So I just read a thread, which got me to thinking about how marines actually break a lot of aspects of the game (but naturally they get a free pass because they're marines). I realise of course 8th is going to shake things up.

Let's start with one of the biggest factors they ignore, morale. They more or less ignore morale for its primary functions, yes they take morale checks, but they auto-regroup and can act as normal regardless of squad size (that 1 marine with a meltagun isn't running off the table and is free to pop my tank at bull BS). Meanwhile that 9 man squad of guardsmen (from an 40 man squad) can't regroup unless you roll double 1.
Oh, I won combat but I don't get to sweep your squad off the table but I needed to win so I didn't get swept thereby losing my awesome costly squad that fluffed the dice.

How about ignoring high armour saves?
Let's give marines access to grav weapons on virtually every squad and make them the same cost, more shots and 'better' at wounding than the conventional armour beating plasma weapons, which had the tactical risk of gets hot.

Assault - I charged through cover but I still get to attack you either first or at initiative (my I is pretty high as standard) but your awesome melee unit brushed past some terrain and now they have to wait until everything else kills them first reducing the impact.

Short ranged? No worries take these drop pods and get across the table to wherever you want at the start of your first turn. P.s. See the next point about getting even more of them.

Free points - so you want to bring more actually useful stuff? Don't worry, take this formation and get all your drop pods, rhinos and razorbacks free essentially giving you 200-300 or more extra points (thereby making it a 1500 vs 1800 point army).

Objective secured - you know those free transports I just mentioned? Well let's make them auto hold objectives too. Most armies have to make a choice of objective secured OR a formation. Marines don't seem to be limited to this choice.

Ultimate beat sticks - although so far it's only Guilliman (loyalist) how long will it be before a few more primarchs show up. They're literally insane models capable of taking on entire armies by themselves.

3++ options are available for 10 points on more models than you would expect and more than a number of other armies combined.

Sorry for the kind of rant, but the other thread like this had a massive dig at an army only really any good at one thing so I thought it was important to highlight the issues brought to the table by the army that 'all other armies are measured by'.

Did I miss anything? Want to share in your space marine frustrations, comment below and let me know.

I think that you could make similar complaints about any of the best armies in 7th edition Warhammer, the edition has increased the power level so much that only 'unfair' rules can succeed.

Space Marines at least can interact with all of the main phases of the game and don't typically eliminate their opponent on turn one making them more fun to play against than Tau or Necrons.

Ultimately there is a new edition coming out soon, so any problems with the current rule set are immaterial at this point.

I've always found that morale plays little to no part in my games, partly because my armies include Blood Angels, Emperor's Children Chaos Marines (fearless across the board) and Genestealer Cults (high Ld and plenty of rules to keep them in the fight) and most of my opponents either play marines or tyranids.

So yes, morale has never really played a role, though I am unsure of the new changes where you lose as many extra models as how badly you failed the morale test. We had this back in 5th I think it was, when Fearless models would remain in combat but suffer an additional number of losses, which meant that your awesome CC units were actually subpar, especially if you had some unlucky rolls that turn.

I haven't played AoS so I don't know how this works in that context, but I don't think it's a particularly good mechanic. But then again, better to lose maybe three men than a whole squad as a result of sweeping advances.

So at the core, its a complaint about how Marines are amazing at everything.

Some of these claims are legitimate.

On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

I hate facing the Optimized Stealth Cadre. I hate facing a stack of Riptides. I hate facing the Tideline Gunfort.

Seriously, it's kind of broken.

I stopped minding the free transports the Space Marines get. It's kind of obnoxious when you first see it, but it's not that good actually.


The problem, and my hate, for the Tau comes not from them being one-dimensional, it comes from them having units and formations explicitly designed to hard counter my entire army. Seriously, it hits all vehicles on rear armor, ignores cover, and has a 2+ cover save, T5, and 5 wounds or whatever, and comes in a group of 3 that naturally have Split Fire. And the Tideline Rig comes in a group of 3 TL railcannons that are entirely indestructible.

 Kroem wrote:
I think that you could make similar complaints about any of the best armies in 7th edition Warhammer, the edition has increased the power level so much that only 'unfair' rules can succeed.

This. You can especially make one for Tzeentch Daemons, Eldar, etc.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I hate facing the Optimized Stealth Cadre. I hate facing a stack of Riptides. I hate facing the Tideline Gunfort.

Seriously, it's kind of broken.

I stopped minding the free transports the Space Marines get. It's kind of obnoxious when you first see it, but it's not that good actually.


The problem, and my hate, for the Tau comes not from them being one-dimensional, it comes from them having units and formations explicitly designed to hard counter my entire army. Seriously, it hits all vehicles on rear armor, ignores cover, and has a 2+ cover save, T5, and 5 wounds or whatever, and comes in a group of 3 that naturally have Split Fire. And the Tideline Rig comes in a group of 3 TL railcannons that are entirely indestructible.

Wow Tau must be really hated. How did this become a Tau hate thread in like 4 posts?
Interesting the polarity of this thread to the similar one about Tau.

In that thread it's essentially a slag match about how everyone hates Tau. In this thread, despite the sheer number of obnoxious things marines bring to the table (some of which are 'game breaking') it's kind of like, "no-one cares".

On a separate note I thought you could target gun emplacements.

Vehicles and morale have always been gak in 40K. For morale, GW never fully developed it into it's own thing. I hate to use the term "Design Space", but in this case, it's very apt. Morale has a HUGE open space for development, and could be so much more. It could have been it's own phase. It's affect on the game is far too binary. If you pass, nothing happens. Fail, and you fall back off the board or get wiped out in the assault phase. It's all or nothing. Whole armies simply ignore the phase. Other armies are broken by it.

GW could have done so much more. How about taking a morale check when a nearby unit wipes out an enemy unit, and if you pass, you get +1 BS or WS or something for the rest of the turn? How about bonuses for passing morale checks? How about negative mods instead of running off the table for failure? There is just so much more GW could have done with this phase. Anyways, that's my rant on morale in 40K.

As for breaking the rules... any/all armies can bend or even break all the rules you mention. It's a little hard to match ATSKNF, but their are whole armies that are fearless.

Ignoring high armor saves? That's just a function of weapon selection, and any army can bring low AP weapons.

Space Marines are some of the worst models when it comes to assault. The only things they have going for them is the ubiquitous frag grenade and ATSKNF.

Short Ranged? Define short ranged. The table is only 48"x60", most weapons are 12", you move 6", can run 6" or charge 2d6"- you can get to just about any part of the table in 4-5 turns. The fault isn't Drop Pods, it's Deep Strike in general.

Free Points- OK, you got me here. Then again, it's not the fault of the army that some Gak Game Developer decided to give Space Marines the best formation in the game. If yo took formations completely out of the game, it would solve many, many of the problems we see in 7th ed 40K. It's not the fault of Space Marines, but Formations.

Objective Secured- Again, this is not a standard feature of Space Marines, but of Formations. If more armies had formations as good as the Space Marines, this wouldn't be such an issue. Formations ruined 40K.

Ultimate Beat Sticks? You mean Wraithknights? Riptides? Saint Celestine? Swarmlord? Greater Deamons of Khorne? Up until Roboute showed up, Space Marines pretty much had nothing in this class of model.

Cheap 3++ comes with it's own issues, like gak weapons or formations, and after you load out that unit, it comes closer to 25+ points per model.

TLDR; It's not Space Marines, it's a combination of several rules. Gak vehicle rules, Monstrous Creatures, binary Morale, and Formations are what ruined 7th edition, not Space Marines.

Librarius conclave:
Space Marines have access to the most ridiculously powerful Psychic lores in the game (AOD powers), plus all the basic rulebook ones.
And can cast them on a 2+ bypassing the need that other psychic heavy armies have of "battery psykers"
And they can hide each member in a different unit meaning you have to get through multiple units to shut them down

Lets compare that to one of the most complained about psyker formations:
Seer Council:
Only casts on a 3+.
Has access to less powers.
Is one unit so can be dealt with all at once.

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

Dire avengers have battle focus and a better gun.

 Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

Where's the mass lists running Tac Marines? People only run them for: 1) getting the Gladius, 2) min squads using a Grav gun and Combi-Grav or 3) Miin Troops squads and then all bikes. Don't act like Tactical Marines are some great unit.

 Boniface wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
I hate facing the Optimized Stealth Cadre. I hate facing a stack of Riptides. I hate facing the Tideline Gunfort.

Seriously, it's kind of broken.

I stopped minding the free transports the Space Marines get. It's kind of obnoxious when you first see it, but it's not that good actually.


The problem, and my hate, for the Tau comes not from them being one-dimensional, it comes from them having units and formations explicitly designed to hard counter my entire army. Seriously, it hits all vehicles on rear armor, ignores cover, and has a 2+ cover save, T5, and 5 wounds or whatever, and comes in a group of 3 that naturally have Split Fire. And the Tideline Rig comes in a group of 3 TL railcannons that are entirely indestructible.

Wow Tau must be really hated. How did this become a Tau hate thread in like 4 posts?
Interesting the polarity of this thread to the similar one about Tau.

In that thread it's essentially a slag match about how everyone hates Tau. In this thread, despite the sheer number of obnoxious things marines bring to the table (some of which are 'game breaking') it's kind of like, "no-one cares".

On a separate note I thought you could target gun emplacements.

According to Planetary Onslaught, the Tideline Rig is not in fact a gun emplacement with wounds, it is a piece of battlefield debris and cannot be removed or destroyed!

Also, you made the threat because we're expressing our dislike for how overpowered Tau are in another thread, so you can say "Marines are OP too!"

You can tell me "Guard Gunline is OP!" or "Sisters are OP!" too, because the Exorcist can obliterate your big expensive Riptides in two salvoes, or because Wyverns ignore your Tideline Wall, and I'm going to laugh at you, because I'm not the one who brought 3 Tideline Rigs, 2 Stormsurges, a full-strength Optimized Stealth Cadre, and 3 Riptides to a "friendly game".

More importantly, the Space Marines do not possess a group of formations designed explicitly to invalidate my entire army. Not just the list I'm using, THE ENTIRE ARMY. Whether I'm playing blobguard, gunlineguard, mechvets, or ABG you just have to bring the Optimized Stealth Cadre and Tideline Network and I might as well go crawl back into my trench and ask the Commissar for the Emperor's Mercy.

Okay, I do have a weapon immune to and that hard counters the OSC: the Stormsword. But that's a 500+ point Lord of War that means I can't have a Shadowsword or Stormlord, and you'll still obliterate it on turn 1 with your pair of Stormsurges and the Tideline Rigs.


Am I salty? Yes.


Okay /rant. I should have made that in the Tau threat, but Tau complaining that other people were calling the Tau OP, when they are no matter how you look at it, kind of irked me.


I don't find any of the mentioned aspects of vanilla marines game breaking or un-fun to play against. I can take on the Razorback list just fine, because the formation tax is hideous and largely ignoreable and easily dealt with. I haven't had a problem with Grav weapons either, as Sisters or as Guard.

 Boniface wrote:

Wow Tau must be really hated. How did this become a Tau hate thread in like 4 posts?

Instant karma.

Base marines of any kind are shockingly ineffective in 7th ed. They have fantastic gimmicks that have almost nothing to do with being marines.

This thread is hilarious...
You do realize that in order for any marine player to get those free transports you despise (ignoring how easy a rhino is to remove... drop pods less so) a marine player is required to take a minimum of 700 points of, as far as formations are concerned, sub par power armour marines? BEFORE UPGRADES!

If you think space marines formations are OP I would posit that you need to widen your net when looking at the range of people and armies you play against.

Come back to the thread and tell us if you still hate that double demi co gladius after having played against jetbike spam and/or wraithguard with D sythe spam and/or double riptide wings.
As you've mentioned short range. Tau (the army that a previous threat complained so hard about that it but hurt you enough to open this one) excel at long range before marines can get in to their mid/short range effective area = tau counter
Tau have widespread access to ewo/intercept to hard counter those drop pods you despair over...
Tau have much better short range firepower ability than marines... say hello to breachers...
Tau have jinking transports (with access to disruption pods) all the easier to deliver those breachers...

If you're really annoyed by being cut up in combat by tactical marines then god help you if you play against KDK or deathguard/nurgle marines that end up fearless and, are harder to kill AND hit harder.

And @Talamare come on... we both know the reason why no-one uses dire avengers.... troop scatbikes anyone?

I'm starting to wonder if it's just a matter of your list building ability being a bit lacking?

You have access to a lot of things that make marine players green with envy. Don't get me wrong I recognize SM's have a lot going for them over other armies but you're flat out ignoring how capable your chosen faction is. I don't disagree SM's need toning down, I don't use grav (it was invented to give Marines something to compete with other armies broken units... *cough* Eldar *cough*) or Centurions (invented to give that grav an effective platform for reliable utilisation) because they're not fluffy and were dreamt up to fix a problem that shouldn't have been made in the first place.

If you'd have pointed to the Ravenwing 2+ rerollable jinking formation as a demonstration about how Marines are broken I'd have agreed off the bat but your idea that the free transports in a double demi gladius make Marines broken is laughable. But then again Tau have easy access to another hard counter to that in cheap essentially ignores cover markerlight drones to remove cover.

What I would say you missed in that other thread was the point that Tau can dominate a single phase of the game, and force that phase to extend into the opponents movement and assault phase, and what some people feel is that is makes games very dull as Tau only really interact with the game in one way, shooting. I didnt agree with a lot of what was said in that other threat but you have to consider other peoples perspectives. Its like a banker complaining about someone not having to work and getting "free money" on benefits.... don't be blinded by what other people have and remember to look objectively at what you have in comparison.

Tamwulf wrote:
Ultimate Beat Sticks? You mean Wraithknights? Riptides? Saint Celestine? Swarmlord? Greater Deamons of Khorne? Up until Roboute showed up, Space Marines pretty much had nothing in this class of model.

captain/chapter master smashfetcher has been around for a while and can take primarchs. bike plus gorgon's chain or shield etenal, artificer armor and a thunderhammer. he can wreck plenty of lords of war if they do not roll 6's to stomp or on d table

Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

battle focus too, though honestly the tactical marine still wins out. the dire avenger has to run 6 to match the range of a bolter if 24" from the target , and while it has 2 shots at the 18 (sort of but not quite matched by rapid fire in 12 the pseudo rending certainly counts for something. but advantage is still tac marines. in either case neither model is really as competitive as other options. you don't see elder players taking tournaments with 6 squads of kitted dire avengers nor outside of gladius do you see tons of tac marines. troops are a tax because they are middle of the road not horrible but not great units.

If anyone wants to hate on Space marines, start with the Grav Centurions, bikes, and Librarius Conclate. That's about as cheesy as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc.

 jreilly89 wrote:
If anyone wants to hate on Space marines, start with the Grav Centurions, bikes, and Librarius Conclate. That's about as cheesy as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc.

Thats the problem isn't it? The most iconic units in every codex are just thrash, and many of them have that gimminick ultra-OP combo with 2-3 units.

Tactical marines? Thrash.
Land raiders and Terminators? To the binn!
Fire warriors? Meh.
Piranhas and Hammerhead tanks? Direct to ebay.
Aspect Warriors? W-wait... Eldar can walk with their legs?!
Etc, etc...


When people call "Space Marines OP omg!" or "Tau OP omg!" they are ignoring the fact that normally, 80% of those codex are useless. Yeah, of course, they are better that Ork and Tyranid equivalents, but thats the other extreme. The fact remains that you can't pick the mayority of the units in the codex of Space Marines, Tau or Eldar, without feeling you are just stupid by not picking the most stronger option.

I want to field the most iconic units in my factions and have a nice game. I don't want to spam some gimminick new unit that has been brought in the last codex and has absurdly OP rules to sell like Stormsurge, Riptide, Centurions, etc...

But I have to say it. The Space Marine players here negating the OP combos of Space Marines, one of the top-3 armies alongside Eldar and Chaos Daemon are just as funny as some Tau players in the other thread saying that Riptides and Stormsurge are fine Those good double standards.

 Galas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
If anyone wants to hate on Space marines, start with the Grav Centurions, bikes, and Librarius Conclate. That's about as cheesy as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc.

Thats the problem isn't it? The most iconic units in every codex are just thrash, and many of them have that gimminick ultra-OP combo with 2-3 units.

Tactical marines? Thrash.
Land raiders and Terminators? To the binn!
Fire warriors? Meh.
Piranhas and Hammerhead tanks? Direct to ebay.
Aspect Warriors? W-wait... Eldar can walk with their legs?!
Etc, etc...


When people call "Space Marines OP omg!" or "Tau OP omg!" they are ignoring the fact that normally, 80% of those codex are useless. Yeah, of course, they are better that Ork and Tyranid equivalents, but thats the other extreme. The fact remains that you can't pick the mayority of the units in the codex of Space Marines, Tau or Eldar, without feeling you are just stupid by not picking the most stronger option.

I want to field the most iconic units in my factions and have a nice game. I don't want to spam some gimminick new unit that has been brought in the last codex and has absurdly OP rules to sell like Stormsurge, Riptide, Centurions, etc...

But I have to say it. The Space Marine players here negating the OP combos of Space Marines, one of the top-3 armies alongside Eldar and Chaos Daemon are just as funny as some Tau players in the other thread saying that Riptides and Stormsurge are fine Those good double standards.

Agreed. Hell, Dreadnoughts are just garbage, but this new edition will hopefully fix them.

Anyone else have the same thought regarding the title of the thread? Honestly, I'm trying to think of a Faction which isn't designed to be breaking at least a few rules here and there.

Every army has their special stuff. Orders, synapse, Reanimate... I've always felt that atsknf and chapter tactics are pretty mediocre compared to some of the other army abilities, especially when considering the high cost and low damage output of the bland 1 wound marines.

Grav and the formations are like the marines' wraithknight; Obviously broken and only saw print because the previous design direction was, to be blunt, stupid. If you play a marine CAD with no grav, it feels like they're trying to fight while being multiple editions out of date.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Every army has their special stuff. Orders, synapse, Reanimate... I've always felt that atsknf and chapter tactics are pretty mediocre compared to some of the other army abilities, especially when considering the high cost and low damage output of the bland 1 wound marines.

Grav and the formations are like the marines' wraithknight; Obviously broken and only saw print because the previous design direction was, to be blunt, stupid. If you play a marine CAD with no grav, it feels like they're trying to fight while being multiple editions out of date.

Basically. And grav is largely good because of the number of dice it throws, in and of itself it's not that great. I guess my point is, grav wasn't designed well. But, grav is a consequence of monstrous creatures and all the 2+/5++/5+++ T6+ nonsense you see out there. In 7th edition grav is absolutely needed to hold your head above water. Without it, gg.

 Galas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
If anyone wants to hate on Space marines, start with the Grav Centurions, bikes, and Librarius Conclate. That's about as cheesy as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc.

Thats the problem isn't it? The most iconic units in every codex are just thrash, and many of them have that gimminick ultra-OP combo with 2-3 units.

Tactical marines? Thrash.
Land raiders and Terminators? To the binn!
Fire warriors? Meh.
Piranhas and Hammerhead tanks? Direct to ebay.
Aspect Warriors? W-wait... Eldar can walk with their legs?!
Etc, etc...


When people call "Space Marines OP omg!" or "Tau OP omg!" they are ignoring the fact that normally, 80% of those codex are useless. Yeah, of course, they are better that Ork and Tyranid equivalents, but thats the other extreme. The fact remains that you can't pick the mayority of the units in the codex of Space Marines, Tau or Eldar, without feeling you are just stupid by not picking the most stronger option.

I want to field the most iconic units in my factions and have a nice game. I don't want to spam some gimminick new unit that has been brought in the last codex and has absurdly OP rules to sell like Stormsurge, Riptide, Centurions, etc...

But I have to say it. The Space Marine players here negating the OP combos of Space Marines, one of the top-3 armies alongside Eldar and Chaos Daemon are just as funny as some Tau players in the other thread saying that Riptides and Stormsurge are fine Those good double standards.

I did state up above that marines have FANTASTIC gimmicks. But that's what they are, gimmicks. The rank and file marine unit actually kinda sucks. Their tanks mega suck.

Martel732 wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:
If anyone wants to hate on Space marines, start with the Grav Centurions, bikes, and Librarius Conclate. That's about as cheesy as Wraithknights, Riptides, etc.

Thats the problem isn't it? The most iconic units in every codex are just thrash, and many of them have that gimminick ultra-OP combo with 2-3 units.

Tactical marines? Thrash.
Land raiders and Terminators? To the binn!
Fire warriors? Meh.
Piranhas and Hammerhead tanks? Direct to ebay.
Aspect Warriors? W-wait... Eldar can walk with their legs?!
Etc, etc...


When people call "Space Marines OP omg!" or "Tau OP omg!" they are ignoring the fact that normally, 80% of those codex are useless. Yeah, of course, they are better that Ork and Tyranid equivalents, but thats the other extreme. The fact remains that you can't pick the mayority of the units in the codex of Space Marines, Tau or Eldar, without feeling you are just stupid by not picking the most stronger option.

I want to field the most iconic units in my factions and have a nice game. I don't want to spam some gimminick new unit that has been brought in the last codex and has absurdly OP rules to sell like Stormsurge, Riptide, Centurions, etc...

But I have to say it. The Space Marine players here negating the OP combos of Space Marines, one of the top-3 armies alongside Eldar and Chaos Daemon are just as funny as some Tau players in the other thread saying that Riptides and Stormsurge are fine Those good double standards.

I did state up above that marines have FANTASTIC gimmicks. But that's what they are, gimmicks. The rank and file marine unit actually kinda sucks. Their tanks mega suck.

assault cannon razerbacks in a gladius are pretty amazing for 20 points, and auto cannon preds with heavy bolter sponsons are still pretty awesome, but overall yea tanks have been meh this edition, space marine tanks doubly so.

Yeah, they're obviously awesome if you get them for free!

They pretty much have to bribe and/or force people to take vanilla SM units such as TAC marines and the like. If I have to paint one TAC marine I'll never play this game again

Not directed at any particular respondent, but I wanted to put it in record (for no real reason) that whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

I also totally forgot the whole combat squad thing wherein you can double your scoring units at deployment if you want to.
No other army can do that.
Or how about pick your flavour of army rules on the fly. Most people will homebrew an army and pick the chapter rules however they want.
I would say personally that Marines are like 2nd or 3rd in overall power level (no disputing Eldar at 1).

An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

 Boniface wrote:
Not directed at any particular respondent, but I wanted to put it in record (for no real reason) that whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

Well you said it yourself, SM are solidly in third place at the moment. People tend to pay more attention to extremes, and Eldar and Tau have some pretty extreme OP lists. SM players were given a bunch of tawdry handouts to compensate, because GW can't have their posterboys be seen with too much mud on their face. Most of the other factions simply weren't lucky enough to garner that kind of special treatment and attention.

Martel732 wrote:
An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

Without their gimmicks, Tau and Eldar would both suffer greatly, Orks would jump ahead in power, and people would actually think about taking Tyranids to the table for more than just the looks.

Tau and Eldar don't have gimmicks per se. They have mathematical niches and undercosted units. For example, the pulse rifle is twice as good vs T6 and 50% better vs T5, which are key T values in 7th ed compared to the imperial standard S4 small arm.

Martel732 wrote:
Tau and Eldar don't have gimmicks per se. They have mathematical niches and undercosted units. For example, the pulse rifle is twice as good vs T6 and 50% better vs T5, which are key T values in 7th ed compared to the imperial standard S4 small arm.

Wait a minute, Jet Pack, Markerlights, Supporting Fire, Drones, and Nova Reactors aren't gimmicks?

And that's just the weaker Tau stuff.

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

Without their gimmicks, Tau and Eldar would both suffer greatly, Orks would jump ahead in power, and people would actually think about taking Tyranids to the table for more than just the looks.

What do you consider to be a gimmick? I can't imagine someone bringing Orks or Tyranids and doing anything but die horribly against a bunch of uncatchable scatterlasers, the basic troop choice in the codex.

 Marmatag wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

Without their gimmicks, Tau and Eldar would both suffer greatly, Orks would jump ahead in power, and people would actually think about taking Tyranids to the table for more than just the looks.

What do you consider to be a gimmick? I can't imagine someone bringing Orks or Tyranids and doing anything but die horribly against a bunch of uncatchable scatterlasers, the basic troop choice in the codex.

scatter bikes are oddly not a big threat to my orks, lootas and big shootas on battlewagons and trukks pop en nicely. heck there is usually an attached farseer to at least one so tank bustas or rokkit buggies can one shot him after the squad is wiped... the wraithknights on the other hand... I got nothing for that

40K 7e simply has too many layers of rules stacked on top of eachother. SM are not the only guilty party in that regard.

Free transports are a gimmick. Libbiies that cast on a 2+ are a gimmick. Invis stars of ics from 5 codices is a gimmick.

Those items you listed are core rules to tau. Marines have jump packs instead of jetpacks for example. Its just that jump packs suck in 7th.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Tau and Eldar don't have gimmicks per se. They have mathematical niches and undercosted units. For example, the pulse rifle is twice as good vs T6 and 50% better vs T5, which are key T values in 7th ed compared to the imperial standard S4 small arm.

Wait a minute, Jet Pack, Markerlights, Supporting Fire, Drones, and Nova Reactors aren't gimmicks?

And that's just the weaker Tau stuff.

No i wouldn't say so. They are core systems. Tau are strong because of mathematical niches and undercosted units.

 Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

Your 13 ppm dire avengers can reliably kill terminators.

Spare me.

 Traditio wrote:

 Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

Your 13 ppm dire avengers can reliably kill terminators.

Spare me.

not reliably wiping whole terminator squads. say you have 10 (130 points) fire at a group of 5 terminators. assuming they are all in 18 inches to fire (they do not want to be this close to termies as if all in range they will be charged and killed) 20 shots, 13.2 hits wounds on 4's mini rend on 6's. assuming tac marines you still have a 5++ to the 2.2 rends so lose 1.5 terminators. 4.5 more wounds so .76 after saves. overall 2.26 dead terminators. people don't usually take DA in 10 men they take em in 5's so really 65 points will be there killing 1.13 termies and trying to run away after.

by that note 10 tac marines rapid firing bolters into termies nets 13.2 hits, 6.6 wounds before saves, 1.1 dead termies after saves. So sure they are twice as effective as marines at killing terminators with shooting at 12 inches and more so 12-18, they exchanged -1 str -1 t, minus 1 armor save, and no atsknf for the plus 1 I, somewhat nicer gun and battle focus and a single point per model... seems fair

I hope you are not saying DA are somehow the Eldar's problem. they have some awesome units that are undercosted but the DA are not them. heck compare scatter bikes or even shurican cannon bikes to tac marines and Da and you see the real overpowered elder units. honestly I would probably have fun playing a huge field of dire avengers against tac marines.

G00fySmiley wrote:not reliably. say you have 10 (130 points) fire at a group of 5 terminators. assuming they are all in 18 inches to fire (they do not want to be this close to termies as if all in range they will be charged and killed)

Battle focus. If you're at 18 inches, you can shoot and then fall back an average of 3.5 inches, putting you outside of terminator charge range.

I hope you are not saying DA are somehow the Eldar's problem.

Of course not.

I'm just saying that the "dire avengers are overcosted at 13 ppm compared to space marines at 14 ppm" isn't so obvious to me.

Yes, marines have a better stat line and an assortment of special rules. However, dire avengers are a point cheaper, have battle focus and have a gun with pseudo-rending.

I'm inclined to think that marines are probably better overall, but then, they should be. They're a point more expensive.

The question is how much better marines are than dire avengers.

In practice...?

DA aren't exactly the best troop choice to say troops suck.

Terminators aren't exactly the best measurement for survivability in 7E.

btw a dire avenger has slightly less then 15% chance to wound a terminator w/o cover.

TAC marines are a cost to field more powerful things. They're low mobility, low damage, low survivability. Things that don't flat out pen their armor have enough volume of fire to reliably remove them.

 Boniface wrote:
Not directed at any particular respondent, but I wanted to put it in record (for no real reason) that whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

But they don't have the most OP stuff - Eldar do. Why deal with SM why you could tackle the biggest issue - Eldar?

I also totally forgot the whole combat squad thing wherein you can double your scoring units at deployment if you want to.
No other army can do that.

Except combat squadding only works if you take a ten man squad. Your gimmick of "doubling scoring units" isn't really that good because I could just buy a second five man squads for the same price, which:
- Has another Sergeant
- Can take the same weapon as my original squad, plus a matching combi for the sergeant (so I could get two meltaguns and two combimeltas instead of a combimelta, meltagun and a single heavy weapon) allowing for better synergy
- Can have their own dedicated transport
- If I was taking a CAD with as few Tactical Squads as I could, I can get my "tax" units as cheap and as efficient as possible

If I was playing competitively, why would I take a ten man squad at all? The only time I can see a ten man squad, split into combat squads, as useful is if I had ran out of Troops choices in my detachment, or if for some reason I wanted more power armoured bodies in a formation involving Tactical Marines.

Note - this is coming from someone who has never actually fielded a 5 man squad of Tactical Marines in their life. I refuse to have a five man squad, regardless of the actual effectiveness. However, I fully recognise that it's very inefficient.

Or how about pick your flavour of army rules on the fly. Most people will homebrew an army and pick the chapter rules however they want.

What stops anyone from doing that?
If they've made up a custom chapter, then how are you to dictate their homebrew? If they took Ultramarines, and then played them with White Scars tactics, I could understand it, but a custom chapter? That's just being anal.

And again, what stops CSM players from doing that now, with their Legion rules? How about 30k? The Iyanden supplement, or any other one - are you saying that ONLY models painted in a certain way could have those rules? Because I can guarantee, I don't think I saw a single Iyanden army using the Iyanden rules - of course YMMV.

I would say personally that Marines are like 2nd or 3rd in overall power level (no disputing Eldar at 1).

No disputing, if they're going all out on cheese. If not, then one only has to look at the Blood Angels to see what they're like without their crutch units.

 Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

Your right losing bit of range for going to assault and getting not quite rending is a true disadvantage.

 Marmatag wrote:
TAC marines are a cost to field more powerful things. They're low mobility, low damage, low survivability. Things that don't flat out pen their armor have enough volume of fire to reliably remove them.

for troops they are more survivable than most. armies outside of Necrons, gray knight termies and elder windriders (technically the same but that mobility and 2d6 assault move). probably tied with tyranid warriors on durability though warriors have a bad time of str 8 popping them. I think in general across the board troops should be better (tac marines included) but I am not sure how to accomplish that. I dont' think tac marines or a lot of troops are bad for the points they are just not... good. I do agree that the top tier armies can dissolve tac marines like sugar in water, but some like orks, tyranids, dark elder, and even other space marine chapters can have a difficult time of them. hoping 8th makes them and all troops relevant though. would love some universal troop rule that makes them somehow more durable like "dug in" or "on mission" when holding objectives maybe a plus armor save or minus to hit indicating they are all at the destination and holding per orders knowing they don't need to go anywhere maybe only if they do not move or something... I am just spit balling thoughts there.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
TAC marines are a cost to field more powerful things. They're low mobility, low damage, low survivability. Things that don't flat out pen their armor have enough volume of fire to reliably remove them.

for troops they are more survivable than most. armies outside of Necrons, gray knight termies and elder windriders (technically the same but that mobility and 2d6 assault move). probably tied with tyranid warriors on durability though warriors have a bad time of str 8 popping them. I think in general across the board troops should be better (tac marines included) but I am not sure how to accomplish that. I dont' think tac marines or a lot of troops are bad for the points they are just not... good. I do agree that the top tier armies can dissolve tac marines like sugar in water, but some like orks, tyranids, dark elder, and even other space marine chapters can have a difficult time of them. hoping 8th makes them and all troops relevant though. would love some universal troop rule that makes them somehow more durable like "dug in" or "on mission" when holding objectives maybe a plus armor save or minus to hit indicating they are all at the destination and holding per orders knowing they don't need to go anywhere maybe only if they do not move or something... I am just spit balling thoughts there.

Things we know in 8th edition:

Boltguns no longer have AP5. They're AP -, so everything gets a save against them.

-Save Mods will negatively impact the survivability of the average TAC marine. This doesn't affect other armies as much, because they aren't paying points for the 3+ save.

So TAC marines are getting measurably worse in 8th edition.

Being a jack of all trades, master of none, doesn't really help an army, especially with survivability dropping dramatically, which was their claim to fame compared to other troops.

It really matters that they where 3+?
Who in 7th didn't had Ap2 or Ap3?
The ammount of saves a marine will do in 8th, I think will be much greater that the ones it did in 7th. Yeah, many will be at 4+ or 5+.
But better to have 100 saves at 4+ that 20 at 3+ and 80 at 0.

And I agree. I understand that troops are the most basic thing, and they can't be ultra special, but I think troops should be better and affect more your strategy. But I think the problem is not that troops are bad, but that all of the other things are much better.

Marmatag wrote:What do you consider to be a gimmick? I can't imagine someone bringing Orks or Tyranids and doing anything but die horribly against a bunch of uncatchable scatterlasers, the basic troop choice in the codex.

Well, things like: Jet Pack, Markerlights, Supporting Fire, Drones, and Nova Reactors for Tau; Battle Focus, Bladestorm, Distort Scythe, and Flickerjump for Eldar.

At least Scatterlasers lost Laser Lock. I know its not much help against the spam, but it helps a smidge.

Martel732 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Tau and Eldar don't have gimmicks per se. They have mathematical niches and undercosted units. For example, the pulse rifle is twice as good vs T6 and 50% better vs T5, which are key T values in 7th ed compared to the imperial standard S4 small arm.

Wait a minute, Jet Pack, Markerlights, Supporting Fire, Drones, and Nova Reactors aren't gimmicks?

And that's just the weaker Tau stuff.

No i wouldn't say so. They are core systems. Tau are strong because of mathematical niches and undercosted units.

Jet Pack may be something in the rulebook, but the Tau were the first to have them, and the only ones to have them for a long time. Only a very few units have it outside their book, and one of them is Eldar.

The rest of the stuff can only be found in the Tau codex, so its not core to the game. Sure, its core to them, but how much in the OP isn't Core to the Codex Marines these days?

Everyone is misusing the word gimmick... it's annoying me more than it should. A gimmick is like Space Wolves Tac. Squad having counterattack because if you're charging them to begin with you're expecting to wipe them to a man. Whereas a shooting unit will let them charge in order to overwatch. It's nice, but overall changes nothing in the end against the majority of matchups.

See other things like... Banishment on every GK unit, IG Veteran Squads all having meltabombs, 6++ on every SoB, the Malceptor from the Tyranids, the Eversor death explosion.

Now that's out of the way, the OP obviously is little sensitive to Tau Bashing even though it is well deserved. People complain about atsknf all the time and grav and Imperium deathstar. Eldar is Eldar, but they engage in multiple phases at least. I dunno what the point of this thread is but to be snarky, so don't be suprised when people are snarky right back, especially to I think perhaps one of the most disliked factions after Aeldari and Necrons.

 Luciferian wrote:

 Boniface wrote:
Not directed at any particular respondent, but I wanted to put it in record (for no real reason) that whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

Well you said it yourself, SM are solidly in third place at the moment. People tend to pay more attention to extremes, and Eldar and Tau have some pretty extreme OP lists. SM players were given a bunch of tawdry handouts to compensate, because GW can't have their posterboys be seen with too much mud on their face. Most of the other factions simply weren't lucky enough to garner that kind of special treatment and attention.

Tau are NOT in the top three and never have been without the Tau'nar. The 3 best armies in the game, statistically based on GT+ victories are Eldar->Daemons->Space Marines in that order.

 Galas wrote:
It really matters that they where 3+?
Who in 7th didn't had Ap2 or Ap3?
The ammount of saves a marine will do in 8th, I think will be much greater that the ones it did in 7th. Yeah, many will be at 4+ or 5+.
But better to have 100 saves at 4+ that 20 at 3+ and 80 at 0.

And I agree. I understand that troops are the most basic thing, and they can't be ultra special, but I think troops should be better and affect more your strategy. But I think the problem is not that troops are bad, but that all of the other things are much better.

A lot of people...
More than a few lists used wealth of shots

https://www.tabletoptournaments.net/t3_armies.php?gid=3&cid=0&latest=1

Don't know how relevant T3 tournaments are these days but here are their result spreads.

Yeah, Tau always come as ultra cheesy but really, in the TOP TIER Rankings, they are always 4rt.

The problem is that the moderate power of their units, as Martel said, is OK. Fire Warriors aren't gonna conquer Terra but they are very capable of defending themselves. I think they are balanced, but when compared with the basic troops of other factions, that normally are completely useless, they seem as OP. And this in general goes to the rest of the Codex (Ignoring things like Vespids, etc...)

There are a good number of reasons Tau are hated worse than the cheesiest of Freestuffmarines or Deathstarmarines or even Eldar.
I personally enjoy listening to Tau gripes, here's a few of my favorites.

* Because some armies can't even build to face a Tournament all-comers Tau list in a single match - AM and Nids are good examples.
* Because they killed more on my turn than I did! They killed my deepstrikers with EWO, they killed my chargers with Overwatch, their MCs and GMCs killed my melee units in melee!
* Because I couldn't even get to their side of the table.

As bad as Marines and Eldar can get, hurtful results like that are few and far between.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
There are a good number of reasons Tau are hated worse than the cheesiest of Freestuffmarines or Deathstarmarines or even Eldar.
I personally enjoy listening to Tau gripes, here's a few of my favorites.

* Because some armies can't even build to face a Tournament all-comers Tau list in a single match - AM and Nids are good examples.
* Because they killed more on my turn than I did! They killed my deepstrikers with EWO, they killed my chargers with Overwatch, their MCs and GMCs killed my melee units in melee!
* Because I couldn't even get to their side of the table.

As bad as Marines and Eldar can get, hurtful results like that are few and far between.

The fact that you don't even mention how busted daemons are hurts me.

Marmatag wrote:Things we know in 8th edition:

Boltguns no longer have AP5. They're AP -, so everything gets a save against them.

-Save Mods will negatively impact the survivability of the average TAC marine. This doesn't affect other armies as much, because they aren't paying points for the 3+ save.

So TAC marines are getting measurably worse in 8th edition.

Being a jack of all trades, master of none, doesn't really help an army, especially with survivability dropping dramatically, which was their claim to fame compared to other troops.

I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you:

The negative AP mods only adversely affect marines with respect to AP 4, which will likely downgrade power armor to a 4+ rather than a 3+.

Marines are actually getting buffed with respect to AP 3 (which will likely reduce marines to a 5+ save) and AP 2 weapons (which will likely reduce marines to a 6+ save).

So against AP 3 and AP 2, marines are actually more durable, not less.

Also, the changes to the way that cover works make it so that marines in cover start off with a 2+ instead of a 3+/5++.

Yes, marines will be marginally less durable against AP 1 when in cover, but by and large, marines are more durable now.

So I play Militarum Tempestus in the ITC. We are not a strong codex at all but I don't worry about space marine armies. I have tabled Skyhammer, Gladius, Demi, and even killed Rawbutt Girlyman in my last game. What I cannot counter are the gimmick army lists (tau, eldar, deamons, super friends). Marines are well rounded and strong but beatable even buy the weaker armies.

ERJAK wrote:

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
There are a good number of reasons Tau are hated worse than the cheesiest of Freestuffmarines or Deathstarmarines or even Eldar.
I personally enjoy listening to Tau gripes, here's a few of my favorites.

* Because some armies can't even build to face a Tournament all-comers Tau list in a single match - AM and Nids are good examples.
* Because they killed more on my turn than I did! They killed my deepstrikers with EWO, they killed my chargers with Overwatch, their MCs and GMCs killed my melee units in melee!
* Because I couldn't even get to their side of the table.

As bad as Marines and Eldar can get, hurtful results like that are few and far between.

The fact that you don't even mention how busted daemons are hurts me.

Truth be told there's a grand total of one Daemon player where I play at, even in the state events, although he's crazy good I don't hear any complaints about him or his army, people enjoy playing against them.

As a Renegade player I love the fact that we never get stick for being OP despite easily being up there with Marines (maybe not eldar though). I mean let's face it - with Ordnance Tyrant we have two of THE most effective rule breaking rules in the game. Let's forget that in The Purge we can also just create dangerous terrain all over the board, Ordnance Tyrant firstly let's you ignore the need for any tax unit and just spam all the units you want in a Purge or CAD and take waaay more heavy than any other lists allow (18 altogether in one Purge). But secondly and more importantly, Ordnance Tyrant let's you ignore the restriction of shooting into combat with barrage weapons - and Renegades can take advantage of this better than anyone! 55pt Earthshakers and Wyvers, 30pt Quad Mortars, also 55pt 3 man spawn units are T5 so arent doubled out by the Earthshakers, whilst 3pt Renegades with Sigils or Zombie hordes can take casualties en-mass and shrug it off whilst the opponents they are fighting in assault get worn down by the continuous blasts... and there is very little the opponent can do about it. If you take tough allies it gets even better for the Quad, Mortar or Wyvern blasts.
Whilst Unending Horde lets you literally ignore the entire death mechanic 5/6ths of the time! And you get to outflank when they come back so they are right back in the game straight away, so aside from killpoint games there is literally no downside. Simply ignoring the entire death mechanic (You have to admit - THE main mechanic of the game) 83% of the time is far more rule breaking then ATSKNF!

To this day I still have no idea why Renegades don't get as much dislike directed at them as SM, Eldar, Tau and Necrons.

 Boniface wrote:
In that thread it's essentially a slag match about how everyone hates Tau.

Not really. I've seen actual Tau-bashing threads before (as well as ones that pretend to have a point but are thinly-veiled hate threads) and that one isn't really that bad. It's mostly full of people who don't like their rules which, to be honest, is actually a fair complaint. In fact the OP even rejected the notion that Tau were overpowered at all and insisted more that the gameplay experience was just frustrating for both sides, which is also not usually how those threads start, either.

Other armies have their bs and gimmicks, Marines included, but the worst ones usually get the loudest complaints, like Tau and Eldar. Of course there are still people out there who reject them based purely on subjective means, like their aesthetic or background (or both), but Tau aren't the only army there, either: Tyranids seem to get a lot of that style of hate for some reason, too, despite the fact that they should fit in the universe perfectly.

Anyway, looking forward to 8th edition...hopefully a lot of these issues, with every army, get fixed.

Poly Ranger wrote:
As a Renegade player I love the fact that we never get stick for being OP despite easily being up there with Marines (maybe not eldar though). I mean let's face it - with Ordnance Tyrant we have two of THE most effective rule breaking rules in the game. Let's forget that in The Purge we can also just create dangerous terrain all over the board, Ordnance Tyrant firstly let's you ignore the need for any tax unit and just spam all the units you want in a Purge or CAD and take waaay more heavy than any other lists allow (18 altogether in one Purge). But more secondly and more importantly, Ordnance Tyrant let's you ignore the restriction of shooting into combat with barrage weapons - and Renegades can take advantage of this better than anyone! 55pt Earthshakers and Wyvers, 30pt Quad Mortars, also 55pt 3 man spawn units are T5 so arent doubled out by the Earthshakers, whilst 3pt Renegades with Sigils or Zombie hordes can take casualties en-mass and shrug it off whilst the opponents they are fighting in assault get worn down by the continuous blasts... and there is very little the opponent can do about it. If you take tough allies it gets even better for the Quad, Mortar or Wyvern blasts.
Whilst Unending Horde lets you literally ignore the entire death mechanic 5/6ths of the time! And you get to outflank when they come back so they are right back in the game straight away, so aside from killpoint games there is literally no downside. Simply ignoring the entire death mechanic (You have to admit - THE main mechanic of the game) 83% of the time is far more rule breaking then ATSKNF!

To this day I still have no idea why Renegades don't get as much dislike directed at them as SM, Eldar, Tau and Necrons.

Probably because Renegade isn't REALLY a 40k Faction?

It's Forgeworld, and some people don't even play with FW at all.

Hell, when I go onto the Official 40k Website and check out the Factions - https://warhammer40000.com/setting/explore-the-factions/
Under Chaos I see... Daemons, Space Marines, Thousand Sons, Death Guard. I don't see Chaos Renegades. This website lists Ynnari, Harlequins, Genestealer Cults, Adepta Sororitas, and even Imperial Agents. Tho they don't seem to list Renegades...

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Tamwulf wrote:
Ultimate Beat Sticks? You mean Wraithknights? Riptides? Saint Celestine? Swarmlord? Greater Deamons of Khorne? Up until Roboute showed up, Space Marines pretty much had nothing in this class of model.

captain/chapter master smashfetcher has been around for a while and can take primarchs. bike plus gorgon's chain or shield etenal, artificer armor and a thunderhammer. he can wreck plenty of lords of war if they do not roll 6's to stomp or on d table

Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

battle focus too, though honestly the tactical marine still wins out. the dire avenger has to run 6 to match the range of a bolter if 24" from the target , and while it has 2 shots at the 18 (sort of but not quite matched by rapid fire in 12 the pseudo rending certainly counts for something. but advantage is still tac marines. in either case neither model is really as competitive as other options. you don't see elder players taking tournaments with 6 squads of kitted dire avengers nor outside of gladius do you see tons of tac marines. troops are a tax because they are middle of the road not horrible but not great units.

Um no the Tactical Marine does not win out. Chaos Marines lost mathematically when you consider that you can always stay out of rapid fire range and still get your 2 18" shots off. While true the Chaos Marine didn't get a good update until Legions, consider:
1. Very few Legions affect durability. Death Guard Vanilla Marines will take it all, but nobody else is going to (because you're getting a 6+++ max unless you use emperors Children and pay 35 points to get an Icon that'll be sniped)
2. Nothing offensive is boosted. Range wise at least.
So ignoring morale and potential cover the Chaos Marines lost. Cover is interesting because in certain situations one squad will benefit more than the other.

Now remember that Tactical Marines don't get the second Special Weapon and instead take a Heavy Weapon that's snap firing if they're moving. Very few Chapter Tactics will make any difference here, and the Avenger defensive abilities won't matter because Tactical Marines don't charge anything ever, contrary to popular belief when all those grenades are SO good.

SO yeah Eldar players don't have a reason to take Dire Avengers over Scatterbikes. However, Dire Avenger do better than most troops thanks to a good gun and more importantly not pretending to tackle a role they're not supposed to. They hold objectives and make charges on that objective less savory and stick with being Anti-Infantry, rather than being able to take a single special weapon or two and pretending to be multi-talented.

Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

 Stephanius wrote:
Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

Chaos was easily the most frustrating army to play against. A good mixed Daemons or Cabal list, and later anything to do with Tzeentch, was nut punchingly aweful to play against. Two games against chaos and I start praying for drop marines or TauDar.

Sidstyler wrote:Not really. I've seen actual Tau-bashing threads before (as well as ones that pretend to have a point but are thinly-veiled hate threads) and that one isn't really that bad. It's mostly full of people who don't like their rules which, to be honest, is actually a fair complaint.

Pretty much.

 Stephanius wrote:
Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

Considering how easily this "I hate Space Marines" thread turned into another "I hate Tau" thread...

 Stephanius wrote:
Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

Exactly How many units are silly with Drop Pods though? Far as I know the most popular use was with Skitarii. That's no longer a thing.

Drop pods don't make space marines strong.

 Marmatag wrote:
Drop pods don't make space marines strong.

Nope. Drop Pods make everything in the army weak on its own, because Space Marine units have to be designed/balanced assuming they could be anywhere they want on the table on turn one with a guaranteed shot before anyone gets to shoot back.

Imagine, for the moment, Fire Dragons with Drop Pods.

Would they be 35pts better? Or would they be absurdly, vastly, incalculably better?

Drop pods are fluffy and a good idea but very badly implemented.
Wargames are all about moving your troops and manouvering. Drop Pods are a point and click game system.

 Galas wrote:
Drop pods are fluffy and a good idea but very badly implemented.
Wargames are all about moving your troops and manouvering. Drop Pods are a point and click game system.

(Personally I'd implement them as just forward deployment. Roll on a table, some results are "the Drop Pod landed safely and you can put it down in no-man's-land", some results are "the Drop Pod landed off-target and the unit inside wanders on from a random table edge on turn (X)". Take away the "my secret doom arsenal is coming to explode you and there's not a thing you can do about it!" angle, make pods interactible/allow people to react to them.)

Careful, the thread will get locked if you don't agree with "STFU or don't play"

Danny slag wrote:
Careful, the thread will get locked if you don't agree with "STFU or don't play"

Will you please stop, no one told you that: you made that up yourself. If you'd like we can continue the discussion of whether this next edition favours marines but that is conditional on you stopping this childish behaviour.

Well, to all the Marine defenders, from the top of my head Marines:
-can completely negate my armies fighting capability via deepstrike
-Destroy my expensive and vulnerable hard hitters (LRBT) via deepstrike melta spam, unless I invest in hundreds of infantry to bubble wrap them, about forty per tank to ensure melta range i negated?
-Out tank me thanks to magic super special secret dquirrel abilities that they unlock by bringing full squadrons of their much cheaper tanks. S10 AP1 10" blast ignores cover? because you brought three Vindicators? Hahahaha NO.
-Unless I invest in carapace armoured vets, invalidate my armour.
-Outflank and rape, right into my deployment zone.
-Easily beat my infantry in a fire fight thanks to superior weapons, stats and armour.
-Wow, I finally forced a Marine unit to fail its morale check and flee, and because it is below 25% strength it needs double '1's to ral-oh wait, ATSKNF
-Oh wow, I finally beat a Marine squad in close combat, now for that juicy Sweeping Advance and hey, I rolled a '6' which with my Initiative gives me a '9', there is almost no way they can get away n-oh wait, ATSKNF
-I want to kill that big beasty, I have to invest in hundreds of shots backed up with orders. Marines need a grav cannon or two.
-"WAAAGGHHHH, FWEE TWANSPORTS IS NOOT GUD IT TEWWIBLE, I HWAVE TO BWING BASIC MAWENS". Cute, I wish I had a formation that gave me free Obsec transports whilst allowing me to still bring a relatively flexible and powerful fighting force. Sadly I am stuck with 1200 points of basic infantry, which gives me access to one more Platoon order, and an extra Company Command order. Oh, and removes Obsec from my units.
-Libraruius Conclave. Because they really, really REALLY, needed this.
-Skyrape intervention force. Hahahahaha NOPE. This basically invalidates my entire army on turn one.

So, yes, Marines are heinously broken. Maybe not so much as Eldar, but from the humble Guardsmans perspective, broken.

I wanted to originally reply to all of those points that Ordnance made, but to be honest it isn't worth it simply because of the Vindicator complaint.

If you can't cripple at least ONE Vindicator to stop the giant blast, you're a bad player. It's as simple as that. I can do that with Tyranids when I use them. Ya know, the army with the most limited AT.

MoO:

Again, some of those complaints are legitimate.

However, you are failing to consider that space marines are 14 ppm.

Yes, my marines are more durable, have better stats, etc. than your 5 point models.

That's not complaint-worthy.

I'm usually not a fan of "l2p," because there are a lot of legitimate balance issues in the game. Some lists are just better, and you need to outplay the opponent and be considerably luckier than them to win against those...

But MoO, I have been absolutely destroyed by some guard lists. I had a pod spam list with skyhammer, meltas, grav cannons etc at a GT, and I bounced right off a guard list that had vsg, a few barrage artillery, some psykers, and a ton of infantry blocking access to the shielded area and holding me out of melta range of the only armored target. Splashed off him like water. (Fwiw, it was Jason horn, the iron halo GT organizer, who is quite good.)

Maybe you're overlooking some builds that would help you out and not be so bitter against an army that honestly isn't that much better than yours. It has a greater number of viable lists, but part of that is formations, which I've been crusading as being the worst mechanic to hit the game ever, and grav, which is just silly. I don't touch either of those things with a 10 foot pole unless someone asks for the "tourney experience."

This edition is crappy, and there are a lot of builds that are bad because of bad point costing or bad rules. Vehicles suck, walkers suck, "older" (pre-grav) imperial heavy weapons suck, troops on foot suck, non-fearless guys suck, melee units that can't move at light speed or take hundreds of shots to bring down suck... the list goes on.

That's the state of the game this edition, and if you must win, then you have to have a grasp on that and build your list with it in mind. I'm not sure who your local marine player(s) are, but they must've been less than cordial to you for you to be so indiscriminately negative towards marine players you've never met, but maybe you could try asking them for less competitive games with no gladius or grav, and ask for help building some lists or using the units in game.

 Stephanius wrote:
Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

There is a very easy way to judge whose running a gladius cheese list and whose not. "how many marines to a squad?"
if he's running a demi company with 3 ten man tac squads, he's no cheesing,. (hell if he's running a BATTLE COMPANY with 10 man squads he's proably not cheesing) as always the fluff vs cheese question re marines can beanswered with "did he take more tac marines then is nesscary?"

Okay, from the top:

@ Slayer Fan.
I had a Marine opponent whose chief trick was to run a 5 man Libby Conclave and a triple Vindiderp squadron. He would roll util he got Invisibility and then set up with the Vindicators in a solid wall with the Librarians behind them and then cast Invisibility on them ever single turn. So I had a wall of invisible vindicators advancing towards me, with a unit of Librarians hiding behind them and there was nothing I could do, leastwhys until Sisters of Silence where released last year. Also most of my AT consists of Melta guns with only three Rapiers for support.... You make the call.

@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun.

@ niy-mizzed
And I have utterly destroyed some Marine lists, but still lost some of those games owing to the sheer mobility that the Marines have, allowing them to capture objectives whilst I cannot even leave my deployment zone for fear of assaults and if I do still be unable to make it to the objective fast enough..

BrianDavion wrote:

 Stephanius wrote:
Space Marines get to have their cake and eat it too. For me the prime example of that are drop pods.

Wait for Turn 2 - no, le'ts be special instead.
Scatter? - no, that is for the bad guys.
Scoring? - sure, why not? AV12 is easy to remove if anyone cares.
Point cost? - let's go for 1/3rd of the worse Chaos version - cancel that, make it available free.

Drop pods should be battlefield debries once they crash-landed. Everyone should have the same risk deep-striking. I hope that 8th Edition will make the later so - like AoS more or less has if I understand correctly.

I understand you have to pay points for not broken units to unlock free obsec rides, since tac marines are merely fairly costed, but the advantage of being able to block your opponent with a load of free rhinos and razorbacks, which force your opponent to focus their fire on them or spent turn after turn trying manouver around them, not to mention the afremorentioned drop dops more than makes up for that.

However, the worst by far is someone fielding a Gladius Cheese Force and pretending to be a Fluff-Bunny with a super fair list, oblivious to how broken that is against most armies.

SM - not to mention SW or other special snowflake chapters - can be just as - or with the "but we are the poor good guys stick" even more - annoying as Tau and Eldar. =]

*has high hopes for 8th properly leveling the field across the board*

There is a very easy way to judge whose running a gladius cheese list and whose not. "how many marines to a squad?"
if he's running a demi company with 3 ten man tac squads, he's no cheesing,. (hell if he's running a BATTLE COMPANY with 10 man squads he's proably not cheesing) as always the fluff vs cheese question re marines can beanswered with "did he take more tac marines then is nesscary?"

What if he can't actually get tac marines?
I mean Grey Hunters can't get Heavy Weapons, can only really be upgraded to melee specialists, can't combat squad and get into all the wolfyness you could ever wolf on your wolfiest wolf.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Okay, from the top:

@ Slayer Fan.
I had a Marine opponent whose chief trick was to run a 5 man Libby Conclave and a triple Vindiderp squadron. He would roll util he got Invisibility and then set up with the Vindicators in a solid wall with the Librarians behind them and then cast Invisibility on them ever single turn. So I had a wall of invisible vindicators advancing towards me, with a unit of Librarians hiding behind them and there was nothing I could do, leastwhys until Sisters of Silence where released last year. Also most of my AT consists of Melta guns with only three Rapiers for support.... You make the call.

@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun.

@ niy-mizzed
And I have utterly destroyed some Marine lists, but still lost some of those games owing to the sheer mobility that the Marines have, allowing them to capture objectives whilst I cannot even leave my deployment zone for fear of assaults and if I do still be unable to make it to the objective fast enough..

Psst, use a higher ppm unit to highlight the difference... like Militarum Tempestus. Also speaking of Militarum Tempestus, your previous post MT could do 2/3rds of what you listed ATSKNF being the exception.

What? They can do 4 points at best, not anywhere near 2/3 of the list.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Okay, from the top:

@ Slayer Fan.
I had a Marine opponent whose chief trick was to run a 5 man Libby Conclave and a triple Vindiderp squadron. He would roll util he got Invisibility and then set up with the Vindicators in a solid wall with the Librarians behind them and then cast Invisibility on them ever single turn. So I had a wall of invisible vindicators advancing towards me, with a unit of Librarians hiding behind them and there was nothing I could do, leastwhys until Sisters of Silence where released last year. Also most of my AT consists of Melta guns with only three Rapiers for support.... You make the call.

You play guard. You have probably the best answer to this if anyone. Barrage for days. Set up 30" away from the vindi's, either toss the plates on the tanks (if playing ITC invis nerf) or on the libbies if playing by-book invis. He is pouring over 800 points for 3 vindis and 5 lv2 libbies, more if he's tossing in Tiggy or other upgrades. That's a titanic investment for a single decent shot with crap range and some very debilitating weaknesses. Find out which guy rolled invis and put 300 pie plates on his head, and then proceed to nuke the tanks after they become visible. (You also can accidentally hit the tanks at the same time. A single shaken result and the mega shot can't even fire.)

@ niv-mizzet
And I have utterly destroyed some Marine lists, but still lost some of those games owing to the sheer mobility that the Marines have, allowing them to capture objectives whilst I cannot even leave my deployment zone for fear of assaults and if I do still be unable to make it to the objective fast enough..

They move 6 and run d6. No more mobile than you. And there's no need to be scared of basic marines in melee. Some frontline guard with a cheapo priest can easily rock them out. They suck at melee when considering their point cost. (And in fact their damage output all around is awful for their cost,) the only thing they really have going for them is okay durability. Even if they beat your squads, you should be losing cheap as chips guard while your ordnance and barrage continues to wreck their day. That's a win.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Well, to all the Marine defenders, from the top of my head Marines:
-can completely negate my armies fighting capability via deepstrike
-Destroy my expensive and vulnerable hard hitters (LRBT) via deepstrike melta spam, unless I invest in hundreds of infantry to bubble wrap them, about forty per tank to ensure melta range i negated?
-Out tank me thanks to magic super special secret dquirrel abilities that they unlock by bringing full squadrons of their much cheaper tanks. S10 AP1 10" blast ignores cover? because you brought three Vindicators? Hahahaha NO.
-Unless I invest in carapace armoured vets, invalidate my armour.
-Outflank and rape, right into my deployment zone.
-Easily beat my infantry in a fire fight thanks to superior weapons, stats and armour.
-Wow, I finally forced a Marine unit to fail its morale check and flee, and because it is below 25% strength it needs double '1's to ral-oh wait, ATSKNF
-Oh wow, I finally beat a Marine squad in close combat, now for that juicy Sweeping Advance and hey, I rolled a '6' which with my Initiative gives me a '9', there is almost no way they can get away n-oh wait, ATSKNF
-I want to kill that big beasty, I have to invest in hundreds of shots backed up with orders. Marines need a grav cannon or two.
-"WAAAGGHHHH, FWEE TWANSPORTS IS NOOT GUD IT TEWWIBLE, I HWAVE TO BWING BASIC MAWENS". Cute, I wish I had a formation that gave me free Obsec transports whilst allowing me to still bring a relatively flexible and powerful fighting force. Sadly I am stuck with 1200 points of basic infantry, which gives me access to one more Platoon order, and an extra Company Command order. Oh, and removes Obsec from my units.
-Libraruius Conclave. Because they really, really REALLY, needed this.
-Skyrape intervention force. Hahahahaha NOPE. This basically invalidates my entire army on turn one.

So, yes, Marines are heinously broken. Maybe not so much as Eldar, but from the humble Guardsmans perspective, broken.

Can't help if you aren't good at list building. You should have few problems with non-battle company, non-super friends lists. Drop pods strand units on foot who are easily out-maneuvered after they drop. Marines usually can't afford stormravens, but guard CAN afford Valkyries. Use them.

master of ordinance wrote:@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun..

People have basically been making this same kind of argument for ages now...long before 7th, long before 6th edition. Marines get too many special rules. Marines have too good of a stat line. And so forth and so on.

Here's the deal:

A marine is a 14 point model. They used to be more expensive. The price has come down. But let's be real about this: it's still a 14 point model.

Is it more expensive for you to upgrade a guardsmen piece meal up to an almost marine like status (though still not quite)?

Of course it is.

You're not supposed to do that. That's not what the IG codex is supposed to do.

Fact is, IG has extremely cheap infantry and, correspondingly, a fair deal of points efficiency for their fire power.

A meltagun costs a minimum of 80 points in the marine codex.

It only costs 70 in the IG codex, and then, you have five more meat shields to protect that meltagun. [But let's be real. You'll pay 90 for 3 meltaguns...that would cost a minimum of 240 points in the marines codex.]

Fact is, marines pay a high initial points cost for a set of stats and rules that they probably will not utilize all together in a single game. For example: if you put a meltagun on a marine, you are wasting those 4s in the WS and S portions of the stat line.

Oh, you put a power sword on sarge? Then you'll be wasting that 4 in the BS part of the stat line once you're actually in combat, as well as the value of the boltgun itself.

You think basic marines are so great and IG are so bad?

I tell you what.

You field a marine army. Don't use drop pods. Don't use grav. Don't use any of the "crutch" options. Use only marines in power armor (for example, no centurions).

Field that against an IG army.

Tell me how that works out for you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I tell you what, MoO, while we're on the topic...

...why don't we talk about how ridiculous it is that you get to field a model with a 4 in the BS part of the stat line for only 6 points?

Or why don't we talk about how ridiculously cheap and spammable your tanks, artillery and fliers are?

 Traditio wrote:

master of ordinance wrote:@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun..

People have basically been making this same kind of argument for ages now...long before 7th, long before 6th edition. Marines get too many special rules. Marines have too good of a stat line. And so forth and so on.

Here's the deal:

A marine is a 14 point model. They used to be more expensive. The price has come down. But let's be real about this: it's still a 14 point model.

Is it more expensive for you to upgrade a guardsmen piece meal up to an almost marine like status (though still not quite)?

Of course it is.

You're not supposed to do that. That's not what the IG codex is supposed to do.

Fact is, IG has extremely cheap infantry and, correspondingly, a fair deal of points efficiency for their fire power.

A meltagun costs a minimum of 80 points in the marine codex.

It only costs 70 in the IG codex, and then, you have five more meat shields to protect that meltagun. [But let's be real. You'll pay 90 for 3 meltaguns...that would cost a minimum of 240 points in the marines codex.]

Fact is, marines pay a high initial points cost for a set of stats and rules that they probably will not utilize all together in a single game. For example: if you put a meltagun on a marine, you are wasting those 4s in the WS and S portions of the stat line.

Oh, you put a power sword on sarge? Then you'll be wasting that 4 in the BS part of the stat line once you're actually in combat, as well as the value of the boltgun itself.

You think basic marines are so great and IG are so bad?

I tell you what.

You field a marine army. Don't use drop pods. Don't use grav. Don't use any of the "crutch" options. Use only marines in power armor (for example, no centurions).

Field that against an IG army.

Tell me how that works out for you.

It's a TRAP!
He's trying to get you to buy Marines insert chosen religious top dog here forbid you buying Marines! You'll just make them more popular and prone to better statlines and more free stuff!

Leeman Russes OP.

That's all I'm saying.

master of ordinance wrote:@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun..

Alternate counter-argument: not all option pricing is created equal. 8pts for power armour on an Inquisitor, for instance, is a 3+ save on three Wounds. Why is it the same price on one Wound?

Consider instead the case of the Imperialis Militia list over in 30k. For the price of Survivors of the Dark Age (a one-time 75pt upgrade on your HQ) all your Grenadier squads are running around with 3+ armour, add in Advanced Weapons and lasrifles and you're looking at 7.5pt models with Ld7 Veteran statlines, power armour, 30" range boltguns, and frag and krak grenades. 30k and 40k pricing may not be created equal (a Tactical Marine is 11.5pts in a full squad in 30k, 12.5 in a minimum squad), and I do grant that the 17pt Guard Veteran and the 7.5pt Militia Grenadier are extreme cases in the pricing of a Guard veteran in power armour with a bolter, but it still seems to me like you've constructed a pretty incomplete picture of the situation.

The problem still seems to be that we've got two sides arguing almost unrelated points here. Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

Yes. They do. And yes. They are. The problem is that power creep and gun size creep have made the advantages of being a Space Marine irrelevant in competitive environments, so the Space Marine player is thinking "dude, I need all this stuff to do something about all the people steamrolling me", and people with lower-tier/less-updated armies are thinking "dude, you're already light-years ahead of us, stop whining", and they're both correct because the arguments are unrelated.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Traditio wrote:
Leeman Russes OP.

That's all I'm saying.

*pft*

*pft*

Ha.

(Maybe once the AoS-style random-hits blast rules show up and battle cannons become more effective than flyswatters against anything with more than one Wound/hull point.)

AnomanderRake wrote:Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

I'm actually not making that claim at all.

This is what I'm saying:

"Marines get too many special rules," etc. is a stupid thing to say. It's a 14 point model.

Complaining that guardsmen are individually terrible whereas marines are individually much better just doesn't make sense.

You're comparing a 5 point model to a 14 point model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

 Traditio wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

I'm actually not making that claim at all.

This is what I'm saying:

"Marines get too many special rules," etc. is a stupid thing to say. It's a 14 point model.

Complaining that guardsmen are individually terrible whereas marines are individually much better just doesn't make sense.

You're comparing a 5 point model to a 14 point model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

I may have jumped to conclusions based on the bit of your earlier post where you suggested trying a Marine army without any of the 'crutch' options, I don't think I've been misreading the argument but if I have I apologize.

In any case whether Space Marines get a lot of stuff for their 14pts isn't in contention. They do. The 4s-across-the-board statline alone makes them pretty cool in the grand scheme of infantry. No. The problem here is that gun-size-creep has made all the special rules and good statlines and whatnot irrelevant.

Tactical Marines in normal full-size games of 7e are paying for options that they can't really use. S6+ spam is in vogue so T4 isn't an upgrade on T3, AP2-3 blasts/templates have gone from difficult/unreliable to staples of the game so 3+ armour isn't an upgrade on 5+ armour, getting into melee is usually a death sentence for ranged infantry so the WS/S/I chunk of the statline doesn't help much, Marine units tend to be taken as five models so there aren't usually enough of them left after an attack for ATSKNF to come into play...

But take your Tactical Marine and plonk him down in Kill-Team, using Heralds of Ruin and/or not playing with a**holes so your Kill-Team environment doesn't descend into an S6-spam arms race (War Walkers at 0-2 in Special my a** *mutter* *mutter*), and suddenly with infantry and small arms on the table the humble Space Marine becomes a wrecking ball people who have only seen him in normal games wouldn't believe. (I may be exaggerating for comic effect. Space Marines are a lot better in Kill-Team, that doesn't make them Movie Marines-tier epic destruction.)

The point is that on paper, in a vacuum a Tactical Marine is quite good for his cost. In 40k his advantages are negated by the scale of the game. In Kill-Team his advantages are actually relevant and he becomes good again.

Space marines get as much hate as they do because they're the most popular powerful army and because they tick the 3 boxes that infuriate people the hardest and that 1) Crazy fluff murdering deathstars 2)Free point Access 3) Not a Chaos army. That's al it is. A combination of ubiquity and having the wrong types of power.

ERJAK wrote:
Space marines get as much hate as they do because they're the most popular powerful army and because they tick the 3 boxes that infuriate people the hardest and that 1) Crazy fluff murdering deathstars 2)Free point Access 3) Not a Chaos army. That's al it is. A combination of ubiquity and having the wrong types of power.

Space Marines get as much hate as they do because they're the tutorial army that skips over chunks of the rules (morale, for instance) to make them easy to learn and play, which makes them an easy target for generic newbie-hate. Also because they get shoved into our faces from every corner by the writers, who seem intent on making them the 'protagonists' despite the fact that they're inherently unsuited for the role (genetically engineered transhuman religious nutjobs with no life outside shooting things are difficult to identify with, once you've grown beyond twelve and started thinking thoughts more complicated than "chainsawsword cool!"), which annoys people who don't identify with them and yet are told they should.

Space Marine hate has remained a constant as long as I've been playing 40k, and the crazy fluffmurdering deathstars and free points are only as old as this edition. The not-Chaos part has remained fairly constant, though.

 master of ordinance wrote:
Okay, from the top:

@ Slayer Fan.
I had a Marine opponent whose chief trick was to run a 5 man Libby Conclave and a triple Vindiderp squadron. He would roll util he got Invisibility and then set up with the Vindicators in a solid wall with the Librarians behind them and then cast Invisibility on them ever single turn. So I had a wall of invisible vindicators advancing towards me, with a unit of Librarians hiding behind them and there was nothing I could do, leastwhys until Sisters of Silence where released last year. Also most of my AT consists of Melta guns with only three Rapiers for support.... You make the call.

@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun.

@ niy-mizzed
And I have utterly destroyed some Marine lists, but still lost some of those games owing to the sheer mobility that the Marines have, allowing them to capture objectives whilst I cannot even leave my deployment zone for fear of assaults and if I do still be unable to make it to the objective fast enough..

Amy barrage can kill 2 wound T4 models when they're 90 points a piece at minimum (since you're at minimum buying the extra mastery level) which means they'll only be invisible for a turn or two, and depending on the number of Melta Guns you have you need to shoot maybe 18 Melta Guns into the unit. Otherwise spam the Psyker power from Divination that gives Rending and then a FRFSRF, or even go for Invisibility yourself. Alternatively, you can always bring in a Culexus and they have to kill it first if you Infiltrate near the Librarians enough.
You can also ally in MT (or use your Elite slots you're probably not using) and attempt to go for the Librarians themselves by deep striking Plasma (any mishaps that are potential are worth it and I know that because I Deep Strike with Chaos Marines and Necrons all the time, and that's before Legions before you say anything), or go for the gold and Deep Strike Melta Guns and a Plasma Pistol into the Rear. If you can keep a Commisar safe, you can even do the formation that lets you keep reusing the dead Tempestus squad.

Honestly this really is a L2P thing on your end. You refusing to adapt even a miniscule amount (which is what it is: a miniscule amount) or listen to the posters here (Which you have been shown doing before when they gave you advice as well) is honestly your own darn fault. I don't WANT to say "Git Gud" because there are legit balance issues in the game currently.
In your specific case, it is a "Git Gud".

 Traditio wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

I'm on the "Anti SM" side of this argument in general, but I'll switch sides for a post.

Chaos is a good example of a Space Marine vs an Imperial Guard as they can take versions of either.
Granted a Chaos Space Marine lacks ATSKNF and other benefits that Space Marine get
and that Cultists lacks Orders and other benefits that a Guardsman gets...

but they are they closest comparison... and the verdict is in...

Cultist are generally preferred over Marines.

 Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

I'm on the "Anti SM" side of this argument in general, but I'll switch sides for a post.

Chaos is a good example of a Space Marine vs an Imperial Guard as they can take versions of either.
Granted a Chaos Space Marine lacks ATSKNF and other benefits that Space Marine get
and that Cultists lacks Orders and other benefits that a Guardsman gets...

but they are they closest comparison... and the verdict is in...

Cultist are generally preferred over Marines.

Cultists are generally just taken as the base "troop tax." They're taken because they're cheap, even though they are terrible and have few upgrade options.

Veterans are actually a good unit.

60 points, BS 4 and you can take THREE special weapons.

That's ridiculous.

The ability of IG players to spam special weapons, heavy weapons and cheap tanks and fliers without even trying is, on the whole, simply ridiculous.

If you take away the "crutch" SM options, IG have an overwhelming advantage.

But hey, MoO, do tell me more about how ATSKNF is an OP rule.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Space marines get as much hate as they do because they're the most popular powerful army and because they tick the 3 boxes that infuriate people the hardest and that 1) Crazy fluff murdering deathstars 2)Free point Access 3) Not a Chaos army. That's al it is. A combination of ubiquity and having the wrong types of power.

Space Marines get as much hate as they do because they're the tutorial army that skips over chunks of the rules (morale, for instance) to make them easy to learn and play, which makes them an easy target for generic newbie-hate. Also because they get shoved into our faces from every corner by the writers, who seem intent on making them the 'protagonists' despite the fact that they're inherently unsuited for the role (genetically engineered transhuman religious nutjobs with no life outside shooting things are difficult to identify with, once you've grown beyond twelve and started thinking thoughts more complicated than "chainsawsword cool!"), which annoys people who don't identify with them and yet are told they should.

Space Marine hate has remained a constant as long as I've been playing 40k, and the crazy fluffmurdering deathstars and free points are only as old as this edition. The not-Chaos part has remained fairly constant, though.

I think this arguement would have been more effective if you hadn't accused everyone of liking space marines of being 12 especially when other armies would, on the surface appeal to 12 year old far more. I mean chaos is 'kid that calls you a f****t' every 3 seconds on call of duty while spraying bullets as fast as he can,' 'lol boobies and droogs', 'haha boogers', 'and 'I'm almost thirteen now so I'm super clever an' junk'.

To clarify I'm not saying people who play chaos are this I'm just pointing out how easy it is to accuse immaturity in 40k, or really any over the top sci-fi setting.

 Traditio wrote:


Cultists are generally just taken as the base "troop tax." They're taken because they're cheap, even though they are terrible and have few upgrade options.

Veterans are actually a good unit.

60 points, BS 4 and you can take THREE special weapons.

That's ridiculous.

The ability of IG players to spam special weapons, heavy weapons and cheap tanks and fliers without even trying is, on the whole, simply ridiculous.

If you take away the "crutch" SM options, IG have an overwhelming advantage.

But hey, MoO, do tell me more about how ATSKNF is an OP rule.

60 points for a BS 4 unit that is:
WS 3
S 3
T 3
I 3
LD 8 at best
Has a 5+ save
Is armed with Lasguns, base
Has no option for a long gun on its sergeant, despite this being a fluffy option
Has to pay Marine prices for those oh-so-coveted special weapons despite the fact that anything so much as farting int the general direction of the unit will usually kill it.

In the mean time Marines shrug off small arms and most none AT Heavy/Special weapons fire 2/3 of the time, are '4' across the board, come armed with a decent long gun, can have said long gun on there sergeant, have Chapter Tactics, basically ignore the Morale phase and its subsidiaries thanks to ATSKNF.....

Lets put it this way: To handle a single Tactical squad I need to devote two fully upgraded Veteran sections. That is two 120 point units with all the toys to tackle one bare bones 140 point unit. Or 240 points to take them. And I will take an average of two casualties thanks to Plasma Gun overheats before the Marines are factored in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:Leeman Russes OP.

That's all I'm saying.

And this ladies and gentlemen, is all you need to know about Tradito.

Traditio wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

I'm actually not making that claim at all.

This is what I'm saying:

"Marines get too many special rules," etc. is a stupid thing to say. It's a 14 point model.

Complaining that guardsmen are individually terrible whereas marines are individually much better just doesn't make sense.

You're comparing a 5 point model to a 14 point model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

I would take Tacticals in a heartbeat. Basic infantry that can actually survive and have decent firepower (IE, not wounding things on 5's)

AnomanderRake wrote:

master of ordinance wrote:@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun..

Alternate counter-argument: not all option pricing is created equal. 8pts for power armour on an Inquisitor, for instance, is a 3+ save on three Wounds. Why is it the same price on one Wound?

Consider instead the case of the Imperialis Militia list over in 30k. For the price of Survivors of the Dark Age (a one-time 75pt upgrade on your HQ) all your Grenadier squads are running around with 3+ armour, add in Advanced Weapons and lasrifles and you're looking at 7.5pt models with Ld7 Veteran statlines, power armour, 30" range boltguns, and frag and krak grenades. 30k and 40k pricing may not be created equal (a Tactical Marine is 11.5pts in a full squad in 30k, 12.5 in a minimum squad), and I do grant that the 17pt Guard Veteran and the 7.5pt Militia Grenadier are extreme cases in the pricing of a Guard veteran in power armour with a bolter, but it still seems to me like you've constructed a pretty incomplete picture of the situation.

The problem still seems to be that we've got two sides arguing almost unrelated points here. Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

Very well put. Indeed, much of the problems in 40K can be traced back to the power bloat.

Switch over to Shadow Wars and Chaos Marines are an incredibly good army, mainly because most of the stupid stuff no longer exists. Barring triple Plasma spam (which I do not want to run because unlike some I actually like fluffy lists) there is no real way fr my Guard to compete.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Traditio wrote:


Cultists are generally just taken as the base "troop tax." They're taken because they're cheap, even though they are terrible and have few upgrade options.

Veterans are actually a good unit.

60 points, BS 4 and you can take THREE special weapons.

That's ridiculous.

The ability of IG players to spam special weapons, heavy weapons and cheap tanks and fliers without even trying is, on the whole, simply ridiculous.

If you take away the "crutch" SM options, IG have an overwhelming advantage.

But hey, MoO, do tell me more about how ATSKNF is an OP rule.

60 points for a BS 4 unit that is:
WS 3
S 3
T 3
I 3
LD 8 at best
Has a 5+ save
Is armed with Lasguns, base
Has no option for a long gun on its sergeant, despite this being a fluffy option
Has to pay Marine prices for those oh-so-coveted special weapons despite the fact that anything so much as farting int the general direction of the unit will usually kill it.

In the mean time Marines shrug off small arms and most none AT Heavy/Special weapons fire 2/3 of the time, are '4' across the board, come armed with a decent long gun, can have said long gun on there sergeant, have Chapter Tactics, basically ignore the Morale phase and its subsidiaries thanks to ATSKNF.....

Lets put it this way: To handle a single Tactical squad I need to devote two fully upgraded Veteran sections. That is two 120 point units with all the toys to tackle one bare bones 140 point unit. Or 240 points to take them. And I will take an average of two casualties thanks to Plasma Gun overheats before the Marines are factored in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Traditio wrote:Leeman Russes OP.

That's all I'm saying.

And this ladies and gentlemen, is all you need to know about Tradito.

Traditio wrote:

AnomanderRake wrote:Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

I'm actually not making that claim at all.

This is what I'm saying:

"Marines get too many special rules," etc. is a stupid thing to say. It's a 14 point model.

Complaining that guardsmen are individually terrible whereas marines are individually much better just doesn't make sense.

You're comparing a 5 point model to a 14 point model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Consider this point:

If tactical marines were in the IG codex, does anybody here honestly think that IG players would take them?

No. They'd still field vets instead.

I would take Tacticals in a heartbeat. Basic infantry that can actually survive and have decent firepower (IE, not wounding things on 5's)

AnomanderRake wrote:

master of ordinance wrote:@ Tradito
But to make one of my 6 point Veterans a Marine I have to pay (and this is pure theory based on prices in the Inquisition codex in some cases):
1.5 points for Carapace (Grenadiers)
8 points to upgrade it to Power Armour (Inquisitor option)
1 point for Krak Grenades (Guard)
1/2 point(s) for a Bolter (Guard codex again)
That is already 17 points, and not counting ATSKNF or Chapter Tactics or any stat line increases.
Otherwise, it is just the level of stupidly good stuff/formations that they have access too that really just makes facing them un-fun..

Alternate counter-argument: not all option pricing is created equal. 8pts for power armour on an Inquisitor, for instance, is a 3+ save on three Wounds. Why is it the same price on one Wound?

Consider instead the case of the Imperialis Militia list over in 30k. For the price of Survivors of the Dark Age (a one-time 75pt upgrade on your HQ) all your Grenadier squads are running around with 3+ armour, add in Advanced Weapons and lasrifles and you're looking at 7.5pt models with Ld7 Veteran statlines, power armour, 30" range boltguns, and frag and krak grenades. 30k and 40k pricing may not be created equal (a Tactical Marine is 11.5pts in a full squad in 30k, 12.5 in a minimum squad), and I do grant that the 17pt Guard Veteran and the 7.5pt Militia Grenadier are extreme cases in the pricing of a Guard veteran in power armour with a bolter, but it still seems to me like you've constructed a pretty incomplete picture of the situation.

The problem still seems to be that we've got two sides arguing almost unrelated points here. Traditio's pointing out that C:SM has poor internal balance and needs the stupid shenanigans to get anything done, master of ordinance is pointing out that Space Marines in a vacuum are still sitting on a big stack of advantages most infantry don't enjoy.

Very well put. Indeed, much of the problems in 40K can be traced back to the power bloat.

Switch over to Shadow Wars and Chaos Marines are an incredibly good army, mainly because most of the stupid stuff no longer exists. Barring triple Plasma spam (which I do not want to run because unlike some I actually like fluffy lists) there is no real way fr my Guard to compete.

LOOOOOL

Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Tactical Marines are better than many other Troops due to both defenses and offensive capability.

If they keep the same Wargear kit in 8th Edition, they may actually be as effective as my Assault Crusaders in close combat, and better at range.

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Tactical Marines are better than many other Troops due to both defenses and offensive capability.

If they keep the same Wargear kit in 8th Edition, they may actually be as effective as my Assault Crusaders in close combat, and better at range.

Until you do the math and realize that's incorrect.

What offensive capability? They can't specialize for anything! When you equip them they can't charge anything after shooting!

They're called garbage for a reason.

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Tactical Marines are better than many other Troops due to both defenses and offensive capability.

If they keep the same Wargear kit in 8th Edition, they may actually be as effective as my Assault Crusaders in close combat, and better at range.

Isn't that more an indictment of assault crusaders than an endorsement of tac marines?

Tac marines are not the worst unit in the game.
That doesn't mean they aren't still awful. It takes free vehicles and doctrines on top of their chapter tactics, or one of the most broken guns in the game, (or both of those things!) to push any more than the minimum tax amount of them into the table in any kind of competitive setting.

The 7e game highly rewards specialization, and the foot marines are designed with generalization in mind. Instead of being passable at multiple roles, they just end up failing at everything. Their durability relies on t4, which is no better than t3 against all the s6+, and 3+ armor, which routinely gets ignored leaving them with the 5+ cover a gretchin gets. At only 1 wound this makes them exactly as durable as gretchin in cover on the practical tabletop in fact.
Their 1 measly swing in cc makes the otherwise-okay weaponskill and initiative worthless. Strength 4 just isn't worth mentioning.

The bolter hardly outranges anyone, doesn't cut through any meaningful AP value (the guys who can't save are already the types of guys that spend their lives in cover,) has crappy s4, and doesn't put out enough shots to do anything.

The krak grenade was made worse than useless by an FAQ-errata. Now it reads "equipped models can't use the our weapons are useless rule to run away, even though one s6 swing per squad will never do any good ever." The frag is laughable as far as shooting, needing miracle rolls to do anything, while the keep-initiative ability would matter a lot more if, as above, their melee capability was good enough to be a practical choice. It's definitely a wargear piece that other melee units in the game are jealous of, that is wasted on tacticals.

Most good marine players have long since realized that atsknf is double edged. It is good against shooting morale, since the only bad things that happen are going off the table or being pushed out of range with a good weapon. It tends to be terrible in melee. If something is sweeping them, it is not a threat you're going to deal with by tossing more dudes into the fray, it is a threat that needs to be shot. Except you can't. Because Jimius Bobbius the tactical marine insists on staying there, blocking your entire army's shots on your turn, just so he can drop in time for their turn to come around again. Other armies have much more well behaved speed bumps like cultists and guardsmen. When they get run over, they lay down and die or flee like good sacrifices, leaving the enemy unit out in the wind for shooting. It also does nothing against pinning, so every third squad that falls out of a rhino hits the dirt cowering.

To sum up, if you're just playing funsies games, feel free to take tacticals en masse, without grav or formations. The game will be challenging for you at least, regardless of what is across the table.
If you are staring down something more threatening, minimum tacticals, or better yet, scouts, and then spend the rest of your points on units that actually pull weight. Either that or just grab one of the famous formations that gives them so many bonuses that they actually become good.

ERJAK wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

ERJAK wrote:
Space marines get as much hate as they do because they're the most popular powerful army and because they tick the 3 boxes that infuriate people the hardest and that 1) Crazy fluff murdering deathstars 2)Free point Access 3) Not a Chaos army. That's al it is. A combination of ubiquity and having the wrong types of power.

Space Marines get as much hate as they do because they're the tutorial army that skips over chunks of the rules (morale, for instance) to make them easy to learn and play, which makes them an easy target for generic newbie-hate. Also because they get shoved into our faces from every corner by the writers, who seem intent on making them the 'protagonists' despite the fact that they're inherently unsuited for the role (genetically engineered transhuman religious nutjobs with no life outside shooting things are difficult to identify with, once you've grown beyond twelve and started thinking thoughts more complicated than "chainsawsword cool!"), which annoys people who don't identify with them and yet are told they should.

Space Marine hate has remained a constant as long as I've been playing 40k, and the crazy fluffmurdering deathstars and free points are only as old as this edition. The not-Chaos part has remained fairly constant, though.

I think this arguement would have been more effective if you hadn't accused everyone of liking space marines of being 12 especially when other armies would, on the surface appeal to 12 year old far more. I mean chaos is 'kid that calls you a f****t' every 3 seconds on call of duty while spraying bullets as fast as he can,' 'lol boobies and droogs', 'haha boogers', 'and 'I'm almost thirteen now so I'm super clever an' junk'.

To clarify I'm not saying people who play chaos are this I'm just pointing out how easy it is to accuse immaturity in 40k, or really any over the top sci-fi setting.

...Okay, there are a number of logical leaps going on here, but I'll try to clarify.

I describe Space Marines as difficult to identify with, not impossible to identify with. I brought up twelve-year-olds based on the different experiences I've had trying to explain 40k to people who are twelve (who find the whole thing wildly exciting) and people who aren't twelve (who ask many questions and get weirded out quickly), not out of any desire to accuse anyone of being twelve.

I don't wish to speculate on the reasons any individual may find Space Marines engaging or not engaging, I'm simply pointing out that there's a tendency among longtime 40k players to take them for granted and gloss over the weirder/creepier aspects, and that other people have a tendency to find the normal humans in the Guard and the Inquisition more relatable than the chemically-castrated giant cyborg monks.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Tac marines are not the worst unit in the game.
That doesn't mean they aren't still awful. It takes free vehicles and doctrines on top of their chapter tactics, or one of the most broken guns in the game, (or both of those things!) to push any more than the minimum tax amount of them into the table in any kind of competitive setting.

The 7e game highly rewards specialization, and the foot marines are designed with generalization in mind. Instead of being passable at multiple roles, they just end up failing at everything. Their durability relies on t4, which is no better than t3 against all the s6+, and 3+ armor, which routinely gets ignored leaving them with the 5+ cover a gretchin gets. At only 1 wound this makes them exactly as durable as gretchin in cover on the practical tabletop in fact.
Their 1 measly swing in cc makes the otherwise-okay weaponskill and initiative worthless. Strength 4 just isn't worth mentioning.

The bolter hardly outranges anyone, doesn't cut through any meaningful AP value (the guys who can't save are already the types of guys that spend their lives in cover,) has crappy s4, and doesn't put out enough shots to do anything.

The krak grenade was made worse than useless by an FAQ-errata. Now it reads "equipped models can't use the our weapons are useless rule to run away, even though one s6 swing per squad will never do any good ever." The frag is laughable as far as shooting, needing miracle rolls to do anything, while the keep-initiative ability would matter a lot more if, as above, their melee capability was good enough to be a practical choice. It's definitely a wargear piece that other melee units in the game are jealous of, that is wasted on tacticals.

Most good marine players have long since realized that atsknf is double edged. It is good against shooting morale, since the only bad things that happen are going off the table or being pushed out of range with a good weapon. It tends to be terrible in melee. If something is sweeping them, it is not a threat you're going to deal with by tossing more dudes into the fray, it is a threat that needs to be shot. Except you can't. Because Jimius Bobbius the tactical marine insists on staying there, blocking your entire army's shots on your turn, just so he can drop in time for their turn to come around again. Other armies have much more well behaved speed bumps like cultists and guardsmen. When they get run over, they lay down and die or flee like good sacrifices, leaving the enemy unit out in the wind for shooting. It also does nothing against pinning, so every third squad that falls out of a rhino hits the dirt cowering.

To sum up, if you're just playing funsies games, feel free to take tacticals en masse, without grav or formations. The game will be challenging for you at least, regardless of what is across the table.
If you are staring down something more threatening, minimum tacticals, or better yet, scouts, and then spend the rest of your points on units that actually pull weight. Either that or just grab one of the famous formations that gives them so many bonuses that they actually become good.

+1 for truth.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Tactical Marines are better than many other Troops due to both defenses and offensive capability.

If they keep the same Wargear kit in 8th Edition, they may actually be as effective as my Assault Crusaders in close combat, and better at range.

Until you do the math and realize that's incorrect.

What offensive capability? They can't specialize for anything! When you equip them they can't charge anything after shooting!

They're called garbage for a reason.

Remember that this is about Assault.

First off, are we talking just standard kit or are we talking after "all model" upgrades?

Basic kit, they are equivalent to any other Marine Troop besides Space Wolves. Chapter Tactics can do some very odd things here to balance most of them out.

Eldar? They have greater Str, which is offset by their lower I, and more than compensated by their better Armour and Toughness against the Infantry. It's almost a wash with the bikes.

Orks? Only numbers will tell. Orks have lower Str, but have access to more Attacks, countered by crap armor and Initative.

Tyranids? Warriors are the only thing that is superior in Assault before upgrades. Otherwise, you're either dealing with IG or Eldar with crap Saves.

Fire Warriors? Necrons enjoy Charging them.

Necrons? Here it starts balancing out a bit. Str and Toughness are a match, Armour can match, but their Initative is still crap.

I will admit being behind on the Ad Mech variances, though, but we're still seeing a preponderance of the options where the Tactical is still pretty good in combat against the equivalent out of most of the other armies.

ERJAK wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Who cares about I3 WS3 on a unit that isn't going to see Melee anyway? You think Tactical Marines are any good at it? They all have A1. That's gonna hold anyone in melee back.
Also LD is currently the most useless stat.

All these problems you bring on yourself.

Tactical Marines are better than many other Troops due to both defenses and offensive capability.

If they keep the same Wargear kit in 8th Edition, they may actually be as effective as my Assault Crusaders in close combat, and better at range.

Isn't that more an indictment of assault crusaders than an endorsement of tac marines?

In a way, yes. A lot depends on what changes we will be seeing in the armies to come and the details of many of the rules. Will Tacticals be keeping their Pistols? Will Pistols still provide a bonus Attack in Assault as well as still being able to Shoot before the Assault Phase?

Wait... so tactical marines are OP now?....


err... no.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Tamwulf wrote:
Ultimate Beat Sticks? You mean Wraithknights? Riptides? Saint Celestine? Swarmlord? Greater Deamons of Khorne? Up until Roboute showed up, Space Marines pretty much had nothing in this class of model.

captain/chapter master smashfetcher has been around for a while and can take primarchs. bike plus gorgon's chain or shield etenal, artificer armor and a thunderhammer. he can wreck plenty of lords of war if they do not roll 6's to stomp or on d table

Talamare wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
On the other hand, some of these are a simple failure to realize that space marines cost 14 ppm.

Dire Avengers are 13 PPM...
Strength 3
Toughness 3
4+ Save

In return they only get +1 Initiative?

I won't compare weapons since each has distinct advantages.

battle focus too, though honestly the tactical marine still wins out. the dire avenger has to run 6 to match the range of a bolter if 24" from the target , and while it has 2 shots at the 18 (sort of but not quite matched by rapid fire in 12 the pseudo rending certainly counts for something. but advantage is still tac marines. in either case neither model is really as competitive as other options. you don't see elder players taking tournaments with 6 squads of kitted dire avengers nor outside of gladius do you see tons of tac marines. troops are a tax because they are middle of the road not horrible but not great units.

Um no the Tactical Marine does not win out. Chaos Marines lost mathematically when you consider that you can always stay out of rapid fire range and still get your 2 18" shots off. While true the Chaos Marine didn't get a good update until Legions, consider:
1. Very few Legions affect durability. Death Guard Vanilla Marines will take it all, but nobody else is going to (because you're getting a 6+++ max unless you use emperors Children and pay 35 points to get an Icon that'll be sniped)
2. Nothing offensive is boosted. Range wise at least.
So ignoring morale and potential cover the Chaos Marines lost. Cover is interesting because in certain situations one squad will benefit more than the other.

Now remember that Tactical Marines don't get the second Special Weapon and instead take a Heavy Weapon that's snap firing if they're moving. Very few Chapter Tactics will make any difference here, and the Avenger defensive abilities won't matter because Tactical Marines don't charge anything ever, contrary to popular belief when all those grenades are SO good.

SO yeah Eldar players don't have a reason to take Dire Avengers over Scatterbikes. However, Dire Avenger do better than most troops thanks to a good gun and more importantly not pretending to tackle a role they're not supposed to. They hold objectives and make charges on that objective less savory and stick with being Anti-Infantry, rather than being able to take a single special weapon or two and pretending to be multi-talented.

I am trying to figure out where you think I was talking about chaos space marines when I said tactical marines aren't chaos space marines equivalent literally called chaos space marines. I will agree that the dire avenger's gun is marginally better but remember it is carried by a S3 T3 with a 4+ armor save so a less durable platform carrying said gun. I think both are appropriately costed, the loyalist vanilla marine is just worth 1 more point than a dire avenger hence DA 13 ppm SM 14 ppm

zerosignal wrote:Wait... so tactical marines are OP now?....


err... no.

I don't think anyone is saying that. They do have some advantages in certain areas that would make them seem OP in a vacuum. The game doesn't operate in a vacuum, though, and when taken all together, they tend to be decent Troops, but nothing truly overwhelming. They are limited in numbers and their firepower can be scattered, dyslexic, or anemic. This and their cost helps relieve them from OP status.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


...Okay, there are a number of logical leaps going on here, but I'll try to clarify.

I describe Space Marines as difficult to identify with, not impossible to identify with. I brought up twelve-year-olds based on the different experiences I've had trying to explain 40k to people who are twelve (who find the whole thing wildly exciting) and people who aren't twelve (who ask many questions and get weirded out quickly), not out of any desire to accuse anyone of being twelve.

I don't wish to speculate on the reasons any individual may find Space Marines engaging or not engaging, I'm simply pointing out that there's a tendency among longtime 40k players to take them for granted and gloss over the weirder/creepier aspects, and that other people have a tendency to find the normal humans in the Guard and the Inquisition more relatable than the chemically-castrated giant cyborg monks.

I identify with Space Marines because I'm slightly fascistic myself, which is probably a good indication of why you were not originally supposed to relate to them.

Jbz` wrote:
Librarius conclave:
Space Marines have access to the most ridiculously powerful Psychic lores in the game (AOD powers), plus all the basic rulebook ones.
And can cast them on a 2+ bypassing the need that other psychic heavy armies have of "battery psykers"
And they can hide each member in a different unit meaning you have to get through multiple units to shut them down

Lets compare that to one of the most complained about psyker formations:
Seer Council:
Only casts on a 3+.
Has access to less powers.
Is one unit so can be dealt with all at once.

The Conclave is also constructed of 3-5 HQ Librarians, a 3-600pt force in its own right. It also requires the Librarians to be within 12" to use, so even if you did have them in 5 seperate squads, that's a good 800pts of models (assuming you went with Tacticals or Scouts and not Terminators or Centurians as the fodder) within 12" of each other, ripe for Blasts and Templates to wipe out. A battle cannon or equivilent would have a field day. Plus, only one Librarian can do the casting, so even Invisibility is limited in effectiveness.

This thread has been a hilarious read. I would love to play games against people who think your average TAC marine is strong and can't easily play around them. That would be so fun. Just foot slogging all over the board in a list that was basically 70 marines, wiping out everything.

All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors. "I HAVE NO ANSWER TO A 3+ SAVE WITH BASICALLY NO DAMAGE OUTPUT," they cry, as I heartlessly roll my horde of d6s, hitting on 3s! wounding on 4s! TAKE YOUR ARMOR SAVE AND TREMBLE.

The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:
The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

In one form or another. There are more variants of them than any other army.

But hey, they are the flagship army of 40K.

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:
The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

It's funny how marines comprise most of the playerbase, yet most of the tournament winners aren't marines.

If they really were 50% of the playerbase, if they were equally powerful to other tournament-winning armies, you'd expect them to win roughly 50% of the tournaments. They don't, therefore marines are underpowered.

 Marmatag wrote:

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:
The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

It's funny how marines comprise most of the playerbase, yet most of the tournament winners aren't marines.

If they really were 50% of the playerbase, if they were equally powerful to other tournament-winning armies, you'd expect them to win roughly 50% of the tournaments. They don't, therefore marines are underpowered.

Ehmm... I don't want to be hars but that logic don't make any sense. Space Marines are probably more than half the player base, and I'll say that probably more than 80% of the player base has a force of space marines of different sizes, even only one of Starter Sets. And they are one of the Top 3 armies today alongside Eldar and Daemons of Chaos. Space Marines are always at the tops of the tournaments, but normally the winners are Eldar/Daemons.

 Marmatag wrote:

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:
The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

It's funny how marines comprise most of the playerbase, yet most of the tournament winners aren't marines.

If they really were 50% of the playerbase, if they were equally powerful to other tournament-winning armies, you'd expect them to win roughly 50% of the tournaments. They don't, therefore marines are underpowered.

Not necessarily. If the majority of Space Marine players are either mediocre or have have a lousy stable, then they can be a huge proportion of the actual players and still not show a great placing in tournaments.

Having a high number of bad players is no indication of the viability of an army.

You're a little late to the "whining about other factions party". Read the Horus Heresey novels and you'll understand that astartes are stronger soldiers with relentless morale in combat. It sounds to me like you were recently dominated by a marine army and felt it appropriate to let the dakka community aware.

 Caveman wrote:
You're a little late to the "whining about other factions party". Read the Horus Heresey novels and you'll understand that astartes are stronger soldiers with relentless morale in combat. It sounds to me like you were recently dominated by a marine army and felt it appropriate to let the dakka community aware.

The fluff doesn't matter for this kind of consideration.

I don't know what's dumber in this thread:

People arguing that Tacs are OP (LOL), or people sincerely arguing that Tacs are better troops than IG Vets (LMFAO).

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
I don't know what's dumber in this thread:

People arguing that Tacs are OP (LOL), or people sincerely arguing that Tacs are better troops than IG Vets (LMFAO).

In Assault, they are. The trick is getting there.

But definitely not point for point.

A lot of people online don't play enough to grasp some the more competitive concepts.
For instance if there was a unit that was a troop choice with:
ws 1 bs 5 s 1 t 1 w 1 i 1 A 1 ld 5 sv -
...that could take heavy weapons, and were super cheap per model...say 3 points considering a cultist with a total of 8 points higher stats is 4, and could show up in small units of like 3, most of the less experienced players you run into online would dismiss them outright.

Experienced players would go nuts over them. Jaw dropping efficiency and focus while being in such small msu units that any firepower at them is ridiculous overkill. You'd see armies in events run literally 2 detachments full of the things alongside other power units, and heaven help if they have heavy and fast attack versions, or combat squadding, or some formation.

Just my two cents.

Honestly Tau are baby harp seals in close combat so no they aren't OP. Marines can walk through most of their guns and brush it off. Necrons....Necrons laugh while walking through Tau firepower and then RETURN FIRE in a much more deadly effect. And don't die, Even when you club their leader with a fricken' Daemon Prince he pops back up and goes 'I'm okay!' Did I mention it takes an act of congress to keep a Necron DOWN.

Not to mention the fricken' teleporting via monoliths.

Drop Pods are annoying but at least they are static. Rhino Rush has been around for a long time and was easily beatable. But nothing in the game should be free IMHO.

I wouldn't of minded grav if Chaos got it too. But since they didn't it's bull hockey.

Of course as bad as marines are, and as OP as Necrons are, the Super Mary Sue Sparkle Fairies of Fun Killing are the worst...I.E. The Grey Knights. Not only stupidly hard to beat, but have over the years become simply the worst faction in lore, and by the gods I wish they weren't a faction to be played at all.

Anyways...hope you enjoyed reading that. Peace. ^-^

 niv-mizzet wrote:
A lot of people online don't play enough to grasp some the more competitive concepts.
For instance if there was a unit that was a troop choice with:
ws 1 bs 5 s 1 t 1 w 1 i 1 A 1 ld 5 sv -
...that could take heavy weapons, and were super cheap per model...say 3 points considering a cultist with a total of 8 points higher stats is 4, and could show up in small units of like 3, most of the less experienced players you run into online would dismiss them outright.

Experienced players would go nuts over them. Jaw dropping efficiency and focus while being in such small msu units that any firepower at them is ridiculous overkill. You'd see armies in events run literally 2 detachments full of the things alongside other power units, and heaven help if they have heavy and fast attack versions, or combat squadding, or some formation.

Not necessarily true. I mentioned Renegades earlier on and wasn't really taken up on it. For 30pts with ordanance Tyrant you get a 5 wound T7 unit with 4 st5 ap5 barrage blasts - in the troops section. That can buy more wounds for 3pts a piece. These can also be taken in heavy. Whilst in Heavy and elites you can pay an extra 25pts and get a large st9 ap3 ordnance barrage blast instead. And they have a special formation to make them even more effective - the Purge, now every turn the blasts stay around and create dangerous terrain. Let's not even bring up the Spawn. Still have no idea why no-one rates them up there with the top tier.

 niv-mizzet wrote:
A lot of people online don't play enough to grasp some the more competitive concepts.
For instance if there was a unit that was a troop choice with:
ws 1 bs 5 s 1 t 1 w 1 i 1 A 1 ld 5 sv -
...that could take heavy weapons, and were super cheap per model...say 3 points considering a cultist with a total of 8 points higher stats is 4, and could show up in small units of like 3, most of the less experienced players you run into online would dismiss them outright.

Experienced players would go nuts over them. Jaw dropping efficiency and focus while being in such small msu units that any firepower at them is ridiculous overkill. You'd see armies in events run literally 2 detachments full of the things alongside other power units, and heaven help if they have heavy and fast attack versions, or combat squadding, or some formation.

That would be pretty nasty though price of heavy weapons make those still pretty expensive.

Gladius could be pretty good counter though. Tons of free drop pods each that has storm bolter designed to take out squad like these. With T1, no save and LD5 on 3 sized unit basically almost every pod sends one unit fleeing.

But yeh that's actually good example why any formula doesn't really work for balance seeking. That unit makes itself artificially cheap by "sacrificing" stats it doesn't need. A0 would be even better if possible!

KingmanHighborn wrote:Honestly Tau are baby harp seals in close combat so no they aren't OP.

Complete and utter bullgak.

"Nuclear bombs don't come with bayonets. Therefore, they are not one of the most dangerous weapons around."

Marines can walk through most of their guns and brush it off.

No, they can't.

Against what marines have you been playing?

Drop Pods are annoying

Were you able to maintain a straight face when you wrote this posting?

If you were, I ask but this one question:

HOW?

Tau players LOVE drop pods.

Martel732 wrote:
An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

Haha, I was actually scrolling down the SM and Tau hate thinking "I wonder how fast Martel will make this about BA." Just barely managed to squeeze it in on the first page. Good job.

 Boniface wrote:
whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

Firstly, you clearly do take it way too personally if you find it hurtful. Second, are you kidding? Marines are getting *massive* amounts of flack. You're just experiencing your own and turning a blind eye to the whine against marines. Third and lastly, Tau aren't really getting shat on for being OP, but more for being incredibly frustrating to play against.

I have a friend that played Tau, and he would smash me in most games. That's not weird, he is incredibly good at games like 40k. But I just wasn't enjoying the games at all. I felt incredibly frustrated after every game and I'd whine about some of the things he put on the table because everything was "they ignore...? Yeah, of course they do. Why the hell not." When you're getting frustrated, you lash out.
He later changed to CSM/daemons focusing only on Nurgle. (I play a flavourful mostly pure Skitarii for reference) and while he STILL smashes me at almost the same ratio, the games are ENDLESSLY more enjoyable. I don't cry about his stuff anymore, because playing against him is a lot of fun.

Understand that you are playing an army where every rule is made to suck the enjoyment out of your opponent.

text removed.

Reds8n

That costs 160pts for 3 Meltas and a Transport
You're acting like it's the greatest most OP thing ever, when it's barely mediocre.

 Talamare wrote:
That costs 160pts for 3 Meltas and a Transport
You're acting like it's the greatest most OP thing ever, when it's barely mediocre.

Greatest threat? No. But better than tac marines. Of course tac marines aren't super threat either. Only thing holding them around usable is free drop pod.

Poly Ranger wrote:Not necessarily true. I mentioned Renegades earlier on and wasn't really taken up on it. For 30pts with ordanance Tyrant you get a 5 wound T7 unit with 4 st5 ap5 barrage blasts - in the troops section. That can buy more wounds for 3pts a piece. These can also be taken in heavy. Whilst in Heavy and elites you can pay an extra 25pts and get a large st9 ap3 ordnance barrage blast instead. And they have a special formation to make them even more effective - the Purge, now every turn the blasts stay around and create dangerous terrain. Let's not even bring up the Spawn. Still have no idea why no-one rates them up there with the top tier.

Renegades are Forgeworld, which involves a lot of money to get them and their books are generally not in store for easy reference. That's why they are not rated on any tier.

 Purifier wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
An average tau list is far more effective (not OP) than an average marine list. Without their gimmicks, marines become BA, who are trivially shot off the table by firewarriors, regular suits, and even Tau tanks.

This is because a "standard" marine list has absolutely terrible firepower/pt and has to rely upon poor CC abilities to win the day vs Tau. Almost all methods of heavy weapon delivery are an absolute joke in the marine codex. Compare to Tau and weep.

Combat squads and chapter tactics and even ATSKNF typically don't matter in a game of 7th ed. That's why marines are resorting to obj sec spam with battle company and super friends for death stars. Their conventional abilities just don't matter in the face of Xeno guns.

Haha, I was actually scrolling down the SM and Tau hate thinking "I wonder how fast Martel will make this about BA." Just barely managed to squeeze it in on the first page. Good job.

 Boniface wrote:
whilst it is fairy hurtful for a Tau player to be repeatedly wailed on about how 'effective' (read as OP) their army is, my post was more about pointing out that any army can be considered OP (I don't really take it too personally).
Space Marines were just an example of an army that probably breaks more rules and has more OP stuff than many others but no-one obsesses over them to the same level.

Firstly, you clearly do take it way too personally if you find it hurtful. Second, are you kidding? Marines are getting *massive* amounts of flack. You're just experiencing your own and turning a blind eye to the whine against marines. Third and lastly, Tau aren't really getting shat on for being OP, but more for being incredibly frustrating to play against.

I have a friend that played Tau, and he would smash me in most games. That's not weird, he is incredibly good at games like 40k. But I just wasn't enjoying the games at all. I felt incredibly frustrated after every game and I'd whine about some of the things he put on the table because everything was "they ignore...? Yeah, of course they do. Why the hell not." When you're getting frustrated, you lash out.
He later changed to CSM/daemons focusing only on Nurgle. (I play a flavourful mostly pure Skitarii for reference) and while he STILL smashes me at almost the same ratio, the games are ENDLESSLY more enjoyable. I don't cry about his stuff anymore, because playing against him is a lot of fun.

Understand that you are playing an army where every rule is made to suck the enjoyment out of your opponent.

BA are a convenient talking point for regular space marines, because they are 95% identical, yet are three tiers worse on the table top.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Mr. CyberPunk wrote:
The problem is not that SM are designed to break the rules. The problem is that SM, an army designed to break the rules, constitutes pretty much 50% of the armies available.

It's funny how marines comprise most of the playerbase, yet most of the tournament winners aren't marines.

If they really were 50% of the playerbase, if they were equally powerful to other tournament-winning armies, you'd expect them to win roughly 50% of the tournaments. They don't, therefore marines are underpowered.

Not necessarily. If the majority of Space Marine players are either mediocre or have have a lousy stable, then they can be a huge proportion of the actual players and still not show a great placing in tournaments.

Having a high number of bad players is no indication of the viability of an army.

When you deal with a large population the deviation should be small. If you're making the case that there's a disparity of good players in Marines vs others, that would also imply that Marines aren't good enough to be competitive, since the WAAC crowd doesn't run them.

These are the same arguments made for equal pay across demographics as well.

And let's pause for a minute - you attempted to refute a very real, mathematical argument by saying "marine players are, in aggregate, very bad."

 Marmatag wrote:
When you deal with a large population the deviation should be small. If you're making the case that there's a disparity of good players in Marines vs others, that would also imply that Marines aren't good enough to be competitive, since the WAAC crowd doesn't run them.

These are the same arguments made for equal pay across demographics as well.

Why should the deviation be small in a large population? The larger the population, the greater the possibility of having a higher deviation. Not everything in nature follows the bell curve, especially when dealing with the sapient nature of humanity.

Space Marines are easy to get in to. They are easy to build. They do not require a huge amount of models. They are the gateway army for 40K, and GW plans them accordingly.

There are three types of WAAC player: 1) One who sucks and always uses the top tier army, even if they don't know how to use it; 2) One who is decent, but can't quite get a handle on how to use it to its best; 3) One who is good and develops the lists that the other two use.

Saying that a large portion of the Space Marine army players suck isn't saying that the army sucks. It just means that a lot of players who don't know how to play Space Marines (or even the game) are collecting and playing Space Marines.

There are people who do remarkably well with armies that suck. That's because they develop an army which is capable of countering the WAAC lists that people tend to bring. This doesn't make the army good now. It just means they have a counter to one of the top dogs. And even the worst army can do well if you roll well and your opponent rolls like a fleeced drunkard in Vegas.

There are a lot of good players who like sticking with the familiar, so Space Marines do well. There are a lot of people who don't like being with the familiar, so other armies do well.

 Marmatag wrote:
And let's pause for a minute - you attempted to refute a very real, mathematical argument by saying "marine players are, in aggregate, very bad."

No, I provided a conditional situation to counter a possibly made-up statistic.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
When you deal with a large population the deviation should be small. If you're making the case that there's a disparity of good players in Marines vs others, that would also imply that Marines aren't good enough to be competitive, since the WAAC crowd doesn't run them.

These are the same arguments made for equal pay across demographics as well.

Why should the deviation be small in a large population? The larger the population, the greater the possibility of having a higher deviation. Not everything in nature follows the bell curve, especially when dealing with the sapient nature of humanity.

Space Marines are easy to get in to. They are easy to build. They do not require a huge amount of models. They are the gateway army for 40K, and GW plans them accordingly.

There are three types of WAAC player: 1) One who sucks and always uses the top tier army, even if they don't know how to use it; 2) One who is decent, but can't quite get a handle on how to use it to its best; 3) One who is good and develops the lists that the other two use.

Saying that a large portion of the Space Marine army players suck isn't saying that the army sucks. It just means that a lot of players who don't know how to play Space Marines (or even the game) are collecting and playing Space Marines.

There are people who do remarkably well with armies that suck. That's because they develop an army which is capable of countering the WAAC lists that people tend to bring. This doesn't make the army good now. It just means they have a counter to one of the top dogs. And even the worst army can do well if you roll well and your opponent rolls like a fleeced drunkard in Vegas.

There are a lot of good players who like sticking with the familiar, so Space Marines do well. There are a lot of people who don't like being with the familiar, so other armies do well.

 Marmatag wrote:
And let's pause for a minute - you attempted to refute a very real, mathematical argument by saying "marine players are, in aggregate, very bad."

No, I provided a conditional situation to counter a possibly made-up statistic.

The deviation relative to the population. Yeah you could technically say that a standard deviation of 1 on a population of 100 is technically bigger than a standard deviation of 0.5 on a population of 8. But that completely misses the mark. Of course we need to make sure that we're talking about the same population - tournament level, or people interested in tournaments - not Steve, who got a get started kit of marines and lost them under his bed.

We can probably stop this argument. The 50% statistic is what i'm arguing against as well. Because IF that is true, and because there are so many people playing this game, if factions are equal, marines would be 50% represented as tournament winners. The same statement could be made about Orks, for instance. If 10% of the population plays Orks, they should be represented in the top tier 10% of the time, IF the army is balanced.

I'd be happy to discuss further over PM, but we're basically on the same page, except for the implication that Marine players are bad My feels!

 Marmatag wrote:
The deviation relative to the population. Yeah you could technically say that a standard deviation of 1 on a population of 100 is technically bigger than a standard deviation of 0.5 on a population of 8. But that completely misses the mark. Of course we need to make sure that we're talking about the same population - tournament level, or people interested in tournaments - not Steve, who got a get started kit of marines and lost them under his bed.

Getting in to most tournaments is not hard. Pay the fee, have the army, and show up. It's not like trying to get in to Wimbledon in most cases.

 Marmatag wrote:
We can probably stop this argument. The 50% statistic is what i'm arguing against as well. Because IF that is true, and because there are so many people playing this game, if factions are equal, marines would be 50% represented as tournament winners. The same statement could be made about Orks, for instance. If 10% of the population plays Orks, they should be represented in the top tier 10% of the time, IF the army is balanced.

There are a lot of "ifs" in that statement, and that is part of the problem. Most of the armies are not balanced, either internally or externally. That is part of why a standard deviation pattern will not work. Another part of the problem is not everyone who collects, plays, or enters tournaments have armies which they can work well.

Well that's the point really. I don't believe marine armies are overpowered in the first place - might be tough to argue depending on who you're talking to, considering some armies are really bad right now - but arguing the marine special rules are OP is a bit silly though.

 Marmatag wrote:
This thread has been a hilarious read. I would love to play games against people who think your average TAC marine is strong and can't easily play around them. That would be so fun. Just foot slogging all over the board in a list that was basically 70 marines, wiping out everything.

All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors. "I HAVE NO ANSWER TO A 3+ SAVE WITH BASICALLY NO DAMAGE OUTPUT," they cry, as I heartlessly roll my horde of d6s, hitting on 3s! wounding on 4s! TAKE YOUR ARMOR SAVE AND TREMBLE.

Have an exalt.

 Marmatag wrote:
This thread has been a hilarious read. I would love to play games against people who think your average TAC marine is strong and can't easily play around them. That would be so fun. Just foot slogging all over the board in a list that was basically 70 marines, wiping out everything.

All the while, my opponent is furious, throwing his codex on the floor, trying to slash his wrists with safety scissors. "I HAVE NO ANSWER TO A 3+ SAVE WITH BASICALLY NO DAMAGE OUTPUT," they cry, as I heartlessly roll my horde of d6s, hitting on 3s! wounding on 4s! TAKE YOUR ARMOR SAVE AND TREMBLE.

The safety scissors got me

 Charistoph wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:Not necessarily true. I mentioned Renegades earlier on and wasn't really taken up on it. For 30pts with ordanance Tyrant you get a 5 wound T7 unit with 4 st5 ap5 barrage blasts - in the troops section. That can buy more wounds for 3pts a piece. These can also be taken in heavy. Whilst in Heavy and elites you can pay an extra 25pts and get a large st9 ap3 ordnance barrage blast instead. And they have a special formation to make them even more effective - the Purge, now every turn the blasts stay around and create dangerous terrain. Let's not even bring up the Spawn. Still have no idea why no-one rates them up there with the top tier.

Renegades are Forgeworld, which involves a lot of money to get them and their books are generally not in store for easy reference. That's why they are not rated on any tier.

The majority of the player base accept FW as far as I am aware, I have yet to meet one who doesn't, and it is allowed in most major tournaments. It also doesn't cost a lot to get them - Guard, Chaos, conversions, eBay and other model providers are your friend (only the latter will ever cause any blowback and even then only at some tournament settings)

Poly Ranger wrote:
The majority of the player base accept FW as far as I am aware, I have yet to meet one who doesn't, and it is allowed in most major tournaments. It also doesn't cost a lot to get them - Guard, Chaos, conversions, eBay and other model providers are your friend (only the latter will ever cause any blowback and even then only at some tournament settings)

It isn't a question of accepting Forgeworld or not. The book is the main problem. You have to order it from Forgeworld directly. The book is on a higher quality level from the Citadel-side codex. Both of these factors make getting the book alone an expensive affair, unless you get lucky on said eBay or a trading forum.

This makes the availability of such a thing a rare occurrence. Since it is rare, it is not on the normal power ranking list.

 Charistoph wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The majority of the player base accept FW as far as I am aware, I have yet to meet one who doesn't, and it is allowed in most major tournaments. It also doesn't cost a lot to get them - Guard, Chaos, conversions, eBay and other model providers are your friend (only the latter will ever cause any blowback and even then only at some tournament settings)

It isn't a question of accepting Forgeworld or not. The book is the main problem. You have to order it from Forgeworld directly. The book is on a higher quality level from the Citadel-side codex. Both of these factors make getting the book alone an expensive affair, unless you get lucky on said eBay or a trading forum.

This makes the availability of such a thing a rare occurrence. Since it is rare, it is not on the normal power ranking list.

Perhaps it is a regional thing, here in Britain most players I know have gotten at least one IA book or use FW models.

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The majority of the player base accept FW as far as I am aware, I have yet to meet one who doesn't, and it is allowed in most major tournaments. It also doesn't cost a lot to get them - Guard, Chaos, conversions, eBay and other model providers are your friend (only the latter will ever cause any blowback and even then only at some tournament settings)

It isn't a question of accepting Forgeworld or not. The book is the main problem. You have to order it from Forgeworld directly. The book is on a higher quality level from the Citadel-side codex. Both of these factors make getting the book alone an expensive affair, unless you get lucky on said eBay or a trading forum.

This makes the availability of such a thing a rare occurrence. Since it is rare, it is not on the normal power ranking list.

Perhaps it is a regional thing, here in Britain most players I know have gotten at least one IA book or use FW models.

Quite possibly. The post isn't as bad if you don't have to cross a Sound or Pond.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:
Just my two cents.

Honestly Tau are baby harp seals in close combat so no they aren't OP. Marines can walk through most of their guns and brush it off. Necrons....Necrons laugh while walking through Tau firepower and then RETURN FIRE in a much more deadly effect. And don't die, Even when you club their leader with a fricken' Daemon Prince he pops back up and goes 'I'm okay!' Did I mention it takes an act of congress to keep a Necron DOWN.

Not to mention the fricken' teleporting via monoliths.

Drop Pods are annoying but at least they are static. Rhino Rush has been around for a long time and was easily beatable. But nothing in the game should be free IMHO.

I wouldn't of minded grav if Chaos got it too. But since they didn't it's bull hockey.

Of course as bad as marines are, and as OP as Necrons are, the Super Mary Sue Sparkle Fairies of Fun Killing are the worst...I.E. The Grey Knights. Not only stupidly hard to beat, but have over the years become simply the worst faction in lore, and by the gods I wish they weren't a faction to be played at all.

Anyways...hope you enjoyed reading that. Peace. ^-^

......... have you played a game since 5th edition? Grey Knights are pretty bleh these days

 Charistoph wrote:

 mrhappyface wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
The majority of the player base accept FW as far as I am aware, I have yet to meet one who doesn't, and it is allowed in most major tournaments. It also doesn't cost a lot to get them - Guard, Chaos, conversions, eBay and other model providers are your friend (only the latter will ever cause any blowback and even then only at some tournament settings)

It isn't a question of accepting Forgeworld or not. The book is the main problem. You have to order it from Forgeworld directly. The book is on a higher quality level from the Citadel-side codex. Both of these factors make getting the book alone an expensive affair, unless you get lucky on said eBay or a trading forum.

This makes the availability of such a thing a rare occurrence. Since it is rare, it is not on the normal power ranking list.

Perhaps it is a regional thing, here in Britain most players I know have gotten at least one IA book or use FW models.

Quite possibly. The post isn't as bad if you don't have to cross a Sound or Pond.

Yeh that's probably it. I'm from England originally and have multiple IA books. Hadn't even considered the lack of availability of the book itself.