I've seen various discussions in which people have been belly-aching about the fact that space marine players can bring "free" vehicles and, in effect, effect a points disadvantage for their opponent. Whereas the opponent is playing an 1850 points list, a space marine player actually can have roughly 500 points more than that.

I wish to note the following:

First, this isn't really all that new. In the previous codex, assault marines (85 points for a 5 man squad) could choose to forgo their jump packs and take a free drop pod or rhino instead (a total "free" 20 points). Let's do the math. In an 1850, I could have chosen to go unbound and have taken 21 squads of assault marines with 21 FREE rhinos. That means that my opponent would be playing an 1850 point list, whereas the space marine player would actually have roughly a 2300 points list.

This was before the current space marine codex, and it's not even new. It was like that in 5th.

But funny thing is...

I don't recall "assault squad in rhino spam" being a huge thing before the current codex. Funny...why do you suppose that is?

Oh yeah....

Assault squads suck. Rhinos suck. And even if assault squads could have taken razorbacks, nobody would have bothered: razorbacks suck. Their armor is paper thin.

People want to complain about a "points disadvantage" if their space marines opponent takes a battle company. My answer to this?

We must disinguish between de jure and de facto points disadvantages. If the codex explicitly says "you can take 15 extra free points,that's a de jure points advantage. If, on the other hand, the codex says "a wraithknight costs x points," but, in point of fact, it's commonly admitted that a wraithknight SHOULD cost 100 points more? That's a de facto points disadvantage. For every wraithknight you take and I don't, I'm at a 100 point disadvantage.

It goes the other way around: for every overcosted model I take and you don't, I'm at a de facto points disadvantage for every overcosted model I take. If it's agreed that a given model costs, say, 20 points, but only should cost 15, then I'm at a de facto 5 point disadvantage for every model I take.

The gladius strike force battle company is completely fair because this is the situation that "fluffy" space marines list find themselves in already. To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game.

You say that we get free points and that you are at a points disadvantage?

I say that, in point of fact, we were already at a de facto points disadvantage and this actually balances things out.

Fact is, you don't like the gladius strike force because you were used to tabling your "fluffy" space marine opponents, because you were happy about the fact that your space marine opponents who took assault squads, devastator squads and lots of tactical squads stood essentially no chance of beating you.

Well I'm sorry: But I don't feel your pain.

Because fact is, whereas you are complaining about the "unfair" bonuses that space marine battle companies get, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, Demons, Demonkin, etc. are still a thing.

But don't worry: no matter how many "free" razorbacks or rhinos I take, that wraithknight and those scatterbikes are still going to shoot me off the table. So you can rest easy.

"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

"Razorbacks suck"

Yeah I don't think we've EVER seen 3-4 editions where spamming the maximum number of razorbacks was the dominant meta build.

the_scotsman wrote:
"Razorbacks suck"

Yeah I don't think we've EVER seen 3-4 editions where spamming the maximum number of razorbacks was the dominant meta build.

That may have been true in 5th and prior. In 6th edition and onwards? If razorbacks weren't free, it would be a really hard sell to take them on their own merits. 55 points for a transport that:

1. Can only carry 6 people.
2. Is armed with a twin linked heavy bolter
3. Has a cumulative AV value of 32
4. Has no firing points and
5. Does not have the "assault" rule.

No thanks.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually use razorbacks as transports. They're effectively a 55 point marine carrying a TL heavy bolter and can move 12 inches a turn. They also provide some mobile cover for troops behind them. People who wanted actual mobility went for rhinos instead.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

70 points for Assault and Devastator Squads, 70 for Tacticals.
280 for the 4 5 model Assault/Devastator Squads before adding anything. Jump Packs are 3ppm for Assault Squads and remove their ability to take a free transport.
420 for the 6 5 man Tactical Squads.

You're looking at 880 points, minimum, for 2 Battle Demi-Companies containing 6 Tactical Squads, 2 Assault Squads, 2 Devastator Squads, a Chaplain, and a Captain. That gets you 52 models in total before you add any Auxiliary or Command formations (you need to include an Auxiliary choice to get the Command Benefits). Assuming you go for the Librarius Conclave and don't give extra Mastery Levels, that's got you at 1075 points for 55 models so that you got to take Razorbacks, Rhinos, or Drop Pods as Dedicated Transports for free--but you're still paying for any upgrades.


Sure, the Gladius gives you free DTs--but if you're taking anything but Drop Pods? You're doing it wrong.

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

I play Guard, Skitarii, and have been working on a Talon Strike Force and have been known to throw down my brother's Ork army from time to time. Yes, C: SM has some good choices.
Devastators and Assault Marines aren't part of that list however.

In fact, Devastators and Assault Marines are directly competing with the GOOD choices for those slots in a Gladius. You can take Devastators OR Centurion Devastators, Assault Marines OR Assault Centurions. If you take those Centurions however they do not get to benefit from the "free Dedicated Transports" as they cannot take any of the specified DTs.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually use razorbacks as transports. They're effectively a 55 point marine carrying a TL heavy bolter and can move 12 inches a turn. They also provide some mobile cover for troops behind them. People who wanted actual mobility went for rhinos instead.

If the Reclusiam Command Squad had not come with a Razorback, I would not own one.

GSF'S have been performing extremely well at tournaments on par with other hideously broken builds. That should be enough to tell you its absurdly abuseable.

Yes, assault marines could exchange their jump packs for a transport, this was a roughly equal point cost exchange when first introduced and traded inherent mobility for an additinal element of maneuver, this was not the same thing as getting to take both options, which is effectively the kind of points bonus you get with the GSF.

Playing a 2500pt army versus another players 2000pt army isnt going to be fair. If I could take free Chimeras for an IG army in the manner that SM's can, i could very easily stuff in another 3-5 battle tanks and roll through with two dozen vehicles on a board...nobody would consider that fair, because it isnt.

Ultimately, you're not going to convince anyone that getting to take a bunch of tanks and transports for free and getting to invest their points elsewhere is fair, because it isnt.

Traditio wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

yes...because thats what wins games in 7E...not.

Both of these armies perform abysmally in 7E. 7E is not a game where spamming pieplates works, and these armies arent even the best at that tactic in this edition.

One will notice that neither army is getting anywhere near top spots in tournaments as anything but rump allies to a more powerful force.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

70 points for Assault and Devastator Squads, 50 for Tacticals.

Tacticals are 70 points for the minimum 5 man squad, without upgrades.

In fact, Devastators and Assault Marines are directly competing with the GOOD choices for those slots in a Gladius. You can take Devastators OR Centurion Devastators, Assault Marines OR Assault Centurions. If you take those Centurions however they do not get to benefit from the "free Dedicated Transports" as they cannot take any of the specified DTs.

Yup.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Vaktathi wrote:Yes, assault marines could exchange their jump packs for a transport, this was a roughly equal point cost exchange when first introduced and traded inherent mobility for an additinal element of maneuver, this was not the same thing as getting to take both options, which is effectively the kind of points bonus you get with the GSF.

Jump packs for 5 assault marines is 15 points. It has been since 5th edition. A rhino has been 35 points since fifth edition. A drop pod has been 35 points since 5th edition.

Playing a 2500pt army versus another players 2000pt army isnt going to be fair.

You completely ignored my point about de facto vs. de jure points inequalities.

Traditio wrote:
I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

Hmm, what?

De facto vs de jure points inequality is an entirely different discussion that varies highly depending on thr forces involved, but none of the units in qusetion are amongst the most overcosted or undercapable in the game by a longshot, but rather the standard by whic all others are measured

Furthermore, I wish to ask this question to all of the people who are complaining about it:

When is the last time you got tabled by a battle company?

Traditio wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

70 points for Assault and Devastator Squads, 50 for Tacticals.

Tacticals are 70 points for the minimum 5 man squad, without upgrades.

I was going to do a comparison of a Guard Squad and got sidetracked. Only explanation I can think of for the 50 point Tacticals.

 Vaktathi wrote:
De facto vs de jure points inequality is an entirely different discussion that varies highly depending on thr forces involved, but none of the units in qusetion are amongst the most overcosted or undercapable in the game by a longshot, but rather the standard by whic all others are measured

Oh. So tactical marines aren't commonly said to be "useless" and a "troop tax"? Assault marines weren't considered to be a joke/useless fast attack choice in the last codex? Devastators were never considered underperforming or overcosted?

While the free points of transports are pretty good, the Gladius Strike Force's true overwhelming power is in MSU OBSEC.

It is quite obnoxious to play against. They have 8 OBSEC transports, and once you kill those transports, they have 8 OBSEC units. Then you factor in Warlords, giving them outflank, etc, it just leads to them grabbing any objective they want.

500 free points of OBSEC transports is amazing~. At that point, it doesn't even matter if they are paper thin. MSU OBSEC spam is really, really damn good. And annoying as hell.

I just read the topic, here's my LOL. Hint: Points are there for a reason.

Please no, try not to tell us that free points are a hindrance. Next game I'll bring every unit a freebie, whether it's a grav gun or melta bomb, it just doesn't matter. Why? Because I pay the penalty of having the unit in the first place.

Did I LOL already?

HondaDaBest has it spot on.

It's not the free units in themselves it's the free Ob Sec. Gladius wins games by survival, not annihilation.

HondaDaBest wrote:
While the free points of transports are pretty good, the Gladius Strike Force's true overwhelming power is in MSU OBSEC.

It is quite obnoxious to play against. They have 8 OBSEC transports, and once you kill those transports, they have 8 OBSEC units. Then you factor in Warlords, giving them outflank, etc, it just leads to them grabbing any objective they want.

500 free points of OBSEC transports is amazing~. At that point, it doesn't even matter if they are paper thin. MSU OBSEC spam is really, really damn good. And annoying as hell.

1. Even if that were a criticism, that's a criticism of a specific set of chapter tactics and a specific IC or set of ICs. It literally doesn't apply to someone who plays Ultramarines, Imperial fists, etc.

2. That's basically what I'm talking about: "But I can't kill all of those transports and all of the units in them!"

In other words: "Boo hoo, I was used to tabling my space marine opponents."

As I said: I don't feel your pain.

Traditio wrote:
But don't worry: no matter how many "free" razorbacks or rhinos I take, that wraithknight and those scatterbikes...

To paraphrase: "It's not quite Eldar spam, therefore it's OK!"

Traditio wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
De facto vs de jure points inequality is an entirely different discussion that varies highly depending on thr forces involved, but none of the units in qusetion are amongst the most overcosted or undercapable in the game by a longshot, but rather the standard by whic all others are measured

Oh. So tactical marines aren't commonly said to be "useless" and a "troop tax"? Assault marines weren't considered to be a joke/useless fast attack choice in the last codex? Devastators were never considered underperforming or overcosted?

They are referred to in this way depending on who you ask, but its not unique to them, most basic infantry units are seen in this light depending on who yiu ssk. Guardsmen, Boyz, CSM's, DE Warriors, Fire Warriors, etc.

You really want bad? Look at IG platoon units.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

Or Tyranid!! Don't forget the Tyranid codex!!

OP creates thread to defend how broken an army is.

People explain why its broken.

Gets defensive, dismisses anything not agreeing with the statement in the OP.

I'm sure this will go so well.

Vaktathi (as usual) is spot on. Tourney results indicate its strong. Piles of anecdotal evidence indicate its strong. Spending three minutes looking at how powerful it is by simply reading and doing some basic math indicates its strong.

You can maybe argue its not the single most powerful combination in the game, but its a hell of a lot of better than the overwhelming vast majority of builds, especially in codices not beginning with Eld, Nec, Tau or Space Marine.

 Blacksails wrote:
OP creates thread to defend how broken an army is.

People explain why its broken.

Gets defensive, dismisses anything not agreeing with the statement in the OP.

I'm sure this will go so well.

Vaktathi (as usual) is spot on. Tourney results indicate its strong. Piles of anecdotal evidence indicate its strong. Spending three minutes looking at how powerful it is by simply reading and doing some basic math indicates its strong.

You can maybe argue its not the single most powerful combination in the game, but its a hell of a lot of better than the overwhelming vast majority of builds, especially in codices not beginning with Eld, Nec, Tau or Space Marine.

I repeat my challenge:

Would anyone care to tell me about the last time that you got tabled by a battle company?

I'm waiting.

Essentially all I'm hearing from you people is: "But it's difficult to table it!"

Again, I repeat my challenge:

Why was nobody complaining, last codex, about the possibility of spamming assault marines and "free" drop pods or rhinos?

It doesn't table people. It picks off objectives.

Guys...it has nothing to do with power level and everything to do with mission design.

Maelstrom missions, as well as many of the hybrid mission formats that TOs use at the larger tournaments, in an effort to balance a totally unbalanced codex landscape, reward players for scoring objectives each and every turn of the game rather than just at the end. So, armies that were once built to just table their opponent and win through brute strength/firepower, are now being drowned and outplayed by super mobile MSU lists that are just in it to score the objectives.

I'm not sure if it's a better game, but it is a different game...one that free obsec transports are REALLY good at winning.

Traditio wrote:


I repeat my challenge:

Would anyone care to tell me about the last time that you got tabled by a battle company?

I'm waiting.

Why is that the standard?

Should the standard not be something more reasonable, like say...how easy it is to win? How difficult it is to face?

Tabling is not, nor should be the standard of determining how broken something is. When you can win by simply outscoring, outsurviving, and dealing sufficient damage back, we can safely conclude its very powerful, or in other words, overpowered.

Again, tournament results and countless piles of analysis, bat reps, and discussions have all agreed its incredibly powerful.

Razorbacks suck... that's why nobody ever spams immolators... aka 60-point razorbacks... mhm...

I got tabled (well, I had 2 Termi's left at the bottom of 5 whrn the game ended) by a GSF probably three weeks ago if that counts.

But, as noted earlier, tabling an opponent isnt the only measure of powet, the bigger thing is that they get so many scoring maneuver elements that they can make it impossible for another army to score objectives.

 JimOnMars wrote:
It doesn't table people. It picks off objectives.

Other codices can't spam infantry that have objective secured and cost fewer points than space marines?

How many boys can an ork player fit in an 1850 points list?

How many guardsmen?

It's not our fault that certain people want to put all of your points into giant, OP nonsense.

Traditio wrote:

Essentially all I'm hearing from you people is: "But it's difficult to table it!"

I want to pull this out here and explain very clearly.

Nobody is saying that, nor is it even remotely implied.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to actually read what people are saying and argue that. Right now you're putting words in people's mouth (incorrect ones) and plugging your own ears.

Basically it's not MORE overpowered than scatterspam therefore it's fine? That's ridiculous. Getting 350 pts of free, obj sec vehicles is unfair. It's pretty simple.

pm713 wrote:
Basically it's not MORE overpowered than scatterspam therefore it's fine? That's ridiculous. Getting 350 pts of free, obj sec vehicles is unfair. It's pretty simple.

You've failed to read and understand the OP. Try again.

Traditio wrote:


You've failed to read and understand the OP. Try again.

Perhaps you should take your own advice here for the rest of the thread.

Must be annoying having people put words in your mouth, eh?

@Kanluwen

I never disputed that Tacs, AMs and Devs were suboptimal choices in C:SM. I just think it's hilarious that the OP thinks they are the most underpowered and overpriced units in the game.

The elites section of the IG codex would beg to differ.

 Blacksails wrote:

Traditio wrote:

Essentially all I'm hearing from you people is: "But it's difficult to table it!"

I want to pull this out here and explain very clearly.

Nobody is saying that, nor is it even remotely implied.

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to actually read what people are saying and argue that. Right now you're putting words in people's mouth (incorrect ones) and plugging your own ears.

I have in mind a demons player in another thread who was complaining about how difficult it is to kill an extra 8-10 rhinos or razorbacks, since demons apparently are bad at killing those things. [Which, by the way, I consider hilarious that a demons player would be objecting. After all, demon players don't use summoning powers, right?]

I could be reading this wrong, but when I read: "But that's more stuff I have to kill!" just translates to: "I have a problem if you still have people left at the end of the game."

And again, if your problem is that they all have objective secured, space marines running an identical list (minus the transports) already had that in the previous codex if they were running a CAD. They had 3 more if they bothered running assault marines without jet packs.

Reading this thread, i think it was designed to be inflammatory on purpose.
"Let me type something ridiculous and watch the flame war rise!"
And how are tactical marines "one of the worst in the game?" just the myriad of special rules, t4 3+ armor for 12 points a model, and even if it fell back, auto-regroups with no penalties besides a mild shuffle of position on the board.

 pumaman1 wrote:
Reading this thread, i think it was designed to be inflammatory on purpose.
"Let me type something ridiculous and watch the flame war rise!"
And how are tactical marines "one of the worst in the game?" just the myriad of special rules, t4 3+ armor for 12 points a model, and even if it fell back, auto-regroups with no penalties besides a mild shuffle of position on the board.

It's because they aren't as good as Scatbikes. If a unit isn't as good as a scatbike then it's obviously the worst unit in the game.

Traditio wrote:


in another thread

That being the key part of your statment, you are arguing a point that hasn't been made in THIS thread. That other thread =/= this thread.

 pumaman1 wrote:
Reading this thread, i think it was designed to be inflammatory on purpose.
"Let me type something ridiculous and watch the flame war rise!"
And how are tactical marines "one of the worst in the game?" just the myriad of special rules, t4 3+ armor for 12 points a model, and even if it fell back, auto-regroups with no penalties besides a mild shuffle of position on the board.

1. 14 points per model, not 12.
2. Armed with a S4, AP 5 rapid fire guns with a range of 24 inches.

On paper, that sounds fine. Given the meta, it can end up being completely useless against various opponents. [Compare this to Tau, who get S5 guns at 30 inch range, and Necrons, who get guass.]

Space marines players pay for a stat line that they simply aren't going to use in its entirety in any one game (WS 4 AND BS 4)...not to mention the fact that 3+ armor save won't save you against what seems like unlimited fire power from virtually every other codex.

Oh, you're rolling 50 dice, Orks player? Cool...

Traditio wrote:


I have in mind a demons player in another thread who was compalining about how difficult it is to kill an extra 8-10 rhinos or razorbacks, since demons apparently are bad at killing those things.

Which is a fair complaint, when you consider those razorbacks are free, have decent weapons on them, and shield the marines inside. Killing one or two razors is fine, 3-5 is a bit of challenge for some armies in a timely manner, but a dozen is rough for most armies, especially when the support options are considered.

I could be reading this wrong, but when I read: "But that's more stuff I have to kill!" just translates to: "I have a problem if you still have people left at the end of the game."

Which, again, is you speaking, not the people typing out these arguments. No one here says or thinks that they have to be able to table an army for it be fine. That's positively absurd. What the issue is that there's so many bodies in mobile transports that still have good firepower, supported by strong units, with powerful army wide abilities that allow them to score easily and regularly. They have a problem with simply being out maneuvered, out gunner, out durabled (totally a word), and out pointed (a few hundred extra points in transports is nothing to scoff at, no matter how weak you may think they are).

And again, if your problem is that they all have objective secured, space marines running an identical list (minus the transports) already had that in the previous codex if they were running a CAD. They had 3 more if they bothered running assault marines without jet packs.

And in the previous codex, there was no free transports for all, chapter tactics weren't as good, no doctrines, and no badass formations to support them. Marines also got cheaper, making them able to bring more.

It all adds up.

In the end though, there's simply far too much evidence and common sense going against your argument that it really isn't worth my time to keep this going. Its obvious you've made up your mind, and that's fine I guess, but you'll find yourself in a very tiny minority of similarly minded people.

I've been tabled by gladius. As a dark Eldar player I actually have to pay for my transports, I have no multiple shot high strength weaponry to deal with multiple razorbacks and the twin linked heavy bolters do shred my vehicles if I don't jink, further reducing my ability to bring them down. You don't get to sit there and say your 500 free points are fair, your tactical marines are over costed and your devestators are sub par choices then compare your woes to elder, tau and necrons.

Why don't you walk a mile with a pre decurion type formation codex before you complain that your tournament proven army archetype is given shtick for being unfair?

Almost every thread or complaint I read about this or that codex being over/under powered boils down to how hard it is to remove models from the table. As many others in this thread have pointed out: tabling an opponent is not the only way to win the game. If you are playing against Necrons, don't try to table them. It's an exercise in futility. Grab objectives. If you are playing against a GSF, don't try to grab objectives. You'll never get there first. Grab a couple and contest them so the SM can't get it. You have to tailor your game to the army you are facing.

Traditio wrote:
1. 14 points per model, not 12.
2. Armed with a S4, AP 5 rapid fire gun with a range of 24 inches.

On paper, that sounds fine. Given the meta, it can end up being completely useless against various opponents.

Space marines players pay for a stat line that they simply aren't going to use in its entirety in any one game (WS 4 AND BS 4)...not to mention the fact that 3+ armor save won't save you against what seems like unlimited fire power from virtually every other codex.

Oh, you're rolling 50 dice, Orks player? Cool...

Tactical Marines aren't certainly top notch nowadays but they're very far from being useless. Then you say "unlimited fire power from virtually every other codex" (in a thread where you're supposedly arguing that a formation which grants you FREE objective secured transports is NOT unfair) and to end it all, take a snip at... Orks? Seriously?

Stop trolling.

Traditio wrote:
I repeat my challenge:

Would anyone care to tell me about the last time that you got tabled by a battle company?

I'm waiting.

Essentially all I'm hearing from you people is: "But it's difficult to table it!"

Again, I repeat my challenge:

Why was nobody complaining, last codex, about the possibility of spamming assault marines and "free" drop pods or rhinos?

Do you play in some weird meta where tabling is the only mode of victory? How about we look at all of the listed empirical evidence about how good they are? But go ahead and keep asking about the tabling.............

Traditio wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Basically it's not MORE overpowered than scatterspam therefore it's fine? That's ridiculous. Getting 350 pts of free, obj sec vehicles is unfair. It's pretty simple.

You've failed to read and understand the OP. Try again.

I really didn't.

Traditio wrote:
Furthermore, I wish to ask this question to all of the people who are complaining about it:

When is the last time you got tabled by a battle company?

There is so much more to winning this game than tabling your opponent. Most tournaments use some variant of Maelstorm objectives these days and that is were a list like the GSF shines. You have at least 10 object tanks/units plus whatever else you take in the army. You literally don't have to bother killing anything just drive around and rack up points.

grabs popcorn.

Go on sir. Tell us more about how gladius strike force is bad. We want alllll the things you have to say.

You know what's just as bad as the Gladius strike force, the Tau combined fire special rule. Completely useless. that tau are just too good at shooting that they never need 3 units to shoot at once and combine powers

Razorbacks suck until you get them for free and just spend 30 points for a Dozer Blade and a better weapon.
Rhinos also suck until you get them for free.

The battle company gladius is great. Fantastic, even. I love mine. And, yes, it is powerful. There is no denying that. Of course, there is also no denying that space marines were powerful before, and there are non-gladius builds that continue to be powerful. For me, though, the best thing about it is that I can bring power armoured marines - fluffily the backbone of a space marine army - and not insta-lose anymore.

The argument that gladius is OP because it wins tournaments is, on its face, fallacious. Space marines were winning tournaments before. Crappy pre-2015 codexes were bad before the gladius. The gladius is not responsible for that. The only thing that changed is what the space marines bring.

Before the gladius, no one was taking tacticals, devs, or assault marines. Space marines would take scouts to fill minimums, and then take other units that are actually good. Many lists still do so, and are very competitive.

It took three changes to even make the gladius a viable choice.

1. Free transports.
2. ObSec ERRTHANG
3. Troop-mounted grav cannons

Honestly, take out any one of those three things, and the gladius immediately becomes worse than any of the previous viable builds. So, sure, the gladius is powerful. It's probably OP. But it needs to be in order to even make power armour marines worth taking at all. Without it, you'd still be bitching about how much more GW loves space marines than any of your other armies, it'd just be something else about them.

Traditio wrote:

 JimOnMars wrote:
It doesn't table people. It picks off objectives.

Other codices can't spam infantry that have objective secured and cost fewer points than space marines?

How many boys can an ork player fit in an 1850 points list?

How many guardsmen?

It's not our fault that certain people want to put all of your points into giant, OP nonsense.

The absolute cheapest unit of trukk boyz is 90. At 4+ armor, it's 130. I think your unit is cheaper, and you have better armor.

Asking how many times you've been tabled by a BC is a subjective question, its based on local meta and personal experience.. Since I can assume the folks in this thread all have some experience with Marines I would ask this;
How many people have you tabled with a BC?

Answer? None, a battle company is used to tie up objectives and if you want it to table, I suggest Centurions over the devs/assaults.

I have never been tabled by a Battle Company because all the other marine players are Bloods, Darks and Wolves!
I would also ALWAYS take VV over AM.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wherever possible, not in a battle company, I mean

 FL5 wrote:
The battle company gladius is great. Fantastic, even. I love mine. And, yes, it is powerful. There is no denying that. Of course, there is also no denying that space marines were powerful before, and there are non-gladius builds that continue to be powerful. For me, though, the best thing about it is that I can bring power armoured marines - fluffily the backbone of a space marine army - and not insta-lose anymore.

This. This. A thousand times this.

This is what I think that people are butt hurt over, and as I said, I don't feel their pain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheCrusadeSmurf wrote:
Asking how many times you've been tabled by a BC is a subjective question

No, it isn't. It's a question with an empirically verifiable, objective answer, in particular, one which can be given in the form of a number. For example: "0," "1," "2," "3," "4," etc.

,

Traditio wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

When was the last time either Codex won a major tournament? Do you believe either book is any way close to the same league

Gladius isn't scary. it's one of the few ways for C:SM to be competitive against the truly scary armies. Anyone bringing Gladius against weaker codexes needs to be questioned however. It's only acceptable in an ultra competitive environment IMO.

Traditio wrote:
The gladius strike force battle company is completely fair because this is the situation that "fluffy" space marines list find themselves in already. To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game.

Oh. I guess I can take free Immolators/Rhinos for my SoB then? And probably at least two Exorcists to make up for the sisters being weaker than marines? That sounds totally fair to me.

Sure, Gladius makes it worthwhile to take all those marines that you'd otherwise leave at home. It's also one of the strongest formations, reportedly able to outlast even Necrons in the durability game. So don't call it fair, call it insanely OP just like the other 7.5 formation BS.

So the IG can have free CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS?

Free stuff has been around for a very long time. Hell, my 3.5 chaos got free aspiring champion upgrades. But at the same time, I had to mark each of my guys at five points a pop and had to take squads in multiples of 6 to get it. So yeah, a free 13 point upgrade for a mandatory spending of 30 or 60 points.

But even back then some people complained, so this is nothing new. Anything that gives you a point edge in models on the field is a problem for balance.

I'm of two minds on the issue.

On the one hand, I don't think anyone can realistically argue that, absent the Gladius, a SM army comprising largely/entirely of Tactical, Assault, and Devastator Squads could be considered a "good" army i the sense it would do well against the tournament meta. I think that's a pretty clear indication those units are overcosted for what they deliver.

That said, I'm not particularly happy with the Gladius free transport bonus (or the version I use - the Lion's Blade). Or, more accurately, how it delivers it. Instead of getting free Transports all around if you take Gladiusx2, I wish a single Gladius would give free transports to full-sized squads. That would have supported a legitimately fluffy build, at least somewhat redressed the weakness of playing the demi-company without going overboard, and been a marketing tool for GW. That's win all around.

One last point - just because other armies/units have it worse, doesn't mean the Gladius-free demi-company build doesn't have it bad. There are worse codexes out there than Codex: Space Marines by far. However, that doesn't change the fact that the most fluffy build you can make for a SM force (the demi-company) is a weak army because the units comprising it are underpowered.

The Battle Demi-Company, not Gladius, gives free transports to mediocre units. It helps with target saturation, but is only useful for a swam strategy... with Marines.

I acknowledge that it seems to do well enough at Tournaments, but in our Garage gaming group, nobody takes it any more because it is regularly beaten. The benefit of free transports for a crap-ton of basic duders has not been successful in our group of 5 "regular" gamers.

I think it's stupid, but not horrible to face off against.

 greatbigtree wrote:
The Battle Demi-Company, not Gladius, gives free transports to mediocre units. It helps with target saturation, but is only useful for a swam strategy... with Marines.

I acknowledge that it seems to do well enough at Tournaments, but in our Garage gaming group, nobody takes it any more because it is regularly beaten. The benefit of free transports for a crap-ton of basic duders has not been successful in our group of 5 "regular" gamers.

I think it's stupid, but not horrible to face off against.

Just wondering. What type of missions do you normally play? Eternal War? Maelstrom? LVO or NOVA format?

 Bobthehero wrote:
So the IG can have free CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORTS?

Hell I'd even take free chimeras..

Traditio wrote:

 FL5 wrote:
The battle company gladius is great. Fantastic, even. I love mine. And, yes, it is powerful. There is no denying that. Of course, there is also no denying that space marines were powerful before, and there are non-gladius builds that continue to be powerful. For me, though, the best thing about it is that I can bring power armoured marines - fluffily the backbone of a space marine army - and not insta-lose anymore.

This. This. A thousand times this.

This is what I think that people are butt hurt over, and as I said, I don't feel their pain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

TheCrusadeSmurf wrote:
Asking how many times you've been tabled by a BC is a subjective question

No, it isn't. It's a question with an empirically verifiable, objective answer, in particular, one which can be given in the form of a number. For example: "0," "1," "2," "3," "4," etc.

,

Just because a GSF can't obliterate any opponent within 1-2 turn sof shooting like Eldar/Tau can, doesn't mean it's automatically underpowered.

Some armies, such as Daemons, will literally auto-lose upon deployment against a Gladius, simply because we have no way to deal with that amount of armour - especially when it's 'free'.

 greatbigtree wrote:
The Battle Demi-Company, not Gladius, gives free transports to mediocre units. It helps with target saturation, but is only useful for a swam strategy... with Marines.

I acknowledge that it seems to do well enough at Tournaments, but in our Garage gaming group, nobody takes it any more because it is regularly beaten. The benefit of free transports for a crap-ton of basic duders has not been successful in our group of 5 "regular" gamers.

I think it's stupid, but not horrible to face off against.

The bolded is simply mistaken. In order to get free transports, you have to bring two demi-companies, i.e., a full battle company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Just because a GSF can't obliterate any opponent within 1-2 turn sof shooting like Eldar/Tau can, doesn't mean it's automatically underpowered

I didn't claim that it's underpowered. I simply said that it's not unfair.

Some armies, such as Daemons, will literally auto-lose upon deployment against a Gladius, simply because we have no way to deal with that amount of armour - especially when it's 'free'.

Don't demons rely heavily on summoning? On...you know...getting free units throughout the course of the game?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grand.Master. wrote:I wish a single Gladius would give free transports to full-sized squads. That would have supported a legitimately fluffy build, at least somewhat redressed the weakness of playing the demi-company without going overboard, and been a marketing tool for GW. That's win all around.

10 full squads with minimum HQ choices would be 1580 points. That pretty much would mean that you can't take anything else, especially if you upgrade the transports.

Why shouldn't I be able to take a battle company with a first company in an 1850 points game?

Bwaaahahaha.

My orks would like to loot some of your free transports.

 oldzoggy wrote:
Bwaaahahaha.

My orks would like to loot some of your free transports.

Boys are 6 points per model. Gretchins are roughly 3 points per model.

What's the problem? How many objective secured models can you get for 70 points?

Traditio wrote:

Boys are 6 points per model. Gretchins are roughly 3 points per model.

What's the problem? How many objective secured models can you get for 70 points?

Ever played with boyz and gretchin vs tac marines with free transports ?
Just look at the tournament results or ask any ork player what is wrong with 6 point boyz and 3 point grots

Traditio wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
Bwaaahahaha.

My orks would like to loot some of your free transports.

Boys are 6 points per model. Gretchins are roughly 3 points per model.

What's the problem? How many objective secured models can you get for 70 points?

When it comes to objective grabbing and potential target engagement, the number of units matter more than models. An Ork army will typically max out at 12 obsec units, bearing usually a third to a half that in most lists. They're often big, with lots of models, but the actual number of units they have to hold or contest objectives with is relatively small, and likewise the number of targets they can engage at any one time with said units.

A Marine army won't have the same number of models, but for what a kitted Ork Boyz mob of 30 models costs to deploy that single element of maneuver, a Space Marine army can potentially bring up to 4, and that's without free transports, with free transports you may be looking at up to 6 maneuver elements to the Orks 1, or even more if you're talking 'Eavy Armor mob.

So yeah, the number of models can be much larger for the Orks, but 30 dudes camping 1 objective is far less useful than ten dudes and two transports camping 4, or twenty dudes and four transports camping 6.

Traditio wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Just because a GSF can't obliterate any opponent within 1-2 turn sof shooting like Eldar/Tau can, doesn't mean it's automatically underpowered

I didn't claim that it's underpowered. I simply said that it's not unfair.

Some armies, such as Daemons, will literally auto-lose upon deployment against a Gladius, simply because we have no way to deal with that amount of armour - especially when it's 'free'.

Don't demons rely heavily on summoning? On...you know...getting free units throughout the course of the game?

Summoning is nowhere near the automatic advantage that free Razorbacks/Drop Pods are.

For one thing, Summoning requires a large investment of WC's. If the Daemons are doing nothing but making more of themselves, they're not actively killing anything! Each attempt at Summoning is literally using up the resources for at least 1-2 Witchfire/augment/hexes that the Daemon army is now incapable of casting.
For an army that relies very heavily on augments/hexes to boost otherwise mediocre units, that's a huge trade-off. Couple that with the fact that outside of less than half a dozen options, the only shooting a Daemon army can muster is also psychic based.

Summoning is also a risk, as the fact you require typically 6-7 dice to ensure a successful casting is giving you about a 26-30'ish% chance of Perils. So while Pink Horrors may not care much, it become far, far riskier if you're attempting any summoning with your typically 130-160pts Heralds, or worse yet, your 250-300+pts DP's/Greater Daemons!

At it's most effective, a Daemon army will try to summon 1-2 units/turn max. Khorne Daemonkin have a similar type of mechanic, and no one whines about Blood Tithe summons being unfair/OP as gak.

Of course, I know it's still cool to hate on Daemon players, ever since that one summer back in '08.

Traditio wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grand.Master. wrote:I wish a single Gladius would give free transports to full-sized squads. That would have supported a legitimately fluffy build, at least somewhat redressed the weakness of playing the demi-company without going overboard, and been a marketing tool for GW. That's win all around.

10 full squads with minimum HQ choices would be 1580 points. That pretty much would mean that you can't take anything else, especially if you upgrade the transports.

Why shouldn't I be able to take a battle company with a first company in an 1850 points game?

At the very least, it should have been mandatory to take full 10 man Tactical Squads.

As it stands, the so-called "tax" Marines pay is only second fiddle to Necrons & Khornekin in terms of your actual 'bag for buck'... At 1850, with only 5 man squads, there's still plenty of pts left over to kit out the Captain, and fill out the Tacs & Devs with Grav/Melta.
Add in Scouts as the cheap mandatory Auxiliary, and now you've also got a bunch of Infiltrators for adding even more table control/area denial at deployment.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Summoning is nowhere near the automatic advantage that free Razorbacks/Drop Pods are.

For one thing, Summoning requires a large investment of WC's. If the Daemons are doing nothing but making more of themselves, they're not actively killing anything! Each attempt at Summoning is literally using up the resources for at least 1-2 Witchfire/augment/hexes that the Daemon army is now incapable of casting.
For an army that relies very heavily on augments/hexes to boost otherwise mediocre units, that's a huge trade-off. Couple that with the fact that outside of less than half a dozen options, the only shooting a Daemon army can muster is also psychic based.

Summoning is also a risk, as the fact you require typically 6-7 dice to ensure a successful casting is giving you about a 26-30'ish% chance of Perils. So while Pink Horrors may not care much, it become far, far riskier if you're attempting any summoning with your typically 130-160pts Heralds, or worse yet, your 250-300+pts DP's/Greater Daemons!

At it's most effective, a Daemon army will try to summon 1-2 units/turn max. Khorne Daemonkin have a similar type of mechanic, and no one whines about Blood Tithe summons being unfair/OP as gak.

Of course, I know it's still cool to hate on Daemon players, ever since that one summer back in '08.

The common criticism against the gladius strike force battle company is that it involves "free stuff." If you want to complain about free points, then complain about free points. You should be insisting that all summoning should be removed from the rulebooks and codices (whether be khorne demonkind, demons, or otherwise).

1850 points should be 1850 points should be 1850 points. Right?

I'll leave the transports at home if you agree not to summon anything. Seems fair to me.

You can talk about the downsides to summoning all you want, but the simple fact is that summoning means that you get "free" points on the field.

At the very least, it should have been mandatory to take full 10 man Tactical Squads.

As it stands, the so-called "tax" Marines pay is only second fiddle to Necrons & Khornekin in terms of your actual 'bag for buck'... At 1850, with only 5 man squads, there's still plenty of pts left over to kit out the Captain, and fill out the Tacs & Devs with Grav/Melta.
Add in Scouts as the cheap mandatory Auxiliary, and now you've also got a bunch of Infiltrators for adding even more table control/area denial at deployment.

I don't really see this as problematic. I see this as even less problematic if we aren't going for optimization.

What's it to you if I want to take Pedro Kantor, honor guard, sternguard and free rhinos?

Increasing the troop tax means less customization. I want customization. GW specifically designed the battle company to allow me to customize.

Traditio wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Summoning is nowhere near the automatic advantage that free Razorbacks/Drop Pods are.

For one thing, Summoning requires a large investment of WC's. If the Daemons are doing nothing but making more of themselves, they're not actively killing anything! Each attempt at Summoning is literally using up the resources for at least 1-2 Witchfire/augment/hexes that the Daemon army is now incapable of casting.
For an army that relies very heavily on augments/hexes to boost otherwise mediocre units, that's a huge trade-off. Couple that with the fact that outside of less than half a dozen options, the only shooting a Daemon army can muster is also psychic based.

Summoning is also a risk, as the fact you require typically 6-7 dice to ensure a successful casting is giving you about a 26-30'ish% chance of Perils. So while Pink Horrors may not care much, it become far, far riskier if you're attempting any summoning with your typically 130-160pts Heralds, or worse yet, your 250-300+pts DP's/Greater Daemons!

At it's most effective, a Daemon army will try to summon 1-2 units/turn max. Khorne Daemonkin have a similar type of mechanic, and no one whines about Blood Tithe summons being unfair/OP as gak.

Of course, I know it's still cool to hate on Daemon players, ever since that one summer back in '08.

The common criticism against the gladius strike force battle company is that it involves "free stuff." If you want to complain about free points, then complain about free points. You should be insisting that all summoning should be removed from the rulebooks and codices (whether be khorne demonkind, demons, or otherwise).

1850 points should be 1850 points should be 1850 points. Right?

I'll leave the transports at home if you agree not to summon anything. Seems fair to me.

You can talk about the downsides to summoning all you want, but the simple fact is that summoning means that you get "free" points on the field.

At the very least, it should have been mandatory to take full 10 man Tactical Squads.

As it stands, the so-called "tax" Marines pay is only second fiddle to Necrons & Khornekin in terms of your actual 'bag for buck'... At 1850, with only 5 man squads, there's still plenty of pts left over to kit out the Captain, and fill out the Tacs & Devs with Grav/Melta.
Add in Scouts as the cheap mandatory Auxiliary, and now you've also got a bunch of Infiltrators for adding even more table control/area denial at deployment.

I don't really see this as problematic. I see this as even less problematic if we aren't going for optimization.

What's it to you if I want to take Pedro Kantor, honor guard, sternguard and free rhinos?

Increasing the troop tax means less customization. I want customization. GW specifically designed the battle company to allow me to customize.

The point is flying over you. It's not the fact it's free, it's free Ob Sec.

Gladius just has to out last the opponent and get the objectives. It also dictates the battlefield, because if you need an objective to claim a point and they have an objective with ObSec you've got to decide whether that Objective is worth dedicating fire power too.

Summoning is nowhere near Gladius because you can kill the Psykers and you can still get the objectives, not to mention that they have to roll for the powers, give up Cursed Earth and have to manifest the powers. The Gladius just gives you the units without doing anything (aside take the units that can take the transports) ie, there is less involved in the process of free points.

Traditio wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

Summoning is nowhere near the automatic advantage that free Razorbacks/Drop Pods are.

For one thing, Summoning requires a large investment of WC's. If the Daemons are doing nothing but making more of themselves, they're not actively killing anything! Each attempt at Summoning is literally using up the resources for at least 1-2 Witchfire/augment/hexes that the Daemon army is now incapable of casting.
For an army that relies very heavily on augments/hexes to boost otherwise mediocre units, that's a huge trade-off. Couple that with the fact that outside of less than half a dozen options, the only shooting a Daemon army can muster is also psychic based.

Summoning is also a risk, as the fact you require typically 6-7 dice to ensure a successful casting is giving you about a 26-30'ish% chance of Perils. So while Pink Horrors may not care much, it become far, far riskier if you're attempting any summoning with your typically 130-160pts Heralds, or worse yet, your 250-300+pts DP's/Greater Daemons!

At it's most effective, a Daemon army will try to summon 1-2 units/turn max. Khorne Daemonkin have a similar type of mechanic, and no one whines about Blood Tithe summons being unfair/OP as gak.

Of course, I know it's still cool to hate on Daemon players, ever since that one summer back in '08.

The common criticism against the gladius strike force battle company is that it involves "free stuff." If you want to complain about free points, then complain about free points. You should be insisting that all summoning should be removed from the rulebooks and codices (whether be khorne demonkind, demons, or otherwise).

1850 points should be 1850 points should be 1850 points. Right?

I'll leave the transports at home if you agree not to summon anything. Seems fair to me.

You can talk about the downsides to summoning all you want, but the simple fact is that summoning means that you get "free" points on the field.

At the very least, it should have been mandatory to take full 10 man Tactical Squads.

As it stands, the so-called "tax" Marines pay is only second fiddle to Necrons & Khornekin in terms of your actual 'bag for buck'... At 1850, with only 5 man squads, there's still plenty of pts left over to kit out the Captain, and fill out the Tacs & Devs with Grav/Melta.
Add in Scouts as the cheap mandatory Auxiliary, and now you've also got a bunch of Infiltrators for adding even more table control/area denial at deployment.

I don't really see this as problematic. I see this as even less problematic if we aren't going for optimization.

What's it to you if I want to take Pedro Kantor, honor guard, sternguard and free rhinos?

Increasing the troop tax means less customization. I want customization. GW specifically designed the battle company to allow me to customize.

You seem to be missing the point that most tournaments use Maelstorm. Firepower doesn't necessarily matter if your racking up points on grabbing objectives. The massive amount of transports and Objective secure gives you a massive edge. A GSF finished 3rd at the LVO.

If the mission is table your opponent, then yea it's not the best list but few tournaments if any use that format.

Traditio wrote:
Boys are 6 points per model. Gretchins are roughly 3 points per model.

What's the problem? How many objective secured models can you get for 70 points?

Okay, what about Sisters? Could we get free transports?
I am sure that would not be overpowered, our models are 12 points but with T3 and no immunity to morale and no chapter tactics…

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:Okay, what about Sisters? Could we get free transports?
I am sure that would not be overpowered, our models are 12 points but with T3 and no immunity to morale and no chapter tactics…

If sisters of battle got free transports, I don't necessarily think that this would be unfair. Those of you who are playing with older codices simply aren't grasping, I think, the fact that these free transports come at the cost of having to field certain units.

Those free transports would come at the price of you fielding units that you wouldn't necessarily run in a CAD...or at all, except for the fact that you're getting the free transports.

It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

I knew it wouldn't be long before a SoB player would rear their ugly head and complain about their army.

Traditio wrote:
Those of you who are playing with older codices simply aren't grasping, I think, the fact that these free transports come at the cost of having to field certain units.

Those free transports would come at the price of you fielding units that you wouldn't necessarily run in a CAD...or at all, except for the fact that you're getting the free transports.

I don't think you understand the Sisters of Battle codex. We don't have variety. Do you think tactical squads are bad and you would rather use something else? Well, we have to use battle sisters squads because they are our only troop choice. And giving them a free rhino/immolator is a HUGE boost to them.
The only Sisters choice that could potentially be deemed a “tax” would be the Celestian (but those are an elite choice, so it won't require many of them, and even then Celestians with a free transport becomes WAY better than BSS without one), Canoness (but HQ so will require one at most, and a single free Immolator pays her full cost back), and maybe Repentia but they certainly would not be part of the formation.
Really, try to come up with ANY unit requirement for a Sisters version of the Gladius Strike Force that is not a direct, huge boost to Sisters of Battle, and we'll talk. And even if we don't take the Objective Secured stuff into account, just from all the free transports.

Traditio wrote:

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:Okay, what about Sisters? Could we get free transports?
I am sure that would not be overpowered, our models are 12 points but with T3 and no immunity to morale and no chapter tactics…

If sisters of battle got free transports, I don't necessarily think that this would be unfair. Those of you who are playing with older codices simply aren't grasping, I think, the fact that these free transports come at the cost of having to field certain units.

Those free transports would come at the price of you fielding units that you wouldn't necessarily run in a CAD...or at all, except for the fact that you're getting the free transports.

It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

A GSF got third in the LVO one of the biggest 40k tournaments. 295 players all bringing the strongest list they could and marines got third. Only Eldar managed and we all know Eldar is in another league. It's a very strong list in objective games.

Oh,.sisters don't complain about there army, sisters are actually rather competitive due to.5 girl units in retributors and dominions in immolators. Sisters complain.about there lack of support which you'd had to have the empathy of a weather.beaten rock to not understand.

What your.not.understanding traditio is that those of us playing older codexes don't see these units your forced to take as taxes. And they shall know no fear is one of the most powerful rules in the game for troops, it almost total bypasses an entire mechanic of the game. Chapter tactics can be incredibly powerful and the weapon options available (read: Grav gun) make csms and dark Eldar blush. To use these "tax" units as justification just seems quite frankly greedy when I look from the persepctive of my dark Eldar codex when the units your complaining about don't seem bad to begin with.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Traditio wrote:
Those of you who are playing with older codices simply aren't grasping, I think, the fact that these free transports come at the cost of having to field certain units.

Those free transports would come at the price of you fielding units that you wouldn't necessarily run in a CAD...or at all, except for the fact that you're getting the free transports.

I don't think you understand the Sisters of Battle codex. We don't have variety. Do you think tactical squads are bad and you would rather use something else? Well, we have to use battle sisters squads because they are our only troop choice. And giving them a free rhino/immolator is a HUGE boost to them.
The only Sisters choice that could potentially be deemed a “tax” would be the Celestian (but those are an elite choice, so it won't require many of them, and even then Celestians with a free transport becomes WAY better than BSS without one), Canoness (but HQ so will require one at most, and a single free Immolator pays her full cost back), and maybe Repentia but they certainly would not be part of the formation.
Really, try to come up with ANY unit requirement for a Sisters version of the Gladius Strike Force that is not a direct, huge boost to Sisters of Battle, and we'll talk. And even if we don't take the Objective Secured stuff into account, just from all the free transports.

Tactical Squads are bad because you can't double up on Special Weapons. Once you do that, nobody will complain about them.

It is literally the only thing they need.

Traditio wrote:

Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:Okay, what about Sisters? Could we get free transports?
I am sure that would not be overpowered, our models are 12 points but with T3 and no immunity to morale and no chapter tactics…

If sisters of battle got free transports, I don't necessarily think that this would be unfair. Those of you who are playing with older codices simply aren't grasping, I think, the fact that these free transports come at the cost of having to field certain units.

Those free transports would come at the price of you fielding units that you wouldn't necessarily run in a CAD...or at all, except for the fact that you're getting the free transports.

It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

You keep using the worst possible transport as proof that the Gladius Cheese Force is nothing that special... Sure, if all you take are Rhinos, then it's 0 fun for those armies such as Daemons, Necrons, Tyranids, etc... who have an extremely difficult just handling MSU vehicle spam in general.

I've *never* faced a Gladius however that only took Rhinos. Typically you see Razorbacks and/or a combination of Razorbacks + Drop Pods w/Deathwind launchers.

You still have pts to take things like;
4x Tacs w/Meltagun + Combi-Melta (each w/free Razorback)
2x Tacs w/Flamer (free Razorback)
2x Assault Squads w/2 Flamers (Drop Pod + Deathwind launcher)
2x Dev Squads w/2 Grav Cannon + amp (free Razorback)

That's why people hate the Gladius. Depending on how bare bones you keep your HQ's, half those 'Backs will even sport the twin-plas/las turrets for added utility. Throw in either a cheap Scout or Sternguard auxiliary to taste.
Or else you can skimp on the upgrades across the Tac squads, and instead kit out your Captain with the Shield Eternal & give him a Command Squad of Gravbikers... Or drop a couple of free transports and take GravCents.
AND you get Chapter Tactics to top it all off... Depending on which you take, it can become even more of a nightmare to face. (IH's & Scars w/Khan are the nastiest IMHO)

There's just too much to kill before it scores so many objective pts, that the only way to win against it is to go for a complete wipe out. Maybe Eldar/Tau can possibly manage it within 4-6 turns, but literally no other army can 100% table that many targets
And if you're playing a book like 'Nids or CSM's or Daemons or Orks? Forget it. There's no point in playing as those books are either too badly outclassed to begin with, or else require a tailored list just to try and compete.

The Gladius' bonuses are so far beyond things like Summoning that it isn't even funny anymore... Maybe if my Summoned units came loaded with Scatlasers/Grav and/or could Run+Charge the same turn they're summoned, etc... Then yeah, Summoning would be equally as gross as (especially) optimised GSF is. (and probably more so!)
But Summoning is literally putting down at most 100pts of T3/4 dudes with only a 5++, who can't do anything except Run in their Shooting phase, and who's damage output is limited almost entirely to punching things in assaults! (Flamers can shoot S4/ap4 templates, while Turbo Boosting Screamers can inflict D3/S4 hits)

Besides, if the thought of Clown Car scares you that much, note that Codex Marines are THE best army in the game at nuking such a like! (hint, Drop Pods, especially 'free' ones, are your very best friend!)

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are bad

With a free Razorback included? They are not bad. They get their one special weapon, and the Razorback weapons. Way better than equivalent points in SoB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:
It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

Damn. I missed that. Penitent engine as something Sisters would like to spam? What the hell? Why? Just why?

I'm making a list right now that's basically Razor Backs w/ Assault cannons filled with either Tac squads w/ grav weapons backed by grav devs in drop pods to target threats. It's not SM it's DA but I'll post my results.
My main opponents are CSM, Nids, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Demons, Dark Eldar. I'll keep this list going for awhile to see how it fairs with demon factories, flyrants, decurion, tau firepower, and eldar bikes.

Updates forthcoming.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are bad

With a free Razorback included? They are not bad. They get their one special weapon, and the Razorback weapons. Way better than equivalent points in SoB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:
It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

Damn. I missed that. Penitent engine as something Sisters would like to spam? What the hell? Why? Just why?

Nice way to cut off the rest of my statement.

NO, the free Tactical Squad with the Razorback is nice. Tactical Squads are a tax until they get to purchase two Special Weapons. If Space Wolves had the same bonuses in their mega formation, it'd be completely stupid.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are bad

With a free Razorback included? They are not bad. They get their one special weapon, and the Razorback weapons. Way better than equivalent points in SoB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:
It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

Damn. I missed that. Penitent engine as something Sisters would like to spam? What the hell? Why? Just why?

Nice way to cut off the rest of my statement.

NO, the free Tactical Squad with the Razorback is nice. Tactical Squads are a tax until they get to purchase two Special Weapons. If Space Wolves had the same bonuses in their mega formation, it'd be completely stupid.

So you actually are implying that Sisters with free transports would be utterly broken?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are a tax until they get to purchase two Special Weapons.

So you agree that they are way better point for point than BSS but still call them a tax?

I play space marines on a regular basis. I play with Grey Knights, so I'm not using an older codex. And yet, I still dispute your point. Devastator squads and tactical squads aren't useless as you would have us believe. Devastators with a free razorback for cover/ extra firepower can be hard to kill if they are at the back and you've got a load of tac squads coming at you- you have to focus on the immediate thread. Also, being Grey Knights, I don't have much anti-tank beside the deadknight-if my opponent were to take 5 obsec vehicles, that hadn't even take points away from his army (and yes I did hear your points on over costed units, but I just don't believe its true compared to the older codices, which are the majority of GW's army range so shouldn't be ignored) I would cry.

Traditio wrote:
I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

Ok, before anything else... What high-strength, low AP pie plates can CSMs spam?

We literally only have 2 models with such a thing, the absolutely terrible and overcosted Defiler and the short ranged Vindicator, which we can't even take in squadrons to get cool bonuses like you loyalists.
Both are heavy support. If CSMs can spam pie plates then what do you call a SM CAD list with 9 Vindicators? Ultra-mega spam?


Also you get SPAMMABLE FREE OBSEC VEHICLES from the full Battle Company. In a meta that favours MSU objective grabbers, few armies do it better than a Battle Company with their 8 min-marine Obsec squads and their 8 Obsec Razorbacks or more commonly Drop Pods. All 6 objective markers are now covered in 3 Obsec units each, or at the very least 1 Obsec with 2+ others ready to swoop in if its destroyed.

A Gladius Strike Force took 3rd place at the LVO which featured nearly 300 players. The only lists that beat it out were both Eldar armies with both being spam lists.

Please, tell me how an army that's not unfair managed to make the top three of one of, if not the, biggest 40K tournaments ever and fell short only of two lists from the army everyone knows is top dog.

I've noticed that the OP has yet to respond to any post mentioning the Gladius' tournament results, probably because they directly contradict the point he is making with hard factual evidence.

It's a troll thread, or simply not worth anyone's time trying to reason with him at this point. It's literally a room full of people on one side and 1 obstinate dude on the other.

Traditio wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
OP creates thread to defend how broken an army is.

People explain why its broken.

Gets defensive, dismisses anything not agreeing with the statement in the OP.

I'm sure this will go so well.

Vaktathi (as usual) is spot on. Tourney results indicate its strong. Piles of anecdotal evidence indicate its strong. Spending three minutes looking at how powerful it is by simply reading and doing some basic math indicates its strong.

You can maybe argue its not the single most powerful combination in the game, but its a hell of a lot of better than the overwhelming vast majority of builds, especially in codices not beginning with Eld, Nec, Tau or Space Marine.

I repeat my challenge:

Would anyone care to tell me about the last time that you got tabled by a battle company?

I'm waiting.

Essentially all I'm hearing from you people is: "But it's difficult to table it!"

Again, I repeat my challenge:

Why was nobody complaining, last codex, about the possibility of spamming assault marines and "free" drop pods or rhinos?

I don't think getting tabled is the only measure of how strong something is, especially as the strategy of this army is to win by objectives rather than by removing the other army from the table before the end of the game.

Arguably it makes for a more interesting loss than getting tabled.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW I have not played against (so not lost against, let alone been tabled by) the GSF, and I actually like the idea behind the formation, and don't think an army built this way is necessarily 'unfair' in general, though I am sure it does have some specific match ups that are unfair.

Let's be fair here, the Gladius doesn't make Tactical Marines good, but they are decent for their points when they are essentially 3pts each and get a Razorback to ride around in.

I mean, 10 free Razorbacks and 3-4 free pods in an 1850 list is 690 free points.

Yeah saw the title and started laughing lol. Now I personally don't like saying anything is cheese or unfair, overpowered or anything along those lines as I like to think constructively, in this case how to beat it. But if you actually think that being able to take 10 free transports is not very strong, not to mention for very cheap points wise you can give them twin-linked assault cannons, lascannons, las-plas etc. you might want to take another look at your opinion. This is particularly nasty with certain Space Marine chapter tactics and be is very difficult to play against, especially bare bones against Razorbacks you are playing 550 points higher then your opponent with 10 of them.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are a tax until they get to purchase two Special Weapons.

So you agree that they are way better point for point than BSS but still call them a tax?

No, because they pay for unneeded rules.
You're also cutting off parts of my statement again. Didn't expect different after the first time though


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Furyou Miko wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Tactical Squads are bad

With a free Razorback included? They are not bad. They get their one special weapon, and the Razorback weapons. Way better than equivalent points in SoB.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:
It's not like you'd be able to spam penance engines and get free rhinos. You know what I'm saying?

Damn. I missed that. Penitent engine as something Sisters would like to spam? What the hell? Why? Just why?

Nice way to cut off the rest of my statement.

NO, the free Tactical Squad with the Razorback is nice. Tactical Squads are a tax until they get to purchase two Special Weapons. If Space Wolves had the same bonuses in their mega formation, it'd be completely stupid.

So you actually are implying that Sisters with free transports would be utterly broken?

No, but they would be better than Tactical Marines.
Space Marines themselves are still the superior army though, but don't attribute it to one of the few terrible units they have.

So, do you agree that Tacticals with a free rhino/razorback are better than BSS?
Another question: is there a SoB unit that is better point for point than tacticals with a free rhino/razorback, and which one?
If you cannot find any unit to fit this, then how could you call this thing that is better than everything in the SoB codex a tax? Just because it is not also better than everything else in the Marine codex?

Probably because SM plays on a competetive level? Why compare it to a dead codex?

Ok, so I played a 600 point game against a Daemons army player last night. Here's how this went down:

My opponent fielded 4 icons of Tzeench, the rest of his points being invested in pink horrors and upgrades.

He spent the next few turns summoning plaguebearers and bloodletters. By the time the game was over, he effectively had roughly 1000-1100 points on the table (including models I had killed) compared to my 600. I had (ignorantly) assaulted one of his groups of horrors, to which he had joined an icon with a 2+ REROLLABLE INVULN SAVE (I was unaware of this when I charged), effectively meaning that my the units I had were basically stuck there until he summoned enough bloodletters to go and kill them all with their AP 3 weapons.

And for the Demon player who is insisting that the summon ability forces you to forgo "shooty" type things, I wish to note:

1. That the person against whom I was playing specifically avoided using a psyker ability to force me to sacrifice one of my units in exchange for him getting a bloodthirster (he felt that that would be too cheesy for a 600 point game. )

and

2. Warp Storm

Just saying.

As I said, demons players: if you want me to feel bad for my "free stuff," you are barking up the wrong tree.

Er, my bad earlier, I'd meant to put "2x" Battle Demi-Companies gives the free transports. AKA Full Battle Company. But then you also need to take an Auxiliary.

We play mostly Eternal War missions, with the occasional Maelstrom / Multi-Player thrown in. We usually play 1500 -1850 point lists. We're pretty cut-throat. My most common opponent usually runs Eldar ScatterBike CAD + Wraith Host. My next most common opponent runs Necron Decurion, and changes up the Auxiliary depending on his mood. Next up is White Scars + IK, and Bike-Heavy DA + IK. I occasionally face Tau, and a pretty darned effective Nid list. I rarely get to play against Chaos Marines, but he's always rocking Be'Lakor, Nurgle Prince, Oblits a couple Heldrakes and some grunts.

So from that 1500 points, say, you're looking at minimum of 1045 [2x Minimum BDC + Minimum 10th Company]points to unlock 10 free HB Razorbacks [550 points, really worth about 450]. At 1500 points you've only got 455 left to make all those bolter-armed / Heavy Bolter armed models into a force to recon with. Even Razorbacks are overcosted compared to a Rhino. Really, that twin-HB light tank should be about 45 points, at most. So if you give each Tac squad a Plasmagun, give each Assault squad a pair of Flamers, and then give your Devs 2x Lascannons each, that eats up 190 points, leaving you 265 points. Let's give a Power Fist and Storm Shield to the Captain, so he can at least hope to hurt something in CC. So we've got 225 left.

So you can buff up some squads and add better guns to the Razors... but you can't afford another 3-of formation. You could take an Armoured Task Force, instead of the Scouts, which would let you more easily spend up those points, and add to the Target Saturation. Probably a better call, to be honest... Though I'd never tried it. Hmmmm.... I'm going to have to crunch some numbers, to see what I could make if I went down that road.

We use a fair bit of terrain, but they never seem to get far, and then the boys inside don't contribute much until they're ejected. Just my previous experience, but looking at this again with a fresh set of Eyes none of us really tried to go for tank saturation.

Hmmm... I'll be back to this.

No one is deny that summoning isn't powerful. I'm a Marine player and for me the key difference is what we get for free is guaranteed and there is nothing my opponent can do about it. Summoning isn't automatic and can be denied. Again, the GSF took third place in LVO and has done well in several tournaments.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
No one is deny that summoning isn't powerful. I'm a Marine player and for me the key difference is what we get for free is guaranteed and there is nothing my opponent can do about it. Summoning isn't automatic and can be denied. Again, the GSF took third place in LVO and has done well in several tournaments.

This last point keeps getting repeated. I simply don't see "they are doing OK at tournaments" as equivalent to "unfair." I'm not saying that the Gladius Strike Force is underpowered. I'm saying that it's not unfair. Are you wanting to say that something has to be unfair for it to rank 3rd at a tournament?

And the point about "nothing my opponent can do about it" is also pretty silly, given that we're talking about demons. He was generating over 10 warp charges every turn, not counting dice rolls. Even if I was running a librarian, what could I have really "done" about his summons?

Not to mention that on the Warp Storm, he got a free unit of bloodletters on double 6s. What could I "do" about him rolling a double 6?

Fact is, demon players more than likely decided to run demons for the cheese.

But they'll complain about my free transports?

wait... third place at the largest 40k tournament in the US is only ok?! 3rd out of 300 is bloody amazing!

 Swampmist wrote:
wait... third place at the largest 40k tournament in the US is only ok?! 3rd out of 300 is bloody amazing!

I still don't see how this equates to "unfair."

Not to mention that this completely ignores things like luck, player skill, etc.

Traditio wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
No one is deny that summoning isn't powerful. I'm a Marine player and for me the key difference is what we get for free is guaranteed and there is nothing my opponent can do about it. Summoning isn't automatic and can be denied. Again, the GSF took third place in LVO and has done well in several tournaments.

This last point keeps getting repeated. I simply don't see "they are doing OK at tournaments" as equivalent to "unfair." I'm not saying that the Gladius Strike Force is underpowered. I'm saying that it's not unfair. Are you wanting to say that something has to be unfair for it to rank 3rd at a tournament?

Maybe you should define "unfair".
Because your definition of Ok at tournaments is probably wildly different from the average poster (3rd out of a few hundred isn't average at all, imo).

But for the record, yes. Something most likely is unfair if it's placing well at a tournament. GSF, Warp spider Spam, Riptide wing are all unfair and did quite well.

Traditio wrote:

And the point about "nothing my opponent can do about it" is also pretty silly, given that we're talking about demons. He was generating over 10 warp charges every turn. Even if I was running a librarian, what could I have really "done" about his summons?

He could still fail to summon, you can roll some 6's, some armies have a bit better anti-psyker stuff than others, and it costs warp charges that could be used for other things. It's a trade off on some level that the GSF doesn't emulate.
If the gladius strike force said "No choice from the marine codex generates warp charges" it would be a bit more fair. It's a poor example, but you see what I'm getting at.

Besides, a lot of people hate the summoning rules. When the power was released, the internet exploded. It's simply not as strong as it used to be, although many people don't like it.

Traditio wrote:

Not to mention that on the Warp Storm, he got a free unit of bloodletters on double 6s. What could I "do" about him rolling a double 6?

The storm is wildly complained about, being so random and not really allowing anyone to do anything about it on either end.

Traditio wrote:

Fact is, demon players more than likely decided to run demons for the cheese.

But they'll complain about my free transports?

Demon players more than likely decided to play demons because they can be in 40k and fantasy, or they just like demons. Demons aren't really a cheesy army in 40k's history like they are in fantasy.
Eldar players, sure. I won't agree that is the reason (Space elves seems to be the more common reason) but at least they have a history of strong dexes and being high up on the power curve. But demons?

It seems your complaint is basically "Well there is other stuff that's unfair so why complain about my thing?".
The GSF is just the newest example of free points, and the strongest in the most commonly found format. Don't take it personally.

Fair is subjective but from the perspective of most players I can see why it would be seem unfair. The power level of the 7.5 codexes compared to all the other books is very out of whack. Marines are all ready a top army. Compared to the garbage that is half the armies in the game we are in very good shape. Then you add in a formation that gives you several hundred points for free, I can see why it bothers many players.

Akiasura wrote:
]It seems your complaint is basically "Well there is other stuff that's unfair so why complain about my thing?".

That's basically it. Given wraithknights, scatter bikes, the Tau, summon rules, Necron ducurion, and all of the other broken crap in 40k, why on earth complain about free rhinos?

I'd agree that free rhinos, drop pods or razorbacks would be unfair if wraithknights didn't exist, if riptides didn't exist, if summon rules didn't exist, etc.

But we're already playing an unfair game. Compared to wraithknights and scatter bikes, free rhinos seem pretty tame. Don't you think?

At least my rhinos don't come with 2+ rerollable invulns.

Its quite simple to point out just how unfair these get stuff free detachments are. This is how to compare them:

Don't see fee stuff as free but as a discount on the stuff that comes it with. So in case of the Rzorback spammers just assume that you paid good points for the razorback ( since it is clearly worth it ) and that the marines are the one getting discounted.

This makes 5 man marine squads 15 points...making marines cost 3 points a model. It isn't hard to see why this is broken.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You could do the same stuff with other codexes but those bonuses are harder to calculate into points. But I am quite sure that Eldar, Necron and Tau units would also become horrible cheap when you discounted them for their bonuses.

Traditio wrote:
Ok, so I played a 600 point game against a Daemons army player last night. Here's how this went down:

My opponent fielded 4 icons of Tzeench, the rest of his points being invested in pink horrors and upgrades.

He spent the next few turns summoning plaguebearers and bloodletters. By the time the game was over, he effectively had roughly 1000-1100 points on the table (including models I had killed) compared to my 600. I had (ignorantly) assaulted one of his groups of horrors, to which he had joined an icon with a 2+ REROLLABLE INVULN SAVE (I was unaware of this when I charged), effectively meaning that my the units I had were basically stuck there until he summoned enough bloodletters to go and kill them all with their AP 3 weapons.

And for the Demon player who is insisting that the summon ability forces you to forgo "shooty" type things, I wish to note:

1. That the person against whom I was playing specifically avoided using a psyker ability to force me to sacrifice one of my units in exchange for him getting a bloodthirster (he felt that that would be too cheesy for a 600 point game. )

and

2. Warp Storm

Just saying.

As I said, demons players: if you want me to feel bad for my "free stuff," you are barking up the wrong tree.

By '4 icons of Tzeentch' I assume you mean 4 Heralds of Tzeentch?.

I'm guessing his army was 4 Heralds - one with the Grimoire - with 3 11-strong Horror squads and 1 10-strong Horror squad? or 4 Heralds - one with Grimoire - each upgraded to be a lvl 3 Psyker and 3 11-strong Horror squads?

So you charged the one unit that can get a 2++. Let me guess, your opponent said "I'm using my Grimoire on this unit here" and then "I'm using Cursed Earth now" and you didn't ask them what they did?
If you don't know what your opponent is doing you should ask so you can plan for it. Also the Grimoire has a 1/3 chance of making that save worse (a 4++ rerolling 1's) instead of a 2++.

Also...
1. Sacrifice and Possession don't work that way. They damage/kill models on the Psyker's side, not their opponents.

2. Warp Storm has 4 shooty results, which only effect units on 6's and 1 of the results would also have damaged his army. Also the attacks a fairly pitiful being either a single Large Blast or D6 hits.Woo. 1 in 6 of your units just got 3 hits on them. I'd hardly call that shooting, considering the Daemon player has no control over which units are hit or when it happens and even when it does basically nothing happens.

And...

3. You play using armies that focus basically solely on Tactical Marines.

4. Why did you even charge the Horrors? Shooting them boltguns would have been just as if not more effective without forcing your unit to attack the one unit with a 2++.

5. 600 points is really limiting for armies like Space Marines which want to have heavy hitters like Centurions or Grav-bikes or Obsec spam that requires 2 Formations. That said, you could have still fielded 1 heavy hitter, but no you just took Tactical Marines because that's what you do. If you have taken some vehicles like Predators the Daemons wouldn't have easily been able to damage it.

6. The Daemon player would have been getting a maximum of 18+D6 Warp Charges per turn. That's enough for a good chance of getting 2-3 Summoning spells off along with a Cursed Earth, and that's assuming you don't kill 1 Horror from each squad (which puts it down to 15+D6, making that 3rd Summoning unreliable if they want to cast Cursed Earth as well). They also would have been suffering a Perils result on average about once a turn. Of those 3 Summoning spells they'll fail off the top of my head ~1 every phase, so that's ~200 points every turn. 200 points that can't do jack for a turn and have to get in assault with you to do anything. And they did, because you ignored them then advanced into them!

Traditio wrote:
Ok, so I played a 600 point game against a Daemons army player last night. Here's how this went down:

My opponent fielded 4 icons of Tzeench, the rest of his points being invested in pink horrors and upgrades.

He spent the next few turns summoning plaguebearers and bloodletters. By the time the game was over, he effectively had roughly 1000-1100 points on the table (including models I had killed) compared to my 600. I had (ignorantly) assaulted one of his groups of horrors, to which he had joined an icon with a 2+ REROLLABLE INVULN SAVE (I was unaware of this when I charged), effectively meaning that my the units I had were basically stuck there until he summoned enough bloodletters to go and kill them all with their AP 3 weapons.

1. The Tzeentch Icons will only prevent Deep Strike scatter entirely for other 'Daemon of Tzeentch' models. Everything else still scatters D6".

2. Summoning is broken as gak in games under 1k pts, in the same manner that bringing 2 Leman Russes, or min/maxed Gravcents, or pure Scatbikers, etc... is.
Still, assuming he ran 1 Lv.3 Tzherald + 4 units of 11 Pink Horrors, (2x Lv3's + 3x 11 Horrors) that's 11-12+D6 WC's/turn, meaning 1st turn he can likely try for 2 summons. Unless he's also summoning more Pinkies/Tzheralds, he's not gorwing his Warp Charge pool. (which is the whole point of Clown Car).
Kill 1 Pink Horror per unit, and he loses a Warp Charge right away.

The key here being, always go after the summoners when playing against a Clown Car army!
You typically have 2 almost entirely 'free' turns of the Daemons just making more of themselves, while being almost entirely unable to actively hurt your own forces... This is why it's a bad army overall. Literally any kind of Alpha Strike army will murder the Clown Car before it can become uncontrollable!

As Marines, take a couple Drop Pods, aim for the summoning unit(s) and Flamer/Bolter them to death ASAP! (they're T3/5++ - everyone's favourite kind of target!)

3. There is absolutely no way you couldn't have known that his Horror unit was running a re-rolled 2++. Either he cheated, or you didn't pay attention/ask about his abilities & wargear...
To gain the re-rolled 2++, he needs to;
a) cast either Cursed Earth (Malefic power), or cast Forwarning (Divination power), or get increadibly lucky and roll up the +1 invuln save result on the Warpstorm table.
b) use the Grimoire of True Names on the same unit - and risk a 33% chance of it backfiring an instead inflicting -1 invuln save. (hence why Fateweaver is so damn popular!)

Now the most important bit; the model carrying the Grimoire CANNOT! gain the +2 to their invuln save!! (if he claimed it for the bookworm, then he cheated)
So, hunt down the offending Grimoire totting gribbly. At best he can get a 3++/re-roll 1's, which requires TWO invuln boosting powers/abilities to gain.

Is this to say that a re-rolled 2++ is fair? Absolutely it isn't! And especially at just 600pts it's a classless, filthy hobo thing to do. But it's not exactly automatic, (and building it up also takes away from the Summoning resources), and to guarantee it you basically end up investing the better part of 800pts to ensure it actually works properly.
(and yes, I fully agree that re-rolled 2++ is one of the most broken things currently in the game!)

Traditio wrote:
And for the Demon player who is insisting that the summon ability forces you to forgo "shooty" type things, I wish to note:

1. That the person against whom I was playing specifically avoided using a psyker ability to force me to sacrifice one of my units in exchange for him getting a bloodthirster (he felt that that would be too cheesy for a 600 point game. )

and

2. Warp Storm

Just saying.

As I said, demons players: if you want me to feel bad for my "free stuff," you are barking up the wrong tree.

1. There is no rule or power that sacrifices an enemy unit for a Greater Daemon! The actual model casting the Possession power is the one who gets killed & replaced. (in the case of Pink Horrors using that power, the entire unit gets killed off!)

2. The Warpstorm chart has 4 results that then require you rolling a '6' to actually hit an enemy unit. And 2 of those results use the small blast marker, which then scatters!
Yeah, that's some scary 'firepower' right there...

You got trolled by a dude who brought a filthy list and by the sounds of it, also cheated! Quit trying to tar every single Daemon player as nothing more than a power gaming WaaC's donkeycave.
Your army is also laughably the single best army in the entire game at taking Clown Car out behind the shed and murdering it.

At 600 points you can't legally field a full Battle Company anyways. The marines alone runs you 700 points naked and that's not counting for the Chaplain, Captain and manditory Auxillary choice. Even if it was your intent to prove that the basic elements of the gladius wasn't unfair, you can't exactly prove it without them being there.

That and the moment you accused the Warp Storm of being broken (which most daemon players actively AVOID) just shows that you pretty much threw the match in all but name.

Are we going to use exceedingly low point matches as evidence something else is overpowered, and therefore something entirely unrelated is not overpowered?

With this logic, we might as well conclude Land Raiders are overpowered if you bring an unbound army of two of them at 500pts against an opponent lacking melta guns or other dedicated anti-tank.

Absurd.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
At 600 points you can't legally field a full Battle Company anyways. The marines alone runs you 700 points naked and that's not counting for the Chaplain, Captain and manditory Auxillary choice. Even if it was your intent to prove that the basic elements of the gladius wasn't unfair, you can't exactly prove it without them being there.

That and the moment you accused the Warp Storm of being broken (which most daemon players actively AVOID) just shows that you pretty much threw the match in all but name.

Does that mean that I'm absolutely out of my mind, bat-gak insane since I really enjoy using the Warpstorm chart?!

The lady doth protest too much.

Traditio wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
]It seems your complaint is basically "Well there is other stuff that's unfair so why complain about my thing?".

That's basically it. Given wraithknights, scatter bikes, the Tau, summon rules, Necron ducurion, and all of the other broken crap in 40k, why on earth complain about free rhinos?

I'd agree that free rhinos, drop pods or razorbacks would be unfair if wraithknights didn't exist, if riptides didn't exist, if summon rules didn't exist, etc.

But we're already playing an unfair game. Compared to wraithknights and scatter bikes, free rhinos seem pretty tame. Don't you think?

At least my rhinos don't come with 2+ rerollable invulns.

I suppose because the free rhinos, pods, and razorbacks are equally as unfair as many of the things you've listed? It certainly beat out the Tau and Necrons in the LVO.

There is no limit to the unfair stuff in this game. It's not like we can point at these things you've listed and said "Okay, 5-6 unfair things, that's it. Everything else is unfair!".
There is also the free points issue. Even in WMH, the #1 complaint, over Cryx and Legion, are the tier lists that give free points. People see that and get very heated, since the match up feels unfair when you total up the army.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Probably because SM plays on a competetive level? Why compare it to a dead codex?

So having "dead" codices and "alive' codices is good and not a reason to complain?
Yeah, a huge power gap between codex is such a very good situation! How much do you enjoy your CSM facing a GSF?

Traditio wrote:
I had (ignorantly) assaulted one of his groups of horrors, to which he had joined an icon with a 2+ REROLLABLE INVULN SAVE (I was unaware of this when I charged)

I get the idea that the problem is not the demons rules, or the gladius strike force, but you. You seem to be a very new player, not very aware of how the rules work, and therefore you do not win a lot. Hence why you are so annoyed at people complaining about the Gladius Strike Force.

My local group has also debated this a lot.

On one hand, yes there are worse things that can be done in this game than GSF. But that doesn't make it not powerful. The placement at the LVO doesn't provide a clear cut nail in the OP coffin some people think, but it should be considered when discussing its power as it is a strong indicator.

This isn't the first time the meta has had builds that were parking lots (shudders while thinking about 5th ed leaf blowers and razor spam), but an optimized GSF can do this, with obsec, on a whole new level.

What this formation was meant to do is to encourage you to field 3 of the comparatively sub par units in the codex. This isn't about comparing them externally, but internally. From a fluff standpoint, there should be more tactical marines on the table. From a business standpoint, they wanted people to buy these kits. For multiple editions taking tacticals, AM, and/or devs was bad. You took minimum tacs to fill your troops... sometimes. More commonly you would instead fill the troops with scouts to leave more room for good units, or use a force org change to take, say, bikes instead. AM and devs are still considered bad, even compared externally. The only thing that made these three units even register on the competitive radar outside this formation was the introduction of grav, and skyhammer.

I don't remember how many threads I have read over the years along the lines of "how to make tactical good" or "how would you fix tactical". Outside of comparing them with the worst gimp legged books in 40k right now, they really are lackluster. If two years ago you tossed around the idea of taking a list with 6x tacs, 2x AM, and 2x devs, you would have been laughed at... by CSM.

These units really did need something to make them worth taking. But this formations execution was too much. Obviously terms like "balanced" and "fair" are subjective, and in the current meta combined with power creep, the line gets drawn to suit the needs of the person making the argument. What I would say is in my opinion, even as a Marine player (well DA but close enough), I think it should be done differently. Perhaps only 10 man squads get a free transport, and/or only for the tacticals, or at least only the tacs/AM/Devs. Now instead of the MSU min max to get 14+ free transports, you only get 6-10, with less room for other toys because you needed all 10 bodies for them. I know no one complains about me taking lions blade when I only bring 6 free transports for the tacticals, sometimes rhinos for the devs (a combination of tank limit + not wanting to be that guy).

TLDR: yes compared to top shelf cheddar it isn't "unfair", but compared to the bottom scrapers, everything can seem OP. My opinion is it is a little too much, and I would cut back/restrict how many free transports and who could take them.

Traditio wrote:


But they'll complain about my free transports?

I would love to hear your suggestions on how my Dark Eldar can handle all these free transports. Dark Lance weaponry is single shot and expensive and the best places to get it (Ravagers) can easily be forced to jink. Scourges with Haywire Blasters are effective for exactly one razorback, then they are out in the open just waiting to be shredded by heavy bolter fire. Pain Engines can be used to force you to keep your distance until any Grav Cannon toting unit comes within range an obliterates them. Beast Pack is fast enough but will far from reliably glance down a razorback and they are likely to be out manoeuvred so the marines can place their shots into the damage dealing models due to vehicles not being locked in combat. He has more objsec than me which is almost as fast so i can't beat him out at the objectives

I'd love some advice, just in general, about what DE can do to handle the Gladius formation. The first person to suggest ally in Eldar gets a boot to the privates.

Experiment 626 wrote:
3. There is absolutely no way you couldn't have known that his Horror unit was running a re-rolled 2++. Either he cheated, or you didn't pay attention/ask about his abilities & wargear...

The latter.

2. The Warpstorm chart has 4 results that then require you rolling a '6' to actually hit an enemy unit. And 2 of those results use the small blast marker, which then scatters!
Yeah, that's some scary 'firepower' right there...

The only reason I bring it up is because you were talking about how summoners have to forego witch-fire spells. Demons get "free" shooting which doesn't require LOS every turn, potentially against every single enemy unit on the board.

You got trolled by a dude who brought a filthy list and by the sounds of it, also cheated! Quit trying to tar every single Daemon player as nothing more than a power gaming WaaC's donkeycave.

I don't know if he cheated or not. That said, he was a new player who wasn't completely clear on all of the rules.

It was a fun game regardless, and my opponent was a fantastic sport. I ultimately didn't write what I did to complain about demons or about the player against whom I was playing.

My only point is that demons don't have room to complain about free stuff. Dress it up however you want. I ended up playing 600 points vs. 1000-1100.

There's no denying this basic fact.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

Traditio wrote:


But they'll complain about my free transports?

I would love to hear your suggestions on how my Dark Eldar can handle all these free transports. Dark Lance weaponry is single shot and expensive and the best places to get it (Ravagers) can easily be forced to jink. Scourges with Haywire Blasters are effective for exactly one razorback, then they are out in the open just waiting to be shredded by heavy bolter fire. Pain Engines can be used to force you to keep your distance until any Grav Cannon toting unit comes within range an obliterates them. Beast Pack is fast enough but will far from reliably glance down a razorback and they are likely to be out manoeuvred so the marines can place their shots into the damage dealing models due to vehicles not being locked in combat. He has more objsec than me which is almost as fast so i can't beat him out at the objectives

I'd love some advice, just in general, about what DE can do to handle the Gladius formation. The first person to suggest ally in Eldar gets a boot to the privates.

Spam kabalite warriors in raiders, voidraven bombers and razorwing jetfighters?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:


So having "dead" codices and "alive' codices is good and not a reason to complain?
Yeah, a huge power gap between codex is such a very good situation! How much do you enjoy your CSM facing a GSF?

Of course it's not good, but the problem is solved by giving love to dead codices, not killing top tier ones.

Well, toning down the worst offenders would be good, but with a proper update CSM could be at GSF level too.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

Traditio wrote:


But they'll complain about my free transports?

I would love to hear your suggestions on how my Dark Eldar can handle all these free transports. Dark Lance weaponry is single shot and expensive and the best places to get it (Ravagers) can easily be forced to jink. Scourges with Haywire Blasters are effective for exactly one razorback, then they are out in the open just waiting to be shredded by heavy bolter fire. Pain Engines can be used to force you to keep your distance until any Grav Cannon toting unit comes within range an obliterates them. Beast Pack is fast enough but will far from reliably glance down a razorback and they are likely to be out manoeuvred so the marines can place their shots into the damage dealing models due to vehicles not being locked in combat. He has more objsec than me which is almost as fast so i can't beat him out at the objectives

I'd love some advice, just in general, about what DE can do to handle the Gladius formation. The first person to suggest ally in Eldar gets a boot to the privates.

Corsairs? xD

I guess you could L2P xD

In all seriousness, there really isn't a whole lot, aside contest with your Ob Sec but then you forgo the RSR and all those FA slots.

Know what's really funny?

I have never once, in thirteen years of the ability existing, heard someone complain that free scarab swarms for Necrons is unfair.

Traditio wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
3. There is absolutely no way you couldn't have known that his Horror unit was running a re-rolled 2++. Either he cheated, or you didn't pay attention/ask about his abilities & wargear...

The latter.

Then that's entirely on you. Anytime your opponent goes to use and ability/preform an action you're not familiar with, you should be asking what's going on.
Forgetting stuff is natural, but ultimately, it's not unfair. Gak happens. Only thing that can be done is to make a mental note and try to pay closer attention/remember for next time.

If you have to, make up small markers to denote major things, such as if a vehicle gets immobilised or stunned, or how many wounds a MC/character has remaining, etc...
When it comes to psykers & spells, place the actual spell card next a unit that's just been hit by a Blessing/Malediction, etc...

Traditio wrote:

2. The Warpstorm chart has 4 results that then require you rolling a '6' to actually hit an enemy unit. And 2 of those results use the small blast marker, which then scatters!
Yeah, that's some scary 'firepower' right there...

The only reason I bring it up is because you were talking about how summoners have to forego witch-fire spells. Demons get "free" shooting which doesn't require LOS every turn, potentially against every single enemy unit on the board.

Our supposedly "free" shooting is barely worth sneezing at. For every game I've had where it was amazaballs, I've gone equally as many games where I don't even land a single shooting result!
And even if/when it happens, it only hits units on a 6, and only the Slaanesh result is actually scary. On the other hand, those same God storms also happen to hit the Daemon players as well! (Nurgle *really* enjoys dancing across my Tzeentchians - at times his 'shooting' has killed more of my gribblies than actual enemies!)

No one ever complains about the actual shooting from the Warpstorm table... The only things that table does, is cause most Daemon players to groan inwardly, or else enrage opponents when a 'good' result is rolled up once in a blue moon.

Traditio wrote:

You got trolled by a dude who brought a filthy list and by the sounds of it, also cheated! Quit trying to tar every single Daemon player as nothing more than a power gaming WaaC's donkeycave.

I don't know if he cheated or not. That said, he was a new player who wasn't completely clear on all of the rules.

It was a fun game regardless, and my opponent was a fantastic sport. I ultimately didn't write what I did to complain about demons or about the player against whom I was playing.

My only point is that demons don't have room to complain about free stuff. Dress it up however you want. I ended up playing 600 points vs. 1000-1100.

There's no denying this basic fact.

Any game under 1000pts is going to end up heavily skewed in it's results, simply because the game itself doesn't really work at such a miniscule pts level. Such games are actually a lot better off played using rules such as the old school 'Combat Patrol', which places heavy limits on most things outside your basic Troops.
(ie: no vehicles w/total AV value greater than 32, no 2+ saves, no Ordinance, no Summoning, only 0-1 models with more than 3 wounds, etc...)

Besides, while annoying as all sin, Tzeentch Clown Car is readily countered, especially by Space Marines... Between Drop Pods w/Deathwind launchers (best upgrade ever!), Deep Strike, turbo boosting Bikers, Thunderfire cannons, Whirlwinds, etc... you have more than enough tools to Alpha Strike the Daemons before they can get going.
Concentrate exclusively on just the characters & Horrors who are devoted to summoning more units. They fold pretty easily since Tzheralds/Horrors are just T3/5++ (and of course, re-roll 1's)

On the other hand, there is absolutely no hard counter to the GSF, beyond having a codex that is capable of killing massed vehicle spam.

Basically, your advantage is 100% guaranteed during list creation. My advantage in Summoning only happens once the game has begun, and can potentially be countered before I even get a turn.
Mine also is a choice that results in forging other aspects of what my army can do, such as meaningful shooting or augmenting/hexing, etc...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:

Traditio wrote:


But they'll complain about my free transports?

I would love to hear your suggestions on how my Dark Eldar can handle all these free transports. Dark Lance weaponry is single shot and expensive and the best places to get it (Ravagers) can easily be forced to jink. Scourges with Haywire Blasters are effective for exactly one razorback, then they are out in the open just waiting to be shredded by heavy bolter fire. Pain Engines can be used to force you to keep your distance until any Grav Cannon toting unit comes within range an obliterates them. Beast Pack is fast enough but will far from reliably glance down a razorback and they are likely to be out manoeuvred so the marines can place their shots into the damage dealing models due to vehicles not being locked in combat. He has more objsec than me which is almost as fast so i can't beat him out at the objectives

I'd love some advice, just in general, about what DE can do to handle the Gladius formation. The first person to suggest ally in Eldar gets a boot to the privates.

Spam kabalite warriors in raiders, voidraven bombers and razorwing jetfighters?

We should keep in mind that this is the same person who thinks that a boltgun should be able to damage a titan, because "reasons".

 War Kitten wrote:
We should keep in mind that this is the same person who thinks that a boltgun should be able to damage a titan, because "reasons".

Yeah, one of the more interesting proposals I've seen on this board in a long time. Lasguns killing Land Raiders and Knights. Balance.

Traditio wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
"To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game."

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh wait. You're serious. I'll laugh harder!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Crack open the Guard, Ork or CSM codices at some point in the future. You'll see how spoiled C:SM players really are.

I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

CSM have the ability to spam high Str low AP pie plates? Well that's news to me!! What dex are you bloody playing... Oh wait, its THAT dex, which shall not be named.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
At 600 points you can't legally field a full Battle Company anyways. The marines alone runs you 700 points naked and that's not counting for the Chaplain, Captain and manditory Auxillary choice. Even if it was your intent to prove that the basic elements of the gladius wasn't unfair, you can't exactly prove it without them being there.

That and the moment you accused the Warp Storm of being broken (which most daemon players actively AVOID) just shows that you pretty much threw the match in all but name.

Does that mean that I'm absolutely out of my mind, bat-gak insane since I really enjoy using the Warpstorm chart?!

Short answer: yes. Long answer: Yeeeees

 Ashiraya wrote:
Of course it's not good, but the problem is solved by giving love to dead codices, not killing top tier ones.

Good news: none of this will happen. Future codices are going to jump around randomly in power level. Sometime a bad codex will become good. Sometime a good codex will become even better. Sometime a bad codex will become even worse.
In the current state of the game, some codices being way stronger than others is unfair. The GSF is part of what makes some codices way stronger than others. So it is part of the unfairness.

HondaDaBest wrote:
While the free points of transports are pretty good, the Gladius Strike Force's true overwhelming power is in MSU OBSEC.

It is quite obnoxious to play against. They have 8 OBSEC transports, and once you kill those transports, they have 8 OBSEC units. Then you factor in Warlords, giving them outflank, etc, it just leads to them grabbing any objective they want.

500 free points of OBSEC transports is amazing~. At that point, it doesn't even matter if they are paper thin. MSU OBSEC spam is really, really damn good. And annoying as hell.

I was scrolling down, waiting for someone to bring up this point.

This is the true strength of Gladius, simply because you can outscore your opponent.

I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

OP is partially correct. Emphasis on partially.

1850 of rank and file marines plus 500ish of transports is an extremely strong 1850 list, but a very mediocre 2350 list. I'd say most lists could fight it evenly with 2100 points in their army or so. Rank and file marines are kinda sucky and slightly overcosted, being generalists in a game where specialists are awesome, but not the worst. They could be non-functional like genestealers, or have a nigh-useless chapter tactic like BA.

When being piloted well in ITC format, which is very objective based, it is a straight up top tier list. Also timed events where games tend to go to 5 then run out of time works to the battleco's advantage.

So yeah, partially correct. Still on crack though.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
At 600 points you can't legally field a full Battle Company anyways. The marines alone runs you 700 points naked and that's not counting for the Chaplain, Captain and manditory Auxillary choice. Even if it was your intent to prove that the basic elements of the gladius wasn't unfair, you can't exactly prove it without them being there.

That and the moment you accused the Warp Storm of being broken (which most daemon players actively AVOID) just shows that you pretty much threw the match in all but name.

Does that mean that I'm absolutely out of my mind, bat-gak insane since I really enjoy using the Warpstorm chart?!

Short answer: yes. Long answer: Yeeeees

Oh well... Tzeentch Wills It!

 master of ordinance wrote:
I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

They are not far superior. They are only good because of gladius.

 master of ordinance wrote:
I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

Tyranids can do well, but that's because Flyrants are a defibrillator for the army.

 krodarklorr wrote:

HondaDaBest wrote:
While the free points of transports are pretty good, the Gladius Strike Force's true overwhelming power is in MSU OBSEC.

It is quite obnoxious to play against. They have 8 OBSEC transports, and once you kill those transports, they have 8 OBSEC units. Then you factor in Warlords, giving them outflank, etc, it just leads to them grabbing any objective they want.

500 free points of OBSEC transports is amazing~. At that point, it doesn't even matter if they are paper thin. MSU OBSEC spam is really, really damn good. And annoying as hell.

I was scrolling down, waiting for someone to bring up this point.

This is the true strength of Gladius, simply because you can outscore your opponent.

This. I argued it in another thread. The Gladius is really only threatening in Maelstrom and Objective games. I think in straight up killpoints, Tau or Eldar would wipe the floor with a Gladius. It's not about firepower, it's about flooding the board with bodies and scoring points.

After further consideration, I think I may have to agree with the ork player earlier in the thread:

Somehow, paying 3 ppm for a marine seems terribly wrong. That said, I don't think this is a problem with the gladius strike force as such; the problem is that you can take a razorback for a minimum 5 man squad. If the 5 man squad takes a rhino or a drop pod, the point cost per model for a marine jumps to 7 points per model.

There's an easy remedy for this, if the rule were instead to read:

"Any unit in the battle company may elect to take a rhino or drop pod for free (any upgrades must be purchased normally). Any squad of 10 models may instead elect to take a razorback for free (any upgrades must be purchased normally), or else, may take up to an additional 20 points of free upgrades on the squad's rhino or drop pod. Any squad of less than 10 models may elect to pay 20 points and take a razorback instead of a rhino or drop pod,"

I don't think that there would be any room for complaint.

The problem is that 3 ppm for a marine is reasonable against Tau/Eldar, given how quickly those lists kill everything. Against Orks, no not reasonable at all.

Martel732 wrote:
The problem is that 3 ppm for a marine is reasonable against Tau/Eldar, given how quickly those lists kill everything. Against Orks, no not reasonable at all.

The solution to this is to nerf the ever living feth out of tau and eldar, not to make space marines 3 ppm.

I'm surprised we don't see more iron hands/clan raukaan spam. What's better than free transports? Free transports with 4+ IWND! Fun things to do include shoe-horning in extra transports with command squads.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

HondaDaBest wrote:
While the free points of transports are pretty good, the Gladius Strike Force's true overwhelming power is in MSU OBSEC.

It is quite obnoxious to play against. They have 8 OBSEC transports, and once you kill those transports, they have 8 OBSEC units. Then you factor in Warlords, giving them outflank, etc, it just leads to them grabbing any objective they want.

500 free points of OBSEC transports is amazing~. At that point, it doesn't even matter if they are paper thin. MSU OBSEC spam is really, really damn good. And annoying as hell.

I was scrolling down, waiting for someone to bring up this point.

This is the true strength of Gladius, simply because you can outscore your opponent.

This. I argued it in another thread. The Gladius is really only threatening in Maelstrom and Objective games. I think in straight up killpoints, Tau or Eldar would wipe the floor with a Gladius. It's not about firepower, it's about flooding the board with bodies and scoring points.

Absolutely - take your 12 razor battle company and just play a old school cleanse mission and the gladius would be lucky to make half i'ts points back. This is because the tactical marine is a crap unit. Absolute crap.

Ether wrote:
I'm surprised we don't see more iron hands/clan raukaan spam. What's better than free transports? Free transports with 4+ IWND! Fun things to do include shoe-horning in extra transports with command squads.

IWND only matter if the transport survives to your next turn

 master of ordinance wrote:
I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

With all due respect - the space marine isn't a top troop choice. It's actually one of the worst (probably the worst). I'd take an IG vet squad or infantry platoon over a space marine tactical any day. Now - if this formation was 12 vet squads with free chimeras - that would be broken (granted it would cost a little bit more in the end - it would absolutely pwn gladius.)

So by OPs logic in that an armies ability to table an opponent in 1-2 turns is the only definition an army can be considered op, then that means the necron decurion is perefectly fair. After all, it ONLY is impossible to kill reliably and doesnt kick out nearly as much firepower as tau/eldar. So OBVIOUSLY the decurion must be fair and balanced, if not a subpar army.

Seriously though, this is obviiusly a troll thread as this guy is either straight out ignoring people who prove him wrong or throwing out complete gak as a supporting arguement. He only made this thread for 2 reasons: 1. To vent that hes tired of people in his meta unhappy to face his super special fluffy formation bc he thinks theyre dumb and meanies 2. He isnt looking for a disscussion or debate the fact its a VERY competetive build thats leagues above most armies, he came here to be validated in his crackpot conclusion; emporer be damned the proof otherwise.

Can a mod lock this thread? Its not going anywhere positive and its only a matter of time before it devolves into a flame war once all the hilarity of OPs condition wears off...

Far be it from worst unit, Tac Marines are solidly in the mediocre to decent range, depending on if you get a grav cannons. There are a plethora of troops that are objectively far worse.

 DarkLink wrote:
Far be it from worst unit, Tac Marines are solidly in the mediocre to decent range, depending on if you get a grav cannons. There are a plethora of troops that are objectively far worse.

With comparable point costs?

 DarkLink wrote:
Far be it from worst unit, Tac Marines are solidly in the mediocre to decent range, depending on if you get a grav cannons. There are a plethora of troops that are objectively far worse.

Thank you, I was worried this was going to turn into a marine circle jerk about how awful tacs are.

While they won't single-handedly win you the game, they're a reasonably priced, modular scoring unit with good weapon selections that ignores morale and comes with very nice boosts and support choices.

Yeah, a 5-man tac squad isn't taking a riptide down alone, but at ~85pts with specials, why should it?

Clearly the performance of the Gladius shows that Tacs aren't some burdensome tax unit that drags the army down.

Scions and CSM?

Traditio wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Far be it from worst unit, Tac Marines are solidly in the mediocre to decent range, depending on if you get a grav cannons. There are a plethora of troops that are objectively far worse.

With comparable point costs?

Points costs have no place in the equation. A unit could cost half the points of a Tac Squad and still be objectively worse.

pm713 wrote:
Scions and CSM?

Khorne Berserkers are even worse...

Traditio wrote:

 DarkLink wrote:
Far be it from worst unit, Tac Marines are solidly in the mediocre to decent range, depending on if you get a grav cannons. There are a plethora of troops that are objectively far worse.

With comparable point costs?

Especially with comparable point costs. Tactical marines are points efficient scoring units that are fairly durable for their points and mobile with their access to transports. They lack real killing power, with the main exception of grav cannons, but aren't worthless in this regard. They might not be great due to the lack of firepower, but if you think they're bad you should try playing, I dunno, CSM or something. It'll open your eyes real quick.

Tactical Marines biggest problem is that bolters suck with how big and apocolypse like the standard game has gotten. As far as basic weapons go it's one of the worst.

Traditio wrote:
I've seen various discussions in which people have been belly-aching about the fact that space marine players can bring "free" vehicles and, in effect, effect a points disadvantage for their opponent. Whereas the opponent is playing an 1850 points list, a space marine player actually can have roughly 500 points more than that.

I wish to note the following:

First, this isn't really all that new. In the previous codex, assault marines (85 points for a 5 man squad) could choose to forgo their jump packs and take a free drop pod or rhino instead (a total "free" 20 points). Let's do the math. In an 1850, I could have chosen to go unbound and have taken 21 squads of assault marines with 21 FREE rhinos. That means that my opponent would be playing an 1850 point list, whereas the space marine player would actually have roughly a 2300 points list.

This was before the current space marine codex, and it's not even new. It was like that in 5th.

But funny thing is...

I don't recall "assault squad in rhino spam" being a huge thing before the current codex. Funny...why do you suppose that is?

Oh yeah....

Assault squads suck. Rhinos suck. And even if assault squads could have taken razorbacks, nobody would have bothered: razorbacks suck. Their armor is paper thin.

People want to complain about a "points disadvantage" if their space marines opponent takes a battle company. My answer to this?

We must disinguish between de jure and de facto points disadvantages. If the codex explicitly says "you can take 15 extra free points,that's a de jure points advantage. If, on the other hand, the codex says "a wraithknight costs x points," but, in point of fact, it's commonly admitted that a wraithknight SHOULD cost 100 points more? That's a de facto points disadvantage. For every wraithknight you take and I don't, I'm at a 100 point disadvantage.

It goes the other way around: for every overcosted model I take and you don't, I'm at a de facto points disadvantage for every overcosted model I take. If it's agreed that a given model costs, say, 20 points, but only should cost 15, then I'm at a de facto 5 point disadvantage for every model I take.

The gladius strike force battle company is completely fair because this is the situation that "fluffy" space marines list find themselves in already. To get free transports, the space marine player has to take 6 tactical squads, 2 devastator squads and 2 assault squads, squads of what are arguably the most overcosted and underpowered units in the game.

You say that we get free points and that you are at a points disadvantage?

I say that, in point of fact, we were already at a de facto points disadvantage and this actually balances things out.

Fact is, you don't like the gladius strike force because you were used to tabling your "fluffy" space marine opponents, because you were happy about the fact that your space marine opponents who took assault squads, devastator squads and lots of tactical squads stood essentially no chance of beating you.

Well I'm sorry: But I don't feel your pain.

Because fact is, whereas you are complaining about the "unfair" bonuses that space marine battle companies get, Eldar, Necrons, Tau, Demons, Demonkin, etc. are still a thing.

But don't worry: no matter how many "free" razorbacks or rhinos I take, that wraithknight and those scatterbikes are still going to shoot me off the table. So you can rest easy.

Have you played against it with something like harlequins?

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Tactical Marines biggest problem is that bolters suck with how big and apocolypse like the standard game has gotten. As far as basic weapons go it's one of the worst.

bolters sucking is a huge reason why tacs suck.

Again, bolters don't suck, they're just distinctly average.

There being better basic weapons doesn't mean bolters are awful. There's still worse out there.

Traditio wrote:
If the 5 man squad takes a rhino or a drop pod, the point cost per model for a marine jumps to 7 points per model.

Sure With +1S, +1T, +1I, ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics, … over Sisters, Marines definitely need to be 5 points less than a Sister for it to be fair!

Experiment 626 wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Scions and CSM?

Khorne Berserkers are even worse...

I believe the challenge was to name a troops that was worse for a comparable price, not worse for considerably more points

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

Traditio wrote:
If the 5 man squad takes a rhino or a drop pod, the point cost per model for a marine jumps to 7 points per model.

Sure With +1S, +1T, +1I, ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics, … over Sisters, Marines definitely need to be 5 points less than a Sister for it to be fair!

Maybe instead of SM needing a nerf, maybe sisters just need a buff/a reworking of their codex.

Traditio wrote:
Maybe instead of SM needing a nerf, maybe sisters just need a buff/a reworking of their codex.

Yeah, but they are hardly the only one. That's why people call the GSF is considered unfair. It's part of powerful half of 40k, so it is unfair to the other half of 40k, just like the rest of the powerful half.

Genestealers are also 14 ppm.
No shooting attack. 5+ armour (so they die in droves to bolters). 2 attacks each. Rending. High initiative, but no frag grenades so they never get to use it. No transport options short of a bio-titan.

That's all you get. No equivalent to chapter tactics or anything like that. The best you can do is babysit them with a synapse creature to make them fearless, or pile on expensive/mostly useless close combat upgrades and watch the points cost skyrocket.
Tacticals are amazing in comparison.

Oh, and their big deal is that they DON'T have the special rule that makes them kill half of their own unit or run off the table if you don't have a bigger creature babysitting them.
The other tyranid troops choices aren't so lucky.

Traditio I just wanted to point out a few things.

1. Your opening post was made with a goal in mind, to defend the case for why the GSF is balanced. A fine cause if that is what you believe, you're entitled to your opinion and even have the right to share it. However the way in which you wrote it came off as abrasive and condescending to the reader. Reading your post I felt that you were more interested in making a personal attack against anyone who felt GSF was OP than you were in defending the merits of the formation. Having such an aggressive opening post really doesn't help your cause as people will then stop looking at the points you present in a logical manner and will instead perceive it as another whining player who just wants to rant. I don't mean this in any hurtful way, I simply wish to give you my feedback on the tone of your initial post so that in the future you may be cognitive that you'll generate better discussion with a less abrasive post.

2. A common mistake many people make in discussing power levels of units is to always compare them to the best or the broken. You used the example of scatbikes and WK. To always compare units to the best units is how we end up with these nuke wars where everything has to be better than everything else, this is not good for the game. It is generally accepted that the WK is undercosted and that scatbike spam should never have been a thing. Instead of comparing GSF to two known OP units you should be trying to compare it as best as possible to the game as a whole. Some units need nerfs, we can all agree, some units need buffs, we can also agree on that. The path to balance lies not in making everything as good as the best but instead in having everything meet in the middle.

3. Some of your defence for the GSF came from being angry at the Eldar power-units. There is well over a dozen armies in this game and many units for each one. The GSF needs to be balanced against ALL of them, not just two units from one codex. This is a problem that doesn't just lie in the GSF but in the game as a whole. What about fighting DE? Orks? Even one of your brother chapters, the Blood Angels, languish in a pre-necron codex where the power levels were significantly less and they were given less options in how to field and play their army. Even look at a simple CAD Eldar force with no spam units and just a good balance of what the codex has to offer, would the GSF not give this force a good fight?

4. You mention about tabling a lot in many of your later posts. I'd like to point out that short of one eternal war mission, this game has objectives beyond simply tabling your opponent. There are other ways to win and certain armies have an easier time of winning in different methods. Tau and Eldar are very offensive armies. They make up for lack of defense with higher than average firepower. Other armies rely on numbers instead of defense while yet others have great defenses but lack strong firepower in any great numbers. This is the variety of the game and helps to distinguish one force from another. Space Marines, in my opinion of their design, are meant to be the ultimate generalists of the game. They shoot better than some but not as good as others, they have adequate melee that is better than some but not others. They have adequate defenses but not the best in the game. Whatever SM do they do it adequately but not as good as the best but certainly never the worst. Tabling an opponent in matches requires overwhelming firepower that SM were simply not built for, in fact many armies aren't built for that. Surviving this firepower is something some armies excel at, SM can do alright in this regard but again, not the best. To put out the challenge for GSF players to table opponents to show that they are OP isn't fair. The GSF isn't built to table your opponent, it's built to have more units protected by transports than your opponents could eliminate in a game. It's designed to play the objective game and outlast your opponent while using those free points you have to equip special weapons on your marines so they can return some firepower with effect. Instead of looking at how many opponents a GSF can table you should be looking at how many games do they win over their losses.

5. Many players have pointed it out: Tournaments. A place where the top players almost invariably use the most broken/Op/undercosted units available. Compare tournament results and see where SM sit. They seem to be holding their own up there with the other 7.5 dexes. Look at their liss now and see how many top placing SM players are using the GSF, that should give you an idea of it's value compared to the strongest this game has to offer.

6. This is a personal one for me. You said you have no sympathy for CSM. I'm actually pretty hurt by this as CSM are one of the worst codexes in existence right now and are in a terrible place. Not only is their power level way below the curve but their ability to play in fun and fluffy ways is completely neutered as well. They simply aren't fun by a competitive or a fluff standpoint. You said they can spam High S low Ap templates. Well I'm not sure where you got that idea and I'm doubly not sure how you think this makes them good. My precious CSM army is on the shelf now and have been for quite a while.

Full disclosure, I have never fought a GSF so I have no firsthand experience to make an opinion as to if they are OP/broken. I won't post my opinion about them for that reason, however the above points are meant to address very specific points that I do have experience in. Also this post is not meant to cut you down at all Traditio, I type this post with nothing but constructive criticism in mind.

Maybe Traditio is just a poster child fan boy who is defending his army? Of course the players of an army can occasionally be blind to the power in which they possess.

I would just disregard this thread. It really serves no purpose, and he's probably trolling us.

Arson Fire wrote:
Genestealers are also 14 ppm.
No shooting attack. 5+ armour (so they die in droves to bolters). 2 attacks each. Rending. High initiative, but no frag grenades so they never get to use it. No transport options short of a bio-titan.

That's all you get. No equivalent to chapter tactics or anything like that. The best you can do is babysit them with a synapse creature to make them fearless, or pile on expensive/mostly useless close combat upgrades and watch the points cost skyrocket.
Tacticals are amazing in comparison.

Oh, and their big deal is that they DON'T have the special rule that makes them kill half of their own unit or run off the table if you don't have a bigger creature babysitting them.
The other tyranid troops choices aren't so lucky.

That's not entirely fair. You neglected to mention that they have infiltrate, move through cover and fleet, as well as an AP 5 melee weapon, and are both WS and I 6. You further neglected to mention that they have the option to bring a pysker along. You also neglect to mention that they have LD 10.

Furthermore, do their claws count as 1 or 2 weapons for the purposes of close combat? How many attacks do they actually get?

14 ppm still is probably overcosted, though. I'll grant you that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
6. This is a personal one for me. You said you have no sympathy for CSM. I'm actually pretty hurt by this as CSM are one of the worst codexes in existence right now and are in a terrible place. Not only is their power level way below the curve but their ability to play in fun and fluffy ways is completely neutered as well. They simply aren't fun by a competitive or a fluff standpoint. You said they can spam High S low Ap templates. Well I'm not sure where you got that idea and I'm doubly not sure how you think this makes them good. My precious CSM army is on the shelf now and have been for quite a while.

Generally fair comments all around; thus the reason I only quoted the above.

I wish to retract my comment about CSM. I had the defiler in mind, but apparently, they count as a heavy support and you can only take 3 of them.

All that stuff you said about genesteelers is functionally moot due to overwatch. If they use infiltrate they need to stand around a turn doing nothing and likely getting shot. If you don't you need to walk slowly towards them enemy and get shot. Then you hopefully get a charge off and get shot again, with even bolters deny you a save. There bad for some of the same reasons Tac Marines are bad, they are charge points for things that don't really add much value this edition. Not having grenades in particular kills them since they drop to I1 if you have you toe in cover. Ap5 melee doesn't matter much when the most common army has 3 up. Not having a gun in an edition where shooting is king all hurt.

I'm a fellow Marine player and I'm glad I have a strong book that has lots of viable builds and options but I don't pretend that doesn't come at the expense of other armies. Half the armies in this game pretty much have one build if they want anything resembling a competitive game or are so reliant on allies you get to the point that you might as well just play another army. If I want to give people a good game especially in a non tournament setting I pretty much have to tone it down or else it's one sided.

Genestealers are the mirror image of tac marines. Both from Rogue trader, both "old school". The tac marines are somewhat survivable, but have no offense to speak of. The genestealers have dangerous offense in melee, but this is 7th ed, and they have 5+ armor. Both are bad unit for different reasons.

 Blacksails wrote:
Again, bolters don't suck, they're just distinctly average.

There being better basic weapons doesn't mean bolters are awful. There's still worse out there.

The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Again, bolters don't suck, they're just distinctly average.

There being better basic weapons doesn't mean bolters are awful. There's still worse out there.

The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

I find it amusing that the same people who have a problem with the idea of boltguns taking down a Titan have no problem with Necron immortals doing the exact same thing.

Bolters didn't suck in 3rd, but now they certainly suck. This game has IKs and GMCs in it. People don't need troops at all to score, and there are obj sec troops with scatterlasers in the game. S4 with no special rules is a dumpster fire in 7th.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

Ye forgot the Ork stuff.

I would note that bolters do have advantagrs over some of the weapons listed. Splinter rifles wound everything on 4's...which is great until you're fighting Guardsmen, Tau (barring MC suits), Eldar or another DE army. Basic Shuriken Catapulta only have a 12" range, giving the bolter a substantial range boost over Guardians, its only the Dire Avenger catapult that has an 18" range.

That said, in straight up infantry firefights, SM's arent at any meaningful disadvantage because of the Bolter not having extra special rules, its usually because theyre fighting stuff that small arms can hurt anyway, or theyre fighting something they can dramatically crush in CC. The problem is that *getting* into CC is unreasonably tough, they should be able to assault out of stationary transports as in 5th, and that would solve a tremendous number of problems.

Traditio wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Again, bolters don't suck, they're just distinctly average.

There being better basic weapons doesn't mean bolters are awful. There's still worse out there.

The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

I find it amusing that the same people who have a problem with the idea of boltguns taking down a Titan have no problem with Necron immortals doing the exact same thing.

It doesn't help your argument. Gauss is a stupid rule to begin with

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

Ye forgot the Ork stuff.

I'd also put the Splinter Rifle into the pool of purely 'average' weapons. Yes, it has an advantage vs. T5+, however, it is 100% useless against anything with an AV value, whereas Bolters can HP most vehicles on their rear, and sometimes even side (or front!) armour facings.

 Tactical_Spam wrote:

Traditio wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Again, bolters don't suck, they're just distinctly average.

There being better basic weapons doesn't mean bolters are awful. There's still worse out there.

The only basic weapon that worse Is a Las gun and most of the tyranid weapons.

Other basic troop weapons

Gaus flayer- Bolter that on a six can hurt anything in the game
Shuriken weapons- assault weapons that can hurt anyone in the game on a six
Pulse weapon- Longer ranged, stronger strength.
Storm bolter- Bolter but better
Galvanic Rifle- Longer range, better AP, Precision shots
Rad Carbine- More shots, even more wounds on a 6
Splinter Rifle- Bolter that hurts every thing on a 4+

Bolters are not average

I find it amusing that the same people who have a problem with the idea of boltguns taking down a Titan have no problem with Necron immortals doing the exact same thing.

It doesn't help your argument. Gauss is a stupid rule to begin with

Yet it exists.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

They are not far superior. They are only good because of gladius.

No Martel, that is just you being you again.

The average SM comes in at 14 points. He has above average WS, BS, S, T, I and LD, a 3+ save, ATSKNF, a Bolter, Frag and Krak grenades, a Bolt Pistol and a CCW.
The average Guardsman comes in at 5 points. He has average stats, a 5+ save (Which he will almost never get), a glorified flashlight (the worst basic weapon in the game), Frag Grenades and a CCW.

The Guardsman also pays the same amount for his upgrades as the Marine.

The only way to make the Guardsman good is to pay yet more points to make him a veteran and then pay even more to give him either Carapace and/or Forward Sentries and then pay even more to give him Krak grenades (so he is not totally useless against a walker.
And then SM players complain about getting free transports?

 Vaktathi wrote:
I would note that bolters do have advantagrs over some of the weapons listed. Splinter rifles wound everything on 4's...which is great until you're fighting Guardsmen, Tau (barring MC suits), Eldar or another DE army. Basic Shuriken Catapulta only have a 12" range, giving the bolter a substantial range boost over Guardians, its only the Dire Avenger catapult that has an 18" range.

That said, in straight up infantry firefights, SM's arent at any meaningful disadvantage because of the Bolter not having extra special rules, its usually because theyre fighting stuff that small arms can hurt anyway, or theyre fighting something they can dramatically crush in CC. The problem is that *getting* into CC is unreasonably tough, they should be able to assault out of stationary transports as in 5th, and that would solve a tremendous number of problems.

If this was fifth I would agree with you but these days depending on the meta I'm not worried about light to medium infantry. I would much rather take a weapon that's worse at hitting guardsman but has a real shot at hurting MC/GMC. If bolters had shred, I'd be a bit happier.

Shred on something like a bolter (a relatively static fixture of the game for decades) would be more than a wee bit much, especially with all the rerolls they already get through chapter tactics and whatnot (really dont need tac marines rynning around rerolling both to hit and to wound rolls for what likely will be every shot they take, at that point might as well just make them auto-hit/auto wound against most infantry). At this point, the game really needs a reboot and a refocus on what scale it really wants to play at or a split rules system for different scales, rather than continuously pouring on more and more special rules in a never ending arms race that just further devalues individual infantry models.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
I read the OP's post and laughed.
Then I read the rest of the thread and realised that he is deadly serious.

OP: Please put down your SM codex and open up the Imperial Guard one. Or the Tyranid one. Or the CSM one. Or the Ork one. Try and play these codex's, try and play the weaker ones without the fancy formations.
the SM Gladius takes some of the better troops choices in the game and gives them massive buffs in the form of free obsec transports. Sure, these units are some of the less useful ones within the codex but they are still far superior to most of the other codex's troops choices.

They are not far superior. They are only good because of gladius.

No Martel, that is just you being you again.

The average SM comes in at 14 points. He has above average WS, BS, S, T, I and LD, a 3+ save, ATSKNF, a Bolter, Frag and Krak grenades, a Bolt Pistol and a CCW.
The average Guardsman comes in at 5 points. He has average stats, a 5+ save (Which he will almost never get), a glorified flashlight (the worst basic weapon in the game), Frag Grenades and a CCW.

The Guardsman also pays the same amount for his upgrades as the Marine.

The only way to make the Guardsman good is to pay yet more points to make him a veteran and then pay even more to give him either Carapace and/or Forward Sentries and then pay even more to give him Krak grenades (so he is not totally useless against a walker.
And then SM players complain about getting free transports?

Most of those things you listed are irrelevant in Eldar/Tau 40K. There are lots of weapons in the game now that scoop space marines just as fast as guardsmen. These weapons make guardsmen actually very desirable, as they are paying points for substandard outcomes. And these weapons are adept at dealing with marine-sized squads, not huge squads.

I hate L2P arguments, but I have seen some IG lists that bite the bullet and give up on Russes do some nasty stuff. Your expensive tanks are the liability in 7th, not the guardsmen themselves. Get rid of the useless tanks and get some psykers to make your infantry dangerous.

Again, Gladius makes tac marines good, because otherwise you have BA tacticals, which are simply horrendous on the 7th ed table top. If space marines didn't have the gladius, I bet you'd see a ton more scouts.

Those 'nasty guardsmen'? They die to anything and everything, especially the Vindicator Linebreaker which just loves to scoop vast blobs of infantry from the board.

Ive never seen an infantry heavy IG army do better than a mechanized force (at least, post 4E aside from some artillery park shennanigans in 6E). Even with psyker support, theres too many hardcounters and too many things that just will not care about Flashlights no matter how many there are and a handful of BS3 heavy weapons just wont cut it, especially when theres fewer heavy weapons than in the mech lists typically, and what there are are typically less effective and even less mobile.



Its just insanely easy to clear out IG infantry, theyre the worst part of the book.

It also doesnt helo that moving from a mech/tank IG army to an infantry IG army is basically buying a whole new army.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Those 'nasty guardsmen'? They die to anything and everything, especially the Vindicator Linebreaker which just loves to scoop vast blobs of infantry from the board.

Vindicator linebreakers only get one shot. Even vs BA. Try again. If that, actually because the last time someone trotted that out, one of them ate some drop meltas to the face. Drop meltas aren't even that good. But against that, they're good. But three AV 11 vehicles are not good at that price point.

Infantry heavy is counter meta. People are bringing weapons to kill titans and crap. Give them a 4++ and they're golden.

.

stopcallingmechief wrote:

Traditio wrote:
Furthermore, I wish to ask this question to all of the people who are complaining about it:

When is the last time you got tabled by a battle company?

I got tabled saturday vs my buddies battle company in an ETC tourney practise game. Had 4 warpspiders and one swooping hawk exarch on the table after five turns when i called it.

But i prolly dont count since im not a "name" player.

That is a very unlikely outcome with Eldar. You should be doing the tabling with that codex. AV 11 doesn't last long vs Eldar weaponry, even when it's free. Then, the infantry are disembarked and the same weapons that killed the tanks kill the infantry very easily.

Would Rending on bolters be fair? or too much? As is, I'm pretty jealous of Eldar with all their psuedo-AP 2 weapons

Way too much. Currently, there is no real niche for the bolter in the 40k system. There never has been, really.

I think rending is a little to much but bolters need something unless this game gets a hard reboot and their are clear balancing/removing bigger things from the standard game.

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Those 'nasty guardsmen'? They die to anything and everything, especially the Vindicator Linebreaker which just loves to scoop vast blobs of infantry from the board.

Vindicator linebreakers only get one shot. Even vs BA. Try again. If that, actually because the last time someone trotted that out, one of them ate some drop meltas to the face. Drop meltas aren't even that good. But against that, they're good. But three AV 11 vehicles are not good at that price point.

Infantry heavy is counter meta. People are bringing weapons to kill titans and crap. Give them a 4++ and they're golden.

That was vs your BA's Martle, your not quite SM Marines. You know, decent BS, decent T and armour, the ability to DS with just about everything short of a tank?

My IG have to either pray that the BS3 HWT manage to get some insanely good hits or really hpe that my opponent rolls abysmally or my Meltas are never going to see anything sub 18". Also where are you getting that 4++ from? PLease tell me it is not another 1-in-6 chance psychic power.


@OP:
I have been tabled by regular marines many times before. Gladius is over powered.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Would Rending on bolters be fair? or too much? As is, I'm pretty jealous of Eldar with all their psuedo-AP 2 weapons

Put rending on bolters and GK become most hated army again.

One way would be to copy the raptors chapter tactic and make all boltguns and pistols heavy 1 rending if you don't move. It's a boost that does have a trade off.

I long for the days when Space marines just had ATSKNF, Chaos were the only ones with deepstrike, Guards had exclusive access to tank squadrons, Tyranids' biggest monster was the Carnifex, and Orks could literally use any vehicle from any imperial codex.

 master of ordinance wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 master of ordinance wrote:
Those 'nasty guardsmen'? They die to anything and everything, especially the Vindicator Linebreaker which just loves to scoop vast blobs of infantry from the board.

Vindicator linebreakers only get one shot. Even vs BA. Try again. If that, actually because the last time someone trotted that out, one of them ate some drop meltas to the face. Drop meltas aren't even that good. But against that, they're good. But three AV 11 vehicles are not good at that price point.

Infantry heavy is counter meta. People are bringing weapons to kill titans and crap. Give them a 4++ and they're golden.

That was vs your BA's Martle, your not quite SM Marines. You know, decent BS, decent T and armour, the ability to DS with just about everything short of a tank?

My IG have to either pray that the BS3 HWT manage to get some insanely good hits or really hpe that my opponent rolls abysmally or my Meltas are never going to see anything sub 18". Also where are you getting that 4++ from? PLease tell me it is not another 1-in-6 chance psychic power.


@OP:
I have been tabled by regular marines many times before. Gladius is over powered.

No, the game I'm referring to was vs vanilla marines once and DA another time. The IG player had six level 2 divination primaris psykers. It was good.

And BA tac squads are basically identical to vanilla tac squads. The difference is gladius. If not for gladius, the vanilla tacs would be terrible, too.

.

This thread is still going? Ima go grab mah popcorn and catch up.

Daaaannnggg, 7 pages to say, "Yup, the OP is a troll?"

Sm are just too spoilt with goodies now. Like a rich kid who believes his life sucks cause his parents presented him a shkoda instead of ferrari.

Martel732 wrote:

stopcallingmechief wrote:

Traditio wrote:
Furthermore, I wish to ask this question to all of the people who are complaining about it:

When is the last time you got tabled by a battle company?

I got tabled saturday vs my buddies battle company in an ETC tourney practise game. Had 4 warpspiders and one swooping hawk exarch on the table after five turns when i called it.

But i prolly dont count since im not a "name" player.

That is a very unlikely outcome with Eldar. You should be doing the tabling with that codex.

To be fair, that was an ETC game. ETC is heavy comp, so the Eldar player was likely playing with both hands tied behind his back.

Honestly, I'd rather Shred on Boltguns over Rending. Don't need to steal the Eldar's thing to be cool, after all.

Makes Marines more reliable, which is what they should be, imo.

Trooooololololol


Troooolllll

Troll?

 Xenomancers wrote:
With all due respect - the space marine isn't a top troop choice. It's actually one of the worst (probably the worst). I'd take an IG vet squad or infantry platoon over a space marine tactical any day. Now - if this formation was 12 vet squads with free chimeras - that would be broken (granted it would cost a little bit more in the end - it would absolutely pwn gladius.)

My Genestealers would seriously debate the whole Tacs being the worst argument. You're correct, though, the Tacs are bad, but in the objective missions, with the free stuff, they do exactly what they need to do. The problem is, GW hasn't given any other awful troops anywhere near the bump they gave the Tacs. That "bad" unit now creates one of the most OP things in the game.......

Traditio wrote:
Assault squads suck. Rhinos suck. And even if assault squads could have taken razorbacks, nobody would have bothered: razorbacks suck. Their armor is paper thin.

That's basically it.
GW could not give enough incentive players to take the transports, so they had to give them away for free.

the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah I don't think we've EVER seen 3-4 editions where spamming the maximum number of razorbacks was the dominant meta build.

Razorback spam died back at the tail end of 5th edition. When STR 6/7 weapons became commonplace the spam was killed.

I agree it is not overpowered.
.
However I must disagree with many of the things you said:
.
First, your point about Razorbacks.
In 5th edition AND 6th edition Razorback Spam WAS something people saw a lot
ever hear of Razor-Wolves and Razor-Angels?
Basically you take six 5 man squads of cheap troops with special weapons (Melta/Plasma) in Lascannon or Las/Plas Razorbacks.
Then you take Devestators/Longfangs in Las cannon Razor Backs.
Then you take Librarians.
Then you take anything else.
.
Next, you do not actually have to take Devestators or Assault Marines in the formation.
You can take the much better Bike squad instead, and with grav guns in them they become incredibly powerful units.
You can also take Centurion Devestators, aka Grav-Centurions in a FREE DROP POD!!!
.
While I agree that its not an unfair or over powered formation, I do not think you know enough about the game, or the
way the formation is actually being used, to understand why it is fair. In reality the Gladius Strike Force is fair because
when compared to other Optimal Choice Formations and Army Lists it allows the Space Marines to compete. The list
essentially lets Suicide Drop Pods and Razorback Spam become affordable, making it good.
Razorbacks become mini Predators for a mere twenty points.
.
All in all most competitive players dont complain about the Gladius because against the average tier 1 army it competes but does not steamroll
like other lists *coughcoughwraithknightspamcoughcough* I suggest looking more into how people are using the list before making claims about
why people think certain ways about it. Good ideas here about point imbalance but a lot of that is rather subjective. If Wraithknights were another
hundred points nobody would play them. Razorbacks are 3 hull points worth of TL Lascannon fire for less than a Rhino with essentially deployable
cover in the shape of 5 Adeptus Astartes body shields. I hope this helps you see a few things in a slightly different light, and I look forward to reading
more of your posts in the future, but please do a bit more reading up on the formation, it may surprise you how much cheese you can mil out of it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As for Tactical Squads being bad...chapter tactics make them pretty beastly. Ultrasmurf armies that stack on Doctrines can
essentially make a bunch of statistically freighting Tactical Marines. Imperial Fists make them actually able to kill whole
units of MEQs rather easily, and Red Scorpions make them give their unit FNP which transfers over to Independant Characters
leading to new levels of silly


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
"Razorbacks suck"

Yeah I don't think we've EVER seen 3-4 editions where spamming the maximum number of razorbacks was the dominant meta build.

That may have been true in 5th and prior. In 6th edition and onwards? If razorbacks weren't free, it would be a really hard sell to take them on their own merits. 55 points for a transport that:

1. Can only carry 6 people.
2. Is armed with a twin linked heavy bolter
3. Has a cumulative AV value of 32
4. Has no firing points and
5. Does not have the "assault" rule.

No thanks.

Its a scoring vehicle with a TL Lascannon with okay AV and 3 HP that can get small units to objectives and help hold said objectives. I think your missing the point of a Razorback...

Yeah, because being able to reroll to hit with bolters makes tactical marines scary for fists. The same for Ultramarines, really.

Grav Centurions in a Gladius cannot get a free drop pod. In fact, without a CAD to go with your gladius,they cannot get a pod at all. Please, if you are going mock people for not knowing the book or not having to take something, at least know the basic rules.

And if you are putting the marines in the razorback in front of the razorback to give the razorback cover, you don't have to worry about the razorback being shot, as they will shoot the marines instead.

 Crazyterran wrote:
And if you are putting the marines in the razorback in front of the razorback to give the razorback cover, you don't have to worry about the razorback being shot, as they will shoot the marines instead.

Moot point, they're still not blowing up the razorback, which is the whole point :p

Felldrake wrote:
First, your point about Razorbacks.
In 5th edition AND 6th edition Razorback Spam WAS something people saw a lot
ever hear of Razor-Wolves and Razor-Angels?
Basically you take six 5 man squads of cheap troops with special weapons (Melta/Plasma) in Lascannon or Las/Plas Razorbacks.

The game of 40k changed since then.
First GK game out, bringing a TON of STR 7/8 to the game with psycannons and psydreads.
Then Necrons were re-released and Gauss was everywhere.
Eldar wave serpent spam was released after that, putting the final nail in the razorback coffin.

This is why razorbacks have to be given away for people to take them. They fit the role of the marines well -- a fast moving strike force. But at 55 points they are simply overpriced. Being 0-20 points means people will take them, giving the 'feel' of marine armies. This is an intentional design on GW's part to encourage people to take thematic armies.

Felldrake wrote:
In reality the Gladius Strike Force is fair because when compared to other Optimal Choice Formations and Army Lists it allows the Space Marines to compete.

This.
In a game where scatbikes and stormsurges are common, C:SM need something to stay competitive. One way would be to give them more overpowered units, and another way is to give them extra units.

Martel732 wrote:
Genestealers are the mirror image of tac marines. Both from Rogue trader, both "old school". The tac marines are somewhat survivable, but have no offense to speak of. The genestealers have dangerous offense in melee, but this is 7th ed, and they have 5+ armor. Both are bad unit for different reasons.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 labmouse42 wrote:

Felldrake wrote:
In reality the Gladius Strike Force is fair because when compared to other Optimal Choice Formations and Army Lists it allows the Space Marines to compete.

This.
In a game where scatbikes and stormsurges are common, C:SM need something to stay competitive. One way would be to give them more overpowered units, and another way is to give them extra units.

I would think the Centstar is good enough. I've never felt I needed the GSF to win games with the centstar deleting about 2 units a turn.

I feel sorry for the Marine players I really do. Afterall, to be so spoiled for choice with all these incredibly good formations one cannot imagine the suffering they must go through to find a good list.

Marines have what? Two good formations? Three if you count the libby thingie. As far as I can tell, all marines list are just these things spammed over and over. BA have zero good formations. I don't know about SW. DA have the ravenwing one. And the one that gives interceptor.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines have what? Two good formations? Three if you count the libby thingie. As far as I can tell, all marines list are just these things spammed over and over. BA have zero good formations. I don't know about SW. DA have the ravenwing one. And the one that gives interceptor.

Vanillas have the all mighty Gladius Strike Force to begin with.

Of the individual formations, they've got the Libby Conclave, Scout & 1st Company formations which are all top level.
The Vindi Linebreaker isn't exactly terrible either.

Marines have plenty of toys - more than they typically know what to do with.

Unlike say, half the other armies in the game.

We all agree and repeat ourselves except some SM players who will never agree with the rest of us lets call it a day ?

I'm a space marine player and I agree our book is more than fine.

I agree. We have a strong codex, so let's call it day and close this thread. We can argue about the OPness of the GSF some other day

It is strong, but not because meqs or marine vehicles are good. That's my point.

Yes, because Tacs are the worst troop in the game.

Except for Genestealers.
And Wyches.
Kroot.
Kalabites.
Ork Boys
Storm Guardians
Guardian Defenders
Dire Avengers
Rangers
PAGK
...

I mean, look at how short that list is!

Tac Marines made it to high levels in 7E before the new codex dropped (mostly as ObSec spam). They aren't typically top tier. There are things that kick their asses. But they are nowhere near the worst troops in the game.

(My first thought for that would be Wyches.)

Bharring wrote:
Dire Avengers

Fleet, bladestorm and +1 BS if you use the formation is terrible?

Compared to +1 S/T 3+ armor ATSKNF CTs krak/frag grenades, special/heavy options, and a FREE RAZORBACK?

DAs aren't terrible, but I wouldn't call them better than Tac Marines. A side grade at best.

Traditio wrote:


I don't really have much sympathy for guard or the CSM. Both codices have the ability to spam high strength, low AP pie plates.

I will grant that the "base" CSM troop deserves a boost, though.

The ability to spam High Strength, low AP pie plates.

Ok.

Let's crack open the CSM codex.

I have...Defilers...and Vindicators. And both sit in Heavy Support. And unlike SMs I can't take a squadron of either. That there is our Ordnance. That is it.

Oh, wait, you're talking Plasma Cannons.

Ok.

We have Obliterators...also sitting in Heavy Support. And Helbrutes, who are Elites...just. you know, can't be taken in batches of 3 like SM Dreadnoughts.

So we have neither an abundance of pie or plates here since it all sits in Heavy Support and can't be squadroned.

Wait.

You're the same guy who tried to argue that Smash was 'good'.

DarkStarSabre wrote:The ability to spam High Strength, low AP pie plates.

Ok.

Let's crack open the CSM codex.

I have...Defilers...and Vindicators. And both sit in Heavy Support. And unlike SMs I can't take a squadron of either. That there is our Ordnance. That is it.

Oh, wait, you're talking Plasma Cannons.

Ok.

We have Obliterators...also sitting in Heavy Support. And Helbrutes, who are Elites...just. you know, can't be taken in batches of 3 like SM Dreadnoughts.

So we have neither an abundance of pie or plates here since it all sits in Heavy Support and can't be squadroned.

Wait.

I've since retracted my statement.

You're the same guy who tried to argue that Smash was 'good'.

Quote me. Where did I say that?

Bharring wrote:
Compared to +1 S/T 3+ armor ATSKNF CTs krak/frag grenades, special/heavy options, and a FREE RAZORBACK?

DAs aren't terrible, but I wouldn't call them better than Tac Marines. A side grade at best.

And yet, you'd be amazed at the number of Loyalist players who will still argue that their Tacticals are worse than Chaos Marines...

Actually, it would be an amusing fight to see who is the worst of the worst: Wyches vs. Genesneakers vs. Chaos Marines.

Aww I thought this thread was dead. I saw it at the bottom half of the page

Experiment 626 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Compared to +1 S/T 3+ armor ATSKNF CTs krak/frag grenades, special/heavy options, and a FREE RAZORBACK?

DAs aren't terrible, but I wouldn't call them better than Tac Marines. A side grade at best.

And yet, you'd be amazed at the number of Loyalist players who will still argue that their Tacticals are worse than Chaos Marines...

Actually, it would be an amusing fight to see who is the worst of the worst: Wyches vs. Genesneakers vs. Chaos Marines.

No, no. I fully agree with this.

Chaos marines are terrible and really need a boost.

Experiment 626 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
Compared to +1 S/T 3+ armor ATSKNF CTs krak/frag grenades, special/heavy options, and a FREE RAZORBACK?

DAs aren't terrible, but I wouldn't call them better than Tac Marines. A side grade at best.

And yet, you'd be amazed at the number of Loyalist players who will still argue that their Tacticals are worse than Chaos Marines...

Actually, it would be an amusing fight to see who is the worst of the worst: Wyches vs. Genesneakers vs. Chaos Marines.

They are in a tie for last place - for costing too much and having no offense. The choas marine has more options - like an autocannon - and CCWs and cost less...pretty reasonable argument to say CSM are better than tacs. Plus their Rhinos are better because they have decent weapon upgrades.

Bharring wrote:
Yes, because Tacs are the worst troop in the game.

Except for Genestealers.
And Wyches.
Kroot.
Kalabites.
Ork Boys
Storm Guardians
Guardian Defenders
Dire Avengers
Rangers
PAGK
...

I mean, look at how short that list is!

Tac Marines made it to high levels in 7E before the new codex dropped (mostly as ObSec spam). They aren't typically top tier. There are things that kick their asses. But they are nowhere near the worst troops in the game.

(My first thought for that would be Wyches.)

I said they weren't good. Which they aren't. This is independent of their relation to other troops. Troops in general aren't good, and tac marines are no exception.

I just can't believe Bharring said that Dire Avengers were worse than Tactical Marines.

@Experiment 626, I'd put CSM Marines and Tactical Marines in the same boat of sucking. Tactical Marines get more for just one more point in terms of rules, but you can't kit them for ANY role whatsoever. That's what makes Grey Hunters SOOOOOOO much better than either choice.
The melee upgrade for Grey Hunters and CSM Marines is too high though. The Carcharodons Astra have that part right (1 point? Yes please!) but then they suffer from being Tactical Marines (so you can't double up on Melta and charge, which would be damn cool. Otherwise you're running 5 man squads, and that isn't exactly great).

If DAs are causing a coniption, ignore them. The list is still quite blunt.

(Also, forgot all the demon troops...)

The point was that the claims that Tacs were:
A) One of the worst
B) The worst
troops in the game is obviously untrue.

(On a related note, CSM are way better than Wyches, IMO!)

Wyches haven't existed since they removed all the Haywire Grenades, which was ALL they were used for.

So SM are the worst troop in the game because anything worse by definition doesn't exist?

So there are only a half dozen troops in the game?

It seems like it sometimes.

Scatterbikes
Firewarriors
Necron warriors