plas squad.

The squad is still a write off. And then let's look at MCs, that, by definition, ignore armor saves. And there are so many MCs in play now. From my experience, it's almost always better to throw away fewer points. Plus, I WANT my unit to lose in one turn so I can shoot the assault unit some more. The marine scenario you describe is a nightmare because the Wraiths will still be in CC on the marine turn. So marines are paying more points to still lose the combat and deny themselves shooting opportunities.

Martel -
The Wraiths, at equal points, aren't very likely to finish the Marines in 2 rounds of CC.

Why is it less effective for 95pts of Marines to hold Wraiths for a few game turns than 150pts of IG getting swept quickly?

Sure, a 50pt Guardsmen squad has some appeal, but that's not far off from a 55pt Scout squad. But they are Guard. That's what they do.

Wyld -
Tac strengths certainly don't synergize well. And they shouldn't. Tacs pay more than any one skill set is worth, certainly, but they also pay a ton less than the combined value of all their skills. They are generalists. They make worse Fire Warriors than Fire Warriors, but are better at it than Orks. They make worse Orks than Orks, but are better at it than Fire Warriors.

If Marines got full usage out of all their skills, they'd be incredibly OP compared to most troops. If their price were jacked up to pay for all their skills, they'd be incredibly overpriced.

The Marine needs to threaten to chop the shooty and shoot the chopy. They can't outshoot Tau Firewarriors, so they need the threaten to krump. They can't outkrump Orks, so they need to outshoot. And they can do those things well, compared to most troops.

Compared to most troops, Tacs have a way to beat them. Compared to some, they beat them in almost every way. But if they go up against a specialist on the specialists terms, they should lose.

Tacs certainly aren't OP, but they are one of the better basic troops in the game. Its just that nobody brings most of the troops in the game, because they lose harder than Tacs do against most things.

"The Wraiths, at equal points,"

They often show up in very unequal points, however.

"But if they go up against a specialist on the specialists terms, they should lose. "

The game is all specialists that force you to fight on their terms now, though.

"The Marine needs to threaten to chop the shooty and shoot the chopy."

That's very, very difficult to do in 7th.

" But they are Guard. That's what they do."

This is not an excuse for tac marines performing no better than guardsmen on the 7th ed battlefield despite costing three times as much.

My current competitive list pretty much treats marines like expendable guardsmen in power armor. I think I sacrifice like half a company or more of white scars every game. So I definitely understand the feeling of "these do NOT feel like super-elite troops."

I did eventually find a solution in friendly games: use them as counts-as necrons.

Scouts= warriors. Marines= immortals. Jump assault marines = wraiths. Apothecary= cryptek. Sniper scouts = deathmarks. Terminators = lychguard. Toss in some guard or servitors to be scarabs, dreadnought = spyder, etc etc.

It actually plays a lot more like "an army full of elite troops" than marines do.

" So I definitely understand the feeling of "these do NOT feel like super-elite troops." "

They don't feel elite in any sense of the word.

So what do you want? For 95 points of Marines kitted for shooting TEQ to wipe their asses with 200+ pts of Wraiths when assaulted?

How do Ork boys force you not to shoot? How do Guardians avoid getting destroyed at 12+ inches, or destroyed in CC? How do Wyches or Harliquin Troups keep you from blasting them? How do Guardsmen always get the alpha in RF range, but never get charged?

"So what do you want? For 95 points of Marines kitted for shooting TEQ to wipe their asses with 200+ pts of Wraiths when assaulted? "

I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

"How do Ork boys force you not to shoot?"

There are far too many Orks for tac marines to effectively shoot.

"How do Guardians avoid getting destroyed at 12+ inches"

They have their scatterbike buddies shoot me and their WK buddies assault me.

"How do Wyches or Harliquin Troups keep you from blasting them"

They don't show up.

" How do Guardsmen always get the alpha in RF range"

They use autocannon spam to kill marine transports and then AP 3/2 blasts to kill them.

Very simply, no one plays the game that units like tac marines are good at. There are other units in the same boat, and they simply aren't used.

It sounds like your group has a very different way of playing this game. In my group, tac marines are irrelevant no matter how you kit them, so I might as well pay less for guardsmen.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

They're MSU, they are not supposed to dominate the game.

Why don't you experiment a little and try playing Bolter Centurions as troops? They are T5 2W and are focused only around shooting. Might be fun to see how it works out in practice.

Yoyoyo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want to have to "kit" my units. I don't want my 95 pts unit to be a complete liability, which is mostly is in 7th ed. I DO want 95 pts of marines to put up a better fight in melee than 50 pts of guardsmen, which they basically don't.

They're MSU, they are not supposed to dominate the game.

Why don't you experiment a little and try playing Bolter Centurions as troops? They are T5 2W and are focused only around shooting. Might be fun to see how it works out in practice.

I'm not looking for domination. I'm looking for them to do something, anything.

I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on a pure shooty troop capped at S4/S5, regardless of being T5 2W.

Yoyoyo wrote:
I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on a pure shooty troop capped at S4/S5, regardless of being T5 2W.

That would be interesting. However, it's not really more durability I'm looking for. As I've stated, I think marines have become victims of lack of granularity. I'd give marines a 2.5+ save and a STR 4.5 gun. However, this is not possible.

On a D10 based system, I'd give marines 4+ armor, terminators 3+ armor, broadsides and centurions 2+ armor, fire dragons and warp spiders 5+ armor and things like guardsmen 7+ armor. There is no mathematical niche to differentiate the space marine in 40K anymore.

If you want a Plas unit to do something, then shoot. How does that 95 pts measure up to 95 pts of Necron Warriors, even at just shooting?

I don't know, but I'm sure you are going to tell me.

I'll tell you what though. Those Necron units are better off in a general sense, because if they see a death star coming, they have Wraiths to put in the way.

What do BA have? Nothing like that, that's for sure. So the reality of tacs ending up in CC with something that eats them is significantly higher.

It's not just tacticals being bad in a vacuum. They don't offer anything to list and the list doesn't offer anything back. I suppose they are supposedly designed to work on their own, but they don't work against so many things now.

To be fair, wraiths aren't especially killy. They're just killy enough while also being quite durable. They're basically T-Wolves without formations shenanigans, and much more durable than T-Wolves with them. What I"m getting at is that wraiths won't tear apart deathstars so much as slap fight them for the rest of the game as deathstars are generally built around being survivable.

Regarding not "kitting out" units, I'm afraid that's kind of the whole shtick of tac marines. They're kind of meant to be small, teams of dudes with weapons built for a certain job, so their utility is going to be limited without at least one special gun in the squad. That said, I still agree that it would be nice to see marines be able to do more (even at a higher cost) in exchange for a price increase.

@Bharring: I agree with you in theory, but it just doesn't seem to work out that way on the table. Theoretically, I should be able to shoot up orks and punch tau with my tacs. In practice, I can't kill enough orks (due to cover saves and FNP) to take the steam out of their sails even if I focus on kiting, and Tau (or other shooty armies) just get to do too much to my marines between shooting me upon leaving my rhino (or outflanking or infiltrating or whatever; I play with Raptor chapter tactics) then shoot me again in overwatch, then possibly shoot me some more if the tau use their overwatch shenanigans or if I get unlucky on a charge roll.

I've dragged down a C'tan with a Tac squad (and some librarian support), and I can pop non-jinking vehicles reasonably well, but the former was largely luck, and the latter is sort of a semi-effective suicide tactic.

Honestly, tac marines work reasonably well for a friendly game. They are not good for competitive play (except as a way to spam free points), but that doesn't really affect me. My gripe is that they aren't really advertised as "guys who are okay but not great at both shooting and punching." The way marines are advertised is, "Hey. These guys are pretty serious. You can kill them, sure, but each dude is going to drag quite a few of your guys down with him."

Again, that's not to say I want OP marines. I just want points expensive marines that feel scarier than a regular "troop." I meant, we can pretty much agree that necrons have the edge in a straight-up one-on-one fight, right? But should they? A basic 'cron warrior is a lot less hyped up than an astartes. From a story standpoint, one is the random encounter your D&D party smashes in a necromancer's dungeon, and the other is a character with at least a couple lines of dialogue in an action movie. Marine plot armor should probably let you take down at least a couple 'cron warriors per marine, if you have to pay more points to get your marine to that power level.

I'd also like to point out that I agree with Bharring in theory. My complaints are all based in practical application. Nothing works out the way that is being claimed. I never get to fight other troops in a vacuum. There's always those pesky LoW and elites running around.

Everyone is raising good points, however I believe they should stay at T4 W1 (Don't forget they have a 3+ sav). If you compare them to Guardsmen (Which are just normal mortals) They're T3 S3 5+. So I do think they should stay how they are.

However I do understand where you're coming from though, in Novels and Short Story's they are these Super Soldiers who can fight the odds of 2 to 1, but the TT often strays from the Lore due to balancing etc.

I still dont understand why you are putting your tac marines into fights they cannot win....

 Tenzilla wrote:
I still dont understand why you are putting your tac marines into fights they cannot win....

It happens because my opponent gets a turn, too. And tacs are the cheapest units BA have (other than scouts) to throw away.

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

Perhaps you should just play a different army....SM is one of the top armies right now and you cant seem to make it work for you, maybe it is time to move on.

 Tenzilla wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Shouldn't Guard be better at drowning things in bodies than Marines?

There's supposed to be a tradeoff that the marines have a chance of winning in combat. There's too many units now that marines don't have a prayer against. It's actually been this way since 5th.

Since they are no more efficacious than guardsmen in these cases, they should be just as good at fighting the futile battles. Otherwise, why bother ever playing marines? You are just overpaying for units that die like guardsmen.

Perhaps you should just play a different army....SM is one of the top armies right now and you cant seem to make it work for you, maybe it is time to move on.

I play BA, not SM. Or maybe you didn't catch that. And BA are arguably the worst list atm. And SM are not good because of tacs, I can assure you of that.

I could definitely see Marines getting 2 Wounds for basic models and 3 for Sergeants.

I could also see an adaptation of a rule that just showed up for Age of Sigmar and the "Chaos War Mammoth".

The rule "Mountain of Fur & Rage" makes it so that the Chaos War Mammoth can re-roll failed armour saves against any weapon attack with a Rending characteristic of "-".

Doing a similar rule for Power Armor(and Terminator Armor!) for AP values of 5+(Power Armor) and 3+(Terminator Armor) could be interesting to test out.

So Terminators have a rerollable 2+ against AP3 and a 5+ against AP2?

Too sharp a drop.

 Ashiraya wrote:
So Terminators have a rerollable 2+ against AP3 and a 5+ against AP2?

Too sharp a drop.

For the points cost of Terminators--and what Terminators actually are armed with?

Not sharp enough.

 Ashiraya wrote:


I recommend the RPGs for those who want to immerse themselves in some more granularity and stats that match the background.

I'll have to check them out. It'd be refreshing to see "proper" Astartes on the tabletop.