Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.
Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?
In one shooting phase just to kill the repulsor alone he'd need both hammerheads, the ghostkeels, and one other anti-tank wepaon, presumably on one of the Commanders. That's how bad Tau shooting averages are.
The 4 Fire Warrior squads can do 20 wounds, max, unless they're in rapid fire, which is only 10 of your 21 primaris marines, if they hit and wound with every single shot, and you fail every single save.
The other Commander is unlikely to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought by himself (they have 14 wounds right?) with only a maximum-antitank-loadout damage potential of 24 wounds.
EDIT: I agree with Ordana. There is almost damn near no way that tau army could do 44 Marine wounds, plus ~30 tank wounds in one shooting phase. It would be the dice-rolling of a lifetime.
In one shooting phase just to kill the repulsor alone he'd need both hammerheads, the ghostkeels, and one other anti-tank wepaon, presumably on one of the Commanders. That's how bad Tau shooting averages are.
The 4 Fire Warrior squads can do 20 wounds, max, unless they're in rapid fire, which is only 10 of your 21 primaris marines, if they hit and wound with every single shot, and you fail every single save.
The other Commander is unlikely to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought by himself (they have 14 wounds right?) with only a maximum-antitank-loadout damage potential of 24 wounds.
EDIT:
I agree with Ordana. There is almost damn near no way that tau army could do 44 Marine wounds, plus ~30 tank wounds in one shooting phase. It would be the dice-rolling of a lifetime.
You don't see the big picture here. After shooting, the Tau army charged him and killed his few remaining marines in meele.
Now, sorry for being snarky. About Primaris, after chapter approved point reductions I think most of their infantry are very competent. Intercessors at 18ppm, Hellblasters are good too, and Inceptors have become actually usefull. The Redemptor Dreadnought is usable, and the Agressors I think are balanced too. I think the weakest part of the Primaris line are the characters, Reivers and the Repulsor.
But to be honest that was a pseudo-competitive Tau list. It could be much more competitive, but it wasn't a bad list by Tau standards.
There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.
Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?
Hummm...considering everything in that Tau army can deploy in DS/infiltrate/or has the range of the table....how do you expect him to "Deploy better"
You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
There is no way that Tau army should have tabled your army in 1 shooting phase if you deploy half decently.
That includes not deploying everything in the perfect position to get shot to death if he siezes, which still happens 1 in 6.
Heck i'm not sure its possible to wipe all that even if your parked out in the open. 44 marine wounds, a Repulsor and Redemptor?
Hummm...considering everything in that Tau army can deploy in DS/infiltrate/or has the range of the table....how do you expect him to "Deploy better"
When playing 8th edition I've found the game falls apart if there isn't a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain on the board. So most I've found most people assume the table is built with a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain. If that is the case, he should have deployed accordingly so that all of his units can't be shot at turn 1. If there wasn't that kind of terrain on the board, then they need to work on making actually balanced tables. That's just what I've found so far.
I mean (and I know this is alien to you Xeno) he could screen, he could castle in a corner and use his Intercessors to block deepstrikers, even with that small a model count he has deployment tricks he can engage in.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.
Yeah I mean its pretty obvious when one player takes an entirely unoptimized list and the other takes a fairly optimized list that we can clearly state its the codex's fault rather than the player.
Farseer_V2 wrote: I mean (and I know this is alien to you Xeno) he could screen, he could castle in a corner and use his Intercessors to block deepstrikers, even with that small a model count he has deployment tricks he can engage in.
You can't screen from shooting. Only LOS blocking will help you there. It's unfair to the OP too to suggest he just deployed like a fool.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Farseer_V2 wrote: Yeah I mean its pretty obvious when one player takes an entirely unoptimized list and the other takes a fairly optimized list that we can clearly state its the codex's fault rather than the player.
Whats clear is even with chapter approved a primaris marine is not worth 18 points.
I see a lot of people say termies are bad but man, tell you what never had any problem with them, most people screw up using them. You need to drop them right after you advance up and ready to charge the next turn, that way you force your opponent to either shoot at your unit advancing up on them, or shoot at termies that are going to get in melee and do some damage. I admit tactical terminators are poop, but assault terminators are on point.
That's just my opinion on them, never done me wrong yet.
Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing or at least highly exaggerating because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
It was mathematically unlikely.
He should play the game with all the same lists again. That's my main advice.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
Um. I do not know this fellow, and I am most definitely a real person. There are members of Dakka that have been here for years that know me in real life.
Also, I am not twisting the truth. At the end of the first shooting phase all that remained was my captain. The repulsor was destroyed by Longstrike and 1 of the ghost keels. Remember, the Hammerhead is -5 rend, so no save for a repulsor. It does Mortal wounds for longstrike in addion as well. The hellblaster squad lost 4 models and failed leadership twice removing the 5th model. the 15 intercessors were all killed by pulserifle fire from the fire warriors and the smart missiles on one of the commanders. The other commander with melta killed the redemptor with help from Ghost keel #2.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
It was mathematically unlikely.
He should play the game with all the same lists again. That's my main advice.
We will be trying it again next week.
This is an image from the game at the end of shooting turn 1.
So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?
Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.
Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing. Did you not consider simply using 2 command points to prevent your Hellblasters from even taking a morale test?
Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.
Galas wrote: Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.
Thanks, this was actually an issue. As you can see in the picture above, the table had what I thought was plenty of LoS. It's really unfortunate that shooting through a building doesn't give you minuses to hit or enhance my cover. The new terrain rules aren't very good. As for his rolling, indeed even he was surprised. 61 rolls of a 6 on his turn occurred. Marker lights from the drones gave him plenty of chances to hit, and I saw no trouble with him making hits. Also keep in mind that one of the IC squads died because when a repulsor explodes it does D6 mortal wounds. That left only 2 models in the squad to get shot by tau pulse rifles.
Also, do keep in mind thread this was a friendly game, while I cannot control what my opponent brings, I did not run anything "optimized' because that is not how I play 40K.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?
Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.
Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.
I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?
Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.
Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.
I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.
When you play a shooting heavy army you should be deploying as much of your army simply out of LoS as possible. If you take away a third or more of his shooting he can't alpha strike you anywhere near as hard. Also you could really do with more terrain on the table (I know that isn't in your control as much) or atleast a more even distribution as it looks as if your opponent ended up with all of it on his side. Also you know Intercessors have 2 wounds correct - a 5 man fire warrior squad outside 15" cannot possible kill a 5 man Intercessor squad.
Longstrike + 1 Ghost Keel on average do ~6 wounds or so to a repulsor, somtimes + d3 mortal wounds.
If that's all it took to kill your repulsor, then the problem is the dice, not the game. You should've recorded the rolls and sent them to Guinness Book of World Records for defying the odds.
The Tau list looks stronger than yours and it is possible that you deployed badly, but despite this the results seem pretty extreme. But then again, random is random, sometimes extreme results occur.
*EDIT* When I wrote this comment, the pictures above and the discussion following them had not been posted yet, so bear that in mind when reading this.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Without more detail its gonna be hard to help you figure this one out.
1. How much terrain were you guys playing with? What kind of terrain is it? How much of it is LoS blocking? 40k in general doesn't function well as a game without a decent amount of terrain on the board.
2. How exactly did you deploy? Did you deploy with the expectation that you would have first turn and thus did not have a good defensive position?
3. Was this just a case of hot dice? Cause Tau tabling anything in 1 turn is kinda hard to believe without exceptional dice rolls.
Without more details, this kinda seems to be a case of an unoptimized list potentially played poorly. Honestly, being told that your list was wiped off the board in a single turn of shooting against that Tau list tells me that you guys did not have enough terrain on the board, you deployed poorly, and the Tau likely had some very lucky rolling.
Remember that Primaris Marines at this point are not intended to be used fully as their own army. They simply do not have the unit count necessary to do so. They lack versatility and variety. They either need to supplement a regular Marine list or be supplemented by regular Marine units. Trying to play a pure Primaris list, while cool and fluffy, is an uphill battle as you are starting the game on hard mode.
Above all else, don't get discouraged by one bad loss. We've all had them, and we all will continue to have them. Keep your chin up, figure out what mistakes you made, learn from them, and implement those lessons next time.
I've found Primaris vehicles to be pretty underwhelming in general; 8th tends to reward more cheap vehicles and vehicles that can shrug off heavy anti-tank firepower over a few expensive vehicles that die to a few shots each, and Primaris vehicles suffer heavily from the specialist-trumps-generalist problem.
The winners of the Space Marine motor pool in 8th are the cheaper Rhino-chassis tanks, basic Castaferrum dreads built to a specific task, and anything that has a built-in Invulnerable save.
And on top of the problem of your weaker arsenal you're at a points level where a pure Primaris army has to dump too many points into Troops to get much done, fighting a pretty min-maxxed Tau army running minimum Troops to get a bunch of the best units available to the Tau (Ghostkeels and Hammerheads).
There are decent Primaris models, with decent rules (Intercessors have made me comfortable deploying Marine infantry outside of vehicles again, Hellblasters are wildly destructive and only let down by their lack of good delivery mechanisms, I've seen Aggressors and Inceptors used effectively), but a pure Primaris army isn't really doable, and the most effective Space Marine armies I've seen this edition are built around the Flyers, heavy weapon firebases, or Forge World vehicles that have built-in Invulnerable saves.
I don't understand how the Tau tabled you turn 1. Even with charges, that's a ridiculous amount of wounds and probably only perfect rolls could've pulled it off. I don't play Tau, but at the moment, they are definitely not Tier 1, or even Tier 2. At best, they are a solid mid-range army, at worst, well, they're worst. Sure things like Battlesuits are good, but it's just ridiculously lucky for the other player. If you're having trouble with body count, come over to us IG players. We'll swamp you in bodies.
What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?
Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.
I'm going to break it down for you guys:
In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.
Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.
They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.
As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.
Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Galas wrote: Togusa, to be honest as Slayer has said, that Tau player has some very hot dice. Try to play more games with the same lists, and with more terrain for cover and LOS blocking.
Thanks, this was actually an issue. As you can see in the picture above, the table had what I thought was plenty of LoS. It's really unfortunate that shooting through a building doesn't give you minuses to hit or enhance my cover. The new terrain rules aren't very good.
The RUIN rules are terrible. The terrain rule isn't bad (+1 to Sv generally works out a little bit better than the all-or-nothing 4+ of last edition). Ruins, where an infantry unit standing completely on top of but fully in view of the firer are in cover, and a tank completely behind the ruin but with 1/20th of it visible through the window, is not in cover, is just a stupid system.
Luckily, there is a (slightly janky) solution: Rule everything to be a statue.
Statues give any model within 3" cover if they are 25% or more obscured from los of the firer. It's essentially the old rule from 7th, except for the 3" condition making it slightly tougher to claim.
As much as I'd like to go into every game and just ask my opponent "hey, want to use the old 7th ed system for actually claiming terrain" it's generally better accepted if you're using a rule that's in the rulebook anyway, which statues helpfully are. It just makes the game work so much better, and gives you so much more counterplay to gunlines. With statues, any shot that is like "Yeah, if I look from my tank's tread through that models legs and around the ruin I can juuuust see the antenna of your tank" is at the very least going to give you some cover.
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
People don't appear to be surprised that he lost, they appear to be surprised that he lost so badly, so quickly, because it is only just barely possible for the given T'au list to inflict enough wounds to table the given Primarus list.
OP, as others have said, Primaurs marines are not good by themselves. They are a supplement to existing armies, not an army. Quite frankly, you need to buy more models or get used to losing.
In order to beat the Tau list, you need heavy anti-tank weapons that can hide in cover/out of line of sight to stop alpha strikes. You need some way to stay alive vs his fire warriors long enough to close with them. The fire warriors die to bolter fire or when charged by a small child. You need deep strike or transports to keep your guys alive long enough to hit them. All of these are options in the Marine or Guard codexes.
It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.
Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.
You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.
We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.
Just looking at your list, you have a lot of points tied up in that repulsor, and he had a good bit of anti tank. You could have had double the bodies for the cost of that thing.
DraxiusII wrote: It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.
Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.
You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.
We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.
If I may offer a guess: Your 750pt list included...let's say...zero Redemptors, and probably zero Repulsors?
DraxiusII wrote: It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.
Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.
You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.
We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.
Yeah but primaris are bad so actually this didn't happen.
DraxiusII wrote: It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.
Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.
You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.
We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.
If I may offer a guess: Your 750pt list included...let's say...zero Redemptors, and probably zero Repulsors?
Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.
Farseer_V2 wrote: So you deployed poorly and allowed your entire army to be in range of his entire army on the first turn. Didn't bother trying to find cover, deploy behind LoS blocking terrain, account for him possibly seizing against you, anything?
Also you're telling me that 20 Pulse Rifle shots and 1 SMS did 30 wounds? Curious.
Looking at the photo post you removing your models does nothing other than prove that you have very little cover. This story still feels entirely contrived or you are simply making glaring errors in the way you're playing.
I am still fairly new to playing the game. I'm sure many deployment errors occurred. When the repulsor exploded, it took out most of 1 5 man squad with it. It was pretty easy for the pulse rifles to kill two marines.
Okay, Togusa, please do not post generalizing things and adding to the negativity that pops on this forum when the issue is just that you are new to the game and have to learn much more still. Especially if you're not going to bother explaining that your own poor choices allowed for you to be almost tabled turn one. Your own deployment made it easy on the other player, and you're not giving other examples but I can only imagine how the rest of deployment went then. While I appreciate it may be frustrating, you adding to general internet negativity is not worth a thread, as it appears you're just whining. You should be posting saying "hey, here's what happened, here are photos from each turn, what could I do to avoid this happening again?" and taking advice, not going "I can't believe this happened, Primaris are under-powered!" I get it, being new can suck. I lost almost every game the first year I played and at times it was demoralizing. Then I figured it out and won 3/4 with an army considered to be iffy at best. Take your losses and learn from them. Blame yourself and learn, don't try to blame everything else around you.
Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.
I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?
Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.
I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?
My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.
DraxiusII wrote: It's interesting you bring this up because I had the complete reverse happen to me this weekend. Granted, mine was only 750 points, but I tabled the opposing tau player. Badly.
Fire warriors in cover just can't outshoot intercessors in cover (especially with marine auras, which are much better than tau auras), and hellblasters wreck anything else they can bring.
You don't have to sit in cover the whole game, but starting out in cover and smart deployment is essential when fighting tau. You need to get through that first round of shooting without them crippling you. If you do, the fragility of their army starts becoming apparent.
We'll see what their codex brings, but they aren't in a great spot right now - they're a shooting army that isn't that good at shooting. Just hunker down and withstand the few high str shots that actually hit you and you'll be fine.
Yeah but primaris are bad so actually this didn't happen.
Or so the argument goes.
Yeah because the game is balanced around 750 point games.
I played a 20 point game and won with Primaris. They're fine.
But in all seriousness i don't play primaris marines.
Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.
I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?
My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.
I agree- honestly, I am not that impressed by the Repulsor's anti-tank loadout anyways, compared to its anti-infantry capabilities.
What do you think of Hellblasters as anti-tank? My superheavies fear them when they're deployed, to the point that they've grown to be up there with Predator Annihilators on my kill list; am I making a mistake?
Correct. And I've done 2000 pt. lists with zero redemptors and repulsors as well. I think primaris marine infantry is fine. The vehicles - maybe not. All just my own personal experience though.
I'm building a Primaris army and I kinda have to agree with this. The infantry is fine, but the durability/cost ratio of the vehicles worries me. But then again, I think it is fine to include other marine vehicles in a 'Primaris army', who says they cannot be piloted by Primaris marines?
My thoughts exactly. I actually run vindicators in my list (they're Crimson Fists, so it seemed thematic). They can work as anti tank in a pinch, which is something Primaris need. A Repulsor is too much of a target to be your only anti tank.
I agree- honestly, I am not that impressed by the Repulsor's anti-tank loadout anyways, compared to its anti-infantry capabilities.
What do you think of Hellblasters as anti-tank? My superheavies fear them when they're deployed, to the point that they've grown to be up there with Predator Annihilators on my kill list; am I making a mistake?
Hellblasters definitely work as anti tank. I've used them for that purpose, but they're just so good at killing everything I don't like to have one dedicated job for them. Chances are, there will be some some termies, crisis suits, necron destroyers, etc. that you really want to shoot at, and you don't want your hellblasters stuck shooting at the tank because nothing else can. Seriously, just point hellblasters at anything and it turns to ash immediately.
I always target hellblasters first, as does anyone I play against. They just hit too hard to ignore.
What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?
Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.
I'm going to break it down for you guys:
In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.
Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.
They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.
As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.
I would not run a full army of Primaris Marines. I don't like them, but I think I might be able to see use for them. Sitting in cover, they become impressively difficult to remove. Their CQC potential isn't bad, and their firepower isn't terrible either, though it's not something I'd write home about.
But I don't think Marines are bad. I'm actually pretty excited about getting in a few games with my Space Wolves. I don't like Primaris, but I am pretty happy with everything else. I might consider Hellblasters over Long Fangs, but they don't really strike me as good antitank.
1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.
2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)
3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)
4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.
5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.
6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.
7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.
The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.
Elbows wrote: Just a couple of non-snarky observations.
1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.
2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)
3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)
4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.
5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.
6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.
7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.
The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.
That table has more cover on it than the tables I play on. There's plenty of cover there for him to use. I hesitate to want to know what sort of tables other people play on.
Also, I don't think his list is going to win anyway, considering it appears to have crap for antitank. He's going to be hurting from the Commanders and the Hammerheads badly enough anyway. I think his list requires a fundamental change, as well can holing up inside of ruins with what he has,
It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I routinely beat Codex: IG with my Index: SoB.
Man, those poor IG getting beaten by an Index army, woe are they who are so cursed with an awful codex!
AnomanderRake wrote: I've found Primaris vehicles to be pretty underwhelming in general; 8th tends to reward more cheap vehicles and vehicles that can shrug off heavy anti-tank firepower over a few expensive vehicles that die to a few shots each, and Primaris vehicles suffer heavily from the specialist-trumps-generalist problem.
The winners of the Space Marine motor pool in 8th are the cheaper Rhino-chassis tanks, basic Castaferrum dreads built to a specific task, and anything that has a built-in Invulnerable save.
And on top of the problem of your weaker arsenal you're at a points level where a pure Primaris army has to dump too many points into Troops to get much done, fighting a pretty min-maxxed Tau army running minimum Troops to get a bunch of the best units available to the Tau (Ghostkeels and Hammerheads).
There are decent Primaris models, with decent rules (Intercessors have made me comfortable deploying Marine infantry outside of vehicles again, Hellblasters are wildly destructive and only let down by their lack of good delivery mechanisms, I've seen Aggressors and Inceptors used effectively), but a pure Primaris army isn't really doable, and the most effective Space Marine armies I've seen this edition are built around the Flyers, heavy weapon firebases, or Forge World vehicles that have built-in Invulnerable saves.
That's very unfortunate. Why did they release these great new models, and then not support them with any *decent* and I mean decent, not pay to win rules? I find the older style marines look so ugly compared to these now. That's part of the reason I play them, because of aesthetics. Do keep in mind, that I'm not really upset about losing the game. What upsets me is that I've pretty much now been able to confirm that he who goes first wins, is pretty true in certain situations. I feel like if we moved to alternate activation, this wouldn't be a problem anymore.
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lliu wrote: I don't understand how the Tau tabled you turn 1. Even with charges, that's a ridiculous amount of wounds and probably only perfect rolls could've pulled it off. I don't play Tau, but at the moment, they are definitely not Tier 1, or even Tier 2. At best, they are a solid mid-range army, at worst, well, they're worst. Sure things like Battlesuits are good, but it's just ridiculously lucky for the other player. If you're having trouble with body count, come over to us IG players. We'll swamp you in bodies.
You do understand that out of all the shooting he did, I only had 9 successful saves. He and I remember two different numbers, but I'm pretty sure I rolled 31 1s. He said he thought it was closer to 40. Statistics on what should happen, don't really mean anything in this game. I've learned that much with games such as this one.
So, not to be hard on Torgusa, but I do feel like that board can be used to illustrate my point about elite vs. horde armies: namely, board space.
To me, it looks like the Marines spread out (based on the Captain and Banner models; correct me if I am wrong) and tried to take the Tau army roughly head-on, and was largely exposed to huge amounts of fire from across the entire Tau player's army.
Part of the good thing about elite armies, in my opinion, and also why they are so much harder to play than horde armies, is that "taking them head on" isn't a viable strategy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The advantage elite armies have is force concentration - they can win a 1v1, 1v2, or even 1v3 fight model-to-model (And rightly so, as they pay more points per model!), but when subject to the entire firepower of the enemy army, cannot endure.
I wasn't there and can't speak for Togusa, but during deployment, I'd see if I can hide on the far side of the ruins from the Hammerheads, put damn near nothing in the center or left flanks, and then try to focus one-to-one (ish) on the fire-warriors and ghostkeels (or whatever my opponent deploys over there, seeing my deployment). 25 bases and 2 vehicles looks like they ought to be able to concentrate very hard in a tiny area, compared to how spread out the enemy Tau army is.
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
Everyone keeps talking about cover, as if marker lights aren't a thing. I didn't get a single cover bonus because it was taken away from me with how stupid marker lights are.
Elbows wrote: Just a couple of non-snarky observations.
1) That table has very little cover on it, at all.
2) You're playing against a very shooty army (compounded by point one)
3) 40K punishes (and always has) going second, quite heavily. Mitigating this needs to be a priority when you deploy/build army lists. (i.e. taking units which can Deep Strike so they're not on the board, etc.)
4) In that size game you took two rather expensive models (tank/dread) which became the primary target for big guns.
5) Primaris are not a fleshed out army in any sense of the word. They're upsized reinforcements and have serious gaps throughout their army composition if you just want to run them.
6) If your opponent had really good rolling, that'll compound everything.
7) If you're new, and your opponent is seasoned he may simply be beating up on the new guy for fun.
The only real genuine solution to this is to have tables with much more terrain...this, however, is expensive - particularly for local game stores. The game's design is inherently bad for this exact scenario: strong shooting army goes first on a table with almost zero cover.
That table has more cover on it than the tables I play on. There's plenty of cover there for him to use. I hesitate to want to know what sort of tables other people play on.
Also, I don't think his list is going to win anyway, considering it appears to have crap for antitank. He's going to be hurting from the Commanders and the Hammerheads badly enough anyway. I think his list requires a fundamental change, as well can holing up inside of ruins with what he has,
I play with what models I have available. That is all I own currently for my Primaries, outside of 20 Reivers I'm currently building.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Unit1126PLL wrote: So, not to be hard on Torgusa, but I do feel like that board can be used to illustrate my point about elite vs. horde armies: namely, board space.
To me, it looks like the Marines spread out (based on the Captain and Banner models; correct me if I am wrong) and tried to take the Tau army roughly head-on, and was largely exposed to huge amounts of fire from across the entire Tau player's army.
Part of the good thing about elite armies, in my opinion, and also why they are so much harder to play than horde armies, is that "taking them head on" isn't a viable strategy. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The advantage elite armies have is force concentration - they can win a 1v1, 1v2, or even 1v3 fight model-to-model (And rightly so, as they pay more points per model!), but when subject to the entire firepower of the enemy army, cannot endure.
I wasn't there and can't speak for Togusa, but during deployment, I'd see if I can hide on the far side of the ruins from the Hammerheads, put damn near nothing in the center or left flanks, and then try to focus one-to-one (ish) on the fire-warriors and ghostkeels (or whatever my opponent deploys over there, seeing my deployment). 25 bases and 2 vehicles looks like they ought to be able to concentrate very hard in a tiny area, compared to how spread out the enemy Tau army is.
This is another problem actually, we had the spearhead deployment, which severely restricts my deployment to 6 in on each table side and 9 inches from the center, you know that weird dawn of war triangle one?
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I routinely beat Codex: IG with my Index: SoB.
Man, those poor IG getting beaten by an Index army, woe are they who are so cursed with an awful codex!
Makes you think, eh? It's almost like the issue isn't the army, but the players. I mean, if you're a marine player who's determined to believe that every other army is OP, you won't try as hard to win, to build good lists, to use smart tactics. You just resign yourself to internet martyrdom. You can only blame your problems on the world for so long before it all becomes the same old song.
What is he supposed to do with that primaris army?
Yeah he deploys it in cover and.... never leaves? I mean that's his only option.
I'm going to break it down for you guys:
In casual games, and without Guilliman, marines get waxed pretty bad by pretty much everyone. Primaris get it worse than anyone else.
Can someone raise their hand and say they lost a game to primaris marines? Or, a list with mostly 60+% primaris? I have yet to see primaris marines win a game. Every game i've played against them has been an absolute slaughter, they pose no threat whatsoever.
They never should have released Primaris marines. They should have gone with new-wave primarchs, or super-hero level characters, one to augment each faction, with the core "infusion" of troops being just regular marines, made from each primarich geneseed.
As it stands now you have guys that are effectively worse than TAC squads (lol) because they can't take a heavy weapon, and TAC squads are literally a 5 wound heavy weapon. If you make them better than TAC squads, they'll still probably suck, but then people will be crying foul because you're making TAC squads obsolete.
I would not run a full army of Primaris Marines. I don't like them, but I think I might be able to see use for them. Sitting in cover, they become impressively difficult to remove. Their CQC potential isn't bad, and their firepower isn't terrible either, though it's not something I'd write home about.
But I don't think Marines are bad. I'm actually pretty excited about getting in a few games with my Space Wolves. I don't like Primaris, but I am pretty happy with everything else. I might consider Hellblasters over Long Fangs, but they don't really strike me as good antitank.
I think that's the thing. I don't like them, some of their units do have uses. Inceptors, with the price decrease, aren't an awful way to drop some dice into a safe spot and shoot things.
Intercessors would be way more useful if only marines had objective secured. Because then you could indeed plant them down and really hold an objective in cover. 2+ against shooting, with 2 wounds a piece, will hold fairly well and force the opponent to commit *something* to remove them.
To be fair, when people say space marines they mean Codex: Space Marines. I would consider Space Wolves to be wholly different. Although I think SW will suffer from the same thing that every assault army is feeling right now: heavy screening units with no way to clear the chaff. And the backline ranged is overpriced without rerolls. Of course this could all change if Leman Russ comes back and has something insane, like 5e outflank.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
Nah there's no conspiracy, basic marines in general just aren't good in this edition.
In truth the people you're playing with should understand that they have a huge upper hand and adjust their lists accordingly so the experience is fun for both players. It's not that hard. If you're expecting to play Primaris in tournaments, though, then getting smashed is kind of on you.
Togusa wrote: I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
Most likely not. It is just that the marines overall are pretty mediocre at the moment, and the Primaris line is still very limited, so Primaris only force is lacking some tools.
I recommend getting some regular (rapid fire) Hellblasters and perhaps a Stormtalon (put lascannons on it.) These will help you to deal with heavier enemy units. Then maybe add some Inceptors (with bolters) or even Reavers to act as distraction and harass enemy infantry holding objectives. And most importantly, learn to hug cover.
Also, just play more games; you may have made some mistakes and the army may have some weaknesses, but this really still sounds like a totally freak occurrence, so you probably should not make terribly extensive conclusions about the viability of the army based on this one game.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
No, it isn't. But to be honest Primaris are the safest investment to the future. They will receive new units in a regular basis form years to come, they are the new marines afterall. So don't be afraid. They will receive fixes every "patch" until they become competitive and good on their own right.
My biggest recomendation? Buy a "open war deck" and play with that. Is much better gaming experience.
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
Everyone keeps talking about cover, as if marker lights aren't a thing. I didn't get a single cover bonus because it was taken away from me with how stupid marker lights are.
Ok, here's where I have a question. What marker lights? The list you posted has no dedicated markerlight sources anywhere in it. The only potential markerlight sources he has are the Fire Warrior Shas'Uis who can be upgraded to have one for 3 points, and the "bunch of drones" you mention (without telling us what kinda drones they are). How many markerlight sources did your opponent have in their list? It takes 4 markerlights on a unit to be able to remove their save bonus for being in cover. You have 7 units in your army. How many of them were deployed in cover? Because Shas'Uis would only hit with their markerlights om 4+, or if they moved 5+. Assuming that the drones were Marker Drones, they only hit on a 5+, or a 4+ if they're near a model with a Drone Controller (either the Commanders or the Ghostkeels). So, even in the best case scenario, his markerlights would only hit on a 4+, meaning he would need on average 8 markerlight shots to get 4 on a single unit. So, 8 markerlights on average per unit you deployed in cover, under ideal circumstances. Even with the new strategem Tau have, that could only have been used once due to matched play rules, and still requires a markerlight hit to be used.
So again, how many markerlights did your opponent have? Because looking at the picture you posted, it looks like 1. He didn't have too many (and the ones he had aren't all the reliable) and 2. You didn't have many units deployed in such a way as to benefit from cover anyway. At most, assuming every drone he has is a Marker Drone and all 4 Shas'Uis have Markerlights, he has 16 Markerlights. Enough for, going by averages, removing cover from 2 units, without use of the strategem. It seems to me like either your opponent messed up how his markerlights work, you're exaggerating about never getting cover, or you didn't deploy many units in cover meaning he could focus his markerlights and you wouldn't have really benefited from cover anyway.
Looking at your picture, I think this is the same as a lot of people who get tabled in turn 1. There is very very little in LOS blocking terrain on that table. There isn't a whole lot of terrain period other than the one far corner. Also the LOS terrain you have on the table is set up in a way that would allow any army to deploy to ignore it. 8th edition needs LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the table and some smaller pieces in the deployment zones.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I routinely beat Codex: IG with my Index: SoB.
Man, those poor IG getting beaten by an Index army, woe are they who are so cursed with an awful codex!
Not saying it can't happen - SOB are at a disadvantage against IG though. I mean...las guns hurt your girls on 4's....I can say pretty confidently that this IG player isn't spamming infantry squads and mortars against you. Because they will crush girls even harder than it crushes marines.
Codex Marines are pretty bad this Edition. The only reason people say they can win is Guilliman. I don't play UM, so my Marines have been Shelved for the time being....
I save my Loyalists for multi-player campaigns (so someone else can fill the gaps) and narratives.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems every day there is a marine player getting waxed by an index army that comes to Dakka for help or an explanation. Then people scold him about how bad he deployed or whatever. The truth of the matter is. Marines pay for defensive stats ON EVERY MODEL that are taken away completely by 50-60% of the weapons opponents field (this means it's almost impossible for an opponent to not have a "juicy" target) - they have almost no mobility - 3 pages of worthless stratagems- worthless psychic powers- and only above average firepower and army traits don't even apply to their vehicles. LOL. Is it any surprise they lose to index armies?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also - that table has plenty of cover.
I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
We don't actually know the answer to that...but I'm pretty sure they aren't selling a lot of tactical squads right now...why would you? An intercessor looks much better than a tactical marine. The rules will likely get better eventually. If you want to put your best foot forward and play with the models you have. I would suggest playing ultra marines and getting Bobby G (or dark angels and play with azreal) and take nothing but full sized squads to reduce your drop number to increase your chances of going first. Marines best element is their auras (other armys would kill for auras this good). If you want to take a repulsor - you can use Tiguris to make the thing -1 to hit and +1 T every turn...and when this thing is buffed by guilliman...it does pretty horrendous damage. If you can trick your opponent into shooting at it when it's buffed (and he doesn't get lucky) you are winning. Another thing to use is an ancient with the relic standard (combined with hell-blasters it's the best combination in the book)
Start every game out with an orbital bombardment - usually it will do 0 damage but sometimes youll get lucky and do 2-3 mortal wounds to a few big targets. (this is literally the only useful stratgem in the book - except for the intercept stratagem and the predator stratagem (but that requires 3 predators 550 points or more)).
People will cry when you bring guilliman but it's because they don't understand how bad marines are without him.
Sorry you got ambushed by the "get gud" marine haters that seem to frequent this board. They mean well but come across like they (or anyone) has won the last 10 GTs with all primaris armies and the only reason your army isn't performing better is because you are terrible at this game. But they do raise some good points if you can get past the marine hate.
With primaris you're best off starting with all of your infantry out of LOS and honestly not using the armor. You have a fair amount of assault weapons so no penalty to hit, use it to start the game out of LOS. The 2 commanders coming out of deepstrike will be a problem. Keep this in mind but running more infantry and no armor will really help reduce their impact.
Get girlyman if you are playing against anything semi-competitive or run your guys as ravenguard (ironhands are better for survivability if you happen to play against dark reapers but the ravenguard strat is really good for most other armies). With character targeting rules make sure you have a unit or two out of LOS closer to the enemy but this guy really makes your army sing. Walk him forward surrounded by you guys and get to that 12-24" sweet spot and let fly. Raven guard will let you get relevant units into that 12-24" zone (rapid fire) and give you some protection (-1 to hit outside of 12") with their strat.
Drop the primaris armor. It is too points intensive. Too many guns on the repulsor means when your opponent blows it up (and they will, turn 1 or 2) you loose too much (I really wish this thing had no guns or just the onslaught cannon and was a flying, t8 super razorback for 150 points). The dread is over-costed and under-durable. It needs a 5++ and a 20 point reduction in cost (also that stupid plasma gun needs to be 3d3...)
Heavy weapon hellblasters are terrible. Mix rapid fire with assault or just run all rapid fire, should help. Also the inclusion of the banner bearing ancient is great advice. Overcharge the hell out of those already dead marines and hopefully they can help earn their points back.
You seem to already realize that your opponent was rolling crazy good. If he keeps it up just make sure to use his dice next time. Chalk it up to bad-luck and a learning experience. His list seems good but not unbeatable. If you could expand your army to include a couple units of scouts instead of one of those intercessors it could help with board control/anti-deepstrike (or you could just do what some posters advocate for and just use the imperium keyword to replace your weakest units until you end up with an IG army...)
Now when you get tabled bottom of turn 2 by 30ish dark reapers and 12 shinning spears or manticores, tank commanders and deepstriking scions or 12 obliterators + cultists and berzerkers I'm not sure I have any advice for that....
Hi Togusa, I play Primaris too, there are things you can do to improve your list...
First, you're now a Raven Guard successor chapter. Primaris need to a) leverage their toughness and b) get some goddamn maneuverability in their army. RG does both these things for you really well. I've tried all the chapter tactics out and unless you're fielding Rowboat, your should go RG for your Primaris. In particular, strike form the shadows transforms agressors into a top tier unit, and can also be really useful to drop a squad of your intercessors on a distance objective: those guys, in cover, with -1 to hit aren't going anywhere unless your opponent wastes good guns on them.
Secondly, Hellblasters are amazing. Get a box of them and be able to run up to 3 squads. They can take care of any target really, and synergise sooo well with some other models you should have... Cap, Lieutenant and Ancient. Slap the Ascendent banner relic on your ancient and watch as your hellblasters mutliate your opponent's key units - in their turn. Lots of way to use them, but ancient, reorolling ones to hit and wound will put so much hurt out.
Thirdly, I'm afraid to tell you that the redemptor is distinctly average, for his points. If you must run him, do so with either a captain in 6" so that he can actually move and still maybe hit something, or a spare CP for wisdom of the anceints. Also, he loves the libby's might of heroes spell, as this leaves him on T8. As you know, the guy is made of paper and folds just as easy, so you need to give him every chance you can. Likewise, the repulsor. Some swear by it, I just swear at it. 330pts will almost buy you 2 quad-las mortis dreadnoughts. That is 8 Lascannons, on a unit that can benefit from your ravenguard ability.
Lastly, yeah, you need new dreadnoughts in your life. Leviathans, contemptors, mortis, deredeos, venerables, chaplains; they're all a better investment of points than most options you have. They're not strictly Primaris, but they don;t break the scale of your units like squatmarines do, so I say go for it. In particular, if you can get your hands on a Leviathan with double storm cannon array, he clocks in 20 or so pts cheaper(!) than your repulsor, is 2+ to hit, 2+/4++ saves, T8 W14 and pumps out TWENTY S7 -2 D2 shots, hitting on 2+. And has two heavy flamers. Build around that guy. The libby buff works even better on him, as T9 means half of lascannon shots coming in are failing to wound him, and he's still saving on a 4+ against them. And remember, he's gonna be -1 to hit against nearly all tau, as they are desperate to keep their distance. He really is night and day with a repulsor, in terms of threat and toughness.
Anyway, don't give up on them. Give inceptors a go too, they're pretty badass now. Good luck.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
Um. I do not know this fellow, and I am most definitely a real person. There are members of Dakka that have been here for years that know me in real life.
Also, I am not twisting the truth. At the end of the first shooting phase all that remained was my captain. The repulsor was destroyed by Longstrike and 1 of the ghost keels. Remember, the Hammerhead is -5 rend, so no save for a repulsor. It does Mortal wounds for longstrike in addion as well. The hellblaster squad lost 4 models and failed leadership twice removing the 5th model. the 15 intercessors were all killed by pulserifle fire from the fire warriors and the smart missiles on one of the commanders. The other commander with melta killed the redemptor with help from Ghost keel #2.
Farseer_V2 wrote: Sure, in Xenomancer land. I'm not going to bother engaging with you in this regard because as has been proven across multiple threads that engaging you simply isn't worth it.
Ultimately OP is likely lieing (and most likely a sock puppet account of yours) because the mathematics of him being so badly beaten in one turn are incredibly unlikely and there are any number of tactical plays he could have engaged in to have been more competitive against what is widely considered one of the worst index lists. Regardless if he (or you) want to acknowledge that it is still true.
It was mathematically unlikely.
He should play the game with all the same lists again. That's my main advice.
We will be trying it again next week.
This is an image from the game at the end of shooting turn 1.
Its always very interesting to see other people's tables. My friends and I play with about twice that much terrain. Including large piece of painted styrofoam to raise the general terrain up. I try to keep my pieces to around 1' x 6" for structures and woods, but we go up to 1' x 2' for hills and such.
Our only house rule is that you can't put any structure piece closer than 6" to another. That keeps you from walling out vehicles. We're also really close to just declareing anything that is 100% behind ruins or forest to get a +1 to cover, or just not be shootable. We haven't decided yet, we don't usually like house rules. And I'm moving in a month anyway, so I'll have to adapt to whatever new groups I find. But it seems like many people need more terrain. I've gotten a lot of mine from dollar stores (for the fake plants and such). If you can find old aquarium stuff at a discount it works well too.
right, a slightly less snarky comment from me now that we have some more info.
The first and biggest point is Holy moly that table.
Two pieces of LoS blocking terrein. Only the towers. The ruins are mostly useless because you can see right through them. Try playing with a house rule that you cant shoot through them, it will help next time.
Even then you have 2/3 of the table where its an open shooting gallery.
If you play the basic 12" from edge deployment you can hide 1 whole rhino in your deployment zone. Everything else in the open to get shot.
With a table like that 'tactics' don't matter, your going to get your ass shot off.
How did 20 pulse rifle shots do 30 wounds on Primaris?
Even if he got into rapid fire range somehow on t1 its still no where near close. (40 shots, 20 hits, 13 wounds, ~4 failed saves so 2 dead primaris)
The dread and tank dying isn't that unusual, tho slightly above average. Its kinda what Hammerheads and Ghostkeels do. Which is why you want to deploy out of LoS (see point about the table making that impossible).
Others have already touched on the issues with a pure primaris force.
Ordana wrote: right, a slightly less snarky comment from me now that we have some more info.
The first and biggest point is Holy moly that table.
Two pieces of LoS blocking terrein. Only the towers. The ruins are mostly useless because you can see right through them. Try playing with a house rule that you cant shoot through them, it will help next time.
Even then you have 2/3 of the table where its an open shooting gallery.
If you play the basic 12" from edge deployment you can hide 1 whole rhino in your deployment zone. Everything else in the open to get shot.
With a table like that 'tactics' don't matter, your going to get your ass shot off.
How did 20 pulse rifle shots do 30 wounds on Primaris?
Even if he got into rapid fire range somehow on t1 its still no where near close. (40 shots, 20 hits, 13 wounds, ~4 failed saves so 2 dead primaris)
The dread and tank dying isn't that unusual, tho slightly above average. Its kinda what Hammerheads and Ghostkeels do. Which is why you want to deploy out of LoS (see point about the table making that impossible).
Others have already touched on the issues with a pure primaris force.
looking at those towers, I dont think that the primaris tank would be hidden behind them from most angles.
Yeah, the Repulsor is enormous, it does not hide easily. And then its degrading stats are just crippling. I like the way it looks (surprisingly), but its mostly been an expensive distraction for my opponent to shoot at. The Redemptor is generally in the same situation. I'm probably going to stick with old style dreads from now on.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.
What on earth are you going on about man? Loyalist Marines had top tier rules last edition. Grav cannons, centstars, assault cannon razorbacks and drop pods. And thats even before the gladius formation rules.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.
What on earth are you going on about man? Loyalist Marines had top tier rules last edition. Grav cannons, centstars, assault cannon razorbacks and drop pods. And thats even before the gladius formation rules.
Marines being bad,,, maybe in 4th edition,
Nah man, eldar could challenge them, CLEARLY marines were bad in 6th/7th.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.
What on earth are you going on about man? Loyalist Marines had top tier rules last edition. Grav cannons, centstars, assault cannon razorbacks and drop pods. And thats even before the gladius formation rules.
Marines being bad,,, maybe in 4th edition,
Nah man, eldar could challenge them, CLEARLY marines were bad in 6th/7th.
Yeah but Tau had a answer for scatter bike spam so that clearly made eldar complete garbage in 7th. Seriously. The WK was WAY overcosted. Srs.
Ok, snark off. Its just hard for me to feel bad for marines or anyone sans Orcs and Nids because I had to play with one of the worst codexs ever released... 6th edition CSM. But in the spirit of being constructive ill have to add that this amount of terrain plus your deployment and a subpar marine list lead to a tabling. I know you are new and dont have many models but you need to get some games under your belt and get some more terrain on the table. Perhaps ask your play group to bring softer lists while you build up your army.
Togusa wrote: Yesterday I was able to play a 1400 point game against one of my friends.
The game was my Primaris Salamanders against his Tau. We used one of the new game modes from Chapter Approved.
Needless to say, it didn't go well.
He Seized the Initiative, and I was tabled turn 1. No return fire. The game lasted less than 30 minutes.
So far that has been my experience. Every time I play with my new marines, if I get second turn, I have a 100% loss rate. Why did they put out these new models if they weren't going to make them appropriately costed and have at the very least some decent rules? It is very, very frustrating.
Here are the lists.
Tau:
2 Commanders and a bunch of drones
Two hammer heads, one with longstrike.
4. 5 man squads of fire warriors
2 Ghost Keels
Marines:
1 Captain power sword/MC Stalker Bolter
3 5 Man Intercessor Squads w/assault bolters
1 5 Man Hellblasters Squad w/heavy plasma incenrators
1 Redemptor w/Heavy Plasma and frag launchers/Onslaught cannon.
1 Repulsor w/Heavy Onslaught/Onslaught C/Twin Lascannon/Stubber
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Backspacehacker wrote: You ran pure primaris that's your problem as well. Aside from hell blasters really, primaris are crap. Those multi damage Tau weapons will rip you apart. You had nothing to drop in on them other then a few balloon marines.
Next time take drop pod with stern guard or deep strike some assault terminators with hammers and shields. You then force them to Target your terminators and lets you move up the board, if they don't, those terminators are going to rip anything Tau apart next turn.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Like you have no synergy in your list at all.
You are right and wrong here - drop pods and terminators are terrible - primaris marines are actually preferable to terms and drop pods.
What on earth are you going on about man? Loyalist Marines had top tier rules last edition. Grav cannons, centstars, assault cannon razorbacks and drop pods. And thats even before the gladius formation rules.
Marines being bad,,, maybe in 4th edition,
Nah man, eldar could challenge them, CLEARLY marines were bad in 6th/7th.
Yeah but Tau had a answer for scatter bike spam so that clearly made eldar complete garbage in 7th. Seriously. The WK was WAY overcosted. Srs.
Ok, snark off. Its just hard for me to feel bad for marines or anyone sans Orcs and Nids because I had to play with one of the worst codexs ever released... 6th edition CSM. But in the spirit of being constructive ill have to add that this amount of terrain plus your deployment and a subpar marine list lead to a tabling. I know you are new and dont have many models but you need to get some games under your belt and get some more terrain on the table. Perhaps ask your play group to bring softer lists while you build up your army.
(last OT post) yeah, but a stormsurge could be instagib by a tank shock! clearly Tau bottom tier below DE and orks
In one shooting phase just to kill the repulsor alone he'd need both hammerheads, the ghostkeels, and one other anti-tank wepaon, presumably on one of the Commanders. That's how bad Tau shooting averages are.
The 4 Fire Warrior squads can do 20 wounds, max, unless they're in rapid fire, which is only 10 of your 21 primaris marines, if they hit and wound with every single shot, and you fail every single save.
The other Commander is unlikely to kill the Redemptor Dreadnought by himself (they have 14 wounds right?) with only a maximum-antitank-loadout damage potential of 24 wounds.
EDIT:
I agree with Ordana. There is almost damn near no way that tau army could do 44 Marine wounds, plus ~30 tank wounds in one shooting phase. It would be the dice-rolling of a lifetime.
You don't see the big picture here. After shooting, the Tau army charged him and killed his few remaining marines in meele.
Now, sorry for being snarky. About Primaris, after chapter approved point reductions I think most of their infantry are very competent. Intercessors at 18ppm, Hellblasters are good too, and Inceptors have become actually usefull. The Redemptor Dreadnought is usable, and the Agressors I think are balanced too. I think the weakest part of the Primaris line are the characters, Reivers and the Repulsor.
But to be honest that was a pseudo-competitive Tau list. It could be much more competitive, but it wasn't a bad list by Tau standards.
Primaris characters are simply superior to standard marine ones, that does depend on the chapter though
Dark Angels Primaris Captain can have 7 S8 AP-3 D3 damage attacks, costs 95 points, can slaughter tanks and heavy infantry twice or three times its cost no problem
Okay so even if we agree turn 1 tabling is unlikely result if there's proper terrain(ie lots of LOS blocking big walls. Other terrain is pretty much useless in 8th ed) and properly played assuming those are correctly handled would that army STILL have enough stuff remaining to be viable...I mean sure losing 60% is not tabled out but odds are you can't cause enough damage in return to avoid losing rest on turn 2.
It seems more of typical 8th ed turn 1 decisions. He who gets to shoot at will first wins. If you don't get turn 1 better hope there's enough terrain to help or you have plenty of deep strikes to do crippling beta strike. Either way turn 2 and turn 3 will likely be just mopping up.
And power armour units are in poor shape in 8th ed which just compounds it here...Primaris are better off allied to IG rather than solo.
Primaris characters are simply superior to standard marine ones, that does depend on the chapter though
Dark Angels Primaris Captain can have 7 S8 AP-3 D3 damage attacks, costs 95 points, can slaughter tanks and heavy infantry twice or three times its cost no problem
At least vanilla Primaris characters have gak weapon options. They can't get good stuff like relic blades, thunder hammers or storm shields, and they cannot take most relics.
For reference OP, here's a pic of my half of my gaming table. I think this is after T1 by the looks of it. Every item on the table is LOS blocking, and the opponent has similar on their side. I think it's critical.
Note there's a big gap at the front of the picture but in reality I dont find the far corners require that much terrain in them, and it's nice to keep dice and CPs somewhere!
I find in this ed more than any other reserves are critical to preventing valuable things from being alpha'd off the table. I always deploy things on the table very defensively if at all possible and keep my most valuable stuff in reserve. This way if I go first I pop out of cover and deep strike in to do my thing. If I go second then my stuff on the table is protected and then I drop in for my attack after weathering my opponent's turn. Don't fool yourself SM have plenty of tools in the box for dealing with any army. It's just how you use them. I play primarily Tyranids but have used and played against nearly everything and SM have always had a leg up. They might not always be the OP/best army but they can handle nearly everything.
I really think the biggest issue is the lack of bodies. Even by Primaris standards. A Repulsor AND a Redemptor in a 1400 pt game is half your army right there for two models. Against Tau, they will get wrecked by rail shots pretty easily. Once those two are down, there's really not much beef in the army left.
I'm just going to echo some of the others here and say you've got a pretty blank table there.
Beyond that, I'd say the table helps the other player capitalize on another potential issue. Your list has a nice mix of things in it, but given a lot of line of sight on the table, that allows your opponent to optimize every weapon he has by firing at the most efficient target for each type of weapon. I've seen all Primaris armies do reasonably well just by bringing ALL Primaris. An army with no vehicles means the enemy has to fire his anti-armour weapons and basic infantry, and thus, waste some of his fire potential.
This doesn't mean you should toss your vehicles necessarily, but just that you should be aware of what opportunities you might be giving your opponent when building a list and deploying it.
Primaris are part of a larger codex, they do not function on their own well. If my opponent were wanting to field a primaris only army I would immediately pull out a low power list to make it a fun game and not a curb stomping. still sounds like with those results you were not using enough LOS blocking terrain which is a common problem, the game is designed around it yet so often it is missing in games. deeply in terrain, hide from units and play peek a boo where you can see only a few units one being your target.
Primaris are decent... but not competative. You will only see certain units in competative lists, but the majority of troops would be normal marines. If you play tau, you need to have an assault oriented army (those skull helmet dudes are awesome... use them as templars for deepstrike, rerolls charges, 3 attacks each after shooting with heavy pistols... dead tau).
Tau shoot up an entire army and assault turn 1? With the amount of heavy shooting he had, he wasnt running towarda you. I think he did something illegal, that's not entirely possible for the amount of wounds you had, even if out in the open (or in assault... he hits less than you, has a harder time wounding... charging with tau is suicidal most of the time vs primaris).
This BR has just been uploaded by Winters. Showing T'au v Primaris (accompanied by some scouts) Interesting game, shows the T'au are very much a force to be reckoned with considering the very sub-par list and utterly shambolic rolling.
Togusa wrote: I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
Most likely not. It is just that the marines overall are pretty mediocre at the moment, and the Primaris line is still very limited, so Primaris only force is lacking some tools.
I recommend getting some regular (rapid fire) Hellblasters and perhaps a Stormtalon (put lascannons on it.) These will help you to deal with heavier enemy units. Then maybe add some Inceptors (with bolters) or even Reavers to act as distraction and harass enemy infantry holding objectives. And most importantly, learn to hug cover.
Also, just play more games; you may have made some mistakes and the army may have some weaknesses, but this really still sounds like a totally freak occurrence, so you probably should not make terribly extensive conclusions about the viability of the army based on this one game.
We are scheduled to play another game tomorrow. I've finished a squad of Interceptors and a Squad of Reivers so I'll be trying these out.
Honestly, either he played with extremely wrong rules, or you are a VERY bad player.
Tau are currently bottom of the barrel, and for a good reason-everything they can do, others got a superior equivalent. EVERYTHING. the only thing keeping them remotly viable now is the CA stratagem that helps mitigate the markerlight issue (you gotta have them in spades as you are useless without them, but investing in them is silly as you can't actually benefit from more than 5 hits)
Hammerheads in particular, are very, very bad. as in, a railgun hammerhead is mathematically about half as deadly than a trilas predator, while costing more.
Ghosts are expensive, and point-blank. sure they can infiltrate, but with any reasonable deployment they won't be able to set up anywhere near your tanks
Commanders are actually good, and fire warriors are not useless, but that's it.
So unless he rolled like a god, or you practically force-fed him the easiest kills possible, he should not have need able to do this. the amount of damage you describe on turn 1 is incredibly hard to believe, as its far above the expected results even assuming the perfect conditions where you had no cover at all for any of your units, and he had easy access with each of his units to it's target of choice.
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
Everyone keeps talking about cover, as if marker lights aren't a thing. I didn't get a single cover bonus because it was taken away from me with how stupid marker lights are.
Ok, here's where I have a question. What marker lights? The list you posted has no dedicated markerlight sources anywhere in it. The only potential markerlight sources he has are the Fire Warrior Shas'Uis who can be upgraded to have one for 3 points, and the "bunch of drones" you mention (without telling us what kinda drones they are). How many markerlight sources did your opponent have in their list? It takes 4 markerlights on a unit to be able to remove their save bonus for being in cover. You have 7 units in your army. How many of them were deployed in cover? Because Shas'Uis would only hit with their markerlights om 4+, or if they moved 5+. Assuming that the drones were Marker Drones, they only hit on a 5+, or a 4+ if they're near a model with a Drone Controller (either the Commanders or the Ghostkeels). So, even in the best case scenario, his markerlights would only hit on a 4+, meaning he would need on average 8 markerlight shots to get 4 on a single unit. So, 8 markerlights on average per unit you deployed in cover, under ideal circumstances. Even with the new strategem Tau have, that could only have been used once due to matched play rules, and still requires a markerlight hit to be used.
So again, how many markerlights did your opponent have? Because looking at the picture you posted, it looks like 1. He didn't have too many (and the ones he had aren't all the reliable) and 2. You didn't have many units deployed in such a way as to benefit from cover anyway. At most, assuming every drone he has is a Marker Drone and all 4 Shas'Uis have Markerlights, he has 16 Markerlights. Enough for, going by averages, removing cover from 2 units, without use of the strategem. It seems to me like either your opponent messed up how his markerlights work, you're exaggerating about never getting cover, or you didn't deploy many units in cover meaning he could focus his markerlights and you wouldn't have really benefited from cover anyway.
I realized I left out his three squads of 4 drones. They were with one of the commanders who had a "drone controller" whatever that is. I also realized I left out my Ancient with a banner from the list.
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
This was the silliest thing I've read all week. SM has several competitive builds, all viable. GMan Razorspam is the first that comes to mind. Predator Autocannons are insane. There are some amazing psychic combos you can pull off (Null Zone the enemy hero and then charge him with MoH up?) Stormravens anyone??
BoomWolf wrote: Honestly, either he played with extremely wrong rules, or you are a VERY bad player. .........
So unless he rolled like a god, or you practically force-fed him the easiest kills possible, he should not have need able to do this. the amount of damage you describe on turn 1 is incredibly hard to believe, as its far above the expected results even assuming the perfect conditions where you had no cover at all for any of your units, and he had easy access with each of his units to it's target of choice.
Look, I get that you all seem to have a bug up your butt about the math. Fine. But I was there, I know what kind of game I played and what happened. If you're not going to accept that, there is nothing I can do about it. Also, please keep your "bad player' insults to yourself. Nothing is served by that kind of talk and it's the primary reason why people get driven away from these hobbies. Bring criticism of tactics and lists all you like, but please keep it respectful.
At the end of the first turn, I had a Captain and a Banner Ancient on the table.
Repulsor: Exploded
Dreadnought: Exploded
13 of 15 marines dead to shooting, with the remaining two failing leadership and being removed.
Hellblasters: 4 of 5 dead, 5th one failed leadership and died.
Flukes happen. I once rolled 18 successful melta hits against a Landraider that had a 5+ cover save and dealt only 1 wound to it, with a result of a 3 on the damage table for that roll. It happens. I'm not even here to complain about that, and I don't much care that I lost. I wanted to know what caused that loss. Many people have offered great ideals about this and tomorrow I'll be playing almost the identical list again, with an update to this topic.
Hate to break it to you man. This edition is just a continuation of the last ones in regards to space marines getting the worst rules...92% of the codex is crap. And as you experienced - you have no ability to beat even index armies unless you go first.
This was the silliest thing I've read all week. SM has several competitive builds, all viable. GMan Razorspam is the first that comes to mind. Predator Autocannons are insane. There are some amazing psychic combos you can pull off (Null Zone the enemy hero and then charge him with MoH up?) Stormravens anyone??
Agreed. I was alpha striked with free drop pods and skyhammer nonsense many times last year.
Hollow wrote: This BR has just been uploaded by Winters. Showing T'au v Primaris (accompanied by some scouts) Interesting game, shows the T'au are very much a force to be reckoned with considering the very sub-par list and utterly shambolic rolling.
There’s a lot wrong about that BR. Neither player seemed to know how drones work after deployment, skipping morale checks on drone units, using drones to provide unit coherency for that crisis suit team that dropped in, letting that unit deploy in a location it otherwise couldn’t legally have. I actually turned it off when the crisis team dropped in back.
You completely ignored the other options I suggested though.
Either that he played his stuff wrong and did things he is not allowed to do, or you didn't do things you are supposed to do.
Or that the rolls were complete bonkers.
You had 5 man squads. your hellblaster took 4 casualties, the 5th lost moral. that can only happen if you roll 5/6 and rerolled into 5/6, so 1/9 chance.
Losing 2 intercessors from the same 5 man squad to moral is outright impossible, so that means two more cases of losing 4 dudes than rolling 5/6 into 5/6, so that is two more 1/9 chance. having all three of them happen at once is 1/729 chance on its own.
Losing the 16 wound repulser to a single ghostkeel and longstrike means that between the two 16 wounds were dealt.
Longstrikes railgun, ignoring miss chances does only d6 wounds, with d3 more if he got 5/6 on the wound roll. ignoring miss chances, that's on average 4.1666 wounds overall, or 5.5 if you assume he did get the extra d3.
So that leaves a single ghost to deal 10-12 wounds. I'd assume twin fusion blasters and fusion collider, as its the worst case for you. it has to reach 12" to be even able to fire these, so unless he had the open ground to reach even closer and trigger the reroll to damage (because that requires the deployment to truly favor him) you should expect, on average, to have 4 fusion shots, out of them only 2 will hit and only 1 will wound-dealing 3.5 wounds. even a double-than-expected result would do 7 wounds, who still not enough. even had longstrike gotten his extra wounds in.
Overall, the AVERAGE you'd expect longstrike+full fusion ghost to do, is merely 7.666 wounds. almost half the repulser's wounds.
Killing it, means double than the expected result.
And even doing that-means you allowed the ghost to be somewhere within 24" of the repulser during deployment.
THAT is why I say you either played poorly, did something wrong, or the dice were insane.
Because these are the three options, the results you describe are in no way normal or reasonable, and they definatly do not point to some sort of "problem" with the marines themselves.
Now, now that we know what the three options are, the next step is to figure out what of the three actually happened.
Playing wrong is easy to figure out, you just need to get an in-depth read of all the rules he and you used during that game, and see if there are any mismatches between what happened on the table, and what is supposed to happen.
Insane dice are also easy to factor in, for example if you after reading the expected results look back and remember that longstrike and the 12" ghost have ineeded been enough to destroy the repulser without outside help, that means the dice were rather nutty on that case.
The dice were also rather nutty on the moral test, unless you forgot ATSKNF, and then it was just unlucky but not outright crazy.
If the dice were crazy, it happens-but not something you should use as an anacdote, as it shouldn't happen again soon.
If the dice were reasonable-it leaves one option, you played poorly.
Now, playing poorly is a thing, we all been there, new or old. we were all noobs at some point, and I know full well I make dumb mistakes still, everybody does.
BUT, pretending you don't, will get you nowhere. you can't learn if you refuse to admit you made mistakes. and we all made mistakes.
You, in this spesific case, probably made more mistakes than most, and if you can't accept it than your problem is bigger than playing poorly.
Where you went wrong, likely during deployment.
I don't know HOW you deployed, but knowing he has two full-fusion ghosts, what you COULD have done, is make sure there is no way for him to deploy them within 24" of your repulser/redemptor either by deploying them only after seeing where he places the ghosts, or using your intercessors to form areas he cannot deploy (he has to be both 12" away from your dudes, and outside your deployment zone after all) and only then place your heavies, or failing that making sure he can't reach into 12" (again by haivng bodies in the way) and as such at least disable their fusion blasters.
You can't really counter-deploy against longstrike or his buddy tank other than trying to see where they park, and then park behind some tall stuff to block his vision.
Can't really tell without a step-by-step of what you deployed where by what order, but you need to learn to judge enemy plans by where the put, or don't put, their stuff.
Especially against a list such as his that contains many things that want to be deployed in response to you (hammers need vision to your heavys, ghosts near your heavies but they can't be placed close after your infantry set up a zone, drones want to be close enough to mark yet far enough to be safe, etc)
As for list-level mistakes, I'm not sold on the repulser being used in a mere 1400 point game. its a big toy, but suffers from the defiler condition of trying to do too many things at once.
What does it even transport? (because if the dudes are inside, who's building a defensive no-deployment zone around it?)
Especially considering how little wrapping you contain. even for a primaris list, that's a low model count. you will always find it hard to set up no-drop zones around your big stuff with this list.
Also, salamandar make poor primaris.
Salamandar are good, when you got that 1 good weapon in the squad like tactical marines does, and MM dreads, etc. but with "everyone is identical" primaris, not so much.
If I were you, and wanted to stick to pure primaris, I'd switch to maybe iron hands or imperial fists, if not ultras.
I'm okay with losing a game. I'm not okay with losing a game, whether it is to rolls or not, due to unbalance. I've heard it argued before that the rules for Primaris have been on purpose made bad so as not to upset marine players thinking that their army will be replaced. Is this true?
No that is not the case. Every single two-wound infantry model was more or less overpriced at the beginning of 8th edition, including Primaris Marines (and bikes and what not). Primaris Marines has received some pretty hefty points decreases since then, and they are a lot better than they were.
I would strongly advice you to play with the tournament rule, that counts the ground floor of ruins as blocking LOS.
pismakron wrote: I would strongly advice you to play with the tournament rule, that counts the ground floor of ruins as blocking LOS.
Otherwise known as the anti-turn-1-table-wipe rule. This rule alone forces a lot of army tweaks since it reduces the effectiveness of gunline armies and really makes you play around the terrain and opponent like, you know, you should.
vaklor4 wrote: Best you can do against Tau? Cover. If you really gotta, have cover in your deployment zones and just hunker down. That makes your marines a 2+ before AP, but otherwise...You really shouldnt be losing turn1 to tau. Theyre garbo.
Tau are not garbage.
Taking a 3+ to a 2+ while also simultaneously hiding in cover for the entire game isn't exactly engaging or an intelligent way to win if it's an objective based game.
Tau will sit on objectives and shoot at your 2+ with their longer range, higher AP weaponry. It's a losing proposition either way with his list. Are you seriously afraid of 18ppm boltgun marines?
Everyone keeps talking about cover, as if marker lights aren't a thing. I didn't get a single cover bonus because it was taken away from me with how stupid marker lights are.
Ok, here's where I have a question. What marker lights? The list you posted has no dedicated markerlight sources anywhere in it. The only potential markerlight sources he has are the Fire Warrior Shas'Uis who can be upgraded to have one for 3 points, and the "bunch of drones" you mention (without telling us what kinda drones they are). How many markerlight sources did your opponent have in their list? It takes 4 markerlights on a unit to be able to remove their save bonus for being in cover. You have 7 units in your army. How many of them were deployed in cover? Because Shas'Uis would only hit with their markerlights om 4+, or if they moved 5+. Assuming that the drones were Marker Drones, they only hit on a 5+, or a 4+ if they're near a model with a Drone Controller (either the Commanders or the Ghostkeels). So, even in the best case scenario, his markerlights would only hit on a 4+, meaning he would need on average 8 markerlight shots to get 4 on a single unit. So, 8 markerlights on average per unit you deployed in cover, under ideal circumstances. Even with the new strategem Tau have, that could only have been used once due to matched play rules, and still requires a markerlight hit to be used.
So again, how many markerlights did your opponent have? Because looking at the picture you posted, it looks like 1. He didn't have too many (and the ones he had aren't all the reliable) and 2. You didn't have many units deployed in such a way as to benefit from cover anyway. At most, assuming every drone he has is a Marker Drone and all 4 Shas'Uis have Markerlights, he has 16 Markerlights. Enough for, going by averages, removing cover from 2 units, without use of the strategem. It seems to me like either your opponent messed up how his markerlights work, you're exaggerating about never getting cover, or you didn't deploy many units in cover meaning he could focus his markerlights and you wouldn't have really benefited from cover anyway.
I realized I left out his three squads of 4 drones. They were with one of the commanders who had a "drone controller" whatever that is. I also realized I left out my Ancient with a banner from the list.
For future knowledge and understanding, a Drone Controller is a Support System upgrade that any Tau Battlesuit can take. Any Drone units with the same SEPT keyword that are within 6" of a model with a Drone Controller add 1 to any hit rolls. Basically means that Gun and Marker Drones hit on 4+ instead of 5+, so its a fairly decent upgrade.
pismakron wrote: I would strongly advice you to play with the tournament rule, that counts the ground floor of ruins as blocking LOS.
Otherwise known as the anti-turn-1-table-wipe rule. This rule alone forces a lot of army tweaks since it reduces the effectiveness of gunline armies and really makes you play around the terrain and opponent like, you know, you should.
pismakron wrote: I would strongly advice you to play with the tournament rule, that counts the ground floor of ruins as blocking LOS.
Otherwise known as the anti-turn-1-table-wipe rule. This rule alone forces a lot of army tweaks since it reduces the effectiveness of gunline armies and really makes you play around the terrain and opponent like, you know, you should.
Its a good rule.
I made some simple risers to elevate some of my chem building terrain, in an effort to "8th-proof" it. Worked wonderfully and super cheap!
Top right/bottom left, under the chem building and square building.
Literally just a gift box/presentation box from something, opened, each half stuck to some board, quick detail and paint (I did these in about an hour to throw them together in time for a game). Hey presto, your scenery is taller.
They really helped change how the game went! Terrain in between us that neither side was 'on' once again had a purpose!
BoomWolf makes a lot of good points and his questions are very valid.
The table is extremely favourable to the Tau player with its almost complete lack of LoS blocking tearrain and a huge expanse of open ground in the middle.
Looking at the two lists I can say the Tau list is certainly better than the Primaris one. Having both a Repulser and Redemptor in the same list at 1400 points is just too many points in units that aren't worth it in games at a "normal" points level, never mind the slightly lower 1400 points.
I have to wonder if one or both of you were getting some rules wrong though. Looking a the Tau list, even if his Fire Warriors hit and wound with every shot, statistically 20 of them should kill 3 Marines (again, assuming all 20 hit and wound). That's not even one squad. He shouldn't be able to get in Rapid Fire range in turn 1 since he'd need to start closer than 21" to your units and you just shouldn't allow that. It's a similar story with your vehicles. I can see how you might lose the Repulser to combined fire from the various anti-tank units but to lose both seems extremely unlikely.
It would take a dice swing of monumental proportions to do the damage you're talking about with the two armies involved. Of course it's possible this is what happened, but if the dice were genuinely that skewed in his favour your luck was so monumentally bad it's impossible to draw any conclusions from the game.
It may be difficult to remember now, but can you tell us how the Fire Warriors killed your infantry? Were they in Rapid Fire range? What Markerlight support did they have? How exactly did the Hammerheads and Ghostkeels destroy your vehicles? Did the Ghostkeels get within Melta range for the extra damage?
