pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Except they dont. They dont want 3 man units. They want 5-10 man units. If they just wanted primaris marines they would just be using them.

 Lance845 wrote:

pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Except they dont. They dont want 3 man units. They want 5-10 man units. If they just wanted primaris marines they would just be using them.

If people want marines with one more wound and Ap-1, then they what they want is Primaris Marines. The alternative is cheaper tacticals, say, at 11 points or so. Because that is what tacticals are worth.

People keep saying what things are worth, is there like an equation for these values?

 fraser1191 wrote:
People keep saying what things are worth, is there like an equation for these values?

There used to be. GW just eyeballs things. What we do is look at Mathhammer and eyeball it too.

You guys are making me nostalgic. I remember the days of 30ppm Marines lol.

The problem with the fluff is that in it, everyone is amazing. The Imperial Guard are not just bog standard planetary defence forces; they're the elite creamed from a planet of billions. To compare to the fluff, it would be like if we gathered all of the worlds special forces and all of our elite infantry units, then chucked in the finest police officers, the roughest and toughest gangsters and career criminals, the best cage fighters and boxers, and the entire contents of most Division 1AA schools atheltic programs, then let all of them fight it out in a series of tests until we'd narrowed them down to just 650 or so candidates, who then represented us as the 1st Regiment of Earth.

Orks are supposed to be genetic freaks in their own right, vastly stronger and tougher than humans. Eldar are supposed to be so fast, lithe and agile that an Eldar olympic team would mop the floor with most of our olympians and smash our world records to pieces. They'd make Usain Bolt look like a snail and there wouldn't be enough steroids on the planet to make Lance Armstrong competitive against them in a cycle race. The Tyranids are basically the aliens from, err, Alien; predators of such skill and ferocity that a group of average humans with weapons are merely a very lively snack.

In this context Space Marines are really in about the right place. The problem with buffing them to their perceived fluff level is that you'd have to buff everyone else the same. The traditional way to handle this dilemma is to have weaker units like conscripts/gretchin etc, describe them as representing an average human, then give them a stat line that's uglier than the winner of a gurning competition.

pismakron wrote:

If people want marines with one more wound and Ap-1, then they what they want is Primaris Marines.

Indeed. Just forget the tiny marines exist, the Primaris are the proper marines now.

pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Fair points, except about the old marines. If the gaming community in my country is anything to go by, feelings are split on Primaris, with about a quarter of collectors on the fence about them -they like the models, but are in fear that their old marine armies will be relegated / not supported anymore, - and about another 5-10% or so of marine players (most of them older players) who outright detest them, because they think their introduction has butchered the fluff.

As someone who last year spent a decent amount of money buying a marine army, just for new marines to come out.
I want them to be a part of the codex not replace the codex....

It is just bizarre that people here are basically proposing rules that already exist.

When it comes to marine durability, I feel like marine design philosophy has, perhaps, been restricted due to marines' status as the most popular army.

Their gimmick is that they're extremely few in number but individually potent and durable. So every time their price goes down another point thus encouraging people to field more bodies, I cringe a bit.

Really, I think that intercessors have the statline I would want for normal marines. It's just weird having your flagship army also be an unusually small, elite one. I'm all for 2 wound marines and strength 5 bolters at a modestly increased price.

Guess I'll bring this copy paste job out again:

One of the big issues is that tac marines are mis-equipped. The bolter is a "quantity over quality" weapon (low str, no AP, no abilities) that needs to overwhelm the enemy damage mitigation with sheer numbers, while the marine himself is priced as a "quality over quantity" unit, and thus you can't bring the number of bolters needed to have them be threatening compared to the total points spent on them.

Their single melee attack runs into the same issue, wanting a high quantity to get through mitigation, but again stuck tied to an overly expensive elite model that can't provide that quantity.

Atsknf is a joke. Anyone with a lick of sense constructs their lists so that morale will be a non-issue anyway, using MSU squads or fearless effects, so a reroll for a test you never take isn't exactly in high demand.

They also don't take up much table space per point, which is a very strong "unlisted" ability of cheap units that screen well and make armies with those units functionally immune to melee and close range damage against their important units during the early turns.

The only thing the tacs do reasonably well is hide in cover, but in such an offense oriented game, where every early kill means negating 5-7 turns of that unit attacking, the value of a unit whose only decent ability is to hide in bushes is...questionable at best.

Assuming that one wants to keep the marine "elite," there are a few solutions. Either upgrading the boltgun to a more elite weapon, changing their function to be compatible with the model it is equipped on, or giving marines the ability to use boltguns as rapid fire 2 if they stand still, which would mimic the amount of shots a quantity type weapon needs without increasing the marine model count.
Additionally I'm of the opinion that all marines need +1 attack. It's quite silly that they are touted as "reasonable" in melee with 1 low str AP0 swing.

Anyway all those factors added up, and the fact that all the other armies are getting buffed with their own chapter tactics, and it is very obvious that this is absolutely not the edition for the humble power armor marine.

...I guess they want the marine players to buy primaris.

bouncingboredom wrote:


The problem with the fluff is that in it, everyone is amazing. The Imperial Guard are not just bog standard planetary defence forces; they're the elite creamed from a planet of billions. To compare to the fluff, it would be like if we gathered all of the worlds special forces and all of our elite infantry units, then chucked in the finest police officers, the roughest and toughest gangsters and career criminals, the best cage fighters and boxers, and the entire contents of most Division 1AA schools atheltic programs, then let all of them fight it out in a series of tests until we'd narrowed them down to just 650 or so candidates, who then represented us as the 1st Regiment of Earth.

No?

 Infantryman wrote:

bouncingboredom wrote:


The problem with the fluff is that in it, everyone is amazing. The Imperial Guard are not just bog standard planetary defence forces; they're the elite creamed from a planet of billions. To compare to the fluff, it would be like if we gathered all of the worlds special forces and all of our elite infantry units, then chucked in the finest police officers, the roughest and toughest gangsters and career criminals, the best cage fighters and boxers, and the entire contents of most Division 1AA schools atheltic programs, then let all of them fight it out in a series of tests until we'd narrowed them down to just 650 or so candidates, who then represented us as the 1st Regiment of Earth.

No?

Yes. The fluff is exactly like that sometimes. Which is also the issue. The fluff isnt consistent. Again, fluff should never = crunch.

The marine profile is too dated compared to everything else


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Eldar and guard got dusted off and we got more rerolls lol

I think marines and guardsmen are well balanced in points and durability, untill you factor in orders, regiments and chapter sheenanigans.

Guardsmen should probably be 5 ppm and marines 12 ppm. Maybe even 11 ppm. Marines are victims in 8th.

Martel732 wrote:
Guardsmen should probably be 5 ppm and marines 12 ppm. Maybe even 11 ppm. Marines are victims in 8th.

I agree about guardsmen but I think tac marines are fair at 13, maybe 12 could be ok as well, but 11 seems too cheap. There are at least 7-8 factions that are currently a lot weaker than marines.

I think game gives access to weapons with good AP a bit too easily than it should, which translates to units taking saves less often. Maybe.
Some units also have very high volume of fire or melee capability, meaning whoever gets first charge gets unit wiped. You can't make units cheaper until they wouldn't, since prices would just stop making any sense. But making game little less skewed into all offensive nuke them all before they nuke you would not hurt.

 Blackie wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Guardsmen should probably be 5 ppm and marines 12 ppm. Maybe even 11 ppm. Marines are victims in 8th.

I agree about guardsmen but I think tac marines are fair at 13, maybe 12 could be ok as well, but 11 seems too cheap. There are at least 7-8 factions that are currently a lot weaker than marines.

They are all index armies save the GK, and they are just more-marine marines. The marine scheme doesn't work at ALL in 8th. Cheaper is basically always better. No 4 point model should have a 5+ save. Period. And a 24" gun to boot.

The problem I've found going over the math on Marine prices is that they're pretty much fairly priced in a small-arms-only infantry environment. The way hull points turned killing vehicles into a matter of quantity of mid-power shots in 6th that led to new unit designs for three editions building around volume of mid/high-powered shots and the way vehicle/monster design in 8th has moved to mass wound counts and wildly swingy damage output is a bigger problem for Marines than anything else; it isn't that they're not tough enough compared to guardsmen, it's that the way 40k does vehicle damage means that cost/wound is vastly more relevant than the distinctions between T3/T4 and the difference between a 3+ and a 5+ against a huge chunk of weapons.

To my mind the easy solution is to declare the Primaris statline the new normal and move all Space Marines to it, but that doesn't really solve the problem because it only really helps against one-damage weapons. The solution that'll actually fix the problem is to delete vehicle squadrons and restrict all-tank armies, chop down shot count on cheap high-AP weapons, and rescale damage/Wounds such that one or two shots getting through can have a significant effect on a vehicle/monster so you don't need 8-10 lascannons (for instance) before they become reliable anti-tank weapons.

Or just make marines cheaper to reflect the reality of 8th ed.

 Blackie wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Guardsmen should probably be 5 ppm and marines 12 ppm. Maybe even 11 ppm. Marines are victims in 8th.

I agree about guardsmen but I think tac marines are fair at 13, maybe 12 could be ok as well, but 11 seems too cheap. There are at least 7-8 factions that are currently a lot weaker than marines.

Faction has nothing to do with it. I want power armor marines to be correctly costed just as much as I want howling banshees to be correctly costed. However in the time it takes to fix each unit, the eldar player can avoid the banshees a lot easier than a marine player can avoid running...yknow, actual marines.

I don't care if a codex has a boogeyman "flyrant" build, that doesn't justify other units sucking.

Martel732 wrote:
Or just make marines cheaper to reflect the reality of 8th ed.

...Do we really need to have the "death spiral of power creep" argument again? (In brief: Once you start making Space Marines cheaper you start making small arms worse, which means things like Guardians, Sisters, and Guardsmen become overpriced, which means you need to do something about them, and then heavier anti-infantry weapons become bad and need buffs, and you wander right back to where you started only infantry are no longer relevant to the game except to occupy space.)

Or, more briefly: Do you want to make Space Marines effective, or do you want to make them into Guardsmen?

It's not a spiral. Compared to a 9 point sister, a marine is only worth 11-12 points changing nothing else.

The stats on marines aren't changing. Price is all we have left.

Also, at this point, I'd take guardsmen in a heartbeat. Cheaper is always better in 8th. Quality is frankly irrelevant now. Every quality unit has an overcharge plasma gun with their name on it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Or just make marines cheaper to reflect the reality of 8th ed.

...Do we really need to have the "death spiral of power creep" argument again? (In brief: Once you start making Space Marines cheaper you start making small arms worse, which means things like Guardians, Sisters, and Guardsmen become overpriced, which means you need to do something about them, and then heavier anti-infantry weapons become bad and need buffs, and you wander right back to where you started only infantry are no longer relevant to the game except to occupy space.)

Or, more briefly: Do you want to make Space Marines effective, or do you want to make them into Guardsmen?

This sounds like a textbook slippery slope fallacy. No one is wanting them to be so cheap that they are better hands down per point than other troops. They just want them to be comparable to other troops. And right now wound and body count are extremely better than toughness and save on a troop unit.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Guardsmen should probably be 5 ppm and marines 12 ppm. Maybe even 11 ppm. Marines are victims in 8th.

I agree about guardsmen but I think tac marines are fair at 13, maybe 12 could be ok as well, but 11 seems too cheap. There are at least 7-8 factions that are currently a lot weaker than marines.

Faction has nothing to do with it. I want power armor marines to be correctly costed just as much as I want howling banshees to be correctly costed. However in the time it takes to fix each unit, the eldar player can avoid the banshees a lot easier than a marine player can avoid running...yknow, actual marines.

I don't care if a codex has a boogeyman "flyrant" build, that doesn't justify other units sucking.

Hey the Flyrant comparisons are taking off!

Martel732 wrote:
It's not a spiral. Compared to a 9 point sister, a marine is only worth 11-12 points changing nothing else.

The stats on marines aren't changing. Price is all we have left.

It's a play environment problem. Futzing with tiny details about how Space Marines work isn't going to change the basic problem of the increasing irrelevance of infantry in the face of ever-bigger models and ever-fewer barriers to prevent people from running armies entirely composed of ever-bigger models.

The Space Marine isn't the problem with Space Marines. The design philosophy behind the Leman Russ, the Ghostkeel, the Dark Reaper, and the Baneblade, the assumption that we need volume of AP-2 and better firepower to deal with easily-available heavy armour and that it should be made cheaply/easily available as a result is the problem.

Tactical Marines in 30k aren't an irrelevant waste of space, not because they're dramatically cheaper or tougher than 40k Marines, but because they exist in an environment where the big guns are appropriately costed and not easily spammable, and where the scenario rules and army composition are controlled such that large Tactical squads are strong objective holders and can generally rely on having good targets in most games.

40K marines need to be costed for the reality you just described. It's that simple. Other troops should frankly be terrified of marines anyway, as that seems to be marines' "thing". We don't even get our tactics on our non-troops, so by that line of reasoning, marines should have the best troops far and away.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's not a spiral. Compared to a 9 point sister, a marine is only worth 11-12 points changing nothing else.

The stats on marines aren't changing. Price is all we have left.

It's a play environment problem. Futzing with tiny details about how Space Marines work isn't going to change the basic problem of the increasing irrelevance of infantry in the face of ever-bigger models and ever-fewer barriers to prevent people from running armies entirely composed of ever-bigger models.

The Space Marine isn't the problem with Space Marines. The design philosophy behind the Leman Russ, the Ghostkeel, the Dark Reaper, and the Baneblade, the assumption that we need volume of AP-2 and better firepower to deal with easily-available heavy armour and that it should be made cheaply/easily available as a result is the problem.

Tactical Marines in 30k aren't an irrelevant waste of space, not because they're dramatically cheaper or tougher than 40k Marines, but because they exist in an environment where the big guns are appropriately costed and not easily spammable, and where the scenario rules and army composition are controlled such that large Tactical squads are strong objective holders and can generally rely on having good targets in most games.

I've never seen more than maybe a couple of people want to take the basic Marine in 30k. Hell, in the short time I played it, I avoided it altogether by using Word Bearers with Ashen Circle as the troops. Worked pretty decently.

Martel732 wrote:
40K marines need to be costed for the reality you just described. It's that simple. Other troops should frankly be terrified of marines anyway, as that seems to be marines' "thing". We don't even get our tactics on our non-troops, so by that line of reasoning, marines should have the best troops far and away.

...My assertion is that Tactical Marines cannot be costed for the 8e heavy-weapon-spam meta. There is no price at which a Tactical Marine will be 'durable'. The statline required to make a Tactical Marine 'durable' would have wonky ripples across the entire infantry space that would do things like make Guardsmen a worse problem than they are. The solution to the problem you guys are describing is to do something about the heavy-weapon-spam meta.

It's much easier to make marines cheaper in response to the heavy weapon meta. That's likely never going away. Hell, admech's big trick is 72 S6 -2 AP shots from a handful of robots.

Martel732 wrote:
It's much easier to make marines cheaper in response to the heavy weapon meta. That's likely never going away. Hell, admech's big trick is 72 S6 -2 AP shots from a handful of robots.

Yeehah. It's easier. And it doesn't solve the problem. Making every Grey Knight unit a point cheaper each is easier than overhauling the psychic system. It'd also fix none of the actual problems with the army.

Looking through this and other posts on balancing marines, majority of arguments against improving baseline marines generally fall under the categories of:

1. Stop crying about how marines aren't as elite as they're reflected in the fluff.
2. Marines can't be made cheaper because they will be overpowered.
3. Fixing marines aren't going to fix anything in the game because you're only talking about small arms fire.
4. Reducing price of marines will cause a spiral effect for the entire game, where it'll begin to break the game as a whole.

Here's the counter argument for the general comments above:

1. The fix isn't about making marines so good that it overshadows all other troops out there. Currently marines are the least efficient-per-point (henceforth EPP), with no options to pay to improve their roles - because lets face it - cheap chaff infantry blob pays for more bodies to make it a better cheap, chaff infantry blob. You pay more for extra marines and you get... a bigger liability and bigger point sink.
2. Folks at 3++ ran some interesting math. The point is, marines even at 11 ppm still performs very slightly worse than guardsmen in wounds-per-point and durability-per-point.
3. Exactly. Making marines cheaper or more durable will do NOTHING in terms of improving chances of losing/winning games. Even if they're cheaper or more durable, they won't be able to all of a sudden kill things they weren't able to before, nor will they be able to stay exorbitantly longer on the table.
4. No. No it won't. Making marines cheaper by a few points or giving it +1W is not going break the game. What was gamebreaking was the free transports in decurions.

This isn't about what's right. It's about what's fair.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's much easier to make marines cheaper in response to the heavy weapon meta. That's likely never going away. Hell, admech's big trick is 72 S6 -2 AP shots from a handful of robots.

Yeehah. It's easier. And it doesn't solve the problem. Making every Grey Knight unit a point cheaper each is easier than overhauling the psychic system. It'd also fix none of the actual problems with the army.

Actually it does. There is a price point at which every unit is neither an autotake nor an autoskip.

And although I hate to make this another "nerf AM" comment, but no army in the game can spam special & heavy weapons AND have the most bodies on the table other than AM, with the cheapest, most spammable force multipliers.

Actually on a second thought, take AM out of these equations and everything starts to even out.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
40K marines need to be costed for the reality you just described. It's that simple. Other troops should frankly be terrified of marines anyway, as that seems to be marines' "thing". We don't even get our tactics on our non-troops, so by that line of reasoning, marines should have the best troops far and away.

...My assertion is that Tactical Marines cannot be costed for the 8e heavy-weapon-spam meta. There is no price at which a Tactical Marine will be 'durable'. The statline required to make a Tactical Marine 'durable' would have wonky ripples across the entire infantry space that would do things like make Guardsmen a worse problem than they are. The solution to the problem you guys are describing is to do something about the heavy-weapon-spam meta.

They're not even that durable to small arms though.

 skchsan wrote:
Looking through this and other posts on balancing marines, majority of arguments against improving baseline marines generally fall under the categories of:

1. Stop crying about how marines aren't as elite as they're reflected in the fluff.
2. Marines can't be made cheaper because they will be overpowered.
3. Fixing marines aren't going to fix anything in the game because you're only talking about small arms fire.
4. Reducing price of marines will cause a spiral effect for the entire game, where it'll begin to break the game as a whole.

Here's the counter argument for the general comments above:

1. The fix isn't about making marines so good that it overshadows all other troops out there. Currently marines are the least efficient-per-point (henceforth EPP), with no options to pay to improve their roles - because lets face it - cheap chaff infantry blob pays for more bodies to make it a better cheap, chaff infantry blob. You pay more for extra marines and you get... a bigger liability and bigger point sink.
2. Folks at 3++ ran some interesting math. The point is, marines even at 11 ppm still performs very slightly worse than guardsmen in wounds-per-point and durability-per-point.
3. Exactly. Making marines cheaper or more durable will do NOTHING in terms of improving chances of losing/winning games. Even if they're cheaper or more durable, they won't be able to all of a sudden kill things they weren't able to before, nor will they be able to stay exorbitantly longer on the table.
4. No. No it won't. Making marines cheaper by a few points or giving it +1W is not going break the game. What was gamebreaking was the free transports in decurions.

This isn't about what's right. It's about what's fair.

Counter-counterpoints:

1: Yeah. I agree. Marines aren't as elite as they're reflected in the fluff. My assertion is that nothing about Marine stats makes them that way. Put them in an infantry fight and they are as elite as they are in the fluff, put them up against a weapon that makes the same set of rolls to kill a Marine as a Guardsmen and they're a waste of time. Repointing Marines doesn't make them more elite, it makes them into Guardsmen.

2: Marines at 13pts perform better than any other Troops unit in the game in a straight-up fight between Troops units with small arms, according to my math. Using the work 3++ did to say that 11pt Marines are still worse than Guardsmen involves accepting a play environment in which infantry are functionally irrelevant. It's a short fix. It doesn't make Marines feel or play better. It doesn't make Marines worth taking. It doesn't solve the problems we're actually trying to solve.

3: Yes. It won't improve the game. There are other things you could do that would. Therefore starting endless arguments about how Marines are the problem with Marines rather than trying to address the actual problem with Marines is sort of a pointless exercise.

4: Reducing the price of Marines won't cause a spiral effect that'll break the game. Reducing the price of Marines will cause a spiral effect that will break the role of infantry in the game, because the problems with Marines are also problems with every infantry unit that doesn't come in 30-man blobs for <200pts. The problem with Marines is the same problem Guardians, Fire Warriors, Dark Eldar Warriors, Battle Sisters, Sisters of Silence, Skitarii, Inquisitorial Henchmen, Chaos Marines, Lesser Daemons, and plenty of others are suffering from, it isn't unique to them. Trying to make medium infantry more effective by instituting a blanket points drop for medium infantry isn't going to change the fact that medium infantry units are too easily wrecked by the endless power creep in gun size. And if you declare "the price of the infantry is the problem", do that, then dust your hands off and walk off satisfied rather than trying to address the actual problem you're accepting that the problem is irreversible and infantry that cost more than 6-7pts and come in giant blobs are never going to be playable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
It's much easier to make marines cheaper in response to the heavy weapon meta. That's likely never going away. Hell, admech's big trick is 72 S6 -2 AP shots from a handful of robots.

Yeehah. It's easier. And it doesn't solve the problem. Making every Grey Knight unit a point cheaper each is easier than overhauling the psychic system. It'd also fix none of the actual problems with the army.

Actually it does. There is a price point at which every unit is neither an autotake nor an autoskip.

Yes. Marines could be Guardsmen. Is that the game you want to play? You could make all single-wound infantry do the same set of things. Is the problem that Marines don't live up to our expectations of what Marines should do, or that Marines aren't Guardsmen?

We are limiting ourselves to what GW is realistically going to do. At least, I am. Yes, rewriting the game will fix it, too. The admech 72 S6 -2 shots aren't going anywhere. Price marines accordingly.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
40K marines need to be costed for the reality you just described. It's that simple. Other troops should frankly be terrified of marines anyway, as that seems to be marines' "thing". We don't even get our tactics on our non-troops, so by that line of reasoning, marines should have the best troops far and away.

...My assertion is that Tactical Marines cannot be costed for the 8e heavy-weapon-spam meta. There is no price at which a Tactical Marine will be 'durable'. The statline required to make a Tactical Marine 'durable' would have wonky ripples across the entire infantry space that would do things like make Guardsmen a worse problem than they are. The solution to the problem you guys are describing is to do something about the heavy-weapon-spam meta.

They're not even that durable to small arms though.

So what I'm hearing is that I need to keep the spreadsheets around, because every time you say something like that I redo the math to point out that Marines win every firefight between Troops units with small arms handily (point for point) and you forget about it five minutes later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
We are limiting ourselves to what GW is realistically going to do. At least, I am. Yes, rewriting the game will fix it, too. The admech 72 S6 -2 shots aren't going anywhere. Price marines accordingly.

THIS IS PROPOSED RULES. If you want to "limit yourself to what GW is going to do" please go to the section of the forums that isn't entirely about doing things GW isn't going to do.

I guess. But even then, I'd try price drops for power armor units first.

It's not worth the effort to post 10 pages of homebrew to fix something that can mostly fixed by changing "13" to "11".

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. But even then, I'd try price drops for power armor units first.

It's not worth the effort to post 10 pages of homebrew to fix something that can mostly fixed by changing "13" to "11".

So again. It isn't worth the effort of fixing the problem because you could make a one-digit change that doesn't fix the problem?

Tell you what. Drop Tac Marines to 11pts. Go play a game against an army with thirty Dark Reapers in it. Then come back and tell me you've "fixed the problem".

I'd have a better chance than I would with 13 pt marines. That's the point.

Dark reapers will get points increase in March.

The main problem here is that AM has comparable stat lines as any other armies, whose bodies/vehicle platforms are too cheap, and the weapons are cheaper than the exact counter part of other armies.

But hey, that's what AM's supposed be, right? Quantity is its own quality? So then where does rest of the armies stand? What role does straight up quality in the game play?

Do we tone down AM to even out with the game or do we fix rest of the game to be on par at AM level?

 skchsan wrote:
The main problem here is that AM has comparable stat lines as any other armies, whose bodies/vehicle platforms are too cheap, and the weapons are cheaper than the exact counter part of other armies.

But hey, that's what AM's supposed be, right? Quantity is its own quality? So then where does rest of the armies stand? What role does straight up quality in the game play?

Do we tone down AM to even out with the game or do we fix rest of the game to be on par at AM level?

Depends. Are you happy with games ending top of turn one? Then yes. Take the Manticore as your baseline and buff everything else to compensate. Do you want a game that people might enjoy playing? Stop the ever-bigger-guns death spiral and start putting limitations on heavy weapon spam.

Make the manticore cost 185 pts and things get better. Almost everything can be fixed with costing.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
40K marines need to be costed for the reality you just described. It's that simple. Other troops should frankly be terrified of marines anyway, as that seems to be marines' "thing". We don't even get our tactics on our non-troops, so by that line of reasoning, marines should have the best troops far and away.

...My assertion is that Tactical Marines cannot be costed for the 8e heavy-weapon-spam meta. There is no price at which a Tactical Marine will be 'durable'. The statline required to make a Tactical Marine 'durable' would have wonky ripples across the entire infantry space that would do things like make Guardsmen a worse problem than they are. The solution to the problem you guys are describing is to do something about the heavy-weapon-spam meta.

They're not even that durable to small arms though.

So what I'm hearing is that I need to keep the spreadsheets around, because every time you say something like that I redo the math to point out that Marines win every firefight between Troops units with small arms handily (point for point) and you forget about it five minutes later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
We are limiting ourselves to what GW is realistically going to do. At least, I am. Yes, rewriting the game will fix it, too. The admech 72 S6 -2 shots aren't going anywhere. Price marines accordingly.

THIS IS PROPOSED RULES. If you want to "limit yourself to what GW is going to do" please go to the section of the forums that isn't entirely about doing things GW isn't going to do.

Go ahead and present your spreadsheets then.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Depends. Are you happy with games ending top of turn one? Then yes. Take the Manticore as your baseline and buff everything else to compensate. Do you want a game that people might enjoy playing? Stop the ever-bigger-guns death spiral and start putting limitations on heavy weapon spam.

So if we buff everything up to AM's level, the game will last only 1 turn? Because that isn't happening now anyways? So it's perfectly normal for AM to use the standard 200-man double-chevron meat shield with manticores and banes' and mortars sitting in backfield because that's the kind of game that people enjoy playing right? Since AM's built around cheap heavy weapons, I suppose we need to put more limitations on AM.

Dumbing down heavy weapons is only going favor chaff armies even further. The game needs to be balanced in a way that the cheapest units can't do same damage as ones that cost 2-3 times more than them. The simplest way you can change this is by either by increasing the cost of the cheapest units or decreasing the cost of the units that cost 2-3 times more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And take for example plague marines - with +1T and +5 FnP they're paying 4 extra ppm, and all of a sudden they become decent troop choice. They're are allowed up to 2 special weapons per unit, regardless of how many models are in the unit.

But nonetheless, troop slots are better filled by cultists and poxwalkers - why? because they're dirt cheap and do what they do well - being a chaff bubble wrap.

Dare I suggest, the core of the problem here is not the marine, but the overabundance of these mid to high power weapons that to quote several, "kill a marine as easily as a guardsman." Perhaps powerful heavy and special weapons should be actually special, i.e. limited and not readily spammable. On the other hand rifles that are supposed to be advanced can be boosted a bit to the point that they're solid, if still unremarkable weapons, and not the semi-effective "take them because you have to" fillers that they currently are.

Now obviously this is never going to happen because GW opened the floodgates and encouraged players to field armies entirely made of tanks and aircraft, or containing multiple superheavies and gargantuan creatures, not to mention certain deathstar units, and one needs large numbers of killy to very killy guns to deal with the abundance of such hard targets...that should not be abundant at all. And nor do they want to sell less of these big pricy models. But ah just my idea of what would make the game better...

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Dare I suggest, the core of the problem here is not the marine, but the overabundance of these mid to high power weapons that to quote several, "kill a marine as easily as a guardsman." Perhaps powerful heavy and special weapons should be actually special, i.e. limited and not readily spammable. On the other hand rifles that are supposed to be advanced can be boosted a bit to the point that they're solid, if still unremarkable weapons, and not the semi-effective "take them because you have to" fillers that they currently are.

Now obviously this is never going to happen because GW opened the floodgates and encouraged players to field armies entirely made of tanks and aircraft, or containing multiple superheavies and gargantuan creatures, not to mention certain deathstar units, and one needs large numbers of killy to very killy guns to deal with the abundance of such hard targets...that should not be abundant at all. And nor do they want to sell less of these big pricy models. But ah just my idea of what would make the game better...

Then it'll truly become "marines are OP" because there wont be enough weapons to take down a company of marines in time IMO. What's being suggested is that "let the anti-MEQ be as effective in what they do, but stop letting anti-GEQ weapons to be just as efficient at killing MEQ's, whether it may be in buff in the characteristics or in reduced points for the MEQ"

The game has lost its mid-tier units - by that I mean, prior to 8th ed, classifications like GEQ, MEQ, and TEQ had a meaning - GEQ: bring AP5's; MEQ: bring AP3's; TEQ: bring AP2/1's or tons of dakka. 8th edition has granted the weakest of the units to be able to wound anything, albeit with small chances. In a way of compensating for this boost in threat (although minor), in order to properly establish what the weakest attacks can do to the toughest of vehicles, GW has made the interactions of stats in a way so that the weakest weapon have less than ~1/100th chance of wounding it. What they've failed to do is increase the survivability of mid-grade units with the increased potential threat of weakest of the units, along with the increased survivability of vehicles as they were translated to wound system.

 skchsan wrote:

Then it'll truly become "marines are OP" because there wont be enough weapons to take down a company of marines in time IMO. What's being suggested is that "let the anti-MEQ be as effective in what they do, but stop letting anti-GEQ weapons to be just as efficient at killing MEQ's, whether it may be in buff in the characteristics or in reduced points for the MEQ"

But are half the posts here not complaining (and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't play 8th) that marines are not even proving problematic, points for points, against the same small arms that kill guardsmen? So if everyone and their uncle can bring a plasma gun to the battlefield... Not that this is any way a new issue -I'm reminded of strong sentiments from 6E players that AP2 pie plates shouldn't even exist in the game.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Then it'll truly become "marines are OP" because there wont be enough weapons to take down a company of marines in time IMO. What's being suggested is that "let the anti-MEQ be as effective in what they do, but stop letting anti-GEQ weapons to be just as efficient at killing MEQ's, whether it may be in buff in the characteristics or in reduced points for the MEQ"

But are half the posts here not complaining (and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't play 8th) that marines are not even proving problematic, points for points, against the same small arms that kill guardsmen? So if everyone and their uncle can bring a plasma gun to the battlefield...

Don't worry. GW heard your pleas and released a Tougher space marine unit armed entirely with plasmaguns to help deal with the special weapon spam!

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

Then it'll truly become "marines are OP" because there wont be enough weapons to take down a company of marines in time IMO. What's being suggested is that "let the anti-MEQ be as effective in what they do, but stop letting anti-GEQ weapons to be just as efficient at killing MEQ's, whether it may be in buff in the characteristics or in reduced points for the MEQ"

But are half the posts here not complaining (and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't play 8th) that marines are not even proving problematic, points for points, against the same small arms that kill guardsmen? So if everyone and their uncle can bring a plasma gun to the battlefield...

If I understand your double negation properly, yes. Weaker guns perform better per point, and are able to be critical massed cheaper. Everyone brings their plasmas at a point, although AM pays significantly less. So the question is, do we make the weaker guns even weaker? Or make MEQ's more kill-ier? Or make MEQ's slightly tougher?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Go ahead and present your spreadsheets then.

20 lasguns @
GEQ 3.33 = (.5 x .5 x .666)
MEQ 1.1 = (.5 x .333 x .333)

 AnomanderRake wrote:

2: Marines at 13pts perform better than any other Troops unit in the game in a straight-up fight between Troops units with small arms, according to my math.

Tyranid Warriors get em.
10 marines = 130 pts.
5 Warriors w/ Deathspitters = 125 (are Deathspitters "small arms"?, they are not Heavy, but they're basically a Heavy Bolter. Suck it Bolt Rifle.)

10 marines @ Warriors (20 x .666 x .5 x .5) = 3.33 w (1 Tyranid Warrior is 3 W, so 1/5 the squad.
5 Warriors @ Marines (15 x .5 x .666 x .5) = 2.25 w (1/4) the squad.

Jormungandr Warriors fare better w/ a 3+ save. RG Marines need to be out of Rapid Fire range to get their bonus, which would not be good for them.

SMs get most of the fluff so that is your exchange for power.

Space marines just need to have a few points dropped. Power armour is not as good in the new edition because of the AP- rule, but I personally think it works. Also guard are broken this edition(so far) the amount of fire they can put out is ridiculous and can kill most things.(sorry for going off topic there)

SM should be 9 points but with a different profile.

T3 S3 armor 4+

Scouts for 8 points but elites and with a 5+ save.

I love armies that are infantry based but T4 and 3+ save guys can't be discounted, they'd be too durable. Guardsmen are broken, to fix the game just adjust their points, it's wrong to make another troop broken to counter them. And not every army should play with the horde style, an infantry based SM list should have 40ish power armor guys, considering all the units that are part of the list, not only tacticals.

WTF? T3 S3 4+ save marines? Why break fluff that badly? They are already weak compared to fluff(remember marines bare armed can punch human to death with glancing blow or bend metal and power armour just boosts it while power armour ensures it's impervious to small arm and even if it gets penetrated shot can blow out some internal organs and marine STILL keeps fighting). S3 T3 4+ save would not make sense at all.

And it's not like S4 T4 3+ is some sort of super unbeatable stat line...It's fairly mediocre as it is.

And 40 models with those stats? 40 models at T4 3+ save can get blown out of game in a turn as it is...

Personally, I think that the problem is more that the stuff at the bottom of the infantry scale – the most obvious example being Guardsmen – is probably too cheap now, given the boosts they’ve received as a consequence of changes in mechanics from 3rd-7th to 8th. In the case of Guard it’s particularly egregious as they can now use Orders much more reliably. Yet their point cost, relative to other regular infantry, has remained unchanged. As such, rather than dropping the cost of medium infantry, would it be better to push up the cost of light infantry. The obvious drawback to point *reductions* for anything costing less than, say, 15 points is that you very quickly run out of room for adjustment.

tneva82 wrote:
WTF? T3 S3 4+ save marines? Why break fluff that badly? They are already weak compared to fluff(remember marines bare armed can punch human to death with glancing blow or bend metal and power armour just boosts it while power armour ensures it's impervious to small arm and even if it gets penetrated shot can blow out some internal organs and marine STILL keeps fighting). S3 T3 4+ save would not make sense at all.

And it's not like S4 T4 3+ is some sort of super unbeatable stat line...It's fairly mediocre as it is.

For a troop the 3+ save is huge since most anti infantry weapons don't have any AP, and some just AP-1.

About the stats, you don't have to compare guardsmen, they're broken, we all know that. Compare marines to eldar guardians, kabalite warriors, wyches, hormagaunts, termagants, necron warriors, ork boyz... and of course all the specialists that are just regular dudes with additional wargear. SM are certainly among the most durable ones and their cost is appropriate. I honestly don't see a power armor guy being stronger than a regular dude, primaris with S4 and T4 make sense, but regular SM should have the same profile as other humans just with a better save, which is the bonus power armours give. Ork boyz are S4 T4 and look like Hulk compared to SM, and yet they have the same T and S. Aesthetically speaking SM look as strong as eldar, tyranids but also guardsmen, which are all T3.

To make them cheaper you must nerf their profile, simple. Otherwise they'd be broken just like guardsmen.

tneva82 wrote:

And 40 models with those stats? 40 models at T4 3+ save can get blown out of game in a turn as it is...

40-50 space marines plus vehicles, termies, centurions, primaris, flyers.... of course I didn't mean to consider an army of 40 guys and nothing else

I think marines are fine as they are but to have more durable dudes the only possible option is to lower their stats and make them cheaper.

 Blackie wrote:
About the stats, you don't have to compare guardsmen, they're broken, we all know that. Compare marines to eldar guardians, kabalite warriors, wyches, hormagaunts, termagants, necron warriors, ork boyz... and of course all the specialists that are just regular dudes with additional wargear. SM are certainly among the most durable ones and their cost is appropriate. I honestly don't see a power armor guy being stronger than a regular dude, primaris with S4 and T4 make sense, but regular SM should have the same profile as other humans just with a better save, which is the bonus power armours give. Ork boyz are S4 T4 and look like Hulk compared to SM, and yet they have the same T and S. Aesthetically speaking SM look as strong as eldar, tyranids but also guardsmen, which are all T3.

Marine can lose HEART and still fight. Lung? Keep on fighting. Bullet through stomach? Not going to stop him. Body heals entrance and exit wounds and marines have redundancies to deal with organs being lost.

Seriously you think guy that can lose a heart is guy that's as easy to hurt as regular human?

Yeah, “make Marines as terrible as Guardsmen” is a bizarre suggestion from both a fluff and crunch perspective.

The cheapest units in the gane are too cheap and 2018 will bear this out. Marines are not fine in that a shot from almost any weapon removes more points of marines than cheapo troops. Maybe the game needed ap +1 as well.

 Blackie wrote:
I honestly don't see a power armor guy being stronger than a regular dude, primaris with S4 and T4 make sense, but regular SM should have the same profile as other humans just with a better save, which is the bonus power armours give. Ork boyz are S4 T4 and look like Hulk compared to SM, and yet they have the same T and S. Aesthetically speaking SM look as strong as eldar, tyranids but also guardsmen, which are all.

This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with. The problem is that the new guys now take up the space that marines need to be in to play well (not surprising, in theory should help Gw sell their new baby).

So a buff is unlikely, as that would step on the toes of primaris marines. However IMO if you reduce marine stats to equal that of a GEQ then you are no longer playing space marines. Marines are not just a guardsman in power armour. If you were holding a pistol/chainsword and had to kill a naked, unarmed marine then my money would be on him. All of it. Every penny. Hell, have one of his hearts out of action at the start and my money would still be 100% on him.

 Blackie wrote:
SM should be 9 points but with a different profile.

T3 S3 armor 4+

Scouts for 8 points but elites and with a 5+ save.

I love armies that are infantry based but T4 and 3+ save guys can't be discounted, they'd be too durable. Guardsmen are broken, to fix the game just adjust their points, it's wrong to make another troop broken to counter them. And not every army should play with the horde style, an infantry based SM list should have 40ish power armor guys, considering all the units that are part of the list, not only tacticals.

My infantry based SM list with T4 3+ save has over 70 models in it, over 60 in Power Armor. It's not hard to do as is. Techinically, 100 Power Armored Space Marines comes in at 1300 points. Plenty of space to load out your company if you want to hoard out.

Would it be bad to do any debuffs on marines, even to balance buffs in other places?

In fifth and sixth editions I tried marines with 4+ saves who could add one to their save rolls, and then later 2 to their saves. It made a real difference for heavy bolters and especially power mauls - why did chaplains, the most internal-affairs, anti-traitor character in a chapter, have a weapon that didn't affect power armor? Preposterous.

Then having the debuff of being hurt by ap4 effectively paid for buffs to other abilities, so the points cost didn't have to increase and nobody in these games had to rewrite army lists.


It also later gave a 2+ save against lasguns and shootas, etc., which nobody would have tolerated if there weren't common ap4 weapons that could make up for it.

So yes, it can be good idea to knock down some stats like toughness, especially since it against some weapons (s5) it isn't a nerf. I think toughness isn't the right choice, but it's a good idea.

 hippyjr wrote:


This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with.

Not every player wanted that. I hate how primaris look for example, IMHO the worst models in the entire GW catalogue along with the DG guys, and I'd rather get the fluff changed than the dimension of the basic models increased. I prefer marines to be guardsmen in power armor with better training, which means better WS and BS. IMHO the issue was not the scale but the fluff, too silly.

This doesn't affect Marines' durability but I think the best buff apply would be to give them the special ability they have in 30k. I can't remember the name right now but it allows them to fire twice if they remain stationary and are willing to give up shooting next turn. Gives them the chance to actually erase a unit that might be threatening them.

 Blackie wrote:
Not every player wanted that. I hate how primaris look for example, IMHO the worst models in the entire GW catalogue along with the DG guys, and I'd rather get the fluff changed than the dimension of the basic models increased. I prefer marines to be guardsmen in power armor with better training, which means better WS and BS. IMHO the issue was not the scale but the fluff, too silly.

Just gonna say, run them as sisters and you've got this already.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Dare I suggest, the core of the problem here is not the marine, but the overabundance of these mid to high power weapons that to quote several, "kill a marine as easily as a guardsman." Perhaps powerful heavy and special weapons should be actually special, i.e. limited and not readily spammable. On the other hand rifles that are supposed to be advanced can be boosted a bit to the point that they're solid, if still unremarkable weapons, and not the semi-effective "take them because you have to" fillers that they currently are.

Now obviously this is never going to happen because GW opened the floodgates and encouraged players to field armies entirely made of tanks and aircraft, or containing multiple superheavies and gargantuan creatures, not to mention certain deathstar units, and one needs large numbers of killy to very killy guns to deal with the abundance of such hard targets...that should not be abundant at all. And nor do they want to sell less of these big pricy models. But ah just my idea of what would make the game better...

If people really have a problem with this then they should setup their own league using only the core three formations and only allow one of them per faction. It's something I've considered myself so people can actually have fun rather than selecting who gets thrown to the wolves each week to the power gamer.

 Blackie wrote:

 hippyjr wrote:


This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with.

Not every player wanted that. I hate how primaris look for example, IMHO the worst models in the entire GW catalogue along with the DG guys, and I'd rather get the fluff changed than the dimension of the basic models increased. I prefer marines to be guardsmen in power armor with better training, which means better WS and BS. IMHO the issue was not the scale but the fluff, too silly.

You're exaggerating if you think the Primaris are the worst models in their catalogue when Logan Clause, Nipple Armor Blood Angels, Obliterators/Mutilators, Possessed etc. are Marine models that currently exist.

You don't have to be a fan of Primaris models. I'm not. I'm using Boarding Shield Marines as my Intercessors because Mk3 for life. The worst models in the entire GW catalogue past and present? You're literally lying, sorry.

 Blackie wrote:

 hippyjr wrote:


This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with.

Not every player wanted that. I hate how primaris look for example, IMHO the worst models in the entire GW catalogue along with the DG guys, and I'd rather get the fluff changed than the dimension of the basic models increased. I prefer marines to be guardsmen in power armor with better training, which means better WS and BS. IMHO the issue was not the scale but the fluff, too silly.

The fluff is too silly?

Just quit 40k cause every faction has silly fluff.

Orks fluff is waaay more silly compared to marines, they're a giant fungus that becomes sentient. How is that less silly than a super soldier?
How about necrons? A race that decided to put everyone in metal skeletons to live on a planet with so much radiation they couldn't survive for long
What about sisters of battle? The church wasn't aloud to have an army of men so he raised an army of women, like that's just foolish

You clearly don't understand 40k fluff if you think a marine should be T3, marines are not human per say, they go through multiple surgeries. Grow to 8ft tall have extras of organs, like the heart. Marines tower over most races except orks who are also T4 for what it's worth

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:

 hippyjr wrote:


This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with.

Not every player wanted that. I hate how primaris look for example, IMHO the worst models in the entire GW catalogue along with the DG guys, and I'd rather get the fluff changed than the dimension of the basic models increased. I prefer marines to be guardsmen in power armor with better training, which means better WS and BS. IMHO the issue was not the scale but the fluff, too silly.

The fluff is too silly?

Just quit 40k cause every faction has silly fluff.

Orks fluff is waaay more silly compared to marines, they're a giant fungus that becomes sentient. How is that less silly than a super soldier?
How about necrons? A race that decided to put everyone in metal skeletons to live on a planet with so much radiation they couldn't survive for long
What about sisters of battle? The church wasn't aloud to have an army of men so he raised an army of women, like that's just foolish

You clearly don't understand 40k fluff if you think a marine should be T3, marines are not human per say, they go through multiple surgeries. Grow to 8ft tall have extras of organs, like the heart. Marines tower over most races except orks who are also T4 for what it's worth

yeah T3 marines would be rediculas. Marines are fluffed VERY clearly as being signficigently tougher then mere humans. if anything you could proably argue marines should all go up 2 toughness over regular humans instead of just 1

 fraser1191 wrote:
What about sisters of battle? The church wasn't aloud to have an army of men so he raised an army of women, like that's just foolish

Not to be picky (okay, totally to be picky), but reread your fluff; the church was denied "men at arms" in the Decree Passive due to the treachery of Goge Vandire, but already had an army of all-female warriors (the Daughters of the Emperor later becoming the Adepta Sororitas/Sisters of Battle). Sebastian Thor specifically abused the wording of the Decree Passive to retain the Sisters of Battle, but due to the tenuous political situation at the time (and the desire of the new High Lords of Terra for stability) they allowed it (it's even suggested the wording may have been intentional to keep Thor on side), since Thor made rooting out treachery within the Ecclesiarchy one of the Sororitas' responsibilities, so that if another Vandire-like figure arose they would stop them before they could pervert the Ecclesiarchy (assuming the Ordo Hereticus or Officio Assassinorum didn't stop them first).

The 2nd edition Sisters of Battle codex is a fantastic read for that period of Imperial history; GW have done a terrible job of boiling the fluff down for their weak-ass White Dwarf "codex" and the insulting digital codex (meanwhile the Index barely covers anything at all). I haven't had a good look at that section of the new rulebook but it's pretty short so probably just a current state of affairs rather than detailed history.

 hippyjr wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I honestly don't see a power armor guy being stronger than a regular dude, primaris with S4 and T4 make sense, but regular SM should have the same profile as other humans just with a better save, which is the bonus power armours give. Ork boyz are S4 T4 and look like Hulk compared to SM, and yet they have the same T and S. Aesthetically speaking SM look as strong as eldar, tyranids but also guardsmen, which are all.

This is an issue with the scaling of GW space marines, and the whole reason for the primaris line. People wanted SM models that matched the fluff, AKA "true scale", and GW decided to give them that in a way which didn't render the entire SM line (and chaos marines) obsolete. Primaris models are what marines should have looked like to start with. The problem is that the new guys now take up the space that marines need to be in to play well (not surprising, in theory should help Gw sell their new baby).

So a buff is unlikely, as that would step on the toes of primaris marines. However IMO if you reduce marine stats to equal that of a GEQ then you are no longer playing space marines. Marines are not just a guardsman in power armour. If you were holding a pistol/chainsword and had to kill a naked, unarmed marine then my money would be on him. All of it. Every penny. Hell, have one of his hearts out of action at the start and my money would still be 100% on him.

I don't think marines had the scale issue. I think guardsmen had it. Just look at the cadians and and tell me they look right. True scale marines my ass. Marines with t4 and s4 makes sense, especially since power armour boosts them. Scouts however... But then again now even catachans are s4. For primaris marines, I don't like them, but as I see them they should be t5 s5, with the rest as is. This would make them more interesting gamewise. Points adjusted if needed.

S5 T5 primaris would be interesting.
But still gonna be wounded on a 3 and have to make either a 6+ or 5+ save thanks to plasma

Sadly, let's all remember...if marines were more properly built according to the fluff, marine armies would be smaller...smaller armies: selling less grey plastic.

GW (oddly) has a vested interest in Space Marines continuing to be shallow puddles of what they are in the fluff (and this extends to plenty of other lines of models as well).

However, from a house-rule standpoint? I'd love to do some narrative games with wildly exagerrated "Movie Marines" like the old days.

 Elbows wrote:
Sadly, let's all remember...if marines were more properly built according to the fluff, marine armies would be smaller...smaller armies: selling less grey plastic.

GW (oddly) has a vested interest in Space Marines continuing to be shallow puddles of what they are in the fluff (and this extends to plenty of other lines of models as well).

However, from a house-rule standpoint? I'd love to do some narrative games with wildly exagerrated "Movie Marines" like the old days.

Well I read the first book that follows Ventris and i think in the prologue there's only 30 ish marines in the fight against Night lords which was a great read.

I'd be fine with less models on the board if they could compete with an army that out numbers them 3-1.

Something I'd like to mention is i played with my DG from my dark imperium set plus some cultists and a couple stand-ins, but T5 plague marines felt way better. I was pretty much tabled in both games but still T5 marines felt a lot better than T4 (Should have 2W but still). But it was nice having only 10 plague marines made them feel more important (even if they didn't have a huge impact). Add in an AM infantry squad as a PDF force and I bet marines would feel better, probably because people would just take Infantry squads for troops and load up on Sternguard...

A mixed army of plague marines or sternguard plus lots of cultists or guard has a is a very different army from one where the plague marines are troops. When marines are troops sometimes people will ignore them because they don't have the offensive heft.

Well to be fair the way they get shot of the board now if they had any more damage output they'd be a glass cannon army lol

 Infantryman wrote:
Some of the talk lately has been about the low potency of Marine-type armies on the table. There are a lot of things wrong with them, as I'm sure you've seen the threads.

This one is another discussion on increasing Marine durability, which is reduced in the current edition rather substantially due to the way AP now works. Here it is:

==
Powered Armor:
Units with this ability roll 2d6 when making their save, and discard the lowest result.
==

This would apply to Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, and whomever else ends up wearing those types of suits - including Terminators.

I don't know if it would apply to Sisters of Battle, however - they *do* wear power armor, but I'm told it is not quite like the one the Marine types wear, because they don't have a Black Carapace.

This improves durability but still leaves them vulnerable to AP type weapons. One of the issues of a d6 system is that you don't have much die-space to work with. With Space Marines being at 3+, making them one better at 2+ just stepped on the toes of Terminator Armor.

It also opens the potential for 3+ saves for non-Marines, as this reroll wouldn't apply to them.

Let me know how badly this would break the game and ruin 40k for ever!

M.

You know how this would work, it would basically work like a reroll same probablity except better.

Terminators would basically never die from small arms fire.

It would take 480 points of guradsman using 1RF to kill 1 40 point model.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Edit actually SM have a 2+ armor save in cover so you would need 240 points to kill 1 13 point model.

2W 2A stats is interesting but would have to come with a points increase back to 15 or more. It's a huge change though... for balance every existing SM/CSM codex would have to be redone at the same time. Probably best to wait for all other codices first and let the dust settle

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Infantryman wrote:
Some of the talk lately has been about the low potency of Marine-type armies on the table. There are a lot of things wrong with them, as I'm sure you've seen the threads.

This one is another discussion on increasing Marine durability, which is reduced in the current edition rather substantially due to the way AP now works. Here it is:

==
Powered Armor:
Units with this ability roll 2d6 when making their save, and discard the lowest result.
==

This would apply to Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, and whomever else ends up wearing those types of suits - including Terminators.

I don't know if it would apply to Sisters of Battle, however - they *do* wear power armor, but I'm told it is not quite like the one the Marine types wear, because they don't have a Black Carapace.

This improves durability but still leaves them vulnerable to AP type weapons. One of the issues of a d6 system is that you don't have much die-space to work with. With Space Marines being at 3+, making them one better at 2+ just stepped on the toes of Terminator Armor.

It also opens the potential for 3+ saves for non-Marines, as this reroll wouldn't apply to them.

Let me know how badly this would break the game and ruin 40k for ever!

M.

You know how this would work, it would basically work like a reroll same probablity except better.

Terminators would basically never die from small arms fire.

It would take 480 points of guradsman using 1RF to kill 1 40 point model.

Does that sound reasonable to you?

Edit actually SM have a 2+ armor save in cover so you would need 240 points to kill 1 13 point model.

Math hammet tends to not agree this, Str3 AP0 weapon have 63% chances to kill a T4 Sv2+ (Sv3+ stat but standing in cover) 1W model when there are 36 shots fired. If one Guardsmen is 4ppm, then 72pts can kill one at RF range.

 Elbows wrote:
However, from a house-rule standpoint? I'd love to do some narrative games with wildly exagerrated "Movie Marines" like the old days.

A friend of mine went to a mini event at our local GW, where they had people fighting primaris characters. At the store they were handing out datasheets for "movie primaris marines" (everyone got the basic sheets, only the winner got the movie captain stats". Played a game vs my deathguard with mortarion and it was the most one sided game I have ever played. Almost 3k worth of movie primaris gets you a little over 10 guys (all characters), all 3 wounds, S/T 6, 2+/3++/4+++, regen every turn, crazy guns, etc. the sergeant had bubble buffs for the regen (1 becomes d3) IIRC, so you had to focus one marine at a time or they insta-heal. hide the heavy plasma weapons (which had a decent chance of one shotting tanks) behind a wall of riflemen and they become immune to attacks. Even morty on the charge only killed one (with mortal wound spam, not scythe attacks).

Interesting game, but not particularly fun.

 Elbows wrote:
Sadly, let's all remember...if marines were more properly built according to the fluff, marine armies would be smaller...smaller armies: selling less grey plastic.

GW (oddly) has a vested interest in Space Marines continuing to be shallow puddles of what they are in the fluff (and this extends to plenty of other lines of models as well).

However, from a house-rule standpoint? I'd love to do some narrative games with wildly exagerrated "Movie Marines" like the old days.

Use Space Marine minis and use the custodes rules?

GW for whatever reason cannot get its quantity of small weapons vs. AP profile weapons correct. Fundamentally, I believe the developers don't believe players will min-max the best weapons and are adding weapons in a thematic way as an an accessory. People do spam special/heavy weapons and they are too easily spammable relative to the basic weapon. In every edition, a regular trooper with basic weapon is your tax for taking special weapon.

In addition, GW does seem to architect and design the Marine profile around suriviveabilty to small-weapon profile. They aka build marines to be tough against lasgun fire. Conversely, then they hand out plasma and high AP stuff like candy? Is that meant to be a "marine control" or a balance? Seems to be beyond that at this point. I think they just don't think people will spam these weapons is my only logic. GW just always sees this as a thematic narrative experience at the heart of it and not a spam fest as their player base does.

So in a way everyone is sort of saying the same thing. Either small weapons like Bolters have to be made more effective so that this increases the basic Marine's OFFENSIVE output relative to everything else. Or conversely, you can decrease AP firepower of opposing armies and not make those weapons as spammable. This would increase the DEFENSIVE output of Marines. Adding a wound to stock Marines is another option for increasing Defensive output of Marines. The argument can be made that this may not help in this edition because multi-wound weapons like plasma are everywhere. However, this extra wound would help against opposing lasgun equivalents.

So do we think Marines die more due to AP spam or lasgun spam? You could make arguments either way which is why we're seeing AM be such an offender. It's hard to tease out which one they do better at spamming plasma or lasguns since they actually do both and both are as deadly to your basic marine profile. In a way, this creates 2 very different survivability profiles for Marines when facing these 2 different threats and they just can't find the right balance. .

Changing the points cost of Marines is the least granular of approaches yet the most simplistic and likely to happen. I highly doubt GW will re-print the codexes so quickly or make wide-scale CA points changes. Changing points costs is putting a band-aid on the fundamental issue of GW simply never being able to balance weapons correctly.

Honestly, the most realistic solutions are probably complicated from a rules perspective and would not be popular fluff wise or table-top wise. In real-life, specialist anti-tank weaponry is very delicate and requires tons of setup time, long reload time usually, and hard to aim. You almost have to set a trap or prepared beforehand and setup for the situation. This would make the lascannon for example back to its original unable to move and fire and maybe fire every 2 turns. That just wouldn't fly and gamers would revolt. Similarly, GW would actually introduce even more -1 modifiers to multi-shot weapons. Most multi-shot weapons in real life have horrible recoil and the point is to create overwhelming suppressing fire. It's not actually designed to be accurate killers. An Assault Cannon would be like -3 to hit in real-life but probably put out at least 6 shots instead of 4.

Speaking of which do you guys remember when Assault Cannons would Rend on rolling a 6 TO HIT? Man that was the worst designed weapon of all time. You had assault cannons that were more effective against tanks than lascannons yet able to kill hordes as easily as heavy bolters. My Tyranids just cried and died every game as neither the big critters or the small ones could survive. Sure the assault cannon was only on Dreads and speeders, but you sure saw those units spammed. How that ever made it through testing...

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
2W 2A stats is interesting but would have to come with a points increase back to 15 or more. It's a huge change though... for balance every existing SM/CSM codex would have to be redone at the same time. Probably best to wait for all other codices first and let the dust settle

Marines with 2W and 2A? Well whaddayouknow, we already have that. They are called primaris marines. And yes, they are the new standard marines.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Sadly, let's all remember...if marines were more properly built according to the fluff, marine armies would be smaller...smaller armies: selling less grey plastic.

We already have that. Primaris Marines are essentially 2W, 2A marines with a beefier gun. They would work well if it wasn't for overcharged plasma ruining the day for all 2W models in the game.