It seems that the whole edition is suffering from a glaring problem: Basic marine units are not good. Pretty much every base MeQ is lackluster unless it has a huge number of special rules. Str 4, T4, 3+, 1A, and Str 4 shooting models that cost in the low to mid teens in points are pretty much never worth using across the board. This is a huge problem, because it covers the majority of Marine infantry. The days of an army consisting of 2 tacs, an assault, a dev, and then some elites and heavy support are gone. Marine Infantry troops are only filler for Loyalists and Chaos alike, and generally inferior to horde units. Not to imply that these lists were ever super competitive, but they were at least viable B tier lists. It seems to me that GW should care that a large amount of their model line is not viable on tabletop.
Tac Marines, Assault Marines, Bikers, Chaos Marines, Raptors, etc are all not worth using. We see that marines and Chaos alike are using swarm +elites and heavies for their armies, usually as part of a soup list. More elite versions of these units like Cult Marines are generally a bit better off, but you still cannot make the core of your army based around them and end up with enough models on the board to be useful.
The MeQ statline has depreciated since previous editions due to the changes in AP and offensive power. A 3+ armor save is just not what it used to be in the new AP system. And on top of that, they got shafted in that many armies weapons moved to an equivalent AP in the new system, but basic bolters did not. They used to be AP 5, which ignored 5+ and 6+ saves, meaning basic bolter fire was an effective anti hoard weapon. Now they are AP 0, which means they lost a significant amount of offensive power against common units like guardsmen and boyz. Aura stacking helps bring their firepower level back, but other armies also got that.
I would argue that the basic MeQ statline is the hardest hit by a large amount of 8th's changes. To summarize:
1) AP changes made 3+ less strong
2) Bolters effectively losing AP made them so inefficient they are barely worth rolling
3) Lack of ability to lock foes in combat hurt marine units like assault marines that are proportionally lower damage but higher survivability compared to other melee units
4) Changes to template and blast weapons hit marines harder than other armies because they relied on them more to cover more army roles.
5) The combination of bolters becoming proportionally weaker and flamers/frag missiles becoming weaker, less reliable, and more expensive totally destroyed the ability of normal marine units to provide anti-swarm.
6) The new vehicle wound system hits marines hardest because they relied on low shot high damage weapons like Meltas for their anti tank. Meltas have gone up in price, and lost their ability to 1 shot vehicles, which has hugely decreased the potential of normal marine infantry to counter armor.
7) Power fist changes have hurt marines more than other races, as the power fist sergeant was often half of a squads melee damage output, a solid tank/monster deterrent, and the majority of an army's anti-character power. I'm not sad that this changed because it was silly, but it's still left them overall weaker.
8) In the past, marine infantry relied on a good armor save to out attrition their opponents. But now the offensive power of everyone has increased considerably, so they've lost their ability to take in damage without getting wiped out early. The changes to cover have also hurt them, but not necessarily more than other races.
9) The loss of mechanized lists due to transport changes has hurt too. You can no longer move, disembark, and shoot, which was a major trick of Tacs and CSM. And even if you could, you wouldn't want to as you no longer have the durability to receive a charge and whittle down a unit, or hold until reinforcements come. And drop pods can no longer come in close enough for short range melta shots, and as mentioned above those aren't what they used to be. And transports now cost an arm and a leg.
10) Loss of Pistol+bolter+ccw on many marine units (especially CSM)
11) They did get a couple points cheaper overall, but it's really not enough to help.
Even elite marines units just aren't that great. Berzerkers may be the exception because their special rule and weapons are so phenomenal. But consider the other cult troops: Plague marines give you a lot for their points, but their firepower is so low that it just doesn't matter. So we see poxwalker spam instead. Noise marines are cool and also have some nasty rules and guns, but the points add up really fast. If you try to build an army using more than a couple 5 man objective holding squads, you just won't have enough other stuff. And they die easily. And Rubrics, even with their new powers, just don't have enough firepower. And even with All is Dust, they are proportionally less survivable than most swarm infantry, point for point. These units are not bad in a vacuum (except maybe rubrics), and seem like what we should be forming our armies around. But it just doesn't work.
Primaris marines are more on the right track. If all MeQs had just been given that statline, things would be much different (except plasma spam would still pwn them.) The extra melee attack, extra ap point on bolt weapons, and extra wound really help. But we still don't see armies of primaris the way we saw armies of regular MeQs back in, say, 5th (my main point of comparison as I played it most.) Because even the extra stats at only a few extra points per model doesn't make the units worth using over swarm units + elites and heavy support. The exception may be Blood Angels, because they can stack enough buffs to make Primaris versatile, durable, and efficient in both shooting and melee.
Note I'm not saying that Marines and Chaos are weak overall. Their elite and soup lists are doing fine. But the standard marine infantry has gotten shafted by this edition and it needs help. But there's no easy fix either because the problems go beyond a small points change. It's the entire design philosophy of 8th. And it effect so many units that aren't united by keywords or common names that it'd be hard to change that many overall.
Some combination of the following would help, applied to everyone or only to marines (to represent their greater skill, bigger weapons, etc). I'm trying to keep away from all out statline changes.
A) Move all bolter weapons an AP lower for marines. Standard becomes AP -1, intercessor one becomes -2, heavy bolter -2, etc. This will also help their vehicles out. But it won't break currently good units like assault cannon razorbacks.
B) Make flamer/other former template weapons more reliable. Instead of d6 shots, let them be 3+d3, or an amount based on the size of the attacking unit.
C) Increase the power of pretty much all Chapter traits except Blood Angels and Death Guard to help infantry.
D) Give Bolter+Chainsword option for Tacs and CSM and their elite variants
E) Give Jump Pack troops the ability to lock enemies in close combat, or perhaps follow them if they fall back (can be based on leadership check.)
F) Award extra CP for detachments of basic MeQs
All that wishlisting aside, I doubt they'll touch this. Which means this is the edition of Xenos and Soup!
A) I totally agree with they were ap -1 for bolters and pistols in second ed AP with a heavy bolter as AP -2
Sniper rifles where also -1 ap which would also help scouts alot.
B) i'm warry of this as I can't see a way of this being limited to just marines and it also generates the odd situation where blast weapons are better vehical kills than lascannons and melta. Blast weapons shouldn't have been workarounded into multi shot heavy weapons its game breaking. Atleast without a each shot must be allocated to a seperate model rule.
C) Chapter and legion traits should have effected the whole army like the newer codex's.
D) All the yes or even call it Astartes Combat Blade which would allow the chainsword to be blanced without handing out a buff to every marine. Also making assualt marines more assaulty, chainswords used to have ap in second they could potentialy go to -1 ap but thats more and assualt marine fix than tacs.
E) I'm going to say no it can already be done with careful model movement but locking things in CC is a bad mechanic, it removes tactical choice.
F) I actually think the CP system is backwords to real life. The larger the army the harder it is to manage. Smaller more elite armies would be better able to adapt on the fly than a large untrained mass. But under the current system how about the second and every additional max strength tac squads of 10 generate a CP/choas equivalent
I think the problem really boils down to points cost. You can certainly make MeQ good if you cost them efficiently enough. Having them be more swarmy may may not fit the “fantasy” that marines are supposed to fill, but that’s another issue.
The problem is, based on how marine squads are set up, they can’t price bolter marines efficiently. Because that bolter marine isn’t just a bolter marine. Him and his 3 buddies are extra wounds for that lascannon in the squad. They would be overpowered if they were costed efficiently on their own. And they can’t bake that cost into the special weapon, because the cost should vary depending on the number of extra wounds you’re giving it. Guard have this problem too, which is probably one of the reasons a lot of people say they’re undercosted. They already had to adjust the price of plasma guns based on the BS of the “platform” so this is clearly something they are struggling with.
Even taking that into consideration marines are probably still overcosted, but this will always be a balance struggle as long as the damage variance between weapons in 40k is so huge. I think that’s why primaris units were set up the way they were – when you shoot at a hellblaster, you know that you’re killing hellblaster. It means they can price intercessors for what they are, not what they could be hiding in their squad.
I may be a race traitor here seen as I play Orks but I gotta admit...
Orks are T4, S4... ect... for 6pts but marines are nearly double for same T and S. It's really up to opinion on if 3+ save and 3+ BS is worth double. I think it is as you're double durable but I can see arguments.
But Guardsmen.... for 1 S, BS and T less you're 3 times as cheap as a marine! And yet not 3 times as vulnerable with a 5+ save. You're half as effective for a third of the price.
The solution to the marine being an extra wound for a Lascannon in a Tac Squad is to disallow heavy weapons in a Tac squad and allow a 2nd special weapon instead.
As a mono-GK player I feel the MEQ pinch quite fiercely. I'd love to see some improvement in their performance even if it did mean a slight point increase. I'm willing to concede improved performance=increased cost.
As to bolters (and other weapons) they should have 2 AP values, 1 for vehicles/monsters and 1 for everything else. That way you can tailor your weapon for it's job. A flamer could be AP 0/-3 so that it's less effective vs vehicles but better against troops. (Just making up numbers not really proposing them.)
Honestly, with the changes to CC, Damage, S vs T, AP, Cover, terrain, etc, I think there's a good case to be made for some changes.
I don't think AP value changes for bolt weapons are good, that could get real wonky real quickly against units they aren't intended to be great against.
Flame weapons in general tend to need a bit of a boost, heavy flamers are absurdly expensive and normal flamers are just too ineffective. 3+D3/2D3/etc shots may be a good solution to the volume of fire issue, heavy flamers and the like may need some cost reductions.
I really think the basic MEQ statline *needs* A2 base. They need greater volume of attacks in CC to really function as generalists at this point.
Vaktathi wrote: Honestly, with the changes to CC, Damage, S vs T, AP, Cover, terrain, etc, I think there's a good case to be made for some changes.
I don't think AP value changes for bolt weapons are good, that could get real wonky real quickly against units they aren't intended to be great against.
Flame weapons in general tend to need a bit of a boost, heavy flamers are absurdly expensive and normal flamers are just too ineffective. 3+D3/2D3/etc shots may be a good solution to the volume of fire issue, heavy flamers and the like may need some cost reductions.
I really think the basic MEQ statline *needs* A2 base. They need greater volume of attacks in CC to really function as generalists at this point.
Heavy flamers should just get back the extra range that they shouldn't have lost and they would be fine, heck even 10 inch range would make them scary. It's the very situational nature of them that makes them not worth taking in 8th or make the range of a flamer 9 and heavy flamer 12.
MEQs are typically just overpriced relative to the good light infantry options out there. I don't think it's much more complicated than that. Battle Sisters are much closer to right, and Marines gain very little for the 44% price increase.
I'd point out that giving regular bolters AP helps Marines, specifically, but the basic idea here actually worsens the overall trend that you're worried about. AP is better against better saves. As-is, heavy bolters are highly specialized MEQ-killing weapons. Especially if you also upgrade xenos weapons that are already supposed to be stronger than bolters -- such as pulse rifles, shuriken catapults, and gauss rifles -- you're going to drive MEQs out of the game entirely by making their armor almost irrelevant. Why would you take tactical Marines if every Imperium vehicle is running around with high rate of fire AP -2 shooting?
The problem is, based on how marine squads are set up, they can’t price bolter marines efficiently. Because that bolter marine isn’t just a bolter marine. Him and his 3 buddies are extra wounds for that lascannon in the squad. They would be overpowered if they were costed efficiently on their own. And they can’t bake that cost into the special weapon, because the cost should vary depending on the number of extra wounds you’re giving it. Guard have this problem too, which is probably one of the reasons a lot of people say they’re undercosted. They already had to adjust the price of plasma guns based on the BS of the “platform” so this is clearly something they are struggling with.
I don't think this is right. There's already a cost to adding extra Marines to a squad with a lascannon -- you reduce the efficiency of the squad. Add too many Marines and hole up in cover and eventually your opponent will just ignore the squad, because you're paying 168 points for a single lascannon shot per turn. No one's complaining about Guard squads hiding heavy weapons and plasma guns; they're complaining about naked Guard squads (plus a mortar to bring them down to 9 models for ITC objectives) which are difficult to remove efficiently. Plasma guns weren't nerfed for BS3+ Guardsmen because they were being hidden in Veterans squads; they were nerfed because people were taking all-plasma Scion Command Squads, Hellblaster-style, and deep-striking them. It has basically always been the specialist units like this that GW has had a harder time balancing, just because they tend to under-perform massively if they get shot before they shoot and over-perform massively if they get to shoot before they get shot. This is the Eldar pendulum. Primaris units avoid it to some extent because the models themselves are also pretty beefy -- their offense to defense ratio isn't as extreme as Fire Dragons' or Scions'.
It seems that the whole edition is suffering from a glaring problem: Basic marine units are not good.
And this is a problem?
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: Pretty much every base MeQ is lackluster unless it has a huge number of special rules. Str 4, T4, 3+, 1A, and Str 4 shooting models that cost in the low to mid teens in points are pretty much never worth using across the board. This is a huge problem, because it covers the majority of Marine infantry. The days of an army consisting of 2 tacs, an assault, a dev, and then some elites and heavy support are gone. Marine Infantry troops are only filler for Loyalists and Chaos alike, and generally inferior to horde units. Not to imply that these lists were ever super competitive, but they were at least viable B tier lists. It seems to me that GW should care that a large amount of their model line is not viable on tabletop.
That's a bit of hyperbole. My Space Wolves are doing just fine as a mono-faction army, fielding mostly infantry.
In addition, I don't think "2 tacticals, 1 assault, 1 devastators, + a few cool things" was a particularly awesome plan unless you were rewarded with free tanks for doing so. Also, devastators are pretty good.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: Tac Marines, Assault Marines, Bikers, Chaos Marines, Raptors, etc are all not worth using. We see that marines and Chaos alike are using swarm +elites and heavies for their armies, usually as part of a soup list. More elite versions of these units like Cult Marines are generally a bit better off, but you still cannot make the core of your army based around them and end up with enough models on the board to be useful.
When there's 20 options with varying degrees of specialization, of course the generalized not-crap-at-everything option isn't going to be stellar. When you bring units to perform specific tasks, having a unit that isn't actually good at anything is a unit wasting points.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: The MeQ statline has depreciated since previous editions due to the changes in AP and offensive power. A 3+ armor save is just not what it used to be in the new AP system. And on top of that, they got shafted in that many armies weapons moved to an equivalent AP in the new system, but basic bolters did not. They used to be AP 5, which ignored 5+ and 6+ saves, meaning basic bolter fire was an effective anti hoard weapon. Now they are AP 0, which means they lost a significant amount of offensive power against common units like guardsmen and boyz. Aura stacking helps bring their firepower level back, but other armies also got that.
I would argue that the basic MeQ statline is the hardest hit by a large amount of 8th's changes. To summarize:
1) AP changes made 3+ less strong
This is untrue. First off, everyone but the Necron's basic infantry weapons are AP0, which is no change for the Space Marine's armor save. Against a Lasgun or Bolter, Space Marines are just as tough as they ever were.
AP3 has translated to AP-2. What would previously completely ignore Space Marine armorsaves now allows them a 5+. Against a Leman Russ Battle Cannon, the Space Marine will survive far more often [and that's without mentioning the reduced anti-infantry power of the heavy guns this edition]. In cover, you're exactly the same as before, otherwise, you're considerably tougher.
The last set of weapons commonly employed against Marines also grant improvements in Space Marine resilience. Plasma weapons and those similar used to wound space marines on a two, and ignore all saves. They're now only 80% as likely to wound, and do allow 6+ saves.
The range of weapons that were S6/7 and AP4 is the only range where Marines became less resilient. These weapons are now generally AP1, but they also no-longer wound on 2's. However, these weren't commonly fired at Space Marines anyway, generally at light vehicles. Assault Cannons are the big deal here, because they've received a solid improvement in fire output and effectiveness against infantry of all types.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 2) Bolters effectively losing AP made them so inefficient they are barely worth rolling
That's some serious hyperbole. If you're not rolling your bolter fire, that might explain why you're not impressed with Marines .
On bolters though: The basic bolter statline is exactly that: basic. It's impossible for it to be good because it is the measure by which all is compared to. However, it didn't really get worse from last edition: first off, it didn't ignore the armor saves of most of the enemy infantry, so it didn't get worse against those. Second, anything that was 5+ or 6+ would be hiding in vehicles or behind cover for the duration of the game.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 3) Lack of ability to lock foes in combat hurt marine units like assault marines that are proportionally lower damage but higher survivability compared to other melee units
Um, what? The melee lock ability this edition is insanely powerful. I am of the opinion that the actual power of close quarters combat is the most powerful it's been since I started playing in 5th edition. First off, a greater array of things can be locked in combat to greater tactical effect than before. In addition, the ability to leave combat is a greater benefit to the one doing the charging than the one being charged. If a unit falls back, it can neither shoot nor charge. Going into close quarters is one of the best ways to temporarily deactivate enemy units considerably more valuable than the units doing the charging, and the ability to retreat means that the charging unit no longer has to actually be able to eventually kill it's target.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 4) Changes to template and blast weapons hit marines harder than other armies because they relied on them more to cover more army roles.
5) The combination of bolters becoming proportionally weaker and flamers/frag missiles becoming weaker, less reliable, and more expensive totally destroyed the ability of normal marine units to provide anti-swarm.
Frag missiles are not weaker than they were before. The small blast was basically worthless and equivalent to a single shot, so you might as well fire the Krak missile, which was more likely to kill.
Flamers are weaker, but Storm Bolters are not. Also, Assault Cannons are pretty effective anti-horde weapons, and massed bolter fire is not significantly worse. In fact, considering that Guardsmen were generally in cover it really isn't any less effective.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 6) The new vehicle wound system hits marines hardest because they relied on low shot high damage weapons like Meltas for their anti tank. Meltas have gone up in price, and lost their ability to 1 shot vehicles, which has hugely decreased the potential of normal marine infantry to counter armor.
Umm... Lascannons? Plasmaguns? Autocannons? There are plenty of effective ways for the Space Marines to counter vehicles, and more efficiently than before.
And I wouldn't say the Space Marines were even close to relying exclusively on meltaguns or trying to one-shot vehicles. Vehicle one-shots were unreliable enough to not be something you're banking on ever since hull points became a thing.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 7) Power fist changes have hurt marines more than other races, as the power fist sergeant was often half of a squads melee damage output, a solid tank/monster deterrent, and the majority of an army's anti-character power. I'm not sad that this changed because it was silly, but it's still left them overall weaker.
8) In the past, marine infantry relied on a good armor save to out attrition their opponents. But now the offensive power of everyone has increased considerably, so they've lost their ability to take in damage without getting wiped out early. The changes to cover have also hurt them, but not necessarily more than other races.
9) The loss of mechanized lists due to transport changes has hurt too. You can no longer move, disembark, and shoot, which was a major trick of Tacs and CSM. And even if you could, you wouldn't want to as you no longer have the durability to receive a charge and whittle down a unit, or hold until reinforcements come. And drop pods can no longer come in close enough for short range melta shots, and as mentioned above those aren't what they used to be. And transports now cost an arm and a leg.
First off, compared to last edition, disembark-move-shoot isn't particularly different from move-disembark-shoot. It's 3" lost movement, which isn't enough to get into rapid-fire range anyway [24" from zone-to-zone, 12" move, 12" RF leaves you mathematically just short]. I wouldn't also call it a major trick of Space Marines or tacticals. Transports work just fine as transports, actually, carrying short-ranged troops and close-quarters troops forward into range in comparative shelter. Of greater relevance is the loss of fire points, which is what has made gun vehicles preferable to transports for shooting armies, since a gun unit in a transport isn't shooting.
Did drop pods ever come in close enough from short-ranged melta-shots? I seem to remember having a solid 9" perimeter around my armor. Second, meltaguns don't need to be in short range to be effective anymore, so you can fire away from 12" just fine.
11) They did get a couple points cheaper overall, but it's really not enough to help.
Even elite marines units just aren't that great. Berzerkers may be the exception because their special rule and weapons are so phenomenal. But consider the other cult troops: Plague marines give you a lot for their points, but their firepower is so low that it just doesn't matter. So we see poxwalker spam instead. Noise marines are cool and also have some nasty rules and guns, but the points add up really fast. If you try to build an army using more than a couple 5 man objective holding squads, you just won't have enough other stuff. And they die easily. And Rubrics, even with their new powers, just don't have enough firepower. And even with All is Dust, they are proportionally less survivable than most swarm infantry, point for point. These units are not bad in a vacuum (except maybe rubrics), and seem like what we should be forming our armies around. But it just doesn't work.
Primaris marines are more on the right track. If all MeQs had just been given that statline, things would be much different (except plasma spam would still pwn them.) The extra melee attack, extra ap point on bolt weapons, and extra wound really help. But we still don't see armies of primaris the way we saw armies of regular MeQs back in, say, 5th (my main point of comparison as I played it most.) Because even the extra stats at only a few extra points per model doesn't make the units worth using over swarm units + elites and heavy support. The exception may be Blood Angels, because they can stack enough buffs to make Primaris versatile, durable, and efficient in both shooting and melee.
Note I'm not saying that Marines and Chaos are weak overall. Their elite and soup lists are doing fine. But the standard marine infantry has gotten shafted by this edition and it needs help. But there's no easy fix either because the problems go beyond a small points change. It's the entire design philosophy of 8th. And it effect so many units that aren't united by keywords or common names that it'd be hard to change that many overall.
Some combination of the following would help, applied to everyone or only to marines (to represent their greater skill, bigger weapons, etc). I'm trying to keep away from all out statline changes.
A) Move all bolter weapons an AP lower for marines. Standard becomes AP -1, intercessor one becomes -2, heavy bolter -2, etc. This will also help their vehicles out. But it won't break currently good units like assault cannon razorbacks.
Unnecessary, and only really compounds the problem. Just make them cheaper, or give greater access to Storm Bolters. It's lack of shots, not lack of AP.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: B) Make flamer/other former template weapons more reliable. Instead of d6 shots, let them be 3+d3, or an amount based on the size of the attacking unit.
Flamers need to not be drastically more than a Storm Bolter for equivalent effect at drastically reduced ranges. I'm not sure 3+d3 would make the difference.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: C) Increase the power of pretty much all Chapter traits except Blood Angels and Death Guard to help infantry.
I think CT should apply to vehicles. I'm not sure why vehicles are apparently not part of chapter doctrines.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: D) Give Bolter+Chainsword option for Tacs and CSM and their elite variants
I'm not convinced this does anything.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: E) Give Jump Pack troops the ability to lock enemies in close combat, or perhaps follow them if they fall back (can be based on leadership check.)
Why? CQC is plenty good. Troops that have been charged are already locked out, what you're trying to do is give the charging units artificial protection from retaliation, which would be the opposite of productive. At that point, a unit that has been charged is effectively destroyed, which would be insane cost-efficiency for such a unit.
If you want to make assault marines more dangerous, give them 3d6b2 on the charge out of deep strike. This would be the most relevant thing you could do. The major weakness of close-quarters troops is that, off the drop, they're not reliable at getting into close-quarters. If you paid for expensive melee weapons, you don't get to use them early.
A lot of these ideas are good, but you would want to apply just 1 fix - applying all of them will swing too far in the other direction, and make marines too strong.
Option A:
Give all marines types that cost 13 points or more a 2 point reduction, and terminator types a 5 point reduction.
(beserkers, fallen, devastators/havoc, death company, and noise marines maybe just 1 point reduction).
Option B:
Make bolters/storm bolters/combi bolters have AP -1.
This will balance marines and terminators, but will make rhinos and razorbacks stronger as well (due to their 2 point free storm bolter). It also doesn't help units that don't use regular bolters like rubric marines.
Option A has the drawback of a huge number of point cost changes for nearly all infantry in marine codexes.
Option B is simple (just changes for 2 weapons), but has the drawback of unequal balance across different units.
Dionysodorus wrote: MEQs are typically just overpriced relative to the good light infantry options out there. I don't think it's much more complicated than that. Battle Sisters are much closer to right, and Marines gain very little for the 44% price increase.
I'd point out that giving regular bolters AP helps Marines, specifically, but the basic idea here actually worsens the overall trend that you're worried about. AP is better against better saves. As-is, heavy bolters are highly specialized MEQ-killing weapons. Especially if you also upgrade xenos weapons that are already supposed to be stronger than bolters -- such as pulse rifles, shuriken catapults, and gauss rifles -- you're going to drive MEQs out of the game entirely by making their armor almost irrelevant. Why would you take tactical Marines if every Imperium vehicle is running around with high rate of fire AP -2 shooting?
The problem is, based on how marine squads are set up, they can’t price bolter marines efficiently. Because that bolter marine isn’t just a bolter marine. Him and his 3 buddies are extra wounds for that lascannon in the squad. They would be overpowered if they were costed efficiently on their own. And they can’t bake that cost into the special weapon, because the cost should vary depending on the number of extra wounds you’re giving it. Guard have this problem too, which is probably one of the reasons a lot of people say they’re undercosted. They already had to adjust the price of plasma guns based on the BS of the “platform” so this is clearly something they are struggling with.
I don't think this is right. There's already a cost to adding extra Marines to a squad with a lascannon -- you reduce the efficiency of the squad. Add too many Marines and hole up in cover and eventually your opponent will just ignore the squad, because you're paying 168 points for a single lascannon shot per turn. No one's complaining about Guard squads hiding heavy weapons and plasma guns; they're complaining about naked Guard squads (plus a mortar to bring them down to 9 models for ITC objectives) which are difficult to remove efficiently. Plasma guns weren't nerfed for BS3+ Guardsmen because they were being hidden in Veterans squads; they were nerfed because people were taking all-plasma Scion Command Squads, Hellblaster-style, and deep-striking them. It has basically always been the specialist units like this that GW has had a harder time balancing, just because they tend to under-perform massively if they get shot before they shoot and over-perform massively if they get to shoot before they get shot. This is the Eldar pendulum. Primaris units avoid it to some extent because the models themselves are also pretty beefy -- their offense to defense ratio isn't as extreme as Fire Dragons' or Scions'.
But it's 90 points for 5 marines with a lascannon and 65 points for 5 marines without one, yet the squad with a lascannon is going to accomplish so much more (more than the ~40% increase in cost would justify). There's no way to reconcile it and make the bolter squad balanced without making the lascannon squad overpowered. No points cost for a marine would make both of those squads good. If they were, that means the cost is baked into the special weapon and dev squads wouldn't be worth running. Maybe if bolters were less bad in comparison to everything else it wouldn't be as big of a problem, but then you have problems of everything being too lethal like you noted.
And a lascannon is just an example. Insert any decent weapon here.
I'm not saying there aren't other problems too - I'd rather my marines be beefier than they are now, but I think this is definitely a factor. And GW must think so, because they gave primaris the "eldar" squad design.
It seems that the whole edition is suffering from a glaring problem: Basic marine units are not good.
And this is a problem?
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: Pretty much every base MeQ is lackluster unless it has a huge number of special rules. Str 4, T4, 3+, 1A, and Str 4 shooting models that cost in the low to mid teens in points are pretty much never worth using across the board. This is a huge problem, because it covers the majority of Marine infantry. The days of an army consisting of 2 tacs, an assault, a dev, and then some elites and heavy support are gone. Marine Infantry troops are only filler for Loyalists and Chaos alike, and generally inferior to horde units. Not to imply that these lists were ever super competitive, but they were at least viable B tier lists. It seems to me that GW should care that a large amount of their model line is not viable on tabletop.
That's a bit of hyperbole. My Space Wolves are doing just fine as a mono-faction army, fielding mostly infantry.
In addition, I don't think "2 tacticals, 1 assault, 1 devastators, + a few cool things" was a particularly awesome plan unless you were rewarded with free tanks for doing so. Also, devastators are pretty good.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: Tac Marines, Assault Marines, Bikers, Chaos Marines, Raptors, etc are all not worth using. We see that marines and Chaos alike are using swarm +elites and heavies for their armies, usually as part of a soup list. More elite versions of these units like Cult Marines are generally a bit better off, but you still cannot make the core of your army based around them and end up with enough models on the board to be useful.
When there's 20 options with varying degrees of specialization, of course the generalized not-crap-at-everything option isn't going to be stellar. When you bring units to perform specific tasks, having a unit that isn't actually good at anything is a unit wasting points.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: The MeQ statline has depreciated since previous editions due to the changes in AP and offensive power. A 3+ armor save is just not what it used to be in the new AP system. And on top of that, they got shafted in that many armies weapons moved to an equivalent AP in the new system, but basic bolters did not. They used to be AP 5, which ignored 5+ and 6+ saves, meaning basic bolter fire was an effective anti hoard weapon. Now they are AP 0, which means they lost a significant amount of offensive power against common units like guardsmen and boyz. Aura stacking helps bring their firepower level back, but other armies also got that.
I would argue that the basic MeQ statline is the hardest hit by a large amount of 8th's changes. To summarize:
1) AP changes made 3+ less strong
This is untrue. First off, everyone but the Necron's basic infantry weapons are AP0, which is no change for the Space Marine's armor save. Against a Lasgun or Bolter, Space Marines are just as tough as they ever were.
AP3 has translated to AP-2. What would previously completely ignore Space Marine armorsaves now allows them a 5+. Against a Leman Russ Battle Cannon, the Space Marine will survive far more often [and that's without mentioning the reduced anti-infantry power of the heavy guns this edition]. In cover, you're exactly the same as before, otherwise, you're considerably tougher.
The last set of weapons commonly employed against Marines also grant improvements in Space Marine resilience. Plasma weapons and those similar used to wound space marines on a two, and ignore all saves. They're now only 80% as likely to wound, and do allow 6+ saves.
The range of weapons that were S6/7 and AP4 is the only range where Marines became less resilient. These weapons are now generally AP1, but they also no-longer wound on 2's. However, these weren't commonly fired at Space Marines anyway, generally at light vehicles. Assault Cannons are the big deal here, because they've received a solid improvement in fire output and effectiveness against infantry of all types.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 2) Bolters effectively losing AP made them so inefficient they are barely worth rolling
That's some serious hyperbole. If you're not rolling your bolter fire, that might explain why you're not impressed with Marines .
On bolters though: The basic bolter statline is exactly that: basic. It's impossible for it to be good because it is the measure by which all is compared to. However, it didn't really get worse from last edition: first off, it didn't ignore the armor saves of most of the enemy infantry, so it didn't get worse against those. Second, anything that was 5+ or 6+ would be hiding in vehicles or behind cover for the duration of the game.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 3) Lack of ability to lock foes in combat hurt marine units like assault marines that are proportionally lower damage but higher survivability compared to other melee units
Um, what? The melee lock ability this edition is insanely powerful. I am of the opinion that the actual power of close quarters combat is the most powerful it's been since I started playing in 5th edition. First off, a greater array of things can be locked in combat to greater tactical effect than before. In addition, the ability to leave combat is a greater benefit to the one doing the charging than the one being charged. If a unit falls back, it can neither shoot nor charge. Going into close quarters is one of the best ways to temporarily deactivate enemy units considerably more valuable than the units doing the charging, and the ability to retreat means that the charging unit no longer has to actually be able to eventually kill it's target.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 4) Changes to template and blast weapons hit marines harder than other armies because they relied on them more to cover more army roles.
5) The combination of bolters becoming proportionally weaker and flamers/frag missiles becoming weaker, less reliable, and more expensive totally destroyed the ability of normal marine units to provide anti-swarm.
Frag missiles are not weaker than they were before. The small blast was basically worthless and equivalent to a single shot, so you might as well fire the Krak missile, which was more likely to kill.
Flamers are weaker, but Storm Bolters are not. Also, Assault Cannons are pretty effective anti-horde weapons, and massed bolter fire is not significantly worse. In fact, considering that Guardsmen were generally in cover it really isn't any less effective.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 6) The new vehicle wound system hits marines hardest because they relied on low shot high damage weapons like Meltas for their anti tank. Meltas have gone up in price, and lost their ability to 1 shot vehicles, which has hugely decreased the potential of normal marine infantry to counter armor.
Umm... Lascannons? Plasmaguns? Autocannons? There are plenty of effective ways for the Space Marines to counter vehicles, and more efficiently than before.
And I wouldn't say the Space Marines were even close to relying exclusively on meltaguns or trying to one-shot vehicles. Vehicle one-shots were unreliable enough to not be something you're banking on ever since hull points became a thing.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: 7) Power fist changes have hurt marines more than other races, as the power fist sergeant was often half of a squads melee damage output, a solid tank/monster deterrent, and the majority of an army's anti-character power. I'm not sad that this changed because it was silly, but it's still left them overall weaker.
8) In the past, marine infantry relied on a good armor save to out attrition their opponents. But now the offensive power of everyone has increased considerably, so they've lost their ability to take in damage without getting wiped out early. The changes to cover have also hurt them, but not necessarily more than other races.
9) The loss of mechanized lists due to transport changes has hurt too. You can no longer move, disembark, and shoot, which was a major trick of Tacs and CSM. And even if you could, you wouldn't want to as you no longer have the durability to receive a charge and whittle down a unit, or hold until reinforcements come. And drop pods can no longer come in close enough for short range melta shots, and as mentioned above those aren't what they used to be. And transports now cost an arm and a leg.
First off, compared to last edition, disembark-move-shoot isn't particularly different from move-disembark-shoot. It's 3" lost movement, which isn't enough to get into rapid-fire range anyway [24" from zone-to-zone, 12" move, 12" RF leaves you mathematically just short]. I wouldn't also call it a major trick of Space Marines or tacticals. Transports work just fine as transports, actually, carrying short-ranged troops and close-quarters troops forward into range in comparative shelter. Of greater relevance is the loss of fire points, which is what has made gun vehicles preferable to transports for shooting armies, since a gun unit in a transport isn't shooting.
Did drop pods ever come in close enough from short-ranged melta-shots? I seem to remember having a solid 9" perimeter around my armor. Second, meltaguns don't need to be in short range to be effective anymore, so you can fire away from 12" just fine.
11) They did get a couple points cheaper overall, but it's really not enough to help.
Even elite marines units just aren't that great. Berzerkers may be the exception because their special rule and weapons are so phenomenal. But consider the other cult troops: Plague marines give you a lot for their points, but their firepower is so low that it just doesn't matter. So we see poxwalker spam instead. Noise marines are cool and also have some nasty rules and guns, but the points add up really fast. If you try to build an army using more than a couple 5 man objective holding squads, you just won't have enough other stuff. And they die easily. And Rubrics, even with their new powers, just don't have enough firepower. And even with All is Dust, they are proportionally less survivable than most swarm infantry, point for point. These units are not bad in a vacuum (except maybe rubrics), and seem like what we should be forming our armies around. But it just doesn't work.
Primaris marines are more on the right track. If all MeQs had just been given that statline, things would be much different (except plasma spam would still pwn them.) The extra melee attack, extra ap point on bolt weapons, and extra wound really help. But we still don't see armies of primaris the way we saw armies of regular MeQs back in, say, 5th (my main point of comparison as I played it most.) Because even the extra stats at only a few extra points per model doesn't make the units worth using over swarm units + elites and heavy support. The exception may be Blood Angels, because they can stack enough buffs to make Primaris versatile, durable, and efficient in both shooting and melee.
Note I'm not saying that Marines and Chaos are weak overall. Their elite and soup lists are doing fine. But the standard marine infantry has gotten shafted by this edition and it needs help. But there's no easy fix either because the problems go beyond a small points change. It's the entire design philosophy of 8th. And it effect so many units that aren't united by keywords or common names that it'd be hard to change that many overall.
Some combination of the following would help, applied to everyone or only to marines (to represent their greater skill, bigger weapons, etc). I'm trying to keep away from all out statline changes.
A) Move all bolter weapons an AP lower for marines. Standard becomes AP -1, intercessor one becomes -2, heavy bolter -2, etc. This will also help their vehicles out. But it won't break currently good units like assault cannon razorbacks.
Unnecessary, and only really compounds the problem. Just make them cheaper, or give greater access to Storm Bolters. It's lack of shots, not lack of AP.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: B) Make flamer/other former template weapons more reliable. Instead of d6 shots, let them be 3+d3, or an amount based on the size of the attacking unit.
Flamers need to not be drastically more than a Storm Bolter for equivalent effect at drastically reduced ranges. I'm not sure 3+d3 would make the difference.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: C) Increase the power of pretty much all Chapter traits except Blood Angels and Death Guard to help infantry.
I think CT should apply to vehicles. I'm not sure why vehicles are apparently not part of chapter doctrines.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: D) Give Bolter+Chainsword option for Tacs and CSM and their elite variants
I'm not convinced this does anything.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote: E) Give Jump Pack troops the ability to lock enemies in close combat, or perhaps follow them if they fall back (can be based on leadership check.)
Why? CQC is plenty good. Troops that have been charged are already locked out, what you're trying to do is give the charging units artificial protection from retaliation, which would be the opposite of productive. At that point, a unit that has been charged is effectively destroyed, which would be insane cost-efficiency for such a unit.
If you want to make assault marines more dangerous, give them 3d6b2 on the charge out of deep strike. This would be the most relevant thing you could do. The major weakness of close-quarters troops is that, off the drop, they're not reliable at getting into close-quarters. If you paid for expensive melee weapons, you don't get to use them early.
All that wishlisting aside, I doubt they'll touch this. Which means this is the edition of Xenos and Soup!
I was unaware this was the edition of Xenos. We'll have to see once the Tau, 'crons, and Orks codecies drops.
Wow there is so much wrong in this post Everyone knows that marines are perfect and that's why they are number 1 at all tournaments and events, of course.
How stupid I was, I thought it was codex Guilliman + soup
ashmizen wrote: A lot of these ideas are good, but you would want to apply just 1 fix - applying all of them will swing too far in the other direction, and make marines too strong.
Option A:
Give all marines types that cost 13 points or more a 2 point reduction, and terminator types a 5 point reduction.
(beserkers, fallen, devastators/havoc, death company, and noise marines maybe just 1 point reduction).
Option B:
Make bolters/storm bolters/combi bolters have AP -1.
This will balance marines and terminators, but will make rhinos and razorbacks stronger as well (due to their 2 point free storm bolter). It also doesn't help units that don't use regular bolters like rubric marines.
Option A has the drawback of a huge number of point cost changes for nearly all infantry in marine codexes.
Option B is simple (just changes for 2 weapons), but has the drawback of unequal balance across different units.
How many factions get bolters/storm bolters? You'd still have to make errata for, off the top of my head, Sisters, Guard, every Space Marine faction, and Inquisition. And would other formerly AP5 weapons also be altered as such? Or would it only be the bolter?
Also giving bolters a straight AP -1 puts them back into where they were in previous editions: completely negating the armor of several units (most gaunts, most ork infantry, cultists).
I'd personally rather some rejiggering of the Marine itself - drop the price of a tac marine by 1-2 points, add 1 to their attack stat, and then maybe give them a specialist rule where damage rolls with bolters count as AP -1 on a damage roll of 6. Points drop for the obvious reason, +1 attack so that they do not lose any firepower going from rapid fire range to melee, and a situational AP so that bolters don't become a "just pack up and go home" weapon for units with poor saves.
A big part of the issue is just that the game's combat engine is clearly built around MEQ being the baseline for everything. Everything else is defined as "weaker and cheaper than MEQ or better ranged but less melee" or something similar. The main reason MEQ flounders is because it doesn't have an identity, where everything else is a min-maxed specialist.
I am curious if tables need to be designed around the cover rules a bit better though. I haven't seen a lot of games where it seems to be a major feature of the game, but its always impactful when I use it.
LunarSol wrote: A big part of the issue is just that the game's combat engine is clearly built around MEQ being the baseline for everything. Everything else is defined as "weaker and cheaper than MEQ or better ranged but less melee" or something similar. The main reason MEQ flounders is because it doesn't have an identity, where everything else is a min-maxed specialist.
I am curious if tables need to be designed around the cover rules a bit better though. I haven't seen a lot of games where it seems to be a major feature of the game, but its always impactful when I use it.
Probably the closest comparison to MEQ would be Battle Sisters - before upgrades both are power armored units with bolters.
Marine gets 1 better WS, +1 Str, +1 T, ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics (of varying use for a Tac Marine depending on Chapter)
Sisters get Shield of Faith (6+ invulnerable save, a weak method of denying psykers), Acts of Faith (usable by only 1 unit per turn, need to make a check [albeit an easy one] to use), Order (no rules yet, but once the codex drops there probably will be some)
Basically it comes down to whether you think +1 WS, Str, and T, and a reroll on morale (and losing a 6+ invulnerable save) is worth 4 points. On a dedicated Melee unit it might be, but on a generalist like the Tactical Marine Squad, probably not.
What made marines unique is that 3+. SOB, Dark Reapers, etc, should have a 5+ save. Anything better than 5+ should be restricted to models that are 10+ ppm.
Stop giving out ridiculous saves and suddenly marines aren't so bad, because a 3+ is fairly durable relative to the field.
Marmatag wrote: What made marines unique is that 3+. SOB, Dark Reapers, etc, should have a 5+ save. Anything better than 5+ should be restricted to models that are 10+ ppm.
Stop giving out ridiculous saves and suddenly marines aren't so bad, because a 3+ is fairly durable relative to the field.
SOB in power armour should have a 5+ save?
But marine in power armour is 3+ save?
Prepair to be eaten alive by those plastic sisters fans
I wish Marines felt like they were actually Marines. In the lore they sound like these badass superhumans but in game they're always pushovers. Heck a single IG company commander can often take on 3 or 4 just by himself.
It really felt like primaris statlines were meant to be basic Marines. They're still too expensive, but when you're fighting those guys you at least get the feeling you're fighting some sort of tougher unit. If it weren't for plasma being so crazy good and being S8 D2 all the time, I think giving all Marines the primaris statline with 0 pts increases would at least be a good start, combined with a slight discount on primaris as well. If plasma wasn't so insanely good, that would be a very solid place to be.
In addition, there should be some difference between space marine weapons and their lesser equivalents. I find it really odd that a bolter my IG Sarge carries is no different than one a space marine carries, yet the space marine one is twice as big and clearly fires a bigger round.
Part of the issue is also the d6 system that attributes are based on. It's really hard to make units feel genuinely different with so little wiggle room, especially since the scale really only exists between T3 and t5 for infantry, with T2 and 1 being rarities and t6 and up being reserved for mondters.
3+ is meaningless this edition, with the amount of AP weapons and mortal wounds.
Yes, 3+ space marines are twice as durable as 5+ hordesmen against AP 0 weapons, but very few wounds in a competitive games are caused by AP 0 weapons. My guess is 25% or less.
Most alpha strike weapons have high AP, leaving space marines with a 6+ or no save at all. Then there's all the
mortal wounds from smite, spells, abilities, and exploding vehicles.
3+ has been costed like it makes a 1 wound model twice as durable than a 5+, and that simply isn't the case in 8th edition.
ashmizen wrote: 3+ is meaningless this edition, with the amount of AP weapons and mortal wounds...
Most alpha strike weapons have high AP, leaving space marines with a 6+ or no save at all. Then there's all the
mortal wounds from smite, spells, abilities, and exploding vehicles.
Yeah, totally meaningless. In a world that was dominated for the first half of its life by assault cannon spam (which was just -1 to AP, I believe?), that 4+ (or 3+ in cover) didn't help you save any units at all. /s
I also find it funny that one of your listed chief concerns is exploding vehicles, which only happens on a 6+ (usually), but somehow also so upset that a 6+ save is bad. So two events that have the exact same probability are simultaneously so likely to be dangerous to you, but also so unlikely to be helpful when the table turns. I think we call that logical flaw "loss aversion" in the economics world.
Strongly disagree with the premise here. Baseline MEQsare showing up in tournament lists (RG, BA, Bobby G, various Imperial soups). They might not be the stars, but how many lists can say their troop choices are better than "good at holding down the fort for the real workhorses"? Even IG can't claim that.
I get the contempt for soup, and Lord knows that there's some overall balance issues in this edition, but come the on. There are literally dozens of units that just don't see play even in casual contexts, but we're focused on 5ish units with wildly different roles across two unrelated factions because ... they're all T4 and Sv 3+? Because they all have Unkillium-forged special-mans armor? Because they're not Scouts or Devastators?
... Though I'll concede that bikers could get some love. But only if they have sweet mohawks.
While I'll agree they may be overcosted compared to SoB, I think the real issue is that 75% of armies have space marines in them.
I don't mean 75% of GWs armies are space marines, but at my own shop, 75% of people either play some variant of Space Marines or Chaos Space Marines. So, if you don't bring weapons capable of wiping them out with AP or volume, you'll lose to most armies.
Once you learn to deal with space marines of one flavor, you've effectively learned to deal with them all.
Mewens wrote: Strongly disagree with the premise here. Baseline MEQsare showing up in tournament lists (RG, BA, Bobby G, various Imperial soups). They might not be the stars, but how many lists can say their troop choices are better than "good at holding down the fort for the real workhorses"? Even IG can't claim that.
I get the contempt for soup, and Lord knows that there's some overall balance issues in this edition, but come the on. There are literally dozens of units that just don't see play even in casual contexts, but we're focused on 5ish units with wildly different roles across two unrelated factions because ... they're all T4 and Sv 3+? Because they all have Unkillium-forged special-mans armor? Because they're not Scouts or Devastators?
... Though I'll concede that bikers could get some love. But only if they have sweet mohawks.
I think the issue is more that these guys are sold on the premise that even a basic tactical squad is supposed to be the equivalent of other armies super special elite units. For example, a tac squad should be able to mop the floor with an IG veteran squad, yet the IG vets will usually win that trade considering they can afford a ton of special weapons for the cost of just a baseline tac squad. And IG vets are overall a pretty mediocre unit this edition, to say nothing of Stormtroopers, which are far and away superior to tac Marines in almost every way.
People are annoyed that Marines are underwhelming in much the same way they would be if IG tanks sucked or say Eldar pyskers were the worst in the game. Tac Marines and by extension other baseline power armored Marines are supposed to be truly terrifying to face in the lore, yet in game I can easily crush them with an equivalent pts worth of guardsmen to the point that it's trivial. These are the poster child units for their codex, the ones that make the army what it is in the lore. For an army that has its whole identity based on being elite that's a huge red flag, and I say this as a guy who can't stand the amount of marine spank in 40k.
Power armored tac Marines are supposed to be veterans of dozens of battles that can put the baseline of most other armies to shame, and yet they're so terrible that new players are outright told to avoid them. That's a serious sign of an army not working as intended. I personally see it as no different than if IG infantry squads or Ork boys were terrible. This is a unit that is supposed to make up the bulk of your army. When players are going out of their way to avoid these units it's a sign you have failed at writing that codex.
Mewens wrote: Strongly disagree with the premise here. Baseline MEQsare showing up in tournament lists (RG, BA, Bobby G, various Imperial soups). They might not be the stars, but how many lists can say their troop choices are better than "good at holding down the fort for the real workhorses"? Even IG can't claim that.
I get the contempt for soup, and Lord knows that there's some overall balance issues in this edition, but come the on. There are literally dozens of units that just don't see play even in casual contexts, but we're focused on 5ish units with wildly different roles across two unrelated factions because ... they're all T4 and Sv 3+? Because they all have Unkillium-forged special-mans armor? Because they're not Scouts or Devastators?
... Though I'll concede that bikers could get some love. But only if they have sweet mohawks.
I think the issue is more that these guys are sold on the premise that even a basic tactical squad is supposed to be the equivalent of other armies super special elite units. For example, a tac squad should be able to mop the floor with an IG veteran squad, yet the IG vets will usually win that trade considering they can afford a ton of special weapons for the cost of just a baseline tac squad. And IG vets are overall a pretty mediocre unit this edition, to say nothing of Stormtroopers, which are far and away superior to tac Marines in almost every way.
People are annoyed that Marines are underwhelming in much the same way they would be if IG tanks sucked or say Eldar pyskers were the worst in the game. Tac Marines and by extension other baseline power armored Marines are supposed to be truly terrifying to face in the lore, yet in game I can easily crush them with an equivalent pts worth of guardsmen to the point that it's trivial. These are the poster child units for their codex, the ones that make the army what it is in the lore. For an army that has its whole identity based on being elite that's a huge red flag, and I say this as a guy who can't stand the amount of marine spank in 40k.
Power armored tac Marines are supposed to be veterans of dozens of battles that can put the baseline of most other armies to shame, and yet they're so terrible that new players are outright told to avoid them. That's a serious sign of an army not working as intended. I personally see it as no different than if IG infantry squads or Ork boys were terrible. This is a unit that is supposed to make up the bulk of your army. When players are going out of their way to avoid these units it's a sign you have failed at writing that codex.
This. It is frustrating that viable lists have departed so much from what these armies are supposed to be. Marine forces are not supposed to be all elite units and Guillman. I'm not asking for classic Codex style lists to be tournament winners, but it'd be nice to have them be at least B lists, not what they are now. I'd like to play Thousand Sons and actually use Thousand Sons units. I'd like to play Word Bearers or Black Legion and use their foot infantry. These troops aren't supposed to be super powered killing machines like elites or heavies, but they aren't supposed to be worthless either.
Regardless of the individual merit of any specific unit, it's undeniable that Marines of all sorts have been forced into less and less fluffy list builds over time. I'm not going to say it's the end of the world, and I understand the balance issues and difficulty to fix. But I am going to say that its really lame, and a trend that is bad for the game. I would like to see GW work on improving the usability of their basic marine units. People join and invest in the hobby because they think Space Marines are cool, not razor back spam. "I really love Chaos Marines. I can't wait to run Magnus + Morty + Brimstone horrors" said no one ever. And while there have been countless bad fluff chapters, I don't think anybody ever envisioned a warband made of Alpha Legion Berzerkers and Obliterators as being their thing.
This. It is frustrating that viable lists have departed so much from what these armies are supposed to be. Marine forces are not supposed to be all elite units and Guillman. I'm not asking for classic Codex style lists to be tournament winners, but it'd be nice to have them be at least B lists, not what they are now...
...I would like to see GW work on improving the usability of their basic marine units.
I don't understand this mentality, Meq's are fine - the only thing they are in need of is a point reduction.
Space Marines Meq's can't actually be offensively stat buffed without becoming overtuned; this is a side effect of the reroll death bubbles - YOURMeq's are now balanced around having them active all the time.
With the auras you hit 77% of the time, a +2 to hit effectively hits 93+% of the time, same thing for wounding rolls. Complaining that they are useless is extravagant hyperbole, they hit (almost) every of their shots and wound (most) of their shots, other Meq's would cry a river for that alone.
Not to mention your 'fix' of -1 AP on all marine guns does the complete opposite of what you are after; adding more to the -AP 'problem' you were talking about.
Please don't forget you're only experiencing it from the space marine side of the fence, other armies are feeling the same thing about their own Meqs (Barring a few, namely guard and now possibly? Tsons who are over performing).
Bobby G implements Codex Impypants. Lorraine Russ returns and fully half the Ultimate Frowning chapters jump up to Chaos and slay PDFs to a man.
Chaos gets Nu... Primaris Marines (old habits, sry) and then we can throw out all our regular broken marines, spiked and non-spiked alike. GW releases Grav Plate upgrade kits for old broken SM tanks to become Repulzor Chassis with three extra engines and faster guns.
Once regular broken marines are binned the MEQ statline will increase dramatically.
I was originally going to do a point by point rebuttal on the OPs post, but that got tedious quickly. So let me just do the highlight edition,
All of the points about hordes are wrong, flamers weren't great against hordes, and space marines didn't depend on having ap 5 on their bolters to mow down hordes. Two reasons you didn't see hordes as a viable thing in 7th, first was sweeping advance, you could lose 2 dudes and get your whole unit of 20 swept by a single guy. The more units you piled in the more you could get swept, except for space marines because of ATSKNF. The second was blast templates, ranging from the pie plate to the over the top apoc blast templates. You had to be close enough to tickle people to get them with a flamer and then the awkward shape of it was easy to minimize damage, but pie plates could come from across the board and a 2" coherency meant you could take chunks out of all but the most strung out units. Also the sob story about how marines suffered more from the from the loss of templates is laughable wrong, Guard and Orks were much more dependent on templates due to poor weapon skill, and template nerf hit the LRBT so hard that they doubled its firepower in the codex and it's still considered so-so. This forced units to become tougher in order to survive, and lead to the rise of the death star meta, which in turn lead to the rise of GMC and stomp from super heavy walkers, then there was D weapons and grav spam and gak just went sideways fast. Near the end 7th ed was just about unplayable for armies outside of the big five (Necrons, tau, Gladius marines, eldar and daemons).
In any case the thing that makes hordes possible in 8th as compared to 7th was the removal of sweeping advance and the removal of 3" and larger templates. Neither of those are changed by the OPs suggestions. In fact his suggestions about the AP just make marines better against other marines, which actually hurts marines because marine on marine is a very common match up.
My two favorite parts where he whines about having to pay for transports (what do you mean I have to pay for my razorbacks, I didn't in 7th), and bemoaning the fact that he can't one shot vehicles anymore. The transports one is super easy, marines were in such a bad place at the end of 7th ed, that you literally had to give them several hundred points of handicap to keep them competitive. The average 8th ed battle was at 1850 points, but marines were often brining 2100 plus points worth of models, and were still getting trashed by some comps. Which is why I loathe the rose colored glasses some on this board have for 7th ed, and the thought that marines were better in the last edition when that is demonstrably false. Marines have gotten so much better in this edition that they no longer require a 20% handicap to be competitive.
The point about some weapons underperforming is true, meltas and flamers need work, no two ways about it. The risk vs reward for these short range weapons is skewed to the point where there is never a reason to take melta over a las cannon, and where a storm bolter vastly out performs a flamer in just about any case. He then takes a perfectly good point and then throws it off of a cliff by arguing that space marines need the ability to one shot vehicles to be competitive. When you could one shot a nearly 500 point vehicle with a 15 point weapon things were wrong. Vehicles were so bad in 7th ed, not only in comparison to MC and GMC, but in terms of expected performance per point invested. They fixed that by getting rid of the vehicle damage chart and handling MC and vehicles the same way, high toughness, an armor save, and a high number of wounds. A Lot of people feel like they didn't go far enough, and that heavy weapons do too much damage. We literally just had that obnoxious poll and six plus pages of people arguing about how MC and vehicles just aren't tough enough. This guy thinks we need to turn the clock back and have meltas reliably one shot heavies. What about IG meltas, they can field a metric ton of them, do you think IG needs the buff?
I could go on, but I think the point is made, a spotty memory and some rose colored glasses are a horrible yard stick for balance.
I don't understand this mentality, Meq's are fine - the only thing they are in need of is a point reduction.
Then why are these units not worth using? Making them a point or two cheaper won't solve the problem. Make them more than a couple points cheaper, and they infringe on the territory of other stat lines and cause problems in soup lists. Yes, marines get good access to auras. Whereas other armies have more options for psychic power buffs, orders, special rules, etc. Even full re-rolls to hit and wound won't make tac marines worth fielding vs other, non-MeQ units without that.
I don't understand this mentality that MeQs are fine when they aren't used and aren't worth using. And I'll clarify again that I'm talking about the regular MeQ units, not all Marine units. And I am not denying that they aren't sometimes used as filler either.
I was originally going to do a point by point rebuttal on the OPs post, but that got tedious quickly. So let me just do the highlight edition:
I'll do the same.
Honestly I have no idea what the status of hordes were in 7th as I never played it. I said in my post I was comparing to 5th. And even if these problems did exist in 7th, I don't see what that has to do with issues now. We're talking about 8th.
Marines are hurt more by templates changing to d6 shots, because they generally have less of them. These random shot weapons average out over multiple shots better in guard and Orks because they have more of them. I won't dispute if some other armies also got hurt by it. I may even be wrong that marines were hurt MORE by it. But Marines still got less useful because of it.
I'm not arguing to make hordes/swarms weaker. I'm glad they got more useful. Doesn't mean that it's good that MeQs aren't worth using now. The AP changes will make marines better against other marines, which is probably fine. It also makes them better against swarms/hordes. Since the current meta is heavy on hordes and not heavy on MeQs, this seems fine. What's the problem?
I don't see why you're interpreting my post as whining and sobbing. Especially when you're putting words in my mouth. I never claimed transports should be free. I claimed that their increased cost made MeQs less viable. Am I wrong? I never claimed marines need to be able to 1 shot tanks, or that this was a good system. I merely claimed that the change in dynamics of anti tank weapons weakened this set of MeQ units as compared to the past. Am i wrong, or are you going to tell me that a tac marine with a melta is just as viable anti tank as it was in previous editions?
Maybe marines were broken in 7th. What's that got to do with now? This isn't 7th. The units aren't worth using. It would be good for the hobby if they were. Are we supposed to keep them weak now because they had their time in the sun in 7th? This is a stupid argument.
Do you have any objections to what I said that aren't based around total distortions of my claims? You don't actually seem to be disagreeing with these units being subpar, and I don't see why you'd want them to remain useless. You seem upset about some stuff I never claimed, like that marines need to one shot tanks to be competitive. And you seem to be mad about a bunch of stuff from 7th. Overall you just seem to be quibbling about the degree to which these changes hurt marines as compared to other armies. And you may well be correct on some of these points, but those are not THE point. You are being an ass for no reason.
LunarSol wrote: I do find it kind of hilarious that the only time my MEQs feel legitimately durable is when they're being shot by bolters. :(
I have only faced marines a couple times this edition....that his how much xenos I see.
If bolters cannot take down hordes...what about making them Assault 2 or d3 or just double tap if they don't move....so 4 shots.....would that be right? I don't know marines much (haven't taken them out of the box in a year)
Seems combined bolter fire should wipe out hordes.
Some ability for tac/foot marines to fire the bolter twice if they don't move would keep most hordes at bay.
LunarSol wrote: I do find it kind of hilarious that the only time my MEQs feel legitimately durable is when they're being shot by bolters. :(
I have only faced marines a couple times this edition....that his how much xenos I see.
If bolters cannot take down hordes...what about making them Assault 2 or d3 or just double tap if they don't move....so 4 shots.....would that be right? I don't know marines much (haven't taken them out of the box in a year)
Seems combined bolter fire should wipe out hordes.
Some ability for tac/foot marines to fire the bolter twice if they don't move would keep most hordes at bay.
You'd probably need to give the average tac marine the equivalent of a storm bolter to make them decent against hordes. And by that I mean a legit Rapid Fire 2 profile. If we're talking purely making tacs more useful against horde's it's at least a start. Doesn't really help them in other areas but at least gives them some flexibility. I know as a guard player bolters are a minor nuisance, but if stormbolters are levied at squad strength it can be somewhat intimidating. Problem is Marines often have to pay for them on top of their profile which is a bitter pill to swallow.
I think people are missing some big points that really help generalists like marines over earlier editions.
1: Units with rapid fire weapons can now assault after firing them, so a marine is able to leverage his multipurpose role in a single round.
2: Units can split fire now. No longer do the bolter guys have to waste their time doing nothing while the heavy weapon shoots at a juicy target. A squad with multiple weapon types can do the most effective thing with their respective guns each turn.
3: Heavy weapons aren't penalized nearly as much for firing on the move. A marine squad can keep mobile without sacrificing as much firepower as earlier editions, and their decent BS makes this viable.
4: Cover actually helps marines vs. small arms fire in this edition, which is new. Not only that, but the mechanic halves the effectiveness of AP 0 weapons vs marines, while 5+ armor only sees a reduction of 25% in casualties.
Insectum7 wrote: I think people are missing some big points that really help generalists like marines over earlier editions.
1: Units with rapid fire weapons can now assault after firing them, so a marine is able to leverage his multipurpose role in a single round.
2: Units can split fire now. No longer do the bolter guys have to waste their time doing nothing while the heavy weapon shoots at a juicy target. A squad with multiple weapon types can do the most effective thing with their respective guns each turn.
3: Heavy weapons aren't penalized nearly as much for firing on the move. A marine squad can keep mobile without sacrificing as much firepower as earlier editions, and their decent BS makes this viable.
4: Cover actually helps marines vs. small arms fire in this edition, which is new. Not only that, but the mechanic halves the effectiveness of AP 0 weapons vs marines, while 5+ armor only sees a reduction of 25% in casualties.
These are all good points. I did not go over all the bonuses in my original post as it would have gotten too long, and I was trying to summarize. But I'm not claiming nothing has helped these units this edition. But despite these things, these units remain not worth using.
Funny, I've seen people claim this in 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th as well.
MEQ's are thougher than ever in 8th.
S6 and S7 only wound them on 3+ now (used to be 2+), they can be put in cover for a 2+, and things that used to be AP3 is now AP -2, so MEQ's even get a save against things that used to ignore their save altogether.
And giving bolters AP -1 would break the game. Massed bolters and stormbolters are already much better at killing vehicles than they used to be. With AP -1 there would be no point in taking Vehicles with T7 or lower.
Insectum7 wrote: I think people are missing some big points that really help generalists like marines over earlier editions.
1: Units with rapid fire weapons can now assault after firing them, so a marine is able to leverage his multipurpose role in a single round.
2: Units can split fire now. No longer do the bolter guys have to waste their time doing nothing while the heavy weapon shoots at a juicy target. A squad with multiple weapon types can do the most effective thing with their respective guns each turn.
3: Heavy weapons aren't penalized nearly as much for firing on the move. A marine squad can keep mobile without sacrificing as much firepower as earlier editions, and their decent BS makes this viable.
4: Cover actually helps marines vs. small arms fire in this edition, which is new. Not only that, but the mechanic halves the effectiveness of AP 0 weapons vs marines, while 5+ armor only sees a reduction of 25% in casualties.
These are all good points. I did not go over all the bonuses in my original post as it would have gotten too long, and I was trying to summarize. But I'm not claiming nothing has helped these units this edition. But despite these things, these units remain not worth using.
I'll say sometimes, as my local meta is quite varied. We rarely play itc style too, which is different than BRB or the open war which I see more often.
I genuinely don't get this, "Space Marines need to be uber badasses because fluff" argument. There seems to be a massive blind spot in applying it to other armies:
-by fluff, Tyranids should be rapidly adapting and expanding their numbers as they die. You can't do the first half at all effectively, and the second half without spending points.
-by fluff, Eldar should already know how the battle will turn out and have planned around it, so there's no way you should be able to beat them
-by fluff, Necrons should phase out of the battle as they start losing.
Maybe some imagination would help: imagine each Space Marine model on the table as one marine, and each Guardsman/cultist/whatever as 100. There, you have your badasses.
If you want everything by fluff and then get sad when game stats get appointed to them, you're going to forever be disappointed. You want an RPG, not 40k.
I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
Killermonkey wrote: I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
I agree; there really isn't much purpose to an annoyance assault unit with the fall back rules as they are. The exception is if that unit happens to be extremely durable like Canoptek Wraiths, who will keep tying up your shooting every turn if you don't funnel everything into killing them. Tactical Marines are not durable like Wraiths.
1) Reduce the price point of a MEQ so it becomes slightly more than twice as expensive as a GEQ. Say 11 points to 5 points. A tactical is a little more than twice as durable as a guardsman and has a little less than twice the damage output, is less effected by morale and helped more by cover. The space marines statline is just not the statline of a super-soldier, it is the statline of a better-soldier.
2) The other solution is to give space marines +1A -1 AP +1W. That is the route taken by primaris marines, and this would be my preferred solution, essentially removing any distinction between old-marines and nu-marines. Intercessors are fine at 18 ppm, and rubrics would be fine too at 18 points per model. They are basically a well designed unit.
But whatever solution is taken, plasma needs to be nerfed. Plasma is simply way too strong. But that is not a problem that concerns the MEQ statline specifically.
Killermonkey wrote: I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
I agree; there really isn't much purpose to an annoyance assault unit with the fall back rules as they are. The exception is if that unit happens to be extremely durable like Canoptek Wraiths, who will keep tying up your shooting every turn if you don't funnel everything into killing them. Tactical Marines are not durable like Wraiths.
Forcing a unit to not fire next turn by touching it is a powerful thing. "I touched your Predator tank, neener neener."
Because of the morale rules this edition it's still often beneficial to go for those extra couple kills, as they can essentially count double.
Totally anecdotal, but I won my first 2k pts game against my friend by playing my Ad-mech army instead. Since the start of 8th I beat his tau army once, marines are missing something.
As far I can guess from reading this thread, they sucked in 7th and suck in 8th. I think we just see it now because we don't have said "20%" handicap now.
As a marine player I'd like to be able to take say a lascannon in a squad but not have every other marine as a glorified wound.
As a marine player I can say that that's all they are.
Now I now somebody is gonna say they are X percentage more durable than edition Y. That's irrelevant and the argument is the same as the "sins of our father". (The wraith knight is a prime example of this)
Ad-mech is not crazy good or topping a lot of charts but I was able to do most things I could never do with marines and I had a big gak eating grin the entire time.
Killermonkey wrote: I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
I agree; there really isn't much purpose to an annoyance assault unit with the fall back rules as they are. The exception is if that unit happens to be extremely durable like Canoptek Wraiths, who will keep tying up your shooting every turn if you don't funnel everything into killing them. Tactical Marines are not durable like Wraiths.
Forcing a unit to not fire next turn by touching it is a powerful thing. "I touched your Predator tank, neener neener."
Because of the morale rules this edition it's still often beneficial to go for those extra couple kills, as they can essentially count double.
I'm guessing you stopped reading my post after the first sentence, because if you had read the whole thing you would know I agree with that assessment. My disagreement is that assault marines just aren't very good at it; it's a trick they will manage to do maybe once if they're lucky and then get blown off the table for minimal investment. On the other hand wraith are HARD to get rid of and will keep tying up more and more shooting every turn if you don't invest seriously high amounts of firepower into taking them down.
HuskyWarhammer wrote: I genuinely don't get this, "Space Marines need to be uber badasses because fluff" argument. There seems to be a massive blind spot in applying it to other armies:
-by fluff, Tyranids should be rapidly adapting and expanding their numbers as they die. You can't do the first half at all effectively, and the second half without spending points.
-by fluff, Eldar should already know how the battle will turn out and have planned around it, so there's no way you should be able to beat them
-by fluff, Necrons should phase out of the battle as they start losing.
Maybe some imagination would help: imagine each Space Marine model on the table as one marine, and each Guardsman/cultist/whatever as 100. There, you have your badasses.
If you want everything by fluff and then get sad when game stats get appointed to them, you're going to forever be disappointed. You want an RPG, not 40k.
Why stop there? Just have 1 set of rules for every army, and you just imagine it is whatever you want! Now we only need 1 codex, and every match is perfectly balanced! Or just imagine you won, and don't ever bother playing! The amount of imagination it takes to understand why people want their armies to have some relation to the fluff, and have their basic units actually be useful, isn't high.
And Tyranids don't adapt moment to moment in battle. Various eldar psychic powers are described as being tied to their foresight. And Necrons literally used to have that as a rule, but it turned out to not be much fun so they scrapped it.
Mewens wrote: Strongly disagree with the premise here. Baseline MEQsare showing up in tournament lists (RG, BA, Bobby G, various Imperial soups). They might not be the stars, but how many lists can say their troop choices are better than "good at holding down the fort for the real workhorses"? Even IG can't claim that.
I get the contempt for soup, and Lord knows that there's some overall balance issues in this edition, but come the on. There are literally dozens of units that just don't see play even in casual contexts, but we're focused on 5ish units with wildly different roles across two unrelated factions because ... they're all T4 and Sv 3+? Because they all have Unkillium-forged special-mans armor? Because they're not Scouts or Devastators?
... Though I'll concede that bikers could get some love. But only if they have sweet mohawks.
I think the issue is more that these guys are sold on the premise that even a basic tactical squad is supposed to be the equivalent of other armies super special elite units. For example, a tac squad should be able to mop the floor with an IG veteran squad, yet the IG vets will usually win that trade considering they can afford a ton of special weapons for the cost of just a baseline tac squad. And IG vets are overall a pretty mediocre unit this edition, to say nothing of Stormtroopers, which are far and away superior to tac Marines in almost every way.
People are annoyed that Marines are underwhelming in much the same way they would be if IG tanks sucked or say Eldar pyskers were the worst in the game. Tac Marines and by extension other baseline power armored Marines are supposed to be truly terrifying to face in the lore, yet in game I can easily crush them with an equivalent pts worth of guardsmen to the point that it's trivial. These are the poster child units for their codex, the ones that make the army what it is in the lore. For an army that has its whole identity based on being elite that's a huge red flag, and I say this as a guy who can't stand the amount of marine spank in 40k.
Power armored tac Marines are supposed to be veterans of dozens of battles that can put the baseline of most other armies to shame, and yet they're so terrible that new players are outright told to avoid them. That's a serious sign of an army not working as intended. I personally see it as no different than if IG infantry squads or Ork boys were terrible. This is a unit that is supposed to make up the bulk of your army. When players are going out of their way to avoid these units it's a sign you have failed at writing that codex.
I don't play marine, but I agree so much on this. I know fluff and crunch have to be separate things, but in the specific Tactical Marines case, the difference is IMHO way too important.
I personally think that the Primaris statline is what should actually be the Marine one, but there is not much that can be done about that until the end of 8th.
Since Tacs are more experienced than Scouts, Assaults and Devs and reputed for their versatility they could have some minor specific rule. With a small point drop, they'd be, no matter what some may say, a decent shooting unit for a troop slot. Add them +1A (and to Tacs only), and here is their versatility.
Melee stats can be safely ignored most of the time in most games. That's the issue. Because marines get shot and killed before they can punch. So the melee stats basically need to be free, or marines need to be harder to kill. Those are the only two options in 8th.
Martel732 wrote: Melee stats can be safely ignored most of the time in most games. That's the issue. Because marines get shot and killed before they can punch. So the melee stats basically need to be free, or marines need to be harder to kill. Those are the only two options in 8th.
Eugh, I'd hate to see what Berzerkers look like with all their melee stats (& presumably gear?) coming for free.
Pffft you think having marines be bad destroys Lore accurate armies! Look at deathwing Dark Angels armies! They're outright broken in the wrong way! I've seen armies half the points destroy them. XD
Martel732 wrote: Melee stats can be safely ignored most of the time in most games. That's the issue. Because marines get shot and killed before they can punch. So the melee stats basically need to be free, or marines need to be harder to kill. Those are the only two options in 8th.
Eugh, I'd hate to see what Berzerkers look like with all their melee stats (& presumably gear?) coming for free.
Or do they not count as MEQ because ... reasons?
One subfaction of CSM can field effective berzerkers. Alpha legion. All others die before they get to swing once. So alpha legion might need a rework. But outside alpha legion, berzerkers are a joke.
Killermonkey wrote: I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
I agree; there really isn't much purpose to an annoyance assault unit with the fall back rules as they are. The exception is if that unit happens to be extremely durable like Canoptek Wraiths, who will keep tying up your shooting every turn if you don't funnel everything into killing them. Tactical Marines are not durable like Wraiths.
Forcing a unit to not fire next turn by touching it is a powerful thing. "I touched your Predator tank, neener neener."
Because of the morale rules this edition it's still often beneficial to go for those extra couple kills, as they can essentially count double.
I'm guessing you stopped reading my post after the first sentence, because if you had read the whole thing you would know I agree with that assessment. My disagreement is that assault marines just aren't very good at it; it's a trick they will manage to do maybe once if they're lucky and then get blown off the table for minimal investment. On the other hand wraith are HARD to get rid of and will keep tying up more and more shooting every turn if you don't invest seriously high amounts of firepower into taking them down.
I read your whole post, I just think the "forcing units to not shoot" is being undervalued.
TAC squads should have a generalist rule that gives them the ability to pick between buffs before the game starts.
make them base:
3 toughness, 4+ bs, 4+ ws, 1 attack, 1 wound.
You can increase 2 of these categories by 1.
You can increase 1 of these categories by 2.
You cannot increase the same category twice.
This is done army-wide, regardless of <faction> and <chapter>. So no mix & match.
So you could have 3 toughness, 2+bs, 3wound marines.
Or you could have 3 attack, 3+ws, 4 toughness marines.
It gives them tactical flexibility based on the army they're facing. So they pay for being generalists but in a way that actually works for the controlling player.
I agree tactical marines are poor. Bolter shooting is some of the weakest in the game. Not sure about the lengthy list that comes afterwards which seems like a more generic complaint about 8th that could apply to many factions.
Tactical marine melee is also a joke. Non-special rule buffed assault marines are not much better. Saying "Infiltrated Zerkers are good" when they do about 6 times the damage is meaningleas.
Killermonkey wrote: I personally think the changes to melee combat really hurt marines. Before you could throw them into a weaker unit (utilizing their generalist toolset) and grind out a win or sweep them. Now you kill a couple, because they don’t kill very much in melee as stock marines, then the enemies just falls back in their turn and their army blasts you. To wipe a unit in melee you have to be super good and specialized to crush them in a single phase, otherwise all you can do is stop something for shooting for a single turn and die in the process.
I agree; there really isn't much purpose to an annoyance assault unit with the fall back rules as they are. The exception is if that unit happens to be extremely durable like Canoptek Wraiths, who will keep tying up your shooting every turn if you don't funnel everything into killing them. Tactical Marines are not durable like Wraiths.
Forcing a unit to not fire next turn by touching it is a powerful thing. "I touched your Predator tank, neener neener."
Because of the morale rules this edition it's still often beneficial to go for those extra couple kills, as they can essentially count double.
I'm guessing you stopped reading my post after the first sentence, because if you had read the whole thing you would know I agree with that assessment. My disagreement is that assault marines just aren't very good at it; it's a trick they will manage to do maybe once if they're lucky and then get blown off the table for minimal investment. On the other hand wraith are HARD to get rid of and will keep tying up more and more shooting every turn if you don't invest seriously high amounts of firepower into taking them down.
I read your whole post, I just think the "forcing units to not shoot" is being undervalued.
As though Tactical Marines will ever do it and Assault Squads are taken instead of Vanguard?
A) I totally agree with they were ap -1 for bolters and pistols in second ed AP with a heavy bolter as AP -2
Lasguns had an ASM of -1 as well. Basic MEQ are actually better now than they were back in the days when it was Terminator or bust. I think the only power armored Marines I saw back then were Devastators and Khorne Berzerkers (and the latter had a 2+ save). Characters would sometimes wear power armor to use equipment that Terminators couldn't have, but basic Space Marines? Nah.
I read your whole post, I just think the "forcing units to not shoot" is being undervalued.
It's definitely undervalued. It's a pretty huge drawback that largely goes unappreciated due to the large number of things that ignore it with Fly or a similar ability and units that give up a trivial amount of shooting to allow non-trivial amounts of shooting to fire into things that reached melee freely. It's definitely a notable rule (so is the no assault bit) for units that play by the rules; but its also such a huge drawback that the best way to be competitive is to ignore models that play by the rules and only play stuff that can ignore them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
John Prins wrote: Borrow a page from AoS (Stardrake shields) and let power armor troops and terminators ignore -1 AP.
AP resistance feels like the obvious next step towards improving the AP system. I'd actually like to see it wholesale replace Invulnerable saves.
Marmatag wrote: TAC squads should have a generalist rule that gives them the ability to pick between buffs before the game starts.
make them base:
3 toughness, 4+ bs, 4+ ws, 1 attack, 1 wound.
You can increase 2 of these categories by 1.
You can increase 1 of these categories by 2.
You cannot increase the same category twice.
This is done army-wide, regardless of <faction> and <chapter>. So no mix & match.
So you could have 3 toughness, 2+bs, 3wound marines.
Or you could have 3 attack, 3+ws, 4 toughness marines.
It gives them tactical flexibility based on the army they're facing. So they pay for being generalists but in a way that actually works for the controlling player.
Oh god no. Too much book keeping and it would be a mess
There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
pismakron wrote: There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
The easiest way is to fix the Bolt weapon and how Tactical Marines can buy weapons.
pismakron wrote: There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
The easiest way is to fix the Bolt weapon and how Tactical Marines can buy weapons.
pismakron wrote: There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
Agreed. I surrender on true "fixes". Just admit they are failures and cost them accordingly.
pismakron wrote: There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
Agreed. I surrender on true "fixes". Just admit they are failures and cost them accordingly.
Okay I generally try to run 3 tac squads, (which always fails but it's a marine army so I take marines) no devs cause they are prime targets, be it tau guns or eldar. So that frees up 30 pts? I can take 3 more marines if they are at 10 points.
No. Unless they are actually fixed I'll just play my 2nd army
3 tacs squads with lascannons isn't terrible. But it's not great, either. Intercessors fail because everyone ignores them. Scouts are okay, too but are often the only thing within 24" or so 1st turn, and get wailed on if they can be seen.
LunarSol wrote: A big part of the issue is just that the game's combat engine is clearly built around MEQ being the baseline for everything. Everything else is defined as "weaker and cheaper than MEQ or better ranged but less melee" or something similar. The main reason MEQ flounders is because it doesn't have an identity, where everything else is a min-maxed specialist.
I am curious if tables need to be designed around the cover rules a bit better though. I haven't seen a lot of games where it seems to be a major feature of the game, but its always impactful when I use it.
Probably the closest comparison to MEQ would be Battle Sisters - before upgrades both are power armored units with bolters.
Marine gets 1 better WS, +1 Str, +1 T, ATSKNF, Chapter Tactics (of varying use for a Tac Marine depending on Chapter)
Sisters get Shield of Faith (6+ invulnerable save, a weak method of denying psykers), Acts of Faith (usable by only 1 unit per turn, need to make a check [albeit an easy one] to use), Order (no rules yet, but once the codex drops there probably will be some)
Basically it comes down to whether you think +1 WS, Str, and T, and a reroll on morale (and losing a 6+ invulnerable save) is worth 4 points. On a dedicated Melee unit it might be, but on a generalist like the Tactical Marine Squad, probably not.
So the ability to strike opponents better, take fire better, and survive the morale phase is not worth 4 points?
Honestly this thread is a joke, if you can't figure out a way to use tac marines don't use them yeesh.
At best they need to start making weapons like plasma more expensive for better units like they did for IG elite units. (Then the generic units are better to select in your army.)
pismakron wrote: There is absolutely no good reason to clutter the rules with band-aid solutions and inelegant one-time fixes like AP-resistance or fall-back resistance. The basic tactical marine needs a point drop to 10-11 points, or they need a stat-buff like getting the statline of intercessors.
The easiest way is to fix the Bolt weapon and how Tactical Marines can buy weapons.
Explain?
I'm for making the Marine worth the points rather than JUST continuously lowering the price. They're supposed to be Elite, not swarming.
How would *I* fix the Tactical Marine itself?
Bolt Weapons get a special rule (I've been a fan of making it so that a 6+ to wound forces a reroll of any successful save), and make it so that they have the initial way you load them out, where you get either a Special or Heavy Weapon at 5 dudes, and with a total of seven dudes you get the opposite (just like now) and then at 10 dudes you get your choice. You aren't punished for MSU and 10 dudes isn't as bad. Then they actually have, surprisingly, a Tactical role and then Scouts already function well as is, outside that cloaks and snipers are too expensive for what they are (and with that proposed fix to Bolt Weapons, Shotguns vs Bolters would actually be a hard choice).
Also, Tactical Marines need LD8, as they're more of Veterens than Assault, Biker, Devastator, and Scout Marines.
Once you transition that, I'm a fan of making the Vanguard and Sternguard 1-2 more points expensive, but giving them WS2+ and BS2+ respectively, and lastly Terminators have WS/BS2+.
However this really shows the issue of being limited to D6 huh?
I feel like with primaris coming out we just need to accept our beloved little marines are no longer l33t space knights.
Reduce their price to 11 (scouts to 9) and watch the tac spam (Templars would need 7 point initiates).
No more las cannons/MLs (hell no more heavy weapons at all if you have to, I don't think grav and heavy bolters are a problem though, range on grav and bolters aren't that good).
Bring primaris down to 16 points and I think the meta will welcome marines back (Roll Black Tide!!!).
Either that or tacs need special rules based on their chapter ravenguard get infiltrate,
templars get +1 attack,
ultras get nothing because I hate them,
salamanders get 12" flamers,
IF get to hit w/ bolters in Overwatch on 5+,
scars get assault bolters,
IH something something terminators
Point of view from a non-space marine player. I think what hurts MEQ is just how inexpensive units in general are points wise Most armies can take basic size squad with special/heavy weapons a few times over for the cost of a single tactical squad. Just economy of scale, 800 points of guardsmen will out plasmagun 800pts of tactical squads. That many special weapons floating around will eat up MEQ. Lowering the cost of MEQ further will eventually cause point reductions in other factions. The more expensive point wise models limits the number of models on the table. This hinders the horde armies like Orks, Tyranids, Imperial Guard, a lot more than elite MEQ armies.
I think Marines just need to get a little stat boost.
Bringing down their cost would also be possible, but it would go against the spirit of the army. Marines are not supposed to be able to bring a lot of bodies to the table.
Bringing back the old veteran rules where you could purchase (or just pick) a buff from a list based on what you want them to focus on could be a welcome start.
Otherwise yeah, they are just glorified objective campers which scouts do better for cheaper and act as deployment denial.
Grimgold wrote: ...I could go on, but I think the point is made, a spotty memory and some rose colored glasses are a horrible yard stick for balance.
I find most complaints with 8th are usually because of this. Awesome post and I couldn't have worded it better myself.
Yes, sums up my response to this as well. I can't remember an edition when people weren't claiming tac marines needed a buff.
Tac Marines themselves have always been a problem. They are the worst example of the issues faced by basic MeQ units now, but we're talking about a lot more than Tac marines.
Tac Marines themselves have always been a problem. They are the worst example of the issues faced by basic MeQ units now, but we're talking about a lot more than Tac marines.
There are definitely worse MEQs than Tac Marines sadly.
1) Give all regular marines +1 A. Solves some of the issues with assault squads and generally makes them all a bit more able to handle themselves in CC.
2) Representing the Space Marines' superhuman levels of training with bolt weapons, any SM model with some kind of bolt weapon gets to make one additional attack with it when shooting. Improves their effectiveness against swarmy enemies (as does the attack boost). I'm sure there's a cool name you could give this.
3) Codex Adherant: any Space Marine detachment in which all Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads are at full (10-man) strength may double the CP bonus for that detachment. This seems a lot, but given how difficult it is for SMs to gain CPs normally, I don't think it would be too mad. Solves the problem of it almost always being more efficient to gain CPs by just piling Guard units into your list, and stops Combat Squads being a completely useless rule.
Come on then, tell me why all these are bad nonsense and how I've overlooked the ways in which these are horrid broken.
Nazrak wrote: Here are some things I've been mulling over:
1) Give all regular marines +1 A. Solves some of the issues with assault squads and generally makes them all a bit more able to handle themselves in CC.
2) Representing the Space Marines' superhuman levels of training with bolt weapons, any SM model with some kind of bolt weapon gets to make one additional attack with it when shooting. Improves their effectiveness against swarmy enemies (as does the attack boost). I'm sure there's a cool name you could give this.
3) Codex Adherant: any Space Marine detachment in which all Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads are at full (10-man) strength may double the CP bonus for that detachment. This seems a lot, but given how difficult it is for SMs to gain CPs normally, I don't think it would be too mad. Solves the problem of it almost always being more efficient to gain CPs by just piling Guard units into your list, and stops Combat Squads being a completely useless rule.
Come on then, tell me why all these are bad nonsense and how I've overlooked the ways in which these are horrid broken.
Imo you could probably grant a full +1 CP per full 10 man tac, assault, dev, bike, or veteran squad in the list and it still wouldn't break the game. It'd only end up being 3-4 CP difference in most lists.
Nazrak wrote: Here are some things I've been mulling over:
1) Give all regular marines +1 A. Solves some of the issues with assault squads and generally makes them all a bit more able to handle themselves in CC.
2) Representing the Space Marines' superhuman levels of training with bolt weapons, any SM model with some kind of bolt weapon gets to make one additional attack with it when shooting. Improves their effectiveness against swarmy enemies (as does the attack boost). I'm sure there's a cool name you could give this.
3) Codex Adherant: any Space Marine detachment in which all Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads are at full (10-man) strength may double the CP bonus for that detachment. This seems a lot, but given how difficult it is for SMs to gain CPs normally, I don't think it would be too mad. Solves the problem of it almost always being more efficient to gain CPs by just piling Guard units into your list, and stops Combat Squads being a completely useless rule.
Come on then, tell me why all these are bad nonsense and how I've overlooked the ways in which these are horrid broken.
Doubling their melee/shooting effectiveness for free (or worse for a cheaper cost) is indeed bad balancing and we're already seen this with Leman Russes
Nazrak wrote: Here are some things I've been mulling over:
1) Give all regular marines +1 A. Solves some of the issues with assault squads and generally makes them all a bit more able to handle themselves in CC.
2) Representing the Space Marines' superhuman levels of training with bolt weapons, any SM model with some kind of bolt weapon gets to make one additional attack with it when shooting. Improves their effectiveness against swarmy enemies (as does the attack boost). I'm sure there's a cool name you could give this.
3) Codex Adherant: any Space Marine detachment in which all Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads are at full (10-man) strength may double the CP bonus for that detachment. This seems a lot, but given how difficult it is for SMs to gain CPs normally, I don't think it would be too mad. Solves the problem of it almost always being more efficient to gain CPs by just piling Guard units into your list, and stops Combat Squads being a completely useless rule.
Come on then, tell me why all these are bad nonsense and how I've overlooked the ways in which these are horrid broken.
1) We already have that. They are called vanguard veterans.
2) Yes there is a cool name you could give this: Rapid fire 2.
3) That is a pretty terrible rule. Essentially you could take a brigade with min-squads of scouts, some termies, some min-squads of scout bikes, three vindicators, and gain 18 CP's without a single Tactical, Assault or Devastator model in your list. It is not at all hard to get lots of CP's with Space Marines. A minimum batallion is what? 350-400 points?
But more importantly, all the suggestions of increasing the AP of bolters, giving marines +1 A, and boosting the durability of tacticals, those suggestions are ALREADY IMPLEMENTED THE GAME. They are called Intercessors. Intercessors are essentially tacticals with +1 A, +1W, and AP -1. And at 18 points they work pretty well. This is what tacticals should be: Intercessors.
Nazrak wrote: Here are some things I've been mulling over:
1) Give all regular marines +1 A. Solves some of the issues with assault squads and generally makes them all a bit more able to handle themselves in CC.
2) Representing the Space Marines' superhuman levels of training with bolt weapons, any SM model with some kind of bolt weapon gets to make one additional attack with it when shooting. Improves their effectiveness against swarmy enemies (as does the attack boost). I'm sure there's a cool name you could give this.
3) Codex Adherant: any Space Marine detachment in which all Tactical, Assault and Devastator Squads are at full (10-man) strength may double the CP bonus for that detachment. This seems a lot, but given how difficult it is for SMs to gain CPs normally, I don't think it would be too mad. Solves the problem of it almost always being more efficient to gain CPs by just piling Guard units into your list, and stops Combat Squads being a completely useless rule.
Come on then, tell me why all these are bad nonsense and how I've overlooked the ways in which these are horrid broken.
1) We already have that. They are called vanguard veterans.
2) Yes there is a cool name you could give this: Rapid fire 2.
3) That is a pretty terrible rule. Essentially you could take a brigade with min-squads of scouts, some termies, some min-squads of scout bikes, three vindicators, and gain 18 CP's without a single Tactical, Assault or Devastator model in your list. It is not at all hard to get lots of CP's with Space Marines. A minimum batallion is what? 350-400 points?
But more importantly, all the suggestions of increasing the AP of bolters, giving marines +1 A, and boosting the durability of tacticals, those suggestions are ALREADY IMPLEMENTED THE GAME. They are called Intercessors. Intercessors are essentially tacticals with +1 A, +1W, and AP -1. And at 18 points they work pretty well. This is what tacticals should be: Intercessors.
1) VVs would also get +1A. Makes them better than Assault Marines (probably not egregiously overpowered though), but also makes Assault Marines less useless.
2) Not quite; 1 additional shot would give, say, bolters 2 shots at 12-24", 3 in RF range. It's slightly less extreme than full-on doubling the output of everything (which is apparently fine for Guardsmen with lasguns who are currently, point-for-point, marginally more effective than Marines with bolters against pretty much any infantry target, before you even factor in FRFSRF)
3) Sorry, maybe I didn't explain myself very well. You only get this if you actually HAVE the Tac/Dev/Ass squads in the Detachment. Maybe extend it to Scouts too, to avoid single max- squad shenanigans? Then you'd be very hard pressed to get the bonus in a Brigade. A minimum Guard Battalion is what, 180pts? Which gets you a gakload of cheap bodies AND 3CPs, then you can just cherry-pick whatever Marine units you like. I was trying to suggest an incentive to actually use basic Marine units over going the soupy route.
As for your point about Intercessors, I don't necessarily disagree, but it's kind of tangential to this discussion – "use Primaris guys instead" doesn't fix any issues with "Proper" Marines. If you're happy using Primaris stuff, then you don't have a problem, but for people who want to kick it old-school, it's not really a solution, any more than saying "well Tactical Marines aren't so hot, so why not just use Guardsmen instead?"
As for your point about Intercessors, I don't necessarily disagree, but it's kind of tangential to this discussion – "use Primaris guys instead" doesn't fix any issues with "Proper" Marines. If you're happy using Primaris stuff, then you don't have a problem, but for people who want to kick it old-school, it's not really a solution, any more than saying "well Tactical Marines aren't so hot, so why not just use Guardsmen instead?"
I am not suggesting that you should use intercessors, after all we are discussing rule changes here. What I am suggesting is that Tactical Marines should have the statline of Intercessors, and that there are no reason to even make a distinction between Tacticals and Intercessors rules-wise. Veterans, Assault Marines, and Devastators can be given the same treatment: +1A,+1W, +5 ppm, and bolters have 30" range and AP-1. Voila.
As for your point about Intercessors, I don't necessarily disagree, but it's kind of tangential to this discussion – "use Primaris guys instead" doesn't fix any issues with "Proper" Marines. If you're happy using Primaris stuff, then you don't have a problem, but for people who want to kick it old-school, it's not really a solution, any more than saying "well Tactical Marines aren't so hot, so why not just use Guardsmen instead?"
I am not suggesting that you should use intercessors, after all we are discussing rule changes here. What I am suggesting is that Tactical Marines should have the statline of Intercessors, and that there are no reason to even make a distinction between Tacticals and Intercessors rules-wise. Veterans, Assault Marines, and Devastators can be given the same treatment: +1A,+1W, +5 ppm, and bolters have 30" range and AP-1. Voila.
Sorry, I think I misunderstood the thrust of what you were getting at. Personally, I wouldn't have a huge problem with this, although I can see the desire to distinguish the Primaris lads from the regular ones (and the new Bolt weapons from the basic kind). Definitely in favour of at least +1 attack for the regular dudes though.
The basic problem with 40k - and I know some argue otherwise - is that the generalist position doesnt exist. You are either good at something or not. Intercessors 2 attacks for their points does not make them good in melee. It doesnt even make them adequate.
Yes you can argue niche cases of tying up predators with two marines, but... it doesnt happen. Or at least I can't remember it happening.
In reality your marines are going to end up in assault either with something nasty (blobs of boys, stealers, zerkers etc) that will handilly kill them - or in a pillow fight with something costing a fraction of their points (most bubblewrap/chaff units). Which is probably what your opponent wants.
Primaris should have just been an aesthetic upgrade to astartes models. Id have been fine with GW upping the ante on marines and giving them primaris stat lines. Definately would have felt much like marines. The fact GW chose instead to seperate them entirely and create a completely new army is one big dropped ball.
I hate space marines as much as the next guy whose sick of having them shoved down his throat, but i can sympathise with the marine players on this.
Im genuinely curious to see how the above proposal of +1 A and W at +5ppm would fare. Id probably be convinced to try that against an opponent i know and like. Not so much a stranger but thats probably due to an ingrained attitude of 'gw didnt make it that way so no' mindset.
The basic problem with 40k - and I know some argue otherwise - is that the generalist position doesnt exist. You are either good at something or not. Intercessors 2 attacks for their points does not make them good in melee. It doesnt even make them adequate.
Yes you can argue niche cases of tying up predators with two marines, but... it doesnt happen. Or at least I can't remember it happening.
In reality your marines are going to end up in assault either with something nasty (blobs of boys, stealers, zerkers etc) that will handilly kill them - or in a pillow fight with something costing a fraction of their points (most bubblewrap/chaff units). Which is probably what your opponent wants.
Intercessors are pretty good at 18 ppm. Their biggest flaw is that they fold like wet paper to overcharged plasma. But that is a flaw intercessors share with pretty much all heavy infantry. And this can only be fixed by nerfing plasma.
And Intercessors are definitely better in close combat than most other shooty infantry in the game. They will not hold up against Boyz, Stealers and Bezerkers (if they could they would be broken) but it gives them the option of assaulting deep-striking scions, termagants with fleshborers, many types of shooty infantry in rapid-fire range, etc. It is the same reason that scouts with chainswords and pistols works so well.
But more importantly: Intercessors are the result of people at GW having the very same conversation as we are having here: What can we do to fix the basic space marine.
And they ended up giving them +1A,+1W, and some extra dakka. All very sensible solutions. And then entered some executive type that decreed, that all of GW's biggest selling model-lines should be re-released under more easily trade-markable names. And Primaris Marines were born.
The suggested "Codex Adherent" rule also farts all over Black Templars and any others Chapter that AREN'T Codex adherent. It also doesn't change that much because the Vanilla stratagems are pretty mediocre; you'd take a bunch of sub-optimal choices to get more mediocre abilities. Yawn.
Honestly, the amount of people here that don't even understand thier own suggestions is staggering.
Yes, lets make all bolters -1 AP, or rapid fire 2. simple change to 1 gun.
Oh, wait. now we make SoB broken, all primarisrubric, sternguard and other "elite marine gun" are pointless and overpriced-unless they get an equal change and then they are broken as hell, the entire SM armory is overpriced compared to the bolter so you'll never take special/heavy weapons any more, etc.
You CANT change the most basic gun in the game without breaking half of it. the more things an item is connected to, the greater the ripple that any change to it creates-and the bolter is connected to a LOT of things.
Oh, so lets change the tactical marine statline to have +1 <stat> whatever.
Yea, now you gotta compare all other marine units in the game. like zerkers, or rubrics, or sternguard, terminators, GK, etc. you can bet your ass SOME of these will break the game, no matter what edit you did to basic marine stats.
If you want to change the marine STATS, or base weapons, you need to redesign half the units in the game, because they are all connected.
Your only option to have an "easy fix", is with points. and honestly its not that hard. marines units are already mostly viable, even if not top tier. most marine units can get a 1-2 point drop and that's ENOUGH. any more than this and you'll end up in the reverse scenario where marines are being horded and overly dominant, just like we have with base guard today.
You could also change it with special rules. Objective Secured for troops is an example, but you could also have some other rule added (since Objective Secured is a bit derp), such as:
"Chapter Core: A Chapter's tactical squads are made up from Marines that have completed the Chapter's training wholesale, and represent the real meat of a Chapter's philosophy regarding combat. Tactical Squads and models in them have the following effects:" and then just list the chapter tactics with double effect, so Raven Guard Tactical Marines (and only Tactical Marines) are -2 to hit, Iron Hands Tactical Marines (and only Tactical Marines) are 5+ FNP, Imperial Fists Tactical Squads and only Tactical Squads get to apply their anti-building bonus to vehicles, Ultramarines Tactical Squads and only Tactical Squads can fall back and shoot without the -1 BS.
The "special marines" like Black Templars could instead apply the bonus to their respective squads (e.g. BA Tactical Marines and only Tactical Marines add +2 to their To Wound rolls, while Black Templars Crusader Squads could add an extra D6 to their charge-roll and pick the two highest while still allowing re-rolls, or whatever).
I dunno. Something like that, if that makes sense. It would take a bit of balancing, and you'd essentially have to write a separate, more powerful Chapter Tactic that applied to Tactical Squads alone.
Another example might be "Chapter Synergy: For each Tactical Squad on the board, you may apply Chapter Tactics to a unit that would not nomally benefit (such as a Predator tank, etc)."
That one's a bit naff, because units should probably have it any ways (and my name for it is stupid) but *shrug* IDEAS!
That makes little sense when looking at the Elites though. Why are Crusader Squads better than Sword Brethren (Vanguard and Sternguard) at charging stuff?
AlmightyWalrus wrote: That makes little sense when looking at the Elites though. Why are Crusader Squads better than Sword Brethren (Vanguard and Sternguard) at charging stuff?
Wait are we trying to make tactical marines usable or not?
The problem with Tactical Marines is that units like Vanguard and Sternguard exist. They're literally Tactical Marines +1. If you want to make Tacts better, you can't subsequently improve Vanguard or Sternguard to match, because then tacts are back to being worse than both of them.
Tactical marines need a niche or a role to play. If that niche is "I want to use my chapter tactics more" then you can't just dole it out everywhere now.
BoomWolf wrote: Honestly, the amount of people here that don't even understand thier own suggestions is staggering.
Yes, lets make all bolters -1 AP, or rapid fire 2. simple change to 1 gun.
Oh, wait. now we make SoB broken, all primarisrubric, sternguard and other "elite marine gun" are pointless and overpriced-unless they get an equal change and then they are broken as hell, the entire SM armory is overpriced compared to the bolter so you'll never take special/heavy weapons any more, etc.
That is simply not true. We already have tactical marines with +1A, +1W, AP -1, and 30" range. They are called intercessors. Has intercessors broken anything? If every space marine player tomorrow decided to proxy their tacticals as intercessors, would the game be broken? I think not.
I agree with your other claim, that tacticals can be easily fixed by simply reducing their points to 11 ppm or thereabouts. That would be fine by me, but a lot of people wants their space marines to be tough-as-hell super soldiers.
Martel732 wrote: They are generslists. Tbat's the opposite of a niche.
I disagree. Generalists can still have niches. I would hardly argue the Guard Squad, for example, is a specialist. They're awful at shooting (yes, barring orders) and awful at combat. They have the same WS and BS, the same strength on their gun and strength on their melee - they're really just Tactical Marines -1.
The difference is that they're cheap and therefore their niche is being cheap. You just have to give tactical marines a reason to exist, like my Chapter Core rule, that gives them a flexible niche (depending on your chapter tactic) that can range from durable (Iron Hands on a 5+) to tank-destroyers (Imperial Fists) to sneakier (Raven Guard) etc. etc.
Yes, you could do this, though I'm still not sure it's the right answer. If you make tactical marines in the same points range as scouts, people would still bitch because scouts still are better. The Tactical Marines get +1 armour save, but the scouts get greater weapon choices (close-combat/shotguns/boltguns), greater mobility / maneuverability (access to Storms), the better deployment rules (scout infiltrate) and are better screens (scout infiltrate again).
You could literally make tactical marines identical (statwise & pointswise) to scouts but with +1 save and I'm fairly certain the deployment options for scouts would make them the better choice.
I disagree. Generalists can still have niches. I would hardly argue the Guard Squad, for example, is a specialist. They're awful at shooting (yes, barring orders) and awful at combat. They have the same WS and BS, the same strength on their gun and strength on their melee - they're really just Tactical Marines -1.
The difference is that they're cheap and therefore their niche is being cheap. You just have to give tactical marines a reason to exist, like my Chapter Core rule, that gives them a flexible niche (depending on your chapter tactic) that can range from durable (Iron Hands on a 5+) to tank-destroyers (Imperial Fists) to sneakier (Raven Guard) etc. etc.
This isn't a very good way to think about specialization. You should always be thinking about everything relative to its cost. Infantry Squads are almost generalists if given heavy/special weapons, but naked they do two things very well -- they shoot infantry and they take hits. They have good anti-infantry shooting for their cost -- exceptional anti-infantry shooting with orders -- and are very hard to remove efficiently. They're almost entirely a shooting unit, getting twice as many shots as CC attacks and with FRFSRF giving them a huge reason to stay at range.
A better example of a really powerful generalist unit would be Shining Spears. They do everything pretty well. They're reasonably durable -- they don't benefit from cover but a 3-man squad is about as durable as equal points in tactical Marines against most shooting. They're reasonably good at shooting infantry -- they're only slightly worse than bolter Marines at killing GEQs at 12", and better at 6". They're pretty good at shooting tanks -- better than bolter Marines at 12" and much better at 6". And then on top of that they have very respectable CC on the charge and so-so CC otherwise, although they're nowhere near specialists like Genestealers. They have rules that let them leverage all of their advantages in every phase of every turn -- they move really, really fast to make up for their short range and have Fly to avoid getting locked into CC. You can't really point at a 3-man Spear squad and say "that's a shooting unit" or "that's a CC unit" or "that's an anti-tank unit" or "that's for killing screens" or "that's an objective holder". They can and often do do it all. They're probably a little cheap for what they offer, but they're overall a pretty well put-together unit and show how you can have generalists that are good and useful but don't necessarily outshine specialists.
As-is, Tactical Squads are okay for holding objectives in cover, and that's about it. Aside from Salamanders or Guilliman-buffed ones, which do have reasonable anti-tank firepower while they're camping in cover. Unfortunately this is not that valuable of a role -- unless your army is all CC you probably don't have that hard of a time keeping stuff back to hold objectives, and the Marines don't have a good way to get to the other objectives you'd like to hold.
I disagree. Generalists can still have niches. I would hardly argue the Guard Squad, for example, is a specialist. They're awful at shooting (yes, barring orders) and awful at combat. They have the same WS and BS, the same strength on their gun and strength on their melee - they're really just Tactical Marines -1.
The difference is that they're cheap and therefore their niche is being cheap. You just have to give tactical marines a reason to exist, like my Chapter Core rule, that gives them a flexible niche (depending on your chapter tactic) that can range from durable (Iron Hands on a 5+) to tank-destroyers (Imperial Fists) to sneakier (Raven Guard) etc. etc.
This isn't a very good way to think about specialization. You should always be thinking about everything relative to its cost. Infantry Squads are almost generalists if given heavy/special weapons, but naked they do two things very well -- they shoot infantry and they take hits. They have good anti-infantry shooting for their cost -- exceptional anti-infantry shooting with orders -- and are very hard to remove efficiently. They're almost entirely a shooting unit, getting twice as many shots as CC attacks and with FRFSRF giving them a huge reason to stay at range.
A better example of a really powerful generalist unit would be Shining Spears. They do everything pretty well. They're reasonably durable -- they don't benefit from cover but a 3-man squad is about as durable as equal points in tactical Marines against most shooting. They're reasonably good at shooting infantry -- they're only slightly worse than bolter Marines at killing GEQs at 12", and better at 6". They're pretty good at shooting tanks -- better than bolter Marines at 12" and much better at 6". And then on top of that they have very respectable CC on the charge and so-so CC otherwise, although they're nowhere near specialists like Genestealers. They have rules that let them leverage all of their advantages in every phase of every turn -- they move really, really fast to make up for their short range and have Fly to avoid getting locked into CC. You can't really point at a 3-man Spear squad and say "that's a shooting unit" or "that's a CC unit" or "that's an anti-tank unit" or "that's for killing screens" or "that's an objective holder". They can and often do do it all. They're probably a little cheap for what they offer, but they're overall a pretty well put-together unit and show how you can have generalists that are good and useful but don't necessarily outshine specialists.
As-is, Tactical Squads are okay for holding objectives in cover, and that's about it. Aside from Salamanders or Guilliman-buffed ones, which do have reasonable anti-tank firepower while they're camping in cover. Unfortunately this is not that valuable of a role -- unless your army is all CC you probably don't have that hard of a time keeping stuff back to hold objectives, and the Marines don't have a good way to get to the other objectives you'd like to hold.
Shining spears are mobility specialists, because you can point to them and say "this unit is fast". I would not call them 'generalist' in the way that either Imperial Guard Infantry Squads are generalists or Tactical Squads are generalist. A lot of what they do, they do well because they move fast. Would they be good in CC if they moved 6" a turn with no FLY or other deployment options? They're clearly a mobility specialist.
Pointing to a specialist and saying "I want my tactical marines to be like that" while explicitly pointing out that their mobility compensates for things like their short-ranged guns is why people make fun of Marine players. Of course if Tactical Marines moved 14" a turn (and had Fly) they'd be a lot better...
as for Guard, they don't really shoot infantry that well. They might do it "efficiently" because they're so cheap, but they're hardly "specialist anti-infantry" units. I think their niche is being good at screening, and that's about it. Orders do improve their performance, yes, but are not without points or opportunity costs of their own, so while they do contribute to making the Guard generalist into a specialist, they also pay a bit more for it.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: That makes little sense when looking at the Elites though. Why are Crusader Squads better than Sword Brethren (Vanguard and Sternguard) at charging stuff?
Wait are we trying to make tactical marines usable or not?
The problem with Tactical Marines is that units like Vanguard and Sternguard exist. They're literally Tactical Marines +1. If you want to make Tacts better, you can't subsequently improve Vanguard or Sternguard to match, because then tacts are back to being worse than both of them.
Tactical marines need a niche or a role to play. If that niche is "I want to use my chapter tactics more" then you can't just dole it out everywhere now.
Or we just implement the changes I propose and make them worth the points you pay instead of rules that don't make any sense (because the Iron Hands Tactical Marine should be more durable?) or making them cheaper (Marines aren't supposed to be a Horde army...)
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BoomWolf wrote: Honestly, the amount of people here that don't even understand thier own suggestions is staggering.
Yes, lets make all bolters -1 AP, or rapid fire 2. simple change to 1 gun.
Oh, wait. now we make SoB broken, all primarisrubric, sternguard and other "elite marine gun" are pointless and overpriced-unless they get an equal change and then they are broken as hell, the entire SM armory is overpriced compared to the bolter so you'll never take special/heavy weapons any more, etc.
You CANT change the most basic gun in the game without breaking half of it. the more things an item is connected to, the greater the ripple that any change to it creates-and the bolter is connected to a LOT of things.
Oh, so lets change the tactical marine statline to have +1 <stat> whatever.
Yea, now you gotta compare all other marine units in the game. like zerkers, or rubrics, or sternguard, terminators, GK, etc. you can bet your ass SOME of these will break the game, no matter what edit you did to basic marine stats.
If you want to change the marine STATS, or base weapons, you need to redesign half the units in the game, because they are all connected.
Your only option to have an "easy fix", is with points. and honestly its not that hard. marines units are already mostly viable, even if not top tier. most marine units can get a 1-2 point drop and that's ENOUGH. any more than this and you'll end up in the reverse scenario where marines are being horded and overly dominant, just like we have with base guard today.
Giving Bolt Weapons a special rule at minimum doesn't break the game whatsoever given Infantry already spam Lasguns at a rate that makes Bolters terrible, Shootas get the Assault rule and therefore have a niche, Shuriken Weapons have a decent proc, and Gauss gets just better penetration overall.
Your idea affects the whole game and doesn't really make Tactical Marines any better than scouts or Sororitas (since both of those can get Bolt Weapons for cheaper). Changing the boltgun changes the basic weapons for damn near every Imperial faction except Guard and Mechanicus, meaning that you're hardly making Tactical Marines better, you're just upping everything by that amount. If the problem is Tactical Marines, then buff Tactical Marines, don't buff Dominion squads and Inquisitorial Acolytes. I mean heck, your proposed rule would buff Chaos and I'm not really sure why that's desirable.
Re-organizing the tactical squad's weapon options, your other idea, makes sense and I would not be averse to trying it. I wouldn't even be averse to giving Tactical squads 2 specials in a 5-man like Scions.
Yeah. I went out of my way to include them in the Chapter Core idea.
I think the issue is just that Tactical Marines are supposed to be the core of the Space Marine chapter, while also being ultra elite badasses. I think it's impossible to reconcile the role of "line infantry" with the role of "elite badasses." People say Custodes do a good job of that, but really, I'm unimpressed. They simply don't have any line infantry at all, haha. They have good bikes, but their basic "troops" squad is kinda naff.
Yes, you could do this, though I'm still not sure it's the right answer. If you make tactical marines in the same points range as scouts, people would still bitch because scouts still are better. The Tactical Marines get +1 armour save, but the scouts get greater weapon choices (close-combat/shotguns/boltguns), greater mobility / maneuverability (access to Storms), the better deployment rules (scout infiltrate) and are better screens (scout infiltrate again).
You could literally make tactical marines identical (statwise & pointswise) to scouts but with +1 save and I'm fairly certain the deployment options for scouts would make them the better choice.
This.
You can literally make scouts and tac marines the same price and it STILL wouldn't break the game. Scouts are by far superior tactical choice than the actual "tactical" marines.
Shining spears are mobility specialists, because you can point to them and say "this unit is fast". I would not call them 'generalist' in the way that either Imperial Guard Infantry Squads are generalists or Tactical Squads are generalist. A lot of what they do, they do well because they move fast. Would they be good in CC if they moved 6" a turn with no FLY or other deployment options? They're clearly a mobility specialist.
Pointing to a specialist and saying "I want my tactical marines to be like that" while explicitly pointing out that their mobility compensates for things like their short-ranged guns is why people make fun of Marine players. Of course if Tactical Marines moved 14" a turn (and had Fly) they'd be a lot better...
as for Guard, they don't really shoot infantry that well. They might do it "efficiently" because they're so cheap, but they're hardly "specialist anti-infantry" units. I think their niche is being good at screening, and that's about it. Orders do improve their performance, yes, but are not without points or opportunity costs of their own, so while they do contribute to making the Guard generalist into a specialist, they also pay a bit more for it.
I'm not really sure what it means to be a "mobility specialist". The game isn't a race. There are units that don't really do anything but move fast, and they are usually terrible. Mobility is only relevant insofar as it supports a unit's real roles. I guess you can imagine a unit which is purely an objective grabber, though it doesn't have much of a place in 8th and is done better by deep strikers, but Spears certainly aren't that. Yes, they're very fast. They're also pretty good at killing infantry and tanks alike, and pretty good at shooting and CC alike. They're a generalist unit by any reasonable definition of the term -- they're pretty good at just about everything. This is the sense of "generalist" that everyone means when they talk about Marines being generalists, and how the squads can take a heavy weapon for anti-tank and are paying for S4 and WS3+ to not embarrass themselves in CC, etc. I didn't say that Marines should be good at everything for all of the same reasons -- they can be good at anti-tank by having a 48" lascannon rather than a bike with a 6"/CC lance. I'm just saying: if you want to think about designing and balancing a generalist unit, it's probably helpful to look at actually-existing good generalist units to see what they're like.
And you're just wrong on Guard. They absolutely shoot infantry well. There are whole factions that have no unit which shoots GEQs more efficiently than a single rapid-firing Infantry Squad. Orders significantly improve their performance per point too, at the cost of some durability (although you can cheat this by not bringing enough officers to order all of your squads). It's really weird that you keep dismissing their efficiency as a result of their simply being cheap. I mean, duh. Things are efficient if they do a lot for a little. Guard would not be good at shooting if they were 8 ppm, nor would they be very good at screening. But they're not 8 ppm. They're 4 ppm. And at that price they're very good at shooting infantry and screening. They're not very effective at killing tanks, especially not when the tanks are far away. You can give them a lascannon and make them reasonable generalists, but this drastically reduces their durability and anti-infantry shooting efficiency, so most people don't do it.
Shining spears are mobility specialists, because you can point to them and say "this unit is fast". I would not call them 'generalist' in the way that either Imperial Guard Infantry Squads are generalists or Tactical Squads are generalist. A lot of what they do, they do well because they move fast. Would they be good in CC if they moved 6" a turn with no FLY or other deployment options? They're clearly a mobility specialist.
Pointing to a specialist and saying "I want my tactical marines to be like that" while explicitly pointing out that their mobility compensates for things like their short-ranged guns is why people make fun of Marine players. Of course if Tactical Marines moved 14" a turn (and had Fly) they'd be a lot better...
as for Guard, they don't really shoot infantry that well. They might do it "efficiently" because they're so cheap, but they're hardly "specialist anti-infantry" units. I think their niche is being good at screening, and that's about it. Orders do improve their performance, yes, but are not without points or opportunity costs of their own, so while they do contribute to making the Guard generalist into a specialist, they also pay a bit more for it.
I'm not really sure what it means to be a "mobility specialist". The game isn't a race. There are units that don't really do anything but move fast, and they are usually terrible. Mobility is only relevant insofar as it supports a unit's real roles. I guess you can imagine a unit which is purely an objective grabber, though it doesn't have much of a place in 8th and is done better by deep strikers, but Spears certainly aren't that. Yes, they're very fast. They're also pretty good at killing infantry and tanks alike, and pretty good at shooting and CC alike. They're a generalist unit by any reasonable definition of the term -- they're pretty good at just about everything. This is the sense of "generalist" that everyone means when they talk about Marines being generalists, and how the squads can take a heavy weapon for anti-tank and are paying for S4 and WS3+ to not embarrass themselves in CC, etc. I didn't say that Marines should be good at everything for all of the same reasons -- they can be good at anti-tank by having a 48" lascannon rather than a bike with a 6"/CC lance. I'm just saying: if you want to think about designing and balancing a generalist unit, it's probably helpful to look at actually-existing good generalist units to see what they're like.
And you're just wrong on Guard. They absolutely shoot infantry well. There are whole factions that have no unit which shoots GEQs more efficiently than a single rapid-firing Infantry Squad. Orders significantly improve their performance per point too, at the cost of some durability (although you can cheat this by not bringing enough officers to order all of your squads). It's really weird that you keep dismissing their efficiency as a result of their simply being cheap. I mean, duh. Things are efficient if they do a lot for a little. Guard would not be good at shooting if they were 8 ppm, nor would they be very good at screening. But they're not 8 ppm. They're 4 ppm. And at that price they're very good at shooting infantry and screening. They're not very effective at killing tanks, especially not when the tanks are far away. You can give them a lascannon and make them reasonable generalists, but this drastically reduces their durability and anti-infantry shooting efficiency, so most people don't do it.
What I mean by "mobility specialist" is that they specialize in mobility. Mobility opens up tactical avenues in game-decision terms that would otherwise not be available, such as using an otherwise terrible unit (Shining Spears without Fly or speed) in a very good way (as you illustrate with your example of shining spears that HAVE fly and speed!).
A single rapid-firing Infantry Squad will kill 3.3 guardsmen. A rapid-firing Sororitas squad kills 3 guardsmen for just about the same points. If you include Orders, the Guardsmen now cost 70 points and kill 6.6 guardsmen, but 70 points of Sororitas will kill 6. I would consider Sororitas squads generalist, so yes, the guardsmen are a bit better at shooting than Sororitas, but not good enough to suddenly make them shooting specialists. Also, the Guard have spent an HQ and a troops slot, and the Sororitas have spent a troops slot.
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Martel732 wrote:Being cheap is a specialization that trumps all others.
Unit1126PLL wrote:So assuming small arms, we'll use Lasguns:
One rapid-firing lasgun kills 1.33 points of Guardsmen (.33 wounds).
A rapid-firing lasgun currently does 0.11 wounds to a Space Marine, meaning that to get a wound efficiency of 1.33 points per wound, you'd get...
.... just over 12 points per model. Turns out they're actually already really close.
What do you have to say, Martel, about your assertion that we make Marines just as durable against Lasguns as IG are, point for point? Would you say Tactical Marines would be fair at 12ppm?
I'd extend to heavy bolters as well. 10 ppm feels right based off my games in 8th. Especially vs guard and eldar. Make scouts also 10 ppm and id use both.
The correct price point for tacs is likely one point more than sisters. That's the unfortunate reality of 8th ed.
More than 1pt, S3/T3 is not as good as you think. SM being S4/T4 is pretty important, wounds against hem on 4's and 5's is much better than 3's and 4's. after playing many SoB games T4+ vs T3 is a large difference in how many bodies you remove compared to SM.
No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter.
BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
Martel732 wrote: I'd extend to heavy bolters as well. 10 ppm feels right based off my games in 8th. Especially vs guard and eldar. Make scouts also 10 ppm and id use both.
Part of the problem with TACs is that scouts have always been just as good by any meaningful measure but cheaper. They should almost certainly cost the same as scouts have rules that make up for their minor stat deficiencies.
Martel732 wrote: I'd extend to heavy bolters as well. 10 ppm feels right based off my games in 8th. Especially vs guard and eldar. Make scouts also 10 ppm and id use both.
1) I protest because Heavy Bolters are not small arms, though here's the math anyways:
Heavy bolters fired by guardsmen:
0.83 wounds to Guardsmen, costing the Guard player 3.33 points.
0.5 wounds to a Space Marine. To make a Heavy Bolter cost a Marine player 3.33 points, Marines would be under seven points. This is hardly fair.
2) No one would use scouts and Tacticals together. There's no reason ever to take a tactical over a scout even at identical price points. You could cost both of them 1PPM, and the scout would still be better because of deployment and basic weapon flexibility.
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Martel732 wrote: No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter. BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
"Sisters are identical in every way."
Vs a lasgun in rapid fire: Sororitas: 0.16 casualties Space Marine: 0.11 casualties.
That's very nearly 50% more casualties. Unless you think "ability to take lasgun fire" isn't a meaningful difference, but then we can wholesale discount the unupgraded infantry squad, right? I mean, lasguns can't cause a meaningful difference after all.
What I mean by "mobility specialist" is that they specialize in mobility. Mobility opens up tactical avenues in game-decision terms that would otherwise not be available, such as using an otherwise terrible unit (Shining Spears without Fly or speed) in a very good way (as you illustrate with your example of shining spears that HAVE fly and speed!).
A single rapid-firing Infantry Squad will kill 3.3 guardsmen. A rapid-firing Sororitas squad kills 3 guardsmen for just about the same points. If you include Orders, the Guardsmen now cost 70 points and kill 6.6 guardsmen, but 70 points of Sororitas will kill 6. I would consider Sororitas squads generalist, so yes, the guardsmen are a bit better at shooting than Sororitas, but not good enough to suddenly make them shooting specialists. Also, the Guard have spent an HQ and a troops slot, and the Sororitas have spent a troops slot.
Okay. That seems to me like a weird way to use "specialist", but regardless you can surely see that Shining Spears are generalists in the normal, everyday sense that people use when talking about units that are good at everything.
I don't really see what the Sisters to Infantry comparison is supposed to show. For one, Battle Sisters are another unit which is very good at shooting infantry. People double down on that by giving the squad 3 storm bolters. And a Sisters squad with bolters isn't very generalist. They're short-ranged, terrible against vehicles, and not good in CC. What about them seems generalist to you? The whole reason you take regular Sisters squads is to be able to throw bolter fire into infantry. Then you're saying that an order costs 30 points, which is just disingenuous. A Company Commander can order 2 squads. I'm not sure I have ever actually not been able to order 2 squads with a CC for at least the first 3 turns. If we correct for that, we're paying 55 points to kill 6.6 Guardsmen compared to 70 to kill 6, which would be 40% more efficient (that's a lot) -- two Infantry squads with a CC kill GEQs 20% more efficiently than do 51 point triple- storm bolter BSSs. It also seems weird to talk like "spending" an HQ slot is a real sacrifice for most lists.
One rapid-firing lasgun kills 1.33 points of Guardsmen (.33 wounds).
A rapid-firing lasgun currently does 0.11 wounds to a Space Marine, meaning that to get a wound efficiency of 1.33 points per wound, you'd get...
.... just over 12 points per model. Turns out they're actually already really close.
Yes, which is a huge problem, right? Marines are slightly less durable than Guardsmen in the face of the worst weapon in the game for shooting Marines relative to Guardsmen. That said, I agree with you that it's probably not realistic to try to fix this only by bringing down Marine points. That's why there's a huge thread about how Guardsmen should probably cost 5 ppm.
What I mean by "mobility specialist" is that they specialize in mobility. Mobility opens up tactical avenues in game-decision terms that would otherwise not be available, such as using an otherwise terrible unit (Shining Spears without Fly or speed) in a very good way (as you illustrate with your example of shining spears that HAVE fly and speed!).
A single rapid-firing Infantry Squad will kill 3.3 guardsmen. A rapid-firing Sororitas squad kills 3 guardsmen for just about the same points. If you include Orders, the Guardsmen now cost 70 points and kill 6.6 guardsmen, but 70 points of Sororitas will kill 6. I would consider Sororitas squads generalist, so yes, the guardsmen are a bit better at shooting than Sororitas, but not good enough to suddenly make them shooting specialists. Also, the Guard have spent an HQ and a troops slot, and the Sororitas have spent a troops slot.
Okay. That seems to me like a weird way to use "specialist", but regardless you can surely see that Shining Spears are generalists in the normal, everyday sense that people use when talking about units that are good at everything.
I don't really see what the Sisters to Infantry comparison is supposed to show. For one, Battle Sisters are another unit which is very good at shooting infantry. People double down on that by giving the squad 3 storm bolters. And a Sisters squad with bolters isn't very generalist. They're short-ranged, terrible against vehicles, and not good in CC. What about them seems generalist to you? The whole reason you take regular Sisters squads is to be able to throw bolter fire into infantry. Then you're saying that an order costs 30 points, which is just disingenuous. A Company Commander can order 2 squads. I'm not sure I have ever actually not been able to order 2 squads with a CC for at least the first 3 turns. If we correct for that, we're paying 55 points to kill 6.6 Guardsmen compared to 70 to kill 6, which would be 40% more efficient (that's a lot) -- two Infantry squads with a CC kill GEQs 20% more efficiently than do 51 point triple- storm bolter BSSs. It also seems weird to talk like "spending" an HQ slot is a real sacrifice for most lists.
One rapid-firing lasgun kills 1.33 points of Guardsmen (.33 wounds).
A rapid-firing lasgun currently does 0.11 wounds to a Space Marine, meaning that to get a wound efficiency of 1.33 points per wound, you'd get...
.... just over 12 points per model. Turns out they're actually already really close.
Yes, which is a huge problem, right? Marines are slightly less durable than Guardsmen in the face of the worst weapon in the game for shooting Marines relative to Guardsmen. That said, I agree with you that it's probably not realistic to try to fix this only by bringing down Marine points. That's why there's a huge thread about how Guardsmen should probably cost 5 ppm.
Your last point makes sense. 5ppm guardsmen would be okay, as I mentioned in my first post in that thread. The problem with using not-small-arms as small-arms though is that you end up with diminishing returns. I mean, if we want to make a Space Marine as efficient as a Guardsmen against a Volcano Cannon, we might as well make Space Marines 4ppm right away. It's only fair, after all. That's the problem with durability in general: it loses significance as the weapons it is tested against go up.
Hell, if we wanted to make a Baneblade as efficient as a Space Marine against Volcano Cannons, they should cost 13ppm, since each one gets one-shot by the gun. Does that illustrate the problem with using durability as a metric?
Your first point I don't understand, because "And a Sisters squad with bolters isn't very generalist. They're short-ranged, terrible against vehicles, and not good in CC." is all true about Guardsmen too. I think my definition of generalist is different than yours:
My definition of "generalist" is a unit that doesn't really do anything very well. I would not consider either Infantry Squads or Sororitas terribly good at any specific thing. They might both be fairly good at killing Infantry, but that's not why people buy them. In fact, in many cases, people skip the BSS entirely in favour of Dominions, because Dominions are - you guessed it - specialists. The only reason Infantry Squads are useful is because cheapness means you take up space and taking up space makes for a good screen.
Martel732 wrote: No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter.
BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
Amishprn86 wrote: More than 1pt, S3/T3 is not as good as you think. SM being S4/T4 is pretty important, wounds against hem on 4's and 5's is much better than 3's and 4's. after playing many SoB games T4+ vs T3 is a large difference in how many bodies you remove compared to SM.
This. Very much this.
Marine players who have never actually seriously played a T3 army alongside a T4 army always underestimate the importance of T4.
However, you won't get Martel to agree to anything sensible. If he isn't winning with his marines no matter how crappy his tactics and how many blunders he's making, then marines are underpowered and everyone else is overpowered.
Small arms/ heavy bolters are only one thing. Most of my guys die to basilisks manticores battlecannons and overcharge plasma. Tell me again how great t4 is.
Martel732 wrote: No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter.
BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
Martel732 wrote: Small arms/ heavy bolters are only one thing. Most of my guys die to basilisks manticores battlecannons and overcharge plasma. Tell me again how great t4 is.
Martel732 wrote: No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter.
BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
S3, S4, S6/7 matters HUGELY tho
S3
Vs T 4= 5+
Vs T3 = 4+
S4
Vs T4 = 4+
Vs T3 = 3+
S6-7
Vs T4 = 3+
Vs T3 = 2+
See the above.
So what you're saying is that when people fire anti-tank or anti-monster weapons at your marines, they die like Guardsmen. Okay.
When people fire Necron Pylons or Belicosa Volcano Cannons at my Baneblades, they die like guardsmen. Should Baneblades be 4ppm?
Martel732 wrote: Small arms/ heavy bolters are only one thing. Most of my guys die to basilisks manticores battlecannons and overcharge plasma. Tell me again how great t4 is.
Martel732 wrote: No. 1 pt. Sisters are identical in every meaningful way in 8th. T3 is great in 8th with commonality of str 5. Melee stats don't matter.
BA can get ONE squad into cc per turn. The rest of my army might as well be ewoks.
S3, S4, S6/7 matters HUGELY tho
S3
Vs T 4= 5+
Vs T3 = 4+
S4
Vs T4 = 4+
Vs T3 = 3+
S6-7
Vs T4 = 3+
Vs T3 = 2+
See the above.
So what you're saying is that when people fire anti-tank or anti-monster weapons at your marines, they die like Guardsmen. Okay.
When people fire Necron Pylons or Belicosa Volcano Cannons at my Baneblades, they die like guardsmen. Should Baneblades be 4ppm?
Yea, using an OP choice as your standard for comparison isn't really effective.
Anyway, the point people miss here is that any change to the tactical marine would have to apply to every single variant of the marine, or you get into the issue that the variants become worthless in comparison, and every chance you make that you apply to all variants is bound the break some.
For example, let double the bolter fire rate, shall we? Now the tactical are pretty good, and characters are a bit better, but let's look at variants?
First, heavy bolter value dropped to none, unless you boost it as well, because it's rate is no longer a big step up.
Now let's talk sternguard, do you double thier rate too? If no, the special issue bolters are now trash, if yes it becomes insane.
How about rubrics? Intercessors?
All become obsolete if left unchanged, yet broken if matched.
You really can't touch the bolter itself unless it's a major overhaul.
So let's look at stats.
Give them +1 attack and S from the power armor?
Sure. That's fine on the tactical, but let's look at matching it on variants?
The sternguard, rubric and such mentioned above are fine, nothing breaks and the game rolls. Characters become a much bigger threat though.
But then you look at assault marines. They get risky if you match it.
How about Vanguard with thier weapons?
Terminators?
Possessed?
Heaven forbid bezerkers?
Tl, Dr there is no blanket change you can do that is reasonable and balanced. Any changes to the marine profile requires a massive rebalance of the game.
It CAN be done, but not as a simple fix you can slap on the existing game balance. Any slight touch breaks things worse than index brimestones.
Armies get shot by bolters and lasguns. That's a fact. To say "well, it's all irrelevant because Manticores" is the very definition of a bad-faith argument, because instead of addressing the point and trying to come to a solution (as I did entering this thread: my first post was suggestions on how to improve the Tactical Marine), you've filled it with "whataboutisms" and denied outright truths in favor of your skewed perception of reality.
I wonder if you even know how disingenuous and outright ... well, stupid, or at least unable to come to grips with facts ... you're being.
Armies get shot by bolters and lasguns. That's a fact. To say "well, it's all irrelevant because Manticores" is the very definition of a bad-faith argument, because instead of addressing the point and trying to come to a solution (as I did entering this thread: my first post was suggestions on how to improve the Tactical Marine), you've filled it with "whataboutisms" and denied outright truths in favor of your skewed perception of reality.
I wonder if you even know how disingenuous and outright ... well, stupid, or at least unable to come to grips with facts ... you're being.
I said MINIMALLY the small arms issue needs to be addressed. That doesn't mean there aren't a ton of other issues. These anti-tank/anti-monster weapons are getting spammed because they are too efficient for their price. So it stands that most are my losses are coming through mechanisms that bypass T4 completely. So please reiterate the appeal of T4 under these conditions.
"I wonder if you even know how disingenuous and outright ... well, stupid, or at least unable to come to grips with facts ... you're being. "
I ask myself of that of practically every IG poster in this forum.
Who knows what GW's design philosophy is these days but long ago the idea of a generalist unit was one that did a bit of everthing okay. This meant they would perform okay wherever they were on the table.
As compared with specialists that were good at one thing and awful at others.
So for example Eldar Aspect Warriors (way, way back) were specialised. Get a squad of fire dragons shooting a tank and its highly efficient in terms of damage for points. Shooting say marines is worse. Shooting Orks or Guardsmen is awful.
Specialist units were meant to be harder to use because of this, but offered greater reward. If you can get to those vehicles you improve your chances of winning. If you shoot boys you reduce them etc.
Unfortunately this largely died and is clearly dead in 8th (despite some glimmers with just the indexes). You just have that crude dichotomy of points efficient and not.
Marines are not generalists. They are just rubbish against almost every target I can think of. They have some of the worst shooting in the game. Their melee is laughable. They are just ablative wounds for an objective camping lascannon.
To some degree this is fine - they are just troops after all - but fluff wise and getting basic tacticals (or CSM) onto the table this doesn't help. I'd be tempted to give both "super objective secured" but that seems like a gimmick.
Armies get shot by bolters and lasguns. That's a fact. To say "well, it's all irrelevant because Manticores" is the very definition of a bad-faith argument, because instead of addressing the point and trying to come to a solution (as I did entering this thread: my first post was suggestions on how to improve the Tactical Marine), you've filled it with "whataboutisms" and denied outright truths in favor of your skewed perception of reality.
I wonder if you even know how disingenuous and outright ... well, stupid, or at least unable to come to grips with facts ... you're being.
I said MINIMALLY the small arms issue needs to be addressed. That doesn't mean there aren't a ton of other issues. These anti-tank/anti-monster weapons are getting spammed because they are too efficient for their price. So it stands that most are my losses are coming through mechanisms that bypass T4 completely.
Too efficient for their price against what? Marines? Tanks? Monsters? Guardsmen? What is an optimum points efficiency? 3 to 1 (spending 3 points to kill 1)? Four to one? One to one?
You need to tell me what your ideal "points efficiency" is, against what target, and then we can crunch some numbers.
Here's my example: A good goal for how efficient a unit is is that it is 3 to 1 against its preferred target type. So that would mean costing 210 points to one-shot a 70 point Rhino, if the unit is an anti-tank unit.
EDIT: I disagree that specialists aren't a thing anymore. There's still "points efficiency" to consider. For example, a 20 point IG lascannon will kill 0.42 Ork Boys (which are 6ppm each) pr 2.52 points. This means the Lascannon's "points efficiency" against orks is like 8 to 1 (it's spending 8 points for every 1 point of Ork Boys it kills, excluding the Heavy Weapon Team platform). That's an ATROCIOUSLY BAD points efficiency ratio, if our goal is 3 to 1.
BoomWolf wrote: So let's look at stats.
Give them +1 attack and S from the power armor?
Sure. That's fine on the tactical, but let's look at matching it on variants?
Not to mention the other rules that could get in the way of this, like the BA special rule.
At base S5, Every BA marine, without strength-enhancing gear like power axes or fists/hammers, would suddenly wound marines on a 2+ on the charge (3+ from S5 vs T4, to-wound roll gets +1 from BA special rule meaning only a 1 or 2 can fail), or when charged. At base S5, thunder hammers become S10. Buffed by a Sanguinary Priest, BA with hammers or fists become S12. So they wound nearly everything on a 2+, and anything they don't wound on a 2+, they still wound on a 2+ on the turn they charged-- and on top of that they get an additional attack.
There are several issues with your concept. Some weapons, like plasma, have no preferred target type. Oh wait, I guess they don't like T9.
I'll take your word on the lasguns because many games the IG guy doesn't even need to fire them. Because mass, cheap Str 8+ dominates that thoroughly. I'd actually be ecstastic if I could make lasguns matter in a matchup. It's usually not that close. I'd said many times that guardsmen would be worth their points with no weapon at all. Just obstacles and area denial. They win the game for the IG player by just standing there and doing nothing at all.
Give base marines a 3++. Up their toughness to 5 and give them 2+ WS/BS. Their firepower still holds them back from being awesome but at least they can tank some shots as a unit. Like they should.
Fundamentally rework Guilliman.
Drop reroll hits and reroll wounds entirely.
Give him an army wide buff to all adeptus astartes. When he's on the table, they get to add 1 to hit rolls, and add 1 to wound rolls. Additionally, all marines ignore morale when he's on the table. And, allow him to designate a unit within 6" to fire twice in the shooting phase, but at the cost of movement.
DeathGuard/Custodes/Ogryn T5 master race all the way.
After playing Custodes with their T5 and BS/WS of 2+, playing Tau is like a torture. "Why are all my shots missing?!"
We wont enter in point prices and competitiveness, of course, but the feeling of the army is just so... hmmm noice.
Marmatag wrote: Give base marines a 3++, and make ATSKNF give morale immunity. Up their toughness to 5 and give them 2+ WS/BS. Their firepower still holds them back from being awesome but at least they can tank some shots as a unit. Like they should.
All of this is just insane. To fix tacticals you just need to erase them from existence and make the Primaris Intercessor the new tacticals. Just make them 16-17ppm and allow them to take primaris special/heavy weapons.
Tacticals are a failure from a design standpoint you can't fix them with points without breaking the game and other units.
"To fix tacticals you just need to erase them from existence and make the Primaris Intercessor the new tacticals. Just make them 16-17ppm and allow them to take primaris special/heavy weapons. "
That's probably the best we can actually do. Of course, they actually makes them worse vs IG, but I'm being realistic here.
Martel732 wrote: There are several issues with your concept. Some weapons, like plasma, have no preferred target type.
I'll take your word on the lasguns because many games the IG guy doesn't even need to fire them. Because mass, cheap Str 8+ dominates that thoroughly. I'd actually be ecstastic if I could make lasguns matter in a matchup.
So how do you calculate points efficiency then? Besides, I actually agree that plasma is a huge problem, and it is a huge problem because it is a generalist that outperforms specialists which is why generalists should always be worse. A plasma gun should never be a better choice than a meltagun against tanks and should never be preferred over the Storm Bolter against hordes, yet it is because its too good.
So I ask again, and hope you don't dodge this time: What's the ideal points efficiency ratio for a weapon system? Mine's 3-to-1 against preferred targets.
Also, Lasguns matter against my Sororitas, when his Leman Russ scores a points efficiency of... hmm... 7 battle cannon shots, 3.5 hits, 1.9 wounds past armour. 3 Heavy Bolter shots, 1.5 hits, 0.5 wounds, for 2.5 dead sororitas. 152 points for 22.5 dead sororitas. Or a nearly 7 to 1 points efficiency ratio.
Lasguns matter against marines, too. Otherwise, Martel wouldn't have complained so much about conscripts. He just conveniently forgot that for this discussion.
I think 3 to 1 is probably a bit low and makes games a bit slow.
I'd go 2.5 to 1 for hard counters.
Recalculate the Russ against marines. It's a lot more favorable. That's my issue.
It's also not just plasma. It's cheap basilisk, cheap manticore, double firing battlecannons that reroll their number of hits, etc. We could add dark reapers, but I suspect something will happen to them.
Martel732 wrote: I think 3 to 1 is probably a bit low and makes games a bit slow.
I'd go 2.5 to 1 for hard counters.
Recalculate the Russ against marines. It's a lot more favorable. That's my issue.
LRBT will do 1.9 wounds with its battle cannon to Marines, and 0.5 wounds with it's heavy bolter, for 2.5 dead marines again, or 32.5 points.
The Leman Russ costs 152 points. 152:32.5 = a points efficiency ratio of 4.7 to 1.
Not good.
Manticore vs Marines is 143 points vs the same number of deaths (being functionally identical in this situation to a LRBT) giving it a points efficiency of a whopping 4.4 to 1.
[sarcasm]Truly I can now see why you cannot endure firepower of such staggering magnitude.[/sarcasm]
But much better than against the Sisters. Much better.
Also, what do you consider the Russ's optimal target?
4.4 to 1 is pretty good when it ignores line of sight, is difficult to counter attack, and can easily switch to juicier targets. 4.4 to 1 is not bad at all as secondary function. Even by your own metrics.
BoomWolf wrote: Honestly, the amount of people here that don't even understand thier own suggestions is staggering.
Yes, lets make all bolters -1 AP, or rapid fire 2. simple change to 1 gun.
Oh, wait. now we make SoB broken, all primarisrubric, sternguard and other "elite marine gun" are pointless and overpriced-unless they get an equal change and then they are broken as hell, the entire SM armory is overpriced compared to the bolter so you'll never take special/heavy weapons any more, etc.
You CANT change the most basic gun in the game without breaking half of it. the more things an item is connected to, the greater the ripple that any change to it creates-and the bolter is connected to a LOT of things.
Oh, so lets change the tactical marine statline to have +1 <stat> whatever.
Yea, now you gotta compare all other marine units in the game. like zerkers, or rubrics, or sternguard, terminators, GK, etc. you can bet your ass SOME of these will break the game, no matter what edit you did to basic marine stats.
If you want to change the marine STATS, or base weapons, you need to redesign half the units in the game, because they are all connected.
Your only option to have an "easy fix", is with points. and honestly its not that hard. marines units are already mostly viable, even if not top tier. most marine units can get a 1-2 point drop and that's ENOUGH. any more than this and you'll end up in the reverse scenario where marines are being horded and overly dominant, just like we have with base guard today.
Lmao yes you can.
Just add a "space marine" prefix to literally everything and boom every weapon in the codex can have a different profile
Also, I'm going to propose a range for things, going off my lascannon vs ork example:
3-to-1 is my ratio for preffered targets (lascannons vs Rhinos for example) and 10 or 11-to-1 is my ratio for the opposite (the target hard-counters the weapons, such as guardsmen vs lascannons).
Martel732 wrote: I think 3 to 1 is probably a bit low and makes games a bit slow.
I'd go 2.5 to 1 for hard counters.
Recalculate the Russ against marines. It's a lot more favorable. That's my issue.
LRBT will do 1.9 wounds with its battle cannon to Marines, and 0.5 wounds with it's heavy bolter, for 2.5 dead marines again, or 32.5 points.
The Leman Russ costs 152 points. 152:32.5 = a points efficiency ratio of 4.7 to 1.
Not good.
Manticore vs Marines is 143 points vs the same number of deaths (being functionally identical in this situation to a LRBT) giving it a points efficiency of a whopping 4.4 to 1.
[sarcasm]Truly I can now see why you cannot endure firepower of such staggering magnitude.[/sarcasm]
Martel732 wrote:But much better than against the Sisters. Much better.
Also, what do you consider the Russ's optimal target?
Yeah
7 battle cannon shots, 3.5 hits, 1.9 wounds past armour. 3 Heavy Bolter shots, 1.5 hits, 0.5 wounds, for 2.5 dead sororitas. 152 points for 22.5 dead sororitas. Or a nearly 7 to 1 points efficiency ratio.
The Leman Russ costs 152 points. 152:32.5 = a points efficiency ratio of 4.7 to 1.
But no.. T3 doesnt matter in 8th, just remember that
fraser1191 wrote: Just add a "space marine" prefix to literally everything and boom every weapon in the codex can have a different profile
So is it a Space Marine Bolter or a Space Marine Bolter, or perhaps it's a Space Marine Bolter instead of a Space Marine Bolter or a Space Marine Bolter?
Martel732 wrote: But much better than against the Sisters. Much better.
Also, what do you consider the Russ's optimal target?
Yes, much better than against sisters, but still not very good.
I actually considered Marines to be the Russ's optimal target in every edition (Str 8 AP 3 really only ever was good against really light tanks or Space Marines until 6th Edition when it became only really good against Marines and nothing else). After seeing these numbers I'm beginning to believe it is a generalist in 8th, so it has no preferred target but will perform between 4-to-1 and 8-to-1 against most targets. *shrug*
Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better.
I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
Melissia wrote: Lasguns matter against marines, too. Otherwise, Martel wouldn't have complained so much about conscripts. He just conveniently forgot that for this discussion.
Conscripts would've been good even without Lasguns because they functionally made the stuff behind them immune to melee while they were still on the table..
A Leman Russ is supremely good, simply because it costs less than 13 points per wound. Think about that for a second. The wounds of a Leman Russ is less expensive than the wounds of Tactical Marines in spite of having twice the Toughness. The Leman Russ is simply super tanky. Which makes a lot of sense, I guess. I play Orks so tanks never really bothered me
Melissia wrote: Lasguns matter against marines, too. Otherwise, Martel wouldn't have complained so much about conscripts. He just conveniently forgot that for this discussion.
I never once complained about their offense. Not once. It was always gravy in my book. They were broken by existing and being a physical meat shield. You are the worst one for "bad faith".
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better.
I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Literally doesn't affect anything outside of marines and CSM
This fix violates the lore. Boltguns used by Sisters of Battle are described in the Sisters codex as being just as powerful as Astartes-wielded ones. Aside from lore violations, this change would create further complications; for example, it makes storm bolters useless. Storm Bolters compared to Astartes Boltguns as you describe would be 2 points for losing the AP value. Certain primaris-specific equipment would also become flat out useless and inferior to the bog standard boltgun as well.
Saying "every marine gets a super special awesome bestest quality evar storm bolter!" is hardly much of a good quality fix.
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better.
I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Well most special weapons can't REACH the tank, but sure, we'll leave that stuff out.
Bottom line: I think GW is overvaluing melee combat stats in particular and this shines though in spades with tac marines. I'm more willing to pay for toughness than melee combat stats in 8th for sure. That I'll agree with.
Literally doesn't affect anything outside of marines and CSM
Ah, yes, when a zero-point regular weapon on a single guy began to out perform the Storm Bolters wielded by everyone else.
I'd be terrified to see what an Astartes Storm Bolter would do. Rapid fire 4, perhaps? Ap -3 while we're at it?
An inferno combibolter is Rapid-fire 2, R24", S4, AP-2. And it costs 3 points. A cultists heavy stubber costs 4 points. It really doesn't mean a lot outside of context, though.
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better. I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Well most special weapons can't REACH the tank, but sure, we'll leave that stuff out.
I was assuming a lascannon, but yeah. There's no specialist anti-tank special weapon that jives well with the lascannon. We could of course Combat Squad, but that's a fairly naff rule in my opinion.
So, you understand my point, though, right? Manticores and Leman Russes aren't that really efficient against Marines, especially considering back in the day I considered Russes to have Marines as their preferred target, and the math in this thread actually turned out way worse than I thought it would. Almost twice what you'd consider, and half again worse than what I'd consider, to be a weapon platform firing at its optimal target.
EDIT to reply to Martel's edit: So how much is T4 worth do you think vs T3? 1ppm? Do you think T4 Guardsmen would be reasonable at 5ppm (or 6, if the rumored change is true?).
fraser1191 wrote: Just add a "space marine" prefix to literally everything and boom every weapon in the codex can have a different profile
So is it a Space Marine Bolter or a Space Marine Bolter, or perhaps it's a Space Marine Bolter instead of a Space Marine Bolter or a Space Marine Bolter?
You can just use the word "boltrifle", just as Intercessors do. Scouts could still world "boltguns" or whatever they are called. Scouts are not struggling in the meta.
But apart from that Rapid Fire 2 is completely bonkers.
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better.
I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Well most special weapons can't REACH the tank, but sure, we'll leave that stuff out.
I was assuming a lascannon, but yeah. There's no specialist anti-tank special weapon that jives well with the lascannon. We could of course Combat Squad, but that's a fairly naff rule in my opinion.
So, you understand my point, though, right? Manticores and Leman Russes aren't that really efficient against Marines, especially considering back in the day I considered Russes to have Marines as their preferred target, and the math in this thread actually turned out way worse than I thought it would. Almost twice what you'd consider, and half again worse than what I'd consider, to be a weapon platform firing at its optimal target.
Then the IG are even more miscosted than I thought, because they are still snowblowering me off the table with 4:1 efficiency weapons.
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better. I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Well most special weapons can't REACH the tank, but sure, we'll leave that stuff out.
I was assuming a lascannon, but yeah. There's no specialist anti-tank special weapon that jives well with the lascannon. We could of course Combat Squad, but that's a fairly naff rule in my opinion.
So, you understand my point, though, right? Manticores and Leman Russes aren't that really efficient against Marines, especially considering back in the day I considered Russes to have Marines as their preferred target, and the math in this thread actually turned out way worse than I thought it would. Almost twice what you'd consider, and half again worse than what I'd consider, to be a weapon platform firing at its optimal target.
Then the IG are even more miscosted than I thought, because they are still snowblowering me off the table with 4:1 efficiency weapons.
How... does that make any sense? The points cost is directly related to efficiency. The points cost is accounted for in the calculation. You can't say "they're miscosted because their points efficiency is 4:1 and they still kill me!" because points efficiency is directly related to cost.
I'm not sure if you truly don't understand how efficiency is calculated, or if you are just outright ignoring facts.
skchsan wrote: Why can't scouts be just another flavor of marines, and price them same as a tac marine?
Depends on if you believe their lowered armor save is worth the additional special rules they have.
I meant lowering the cost of tac marines down to level of scouts.
Scouts are still the better unit, because their improved deployment options and weapons flexibility is more useful ingame than +1 armour save is, in my opinion.
Tyel wrote:Not a fan on 3-1. The problem is you start with that base,nthen chuvk stratagems to get even more efficient. 4-1 was better.
I don't get why people like games nearly determined after the first turn
We can make a whole thread on what "optimum points efficiency" is against various targets. I went roughly with "killing a Rhino should be about 200 points, and 3 times its cost is about 210." so it's very rough, but people have various opinions.
Martel732 wrote:You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
That's a player's choice, how they load up Marines. We're talking about basic models and stat blocks, not optional upgrades. Also, the models that actually carry the gear will be the last to die, so if it takes 3 turns of a battlecannon shooting at them to kill a 10-man squad, then it's getting ~4.7-1 points efficiency for 2 turns, with a spike at the end. But since, presumably, said special weapons will be shooting back at the tank, it may degrade... etc. etc.
Well most special weapons can't REACH the tank, but sure, we'll leave that stuff out.
I was assuming a lascannon, but yeah. There's no specialist anti-tank special weapon that jives well with the lascannon. We could of course Combat Squad, but that's a fairly naff rule in my opinion.
So, you understand my point, though, right? Manticores and Leman Russes aren't that really efficient against Marines, especially considering back in the day I considered Russes to have Marines as their preferred target, and the math in this thread actually turned out way worse than I thought it would. Almost twice what you'd consider, and half again worse than what I'd consider, to be a weapon platform firing at its optimal target.
Then the IG are even more miscosted than I thought, because they are still snowblowering me off the table with 4:1 efficiency weapons.
How... does that make any sense?
The points cost is directly related to efficiency. The points cost is accounted for in the calculation. You can't say "they're miscosted because their points efficiency is 4:1 and they still kill me!" because points efficiency is directly related to cost.
I'm not sure if you truly don't understand how efficiency is calculated, or if you are just outright ignoring facts.
I'll let you think about what I could possibly mean by that a bit.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Scouts are still the better unit, because their improved deployment options and weapons flexibility is more useful ingame than +1 armour save is, in my opinion.
I'd argue tacticals have better weapons flexibility; I'm personally playing a scout-heavy army right now (scouts and terminators, specifically), and I feel incredibly limited by what my scouts can actually equip that would actually be useful.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you believe a 4:1 ratio of points efficiency is too good, even though you said a unit should hard-counter its foes at a 2.5:1, so I would say 4:1 is fine.
I don't really understand what else it could be. If you mean Guardsmen are undercosted... then you don't understand what points efficiency is.
Points efficiency is saying "if you took 2000 points of Space Marines, you'd need 8600 points of Manticores to one-turn kill them."
This means that 2000 points of manticores will take 4-and-some-change turns to kill 2000 points of space marines. 2000 points of manticores will run out of rockets before they kill 2000 points of space marines who are just standing there and not fighting at all.
So essentially, I can conclude that your claims of "being wiped by manticores" are bogus.
skchsan wrote: Why can't scouts be just another flavor of marines, and price them same as a tac marine?
Depends on if you believe their lowered armor save is worth the additional special rules they have.
I meant lowering the cost of tac marines down to level of scouts.
You would still see more Scouts than Tacticals even if they were the same points level. The ability to deploy on objectives and push deepstrikes all the way back into you opponents deployment zone is bonkers powerful.
"The only conclusion I can come to is that you believe a 4:1 ratio of points efficiency is too good, even though you said a unit should hard-counter its foes at a 2.5:1, so I would say 4:1 is fine.
I don't really understand what else it could be. If you mean Guardsmen are undercosted... then you don't understand what points efficiency is.
Points efficiency is saying "if you took 2000 points of Space Marines, you'd need 8600 points of Manticores to one-turn kill them."
This means that 2000 points of manticores will take 4-and-some-change turns to kill 2000 points of space marines. 2000 points of manticores will run out of rockets before they kill 2000 points of space marines who are just standing there and not fighting at all.
So essentially, I can conclude that your claims of "being wiped by manticores" are bogus."
Your conclusions are incorrect. Keep thinking. Think about how a battle actually unfolds. Think about things from the other side for once.
Literally doesn't affect anything outside of marines and CSM
Ah, yes, when a zero-point regular weapon on a single guy began to out perform the Storm Bolters wielded by everyone else.
I'd be terrified to see what an Astartes Storm Bolter would do. Rapid fire 4, perhaps? Ap -3 while we're at it?
It's more or less an example of changing something with a work around.
There's a lot of weak arguments saying "changing this will just make that too powerful waaah"
It's a weak argument and I just proved it wrong
Martel732 wrote: Your conclusions are incorrect. Keep thinking. Think about how a battle actually unfolds.
You charge 2000 points of marines at 400 points of guardsmen and 1600 points of manticores. You kill 400 points of Guardsmen, the 1600 points of manticores kills 372 points of Marines, then your 1628 points of Marines touches the 1600 points of manticores and they never get to shoot again.
EDIT: I do think about things from the other side. I routinely play a manticore spammer with my on-foot walking sororitas brigade and wipe the floor with him over and over again.
Literally doesn't affect anything outside of marines and CSM
Ah, yes, when a zero-point regular weapon on a single guy began to out perform the Storm Bolters wielded by everyone else.
I'd be terrified to see what an Astartes Storm Bolter would do. Rapid fire 4, perhaps? Ap -3 while we're at it?
It's more or less an example of changing something with a work around.
There's a lot of weak arguments saying "changing this will just make that too powerful waaah"
It's a weak argument and I just proved it wrong
So if you leave storm bolters as they are, are you alright with the "Astartes Boltgun" outperforming the Storm Bolter that Tactical Terminators get, and also outperforming the special-issue bolter and storm-bolters available to Sternguard?
No, you didn't. Because the argument was a lot more complex than the trollish strawman you just posted.
The argument was "If you boost one unit, but not the others, the others become weak in comparison, and the codex becomes internally inconsistent. If you boost all units to maintain consistency, you may make some units that are already powerful even more so."
You haven't disproven this argument, in fact, if anything you've proven it.
2000 points of marines on foot take two turns to reach the guard lines. Unless you start paying for transports. Which cuts down your marines.
You are already going off the rails by thinking that all 2000 points of marines are there in one turn.
Okay, sorry, two turns.
The manticores have killed 744 points of Marines by the time they reach the guardsmen, then the remaining 1264 points of marines easily overpower 400 points of guardsmen, then they suffer another 372 points of casualties, bringing them to 884 points remaining which then touch the manticores and they never shoot again.
My mistake.
Alternatively, they stand there and don't even touch the manticores, take another 372 points of casualties because their player is AFK, leaving them with 512 points remaining. And then the manticores are out of rockets. Neat.
Sisters are not inherently more efficient. The one point of toughness, strength, and weapons skill (Sisters are WS4+ with a few exceptions, and S3/T3 with no exceptions) makes a huge difference, and is one of the bigger weaknesses in the Sororitas army and why Sororitas tactics are vastly different from Marine tactics. And this is without considering the difference in equipment loadout choices.
You are deploying your guardsmen unintelligently now. 400 points of guardsmen can hold up 1200 pts of marines for at least two turns. They can do this even to jump marines, because I have it done to me all the time.
Also, manticores can chew up the marines closest to them first, creating extra transit time even after the guardsmen are dead.
You really haven't thought this through at all. Just ran some numbers and called it good.
Martel732 wrote: You are deploying your guardsmen unintelligently now. 400 points of guardsmen can hold up 1200 pts of marines for at least two turns. They can do this even to jump marines, because I have it done to me all the time.
Also, manticores can chew up the marines closest to them first, creating extra transit time even after the guardsmen are dead.
You really haven't thought this through at all. Just ran some numbers and called it good.
Okay, let's do it your way. The Marines don't even move from their deployment zone, and the Manticores get complete uninterrupted shooting at them forever. The Marines end up with 512 points of their army alive because the Manticores ran out of rockets.
The Marines literally don't even have to touch the Manticores to not be killed by them.
No, you didn't. Because the argument was a lot more complex than the trollish strawman you just posted.
The argument was "If you boost one unit, but not the others, the others become weak in comparison, and the codex becomes internally inconsistent. If you boost all units to maintain consistency, you may make some units that are already powerful even more so."
You haven't disproven this argument, in fact, if anything you've proven it.
Here is a proof: There already exists a "special issue bolter" in the codex, it is called a "boltrifle". And this "boltrifle" is equipped by a boosted tactical marine called an Intercessor. The Intercessor hasn't broken anything. Regards
pismakron wrote: Here is a proof: There already exists a "special issue bolter" in the codex, it is called a "boltrifle". And this "boltrifle" is equipped by a boosted tactical marine called an Intercessor. The Intercessor hasn't broken anything. Regards
This has nothing to do with the argument being had, which has nothing to do with the naming issues you think it does.
Martel732 wrote: You are deploying your guardsmen unintelligently now. 400 points of guardsmen can hold up 1200 pts of marines for at least two turns. They can do this even to jump marines, because I have it done to me all the time.
Also, manticores can chew up the marines closest to them first, creating extra transit time even after the guardsmen are dead.
You really haven't thought this through at all. Just ran some numbers and called it good.
Okay, let's do it your way. The Marines don't even move from their deployment zone, and the Manticores get complete uninterrupted shooting at them forever. The Marines end up with 512 points of their army alive because the Manticores ran out of rockets.
The Marines literally don't even have to touch the Manticores to not be killed by them.
We both know that doesn't cut it, either. They'll kill the marines on objectives selectively because no one can hide from a manticore.
pismakron wrote: Here is a proof: There already exists a "special issue bolter" in the codex, it is called a "boltrifle". And this "boltrifle" is equipped by a boosted tactical marine called an Intercessor. The Intercessor hasn't broken anything. Regards
This has nothing to do with the argument being had, which has nothing to do with the naming issues you think it does.
Well I think it does. Some people are pining for bolters with AP-1, and sometimes also marines with two wounds and/or two attacks. The counter argument is that this will break a lot of game-balance. But Ithis I bollocks, as we already have Intercessors. And Intercessors didn't break anything, nor did they prove any magical solution to anything. Regards
Martel732 wrote: You are deploying your guardsmen unintelligently now. 400 points of guardsmen can hold up 1200 pts of marines for at least two turns. They can do this even to jump marines, because I have it done to me all the time.
Also, manticores can chew up the marines closest to them first, creating extra transit time even after the guardsmen are dead.
You really haven't thought this through at all. Just ran some numbers and called it good.
Okay, let's do it your way. The Marines don't even move from their deployment zone, and the Manticores get complete uninterrupted shooting at them forever. The Marines end up with 512 points of their army alive because the Manticores ran out of rockets.
The Marines literally don't even have to touch the Manticores to not be killed by them.
We both know that doesn't cut it, either. They'll kill the marines on objectives selectively because no one can hide from a manticore.
Sure, yeah. I mean, the Space Marine player literally went AFK and still didn't get tabled in 5-7 turns, so not sure what's expected of him. It's not a balanced game when one side has a player and the other side is just models standing on a table.
pismakron wrote: Well I think it does. Some people are pining for bolters with AP-1, and sometimes also marines with two wounds and/or two attacks. The counter argument is that this will break a lot of game-balance. But Ithis I bollocks, as we already have Intercessors. And Intercessors didn't break anything, nor did they prove any magical solution to anything. Regards
Intercessors made tradeoffs to obtain those things. In many situations, intercessors are flat out inferior to tactical marines.
pismakron wrote: Well I think it does. Some people are pining for bolters with AP-1, and sometimes also marines with two wounds and/or two attacks. The counter argument is that this will break a lot of game-balance. But Ithis I bollocks, as we already have Intercessors. And Intercessors didn't break anything, nor did they prove any magical solution to anything. Regards
Intercessors made tradeoffs to obtain those things. In many situations, intercessors are flat out inferior to tactical marines.
Really? I don't see that. Intercessors are more vulnerable to Overcharged plasma, I will grant you that..
Martel732 wrote: You also didn't equip the marines. Which is why I brought that up before. It's very relevant in order to simulate an actual battle.
It's true, but again, that's a player decision. Part of the way I manage to run a whole brigade of Sororitas at 2000 points fairly easily is because I barely equip people. 3 Storm Bolters per 10 girl squad, meltaguns on the Dominions, and that's about it. "Equipping your marines" is a player decision, and so if you're getting tabled by Manticores, perhaps they're over-equipped.
Edit: I do bring Heavy Bolters on my Retributors, 4 per 5 girl squad, times 3.
No, you didn't. Because the argument was a lot more complex than the trollish strawman you just posted.
The argument was "If you boost one unit, but not the others, the others become weak in comparison, and the codex becomes internally inconsistent. If you boost all units to maintain consistency, you may make some units that are already powerful even more so."
You haven't disproven this argument, in fact, if anything you've proven it.
The argument is that if the boltgun is buffed than by extension SoB are buffed along with other units that can take them.
By giving marine weapons a prefix for ALL of their weapons you can isolate them from other imperium armies. And as far as buffing the boltgun making the storm bolter irrelevant, it's just an arbitrary example I made.
No, you didn't. Because the argument was a lot more complex than the trollish strawman you just posted.
The argument was "If you boost one unit, but not the others, the others become weak in comparison, and the codex becomes internally inconsistent. If you boost all units to maintain consistency, you may make some units that are already powerful even more so."
You haven't disproven this argument, in fact, if anything you've proven it.
The argument is that if the boltgun is buffed than by extension SoB are buffed along with other units that can take them.
By giving marine weapons a prefix for ALL of their weapons you can isolate them from other imperium armies. And as far as buffing the boltgun making the storm bolter irrelevant, it's just an arbitrary example I made.
You missed my point:
If you buff the Boltgun, you have to at least buff all other Astartes weapons (e.g. heavy bolters, special issue bolters, storm bolters, etc) to keep them relevant and not drop off the map. Like if you made your example, Storm Bolters, and therefore Tactical Terminators, are obsolete. But if you make Tactical Terminators Rapid Fire 4, -1 damage, then you've made heavy bolters obsolete (storm bolter Sternguard would be better than heavy bolter devastators). So now you make Heavy Bolters +1 Strength... and now they're just ultra-cheap assault cannons, and twin heavy bolters are essentially an assault cannon by themselves.
pismakron wrote: Really? I don't see that. Intercessors are more vulnerable to Overcharged plasma, I will grant you that..
You haven't paid much attention, then.
Intercessors cannot ride in cheap transports. Tacticals can. Rhinos are superbly durable for their points, especially when popping smoke, and are capable of delivering tacticals in to rapid fire + assault range-- and absorbing overwatch for the purposes of the assault. This allows Tacticals to take advantage of the next point...
Intercessors can only equip very limited anti-infantry weaponry. They cannot take flamers or plasmaguns or grav-guns, their sarges cannot take combiweapons, and in BA's case they can't take heavy flamers, either. A tactical squad with flamer/combiflamer/power sword in a rhino can do a surprising amount of damage on the charge. And that's just against infantry. The intercessor can take a couple options nothing non-Primaris can, but they're really rather lukewarm compared to the bolt rifle.
Intercessors cannot equip anti-tank weaponry. With the exception of krak grenades-- which, let's face it, is kind of a joke that people often forget even exists-- intercessors cannot take anti-tank weaponry at all. The closest they get is the stalker, but that's not really sufficient to seriously threaten most vehicles considering it's a single shot, and it's still S4.
Finally, intercessors are vulnerable to multi-wound damage. Anything that does 2 wounds or more per hit, they're extremely vulnerable to, where on tacticals, multi-wound damage is actually wasted and inefficient. Doing three wounds to a tactical marine is two wasted wounds, but doing those three wounds to an intercessor is only a single wasted wound.
Intercessors are an alternative to tacticals, not a flat upgrade. A viable alternative if their loadout and abilities fits your needs more than tacticals, but not everyone's tactical needs are the same, and for many lists, tactical marines are the superior choice.
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fraser1191 wrote: The argument is that if the boltgun is buffed than by extension SoB are buffed along with other units that can take them.
That's not the entirety of the argument, thus why I called (and still call) your response a strawman.
Scouts vs Tacticals is a side grade. It maked sense for Scouts to be cheaper when they had inferior BS and WS than tacticals, but now that they have the same, they should cost the same. One has better deployment options, other has +1 save and more weapons options.
Then to chose one over the other is based in what you want them to do, it becomes a tactical and strategic choice.
Galas wrote: Scouts vs Tacticals is a side grade. It maked sense for Scouts to be cheaper when they had inferior BS and WS than tacticals, but now that they have the same, they should cost the same. One has better deployment options, other has +1 save and more weapons options.
Then to chose one over the other is based in what you want them to do, it becomes a tactical and strategic choice.
This follows. I'm still personally of the opinion that scouts are better at the same price point, but I agree that it becomes more of a choice.
Reading all of this I'm seeing both side and the only conclusion that I can come to is that tacticals without a special rule have no function in 8th edition.
Which the more I think about it is really bad game design from the get go. But fundamentally the only reason to take troops choices is CP generation in 8th scouts do it for less points and with better rules tactical marines are never going to work out better than scouts. And that before taking soup options into consideration.
The points being made about the knock on impacts are correct, where marines hit hard by the changed to CC attack calculations etc yes, but with points adjustment vangard vets,sternguard etc can be competitive.
The only reason for a troops in 8th for marines is to give you a detachment with more CP's. So to do this tacticals have to gice you a reason to choose them over scouts which they don't.
The only way around this now is allowing them to refund CP's for stratageums used on them on a 6+(or add one to refund roll).
I agree Guilliman needs to be totally rewritten as 6 inch bubble is terrible to play and has no strategy hence why its been rapidly replaced one newer codex appeared.
Forcing marines who are usually out numbered to huddle within 6inch was a bad idea that should have never made the index let alone the codex.
Your idea affects the whole game and doesn't really make Tactical Marines any better than scouts or Sororitas (since both of those can get Bolt Weapons for cheaper). Changing the boltgun changes the basic weapons for damn near every Imperial faction except Guard and Mechanicus, meaning that you're hardly making Tactical Marines better, you're just upping everything by that amount. If the problem is Tactical Marines, then buff Tactical Marines, don't buff Dominion squads and Inquisitorial Acolytes. I mean heck, your proposed rule would buff Chaos and I'm not really sure why that's desirable.
Re-organizing the tactical squad's weapon options, your other idea, makes sense and I would not be averse to trying it. I wouldn't even be averse to giving Tactical squads 2 specials in a 5-man like Scions.
I'm actually sick of the 2 specials per 5 thing at the moment. It's super over done and something Sternguard already do and to an extent Devastators (well with heavy weapons anyway).
However the Bolter only LOOKS like the basic weapon for most factions is because how split up Marines are when at least a couple can be consolidated into the Vanilla codex (Blood and Dark Angels being the absolute worst offenders). Heck I'm for Marines getting a special Bolter for them whilst Sisters actually get cheaper by a point to compensate for how Melta and Flamers work at the moment (as you can't really make them more effective but those weapons certainly need to be cheaper).
It's hard to track how many thoughts I have on my phone of course.
Martel732 wrote: You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
But they don't get SO MUCH MORE than what SM gets. No flyers, no speeders, No plasma, no Lascannons, no ML's, i could make a list of 50+ more items.
Martel732 wrote: You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
But they don't get SO MUCH MORE than what SM gets. No flyers, no speeders, No plasma, no Lascannons, no ML's, i could make a list of 50+ more items.
Being cheap seems to trump all that in practice. Or at least most of it. Lascannons are nice, but the rest of it is very forgettable. Marines have a lot of false choices. A lot. It reminds me of pathfinder RPG.
Martel732 wrote: You also forget that many marines have some expensive equipment,too. The efficiency quickly climbs. Sisters usually get storm bolters, so at least they remain cheap.
But they don't get SO MUCH MORE than what SM gets. No flyers, no speeders, No plasma, no Lascannons, no ML's, i could make a list of 50+ more items.
Being cheap seems to trump all that in practice. Or at least most of it.
I see you ignored my point.
Awesome.
Stop over-equipping your marines. That's a player error, not an army error.
"SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Scouts are still the better unit, because their improved deployment options and weapons flexibility is more useful ingame than +1 armour save is, in my opinion.
I'd argue tacticals have better weapons flexibility; I'm personally playing a scout-heavy army right now (scouts and terminators, specifically), and I feel incredibly limited by what my scouts can actually equip that would actually be useful.
edit: removed quote pyramid
Having more options isn't exactly a plus when they're worse about those options than literally any other unit. I proved that with the Sternguard vs Tactical argument I had to have with Insectum. Objective Secured is a non-bonus, seriously. I didn't miss it with Necrons during 7th that's for sure.
Amishprn86 wrote: "SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
One would think that these things would make a bigger difference. But they don't seem to in practice.
Amishprn86 wrote: "SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
Sisters don't even have a codex yet, I'm just saying.
That list is similar to the one Reece used in the most recent Frontline Gaming battle report against Custodies and won with even with an uphill battle.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can I ask what the pod and the rhino are for before making any calls?
A few notes also: I don't think Devastators with Grav Cannons are worth it. Do your Vanguard and ASM have jump packs?
The Pod is for filling a unit entry as nobody uses them.
Rhinos are okay but definitely unnecessary for most of my lists as I will find natural mobility elsewhere. At minimum they are decent for Sternguard but have no purpose to use them for Tactical Marines as it doesn't really do anything for them.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can I ask what the pod and the rhino are for before making any calls?
A few notes also: I don't think Devastators with Grav Cannons are worth it. Do your Vanguard and ASM have jump packs?
The Pod is for filling a unit entry as nobody uses them.
Rhinos are okay but definitely unnecessary for most of my lists as I will find natural mobility elsewhere. At minimum they are decent for Sternguard but have no purpose to use them for Tactical Marines as it doesn't really do anything for them.
I'll let you and Martel talk it out then, as the Pod doesn't fill a unit entry (it's a DT) and Martel said how he uses them.
Amishprn86 wrote: "SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
Sisters don't even have a codex yet, I'm just saying.
And i was saying that currently b.c SM has a codex and how much survivable they are and the weapon options are mostly better. They are 20pts more per squad, but they are that much more survivable from any S3/S4/S6/S7 meaning they will over all do more damage, given Traits this makes it even more so give a 105pt DevHB squad -1 to hit out of 12" and see how much longer it lasts vs a Ret quad for 85pts.
Bolters vs Ret: 34 to kill squad
Bolters vs Dev: 45 to kill a squad
Bolters -1 vs Dev: 60 to kill a squad
So for 20pts more with a codex its a 45% difference. Is that 45% in points? Heck no, its only a 21% difference
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can I ask what the pod and the rhino are for before making any calls?
A few notes also: I don't think Devastators with Grav Cannons are worth it. Do your Vanguard and ASM have jump packs?
Grav Cannons are excellent weapons. They average more wounds against a tank than a Lascannon, are excellent at killing Elites, and have an extra shot over a Heavy Bolter for clearing hordes if you have to. I Drop Pod Grav Cannons all the time. You just have to commit your Devs to the front to optimize target availability, which is fine, since they're just basic Marines with more Heavy Weapons.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can I ask what the pod and the rhino are for before making any calls?
A few notes also: I don't think Devastators with Grav Cannons are worth it. Do your Vanguard and ASM have jump packs?
The Pod is for filling a unit entry as nobody uses them.
Rhinos are okay but definitely unnecessary for most of my lists as I will find natural mobility elsewhere. At minimum they are decent for Sternguard but have no purpose to use them for Tactical Marines as it doesn't really do anything for them.
I'll let you and Martel talk it out then, as the Pod doesn't fill a unit entry (it's a DT) and Martel said how he uses them.
You knew what I meant.
And that's something I disagree with Martel on for sure.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Can I ask what the pod and the rhino are for before making any calls?
A few notes also: I don't think Devastators with Grav Cannons are worth it. Do your Vanguard and ASM have jump packs?
Grav Cannons are excellent weapons. They average more wounds against a tank than a Lascannon, are excellent at killing Elites, and have an extra shot over a Heavy Bolter for clearing hordes if you have to. I Drop Pod Grav Cannons all the time. You just have to commit your Devs to the front to optimize target availability, which is fine, since they're just basic Marines with more Heavy Weapons.
Seriously I mean filling a unit entry in the codex.
And Pods are terrible and NO I don't care how anything works in your casual meta.
And the question was asked in regards to Martels list, so it's still a bad answer.
You could probably use a Pod yourself to reinforce your Lias Drop, seriously. Since he's limited to three units you'd get some mileage bringing in a Lieutennant and some additional Devastators, etc.
Give +1 wounds to all non-character infantries & bikers. Exclude scouts.
Add the lines "when targeting non-vehicles, this weapon's AP value is improved by 1 (i.e. heavy bolter is -2 AP)" to all bolt weapon entries.
Seriously I mean filling a unit entry in the codex.
And Pods are terrible and NO I don't care how anything works in your casual meta.
And the question was asked in regards to Martels list, so it's still a bad answer.
You could probably use a Pod yourself to reinforce your Lias Drop, seriously. Since he's limited to three units you'd get some mileage bringing in a Lieutennant and some additional Devastators, etc.
Or I could pay 15 points for a Jump Pack for the Lieutenant and just use a Command Point as necessary for extra Infiltration, seeing as most of the Marine Strategems aren't worth using. Therefore that saves me 100 points to spend on something else.
Seriously I mean filling a unit entry in the codex.
And Pods are terrible and NO I don't care how anything works in your casual meta.
And the question was asked in regards to Martels list, so it's still a bad answer.
You could probably use a Pod yourself to reinforce your Lias Drop, seriously. Since he's limited to three units you'd get some mileage bringing in a Lieutennant and some additional Devastators, etc.
Or I could pay 15 points for a Jump Pack for the Lieutenant and just use a Command Point as necessary for extra Infiltration, seeing as most of the Marine Strategems aren't worth using. Therefore that saves me 100 points to spend on something else.
The Infiltration strat is nice but it doesn't protect your models the same way. Only 67 points, btw, once you spend your (18 for JP) on a Lt.
Seriously I mean filling a unit entry in the codex.
And Pods are terrible and NO I don't care how anything works in your casual meta.
And the question was asked in regards to Martels list, so it's still a bad answer.
You could probably use a Pod yourself to reinforce your Lias Drop, seriously. Since he's limited to three units you'd get some mileage bringing in a Lieutennant and some additional Devastators, etc.
Or I could pay 15 points for a Jump Pack for the Lieutenant and just use a Command Point as necessary for extra Infiltration, seeing as most of the Marine Strategems aren't worth using. Therefore that saves me 100 points to spend on something else.
The Infiltration strat is nice but it doesn't protect your models the same way. Only 67 points, btw, once you spend your (18 for JP) on a Lt.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
I'm going to predict that again marines will not perform like 13 ppm models.
For the record, BA have a bunch of stratagems worth using.
Amishprn86 wrote: "SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
Sisters don't even have a codex yet, I'm just saying.
And i was saying that currently b.c SM has a codex and how much survivable they are and the weapon options are mostly better. They are 20pts more per squad, but they are that much more survivable from any S3/S4/S6/S7 meaning they will over all do more damage, given Traits this makes it even more so give a 105pt DevHB squad -1 to hit out of 12" and see how much longer it lasts vs a Ret quad for 85pts.
Bolters vs Ret: 34 to kill squad
Bolters vs Dev: 45 to kill a squad
Bolters -1 vs Dev: 60 to kill a squad
So for 20pts more with a codex its a 45% difference. Is that 45% in points? Heck no, its only a 21% difference
Everytime I play sisters they keep coming back to life. That seems infinitely more durable to me.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
Since you're deployed even when the opponent goes first, it could die before it does anything. In which case you've potentially traded 200+ actually dangerous points for some Scouts. You don't have to use Pods, but their purpose is clear.
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Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
Amusingly, Rhinos with dual Storm Bolters trade pretty well against basic Guardsmen, point for point. I also like that, unlike the Razorback, they can move and still shoot at BS3+. Razorbacks are sweet and all, but I feel like I've been overlooking Rhinos for too long.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
Since you're deployed even when the opponent goes first, it could die before it does anything. In which case you've potentially traded 200+ actually dangerous points for some Scouts. You don't have to use Pods, but their purpose is clear.
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Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
Amusingly, Rhinos with dual Storm Bolters trade pretty well against basic Guardsmen, point for point. I also like that, unlike the Razorback, they can move and still shoot at BS3+. Razorbacks are sweet and all, but I feel like I've been overlooking Rhinos for too long.
Weren't you one of the people around here saying something about Marines being durable in cover? Or did that just not apply here for some reason? Deploy in cover and worst case scenario you're probably using Meat Shields. No reason to care.
Either way I don't use Grav Cannon Devastators as that's several points to make any use of them. You'd need two Grav Cannons minimum and then 70-90 points for a Rhino. That's already 200 minimum for a unit that isn't likely getting its spent points back by a good amount. Camping with Lascannons (Heavy Bolter and ML optional for the Strategems) is just more efficient for Devastators.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
Since you're deployed even when the opponent goes first, it could die before it does anything. In which case you've potentially traded 200+ actually dangerous points for some Scouts. You don't have to use Pods, but their purpose is clear.
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Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
Amusingly, Rhinos with dual Storm Bolters trade pretty well against basic Guardsmen, point for point. I also like that, unlike the Razorback, they can move and still shoot at BS3+. Razorbacks are sweet and all, but I feel like I've been overlooking Rhinos for too long.
Why does it matter the Rhino is firing at full BS? A moving TL Assault Cannon is still worth more.
Martel732 wrote: But razorbacks can just ignore the lascannons and zorf tanks with lascannons. Although that incentivizes not moving with the razorback.
Agreed, but Rhinos seem to have better synergy when acting alongside other troops. Keep em moving, blocking enemy LOS and potential assaults, ramming them into their own assaults to stop units form firing or use them to tank overwatch.
Ram a Rhino into a Predator and what's the Predator going to do? Aggressive Rhinos can be really annoying. I find when I use Razorbacks I'm too protective of them because I'm trying to maximize firepower, whereas I'm suicidal with Rhinos and it can really screw with some opponents. Even flying units can't charge after falling back, so you can stall some assaults by throwing a cheap tank or two at them.
Depending on my opponent, I won't need to hide a dev squad in the rhino and can use it thusly. This list is heavily anti-shooting alpha strike. I've gone second my last 5 games vs IG and its just murder.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
Since you're deployed even when the opponent goes first, it could die before it does anything. In which case you've potentially traded 200+ actually dangerous points for some Scouts. You don't have to use Pods, but their purpose is clear.
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Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
Amusingly, Rhinos with dual Storm Bolters trade pretty well against basic Guardsmen, point for point. I also like that, unlike the Razorback, they can move and still shoot at BS3+. Razorbacks are sweet and all, but I feel like I've been overlooking Rhinos for too long.
Weren't you one of the people around here saying something about Marines being durable in cover? Or did that just not apply here for some reason? Deploy in cover and worst case scenario you're probably using Meat Shields. No reason to care.
Marines are more durable in cover, but not immune. A Drop Pod makes them immune. It also lets you react to your opponents potential first turn.
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Martel732 wrote: Depending on my opponent, I won't need to hide a dev squad in the rhino and can use it thusly. This list is heavily anti-shooting alpha strike. I've gone second my last 5 games vs IG and its just murder.
I've only rarely put Devs in Rhinos. Pods for Devs most of the time for sure.
67 points is another Scout squad. 3 more free points is a Combi-Plasma on them or you can just do the Heavy Bolter for cheap access to the Helfire Round.
I'm not seeing any downside. The squad doesn't need protection as it's going to die.
Since you're deployed even when the opponent goes first, it could die before it does anything. In which case you've potentially traded 200+ actually dangerous points for some Scouts. You don't have to use Pods, but their purpose is clear.
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Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
Amusingly, Rhinos with dual Storm Bolters trade pretty well against basic Guardsmen, point for point. I also like that, unlike the Razorback, they can move and still shoot at BS3+. Razorbacks are sweet and all, but I feel like I've been overlooking Rhinos for too long.
Weren't you one of the people around here saying something about Marines being durable in cover? Or did that just not apply here for some reason? Deploy in cover and worst case scenario you're probably using Meat Shields. No reason to care.
Marines are more durable in cover, but not immune. A Drop Pod makes them immune. It also lets you react to your opponents potential first turn.
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Martel732 wrote: Depending on my opponent, I won't need to hide a dev squad in the rhino and can use it thusly. This list is heavily anti-shooting alpha strike. I've gone second my last 5 games vs IG and its just murder.
I've only rarely put Devs in Rhinos. Pods for Devs most of the time for sure.
It's durable enough though that it is more firepower going to them than the rest of the list right? Wasn't that a justification before too?
I react to the opponent's potential first turn via deployment. Pods are way too expensive as a reaction in the same way Terminators are too expensive for counter assault: you can pretend to stick something in any role you want but that doesn't make it cost efficient whatsoever.
Martel732 wrote: It's an experimental list. I'm using ONE drop pod to protect and deploy 200+ pts of devastators. Yes, I could switch out for a rhino. But I thought the freedom of deployment and the synergy with grav cannons might be worth it. I'll find out.
I'm going to predict that again marines will not perform like 13 ppm models.
For the record, BA have a bunch of stratagems worth using.
Amishprn86 wrote: "SoB are better than TAC's b.c they get 3 SB's per 5 and are 2pts cheaper"
... but they die something like 25% faster and dont have anywhere near the long range abilities or options.
"SOB can have a full unit of SB's or HB's"
SM can have a full unit of HB's too, that can live longer, has a codex for -1 to hit, or can re-roll shots. They get characters for re-roll 1's to wounds, and finally have Scouts that can block easily. SoB has to use those SB bodies to do that.
Sisters don't even have a codex yet, I'm just saying.
And i was saying that currently b.c SM has a codex and how much survivable they are and the weapon options are mostly better. They are 20pts more per squad, but they are that much more survivable from any S3/S4/S6/S7 meaning they will over all do more damage, given Traits this makes it even more so give a 105pt DevHB squad -1 to hit out of 12" and see how much longer it lasts vs a Ret quad for 85pts.
Bolters vs Ret: 34 to kill squad Bolters vs Dev: 45 to kill a squad Bolters -1 vs Dev: 60 to kill a squad
So for 20pts more with a codex its a 45% difference. Is that 45% in points? Heck no, its only a 21% difference
Everytime I play sisters they keep coming back to life. That seems infinitely more durable to me.
WTF are you talking about? The average SOB player will have 2 maybe 3 AOF (4+ very rare and not needed, its actually a waste of points). And using the "res 1 model" other than Celestine is a couple waste, b.c you can just Shoot or melee twice.
Whats better, Shoot a unit 2x for res 1 body?
Celestine will res a Gemini once a turn with her ability, not AOF, but can use an AOF to res the 2nd one if needed, or res Celestine her self, are you talking about this?
It's durable enough though that it is more firepower going to them than the rest of the list right? Wasn't that a justification before too?
I have no idea what you seem to be trying to pin on me. Find a quote if its that important to you. Point stands, Devs not on the table are Devs that cant be shot, assaulted, etc.
I react to the opponent's potential first turn via deployment. Pods are way too expensive as a reaction in the same way Terminators are too expensive for counter assault: you can pretend to stick something in any role you want but that doesn't make it cost efficient whatsoever.
"Victory needs no explanation." Guaranteed modular and reactive alpha strike wins me games, so you'll have a hard time convincing me they're bad.
It's durable enough though that it is more firepower going to them than the rest of the list right? Wasn't that a justification before too?
I have no idea what you seem to be trying to pin on me. Find a quote if its that important to you. Point stands, Devs not on the table are Devs that cant be shot, assaulted, etc.
I react to the opponent's potential first turn via deployment. Pods are way too expensive as a reaction in the same way Terminators are too expensive for counter assault: you can pretend to stick something in any role you want but that doesn't make it cost efficient whatsoever.
"Victory needs no explanation." Guaranteed modular and reactive alpha strike wins me games, so you'll have a hard time convincing me they're bad.
You can claim wins all you want, but tournament statistics tell you you're wrong and based off what we know of your area I can tell that a win isn't that great.
And sure I'm still experimenting with lists (I even made a Artillery list with mortal wound spam on T1 as an experiment), but I'm not gonna pretend that some of the choices I made were even close to being good (the Damocles Rhino being a good example).
I'm not sure tournament statistics show big wins for your style of list either, so I could probably make a mirrored claim. Or just claim that ITC has limited relevance to the majority of the player base at that. The holy "proof" of tournament statistics has its limits.
Ram a Rhino into a Predator and what's the Predator going to do? Aggressive Rhinos can be really annoying. I find when I use Razorbacks I'm too protective of them because I'm trying to maximize firepower, whereas I'm suicidal with Rhinos and it can really screw with some opponents. Even flying units can't charge after falling back, so you can stall some assaults by throwing a cheap tank or two at them.
I totally agree.
it all depends on what your arming the razorback with. I find my LC backs are played kinda conservatively w squad inside as light support for the tank, but HB/AC I run up the board and kinda throw it in the face and say "deal with this" and assault out of it. rhinos are kinda the same as "expendable armour".
Insectum7 wrote: I'm not sure tournament statistics show big wins for your style of list either, so I could probably make a mirrored claim. Or just claim that ITC has limited relevance to the majority of the player base at that. The holy "proof" of tournament statistics has its limits.
My style of lists for 8th definitely have not shown up I know, as they're basically all experiments and theories from extensive Mathhammer, observation, and tournament trends and counters, and so on. However the trends can be followed pretty easily for this edition (so yes I do get annoyed with people who don't understand something showing up once in a blue moon isn't proof) and I've made several correct calls in 6th and 7th, have I not?
I've made casual lists that have hit 5+ acts of faith. But part of that was luck (I still had to roll a 4+ for most of them), and my capacity was at around 7.
But that's moot because: 1. I can only bring back one sister per squad, assuming it's still around. 2. I'm better off doing anything else with that AoF. 3. and most important: I DON'T GET CHAPTER TRAITS OR STRATAGEMS.
Martel732 wrote: It's been a problem the last couple time I've played against them. 5+ AOF is not common?
No and its either 2+ for the army wide one, Celestine has one and then you only get more if you spend 40pts on a character that lets you use one of a 4+
B.c it cost 40pts and is only a 4+ (if it was a 5+ it would be really bad) take 2 to give you 1 AoF a turn on average for 80pts. For 80pts you can instead have a full unit with 5 weapons, 5 Doms with 5 SB's is 60pts, 5 Ret with 4 HB's is 85pts.
So why take 2 Imagifiers to get 1 AOF per turn on average. So for 80pts you can res 1 body a turn. Or just start with 7 extra bodies with weapons. Its 1 more body than average and you start out with more shots.
If it wasnt for the Detachment system and for the fact that i can have 18 units of Doms and 6 units of Rets within 3 detachments, there is no need for Imagifiers unless you are limited on space.
Drudge Dreadnought wrote:A) Move all bolter weapons an AP lower for marines. Standard becomes AP -1, intercessor one becomes -2, heavy bolter -2, etc. This will also help their vehicles out. But it won't break currently good units like assault cannon razorbacks.
B) Make flamer/other former template weapons more reliable. Instead of d6 shots, let them be 3+d3, or an amount based on the size of the attacking unit.
C) Increase the power of pretty much all Chapter traits except Blood Angels and Death Guard to help infantry.
D) Give Bolter+Chainsword option for Tacs and CSM and their elite variants
E) Give Jump Pack troops the ability to lock enemies in close combat, or perhaps follow them if they fall back (can be based on leadership check.)
F) Award extra CP for detachments of basic MeQs
All that wishlisting aside, I doubt they'll touch this. Which means this is the edition of Xenos and Soup!
A.) No, your talking AP-3 Inferno Bolters, not to mention AP -2 heavy bolters would be some of the best shooting in the game.
B.) Agreed i have said before they should be 2d3 rather then 1d6.
C.) That really depends on the army.
D.) No, they should simply come with a Bolter and CS stock and have the option of replacing one weapon with some sort of special weapon.
E.) Can't there are too many armies that would just become irrelevant overnight.
F.) I have said this before they need to give CP based on the points spent not slots filled. If I bring 3 units of Rubrics and the minimum HQ options I get 6 CP for 550 points, Guard players can get 10 CP for the same points.
lolman1c wrote:I may be a race traitor here seen as I play Orks but I gotta admit...
Orks are T4, S4... ect... for 6pts but marines are nearly double for same T and S. It's really up to opinion on if 3+ save and 3+ BS is worth double. I think it is as you're double durable but I can see arguments.
But Guardsmen.... for 1 S, BS and T less you're 3 times as cheap as a marine! And yet not 3 times as vulnerable with a 5+ save. You're half as effective for a third of the price.
The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 9 points worth) not great.
Orks on the other hand don't fare so well same setup of guardsman will kill 4.5 orks with a painboy buffing them. To top it off Orks dont realyy have a ranged option wort mentioning.
"The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
Martel732 wrote: "The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
Marines are in cover and burning a reroll, while you're doing 2 squads of Guard(with no upgrades--and knowing you, you have the math wrong anyways since 20 Guardsmen equals 18 Lasguns not 20) and an officer placing an Order(the only Order those two squads can receive) OR a Stratagem to make it a Combined Squad in order for this to work.
Martel732 wrote:"The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
When you shoot 80 points worth of models that are mildly buffed at a unit and kill 13 points worth? You burn a reroll and you lose 0 points most likely. Your some how falling behind?
Kanluwen wrote:
Martel732 wrote: "The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
Marines are in cover and burning a reroll, while you're doing 2 squads of Guard(with no upgrades--and knowing you, you have the math wrong anyways since 20 Guardsmen equals 18 Lasguns not 20) and an officer placing an Order(the only Order those two squads can receive) OR a Stratagem to make it a Combined Squad in order for this to work.
20 Guardsman firing 36 (1RF2RF) Lasgun shots at 13-24"
36×.5×.33×.165= .9801 wounds. If you apply a reroll you would end up taking 0 wounds more then likely. This puts you 9 points ahead, which will only grow since you will probably get first turn and after the second turn of shooting they will likley be down to 16 guardsman and only be doing about .75 wounds per turn. You can literally spend 1 CP and end up ahead in the long run.
Yeah spend CP's on saving basic troops that make sence, especially when your spending minimum 250 points for 3 cp's atleast be realistic if your going to argue maths
"When you shoot 80 points worth of models that are mildly buffed at a unit and kill 13 points worth? You burn a reroll and you lose 0 points most likely. Your some how falling behind?
"
If the marines remove 11 points and the guardsmen remove 13, then yes, the marines are falling behind. If they have to spend a CP to make it 11-0 , they are STILL falling behind. The killer number in this is only removing 11 pts of enemy. Marines can't afford that.
Ice_can wrote: Yeah spend CP's on saving basic troops that make sence, especially when your spending minimum 250 points for 3 cp's atleast be realistic if your going to argue maths
Not "CPs" a CP to have your squad negate the damage of almost 100 points woth of shooting and put them ahead for the rest of the game more then likley.
Ice_can wrote: Yeah spend CP's on saving basic troops that make sence, especially when your spending minimum 250 points for 3 cp's atleast be realistic if your going to argue maths
Not "CPs" a CP to have your squad negate the damage of almost 100 points woth of shooting and put them ahead for the rest of the game more then likley.
What ever you are smoking you need to cut back on. Spending CP's like that, how many CP's do you think a pure marine list has? Not to mention it means you can't use it to save a far more important target like a tank or dread that actually does some damage to the opfor if it doesn't get alpha'd off the table. People don't alpha tacs because they are ignorable.
Martel732 wrote: "The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
Marines are in cover and burning a reroll, while you're doing 2 squads of Guard(with no upgrades--and knowing you, you have the math wrong anyways since 20 Guardsmen equals 18 Lasguns not 20) and an officer placing an Order(the only Order those two squads can receive) OR a Stratagem to make it a Combined Squad in order for this to work.
20 Guardsman firing 36 (1RF2RF) Lasgun shots at 13-24"
36×.5×.33×.165= .9801 wounds. If you apply a reroll you would end up taking 0 wounds more then likely. This puts you 9 points ahead, which will only grow since you will probably get first turn and after the second turn of shooting they will likley be down to 16 guardsman and only be doing about .75 wounds per turn. You can literally spend 1 CP and end up ahead in the long run.
The point you seem to have missed is this:
Without seeing his math, and knowing his propensity for being wrong/biased when it comes to Guard stuff in general, 20 Guardsmen firing Lasguns requires at least 3 Infantry Squads OR Conscript Squads(which are BS5+ rather than BS4+ and only accept Orders on a 4+) OR some weird setup of an Infantry Squad, Command Squads, and/or HWTs.
Martel732 wrote: "When you shoot 80 points worth of models that are mildly buffed at a unit and kill 13 points worth? You burn a reroll and you lose 0 points most likely. Your some how falling behind?
"
If the marines remove 11 points and the guardsmen remove 13, then yes, the marines are falling behind. If they have to spend a CP to make it 11-0 , they are STILL falling behind. The killer number in this is only removing 11 pts of enemy. Marines can't afford that.
No the're not, you shoot first kill 2.87 models, they shoot kill .143 models, you shoot again kill another 2.87 models (5.75 Guard killed total) 22 Guard shots now do .707 wounds ( .85 models lost) 9 bolter shots now doing 2.58 wounds ( 8.25 models lost). So at this point Guardsman have lost 44% of thier shooting and the MEQ have lost 10%. The GEQ are down to .5 wounds per turn against the MEQ. That 1 CP causes a snowball effect, which in the end will see both GEQ units dead while 50 percent of the MEQ unit still up.
Martel732 wrote: "The thing is the 3+ save can become a 2+ in cover with a single reroll it takes 20 Guardsman with 1RF2RF to kill 1 Marine at 13-24". That same marine unit will kill 2.3 guardsman per turn (about 11 points worth). "
So if marines are in cover and burn a reroll, they are still falling behind? How glorious.
Marines are in cover and burning a reroll, while you're doing 2 squads of Guard(with no upgrades--and knowing you, you have the math wrong anyways since 20 Guardsmen equals 18 Lasguns not 20) and an officer placing an Order(the only Order those two squads can receive) OR a Stratagem to make it a Combined Squad in order for this to work.
20 Guardsman firing 36 (1RF2RF) Lasgun shots at 13-24"
36×.5×.33×.165= .9801 wounds. If you apply a reroll you would end up taking 0 wounds more then likely. This puts you 9 points ahead, which will only grow since you will probably get first turn and after the second turn of shooting they will likley be down to 16 guardsman and only be doing about .75 wounds per turn. You can literally spend 1 CP and end up ahead in the long run.
The point you seem to have missed is this:
Without seeing his math, and knowing his propensity for being wrong/biased when it comes to Guard stuff in general, 20 Guardsmen firing Lasguns requires at least 3 Infantry Squads OR Conscript Squads(which are BS5+ rather than BS4+ and only accept Orders on a 4+) OR some weird setup of an Infantry Squad, Command Squads, and/or HWTs.
Or just 2 Infantry squads with 2 Commanders, not hard.
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Martel732 wrote: I don't care about models. I care about points.
Okay you lose 65 they lose 80 (100 at 5ppm if the rumorms are true)
That's just false.
At 5 ppm guard it is a MUCH closer comparison and the winner in a dual between guardsmen and tac marines becomes dependant on external factors, such as manuvers, support, moral rolls, etc.
13 guard in a squad vs 5 bolter toting tacticals, an impossible scenario but I'll use it to get the point across.
13 guards, assuming they all enter range at once and the marines are out of cover will deal 0.722 wounds at 9.386 points.
5 tacticals at the flipped scenario will deal 1.481 wounds, or 7.405 points.
So here already, we get a result not too far off. the guards still win a shootout, but are less easily getting cover, and are more in danger of moral casualties adding more damage and its far easier for marines to assure everyone is in range than it is for the guard.
And that's before we even got to balancing the tac marine-this is just making the guard his proper well-accepted cost.
Lets take it a step further-we drop the tac marine just 1 point.
12 guards vs 5 marines.
Marines still deal 1.481 wounds, or 7.405 points.
Guards now deal .0667 wounds, at 8.004 points.
Now the gap in sheer shooting is very narrow, and marines still hold the edge when it comes to leadership, taking cover, and concentrated power making it easier to make use of the entire squad.
Had we reduced the marines to 11, we'd get the 11 guards dealing 0.611 wounds, or 6.721 points-the guards are now outright out-gunned by the marines, while the marines still keep all the benefits of being easier to bring to bear, get good positions and being virtually immune to moral.
Had you tuned tac marines to 11 points, they would VASTLY outclass a 5 point guard to the point of rendering them non-viable.
The moment infantry become the proper 5 point, tac marines are nearly good. 1 point reduction makes them competitive, 2 point reduction makes them too good.
BoomWolf wrote: That's just false.
At 5 ppm guard it is a MUCH closer comparison and the winner in a dual between guardsmen and tac marines becomes dependant on external factors, such as manuvers, support, moral rolls, etc.
13 guard in a squad vs 5 bolter toting tacticals, an impossible scenario but I'll use it to get the point across.
13 guards, assuming they all enter range at once and the marines are out of cover will deal 0.722 wounds at 9.386 points.
5 tacticals at the flipped scenario will deal 1.481 wounds, or 7.405 points.
So here already, we get a result not too far off. the guards still win a shootout, but are less easily getting cover, and are more in danger of moral casualties adding more damage and its far easier for marines to assure everyone is in range than it is for the guard.
And that's before we even got to balancing the tac marine-this is just making the guard his proper well-accepted cost.
Lets take it a step further-we drop the tac marine just 1 point.
12 guards vs 5 marines.
Marines still deal 1.481 wounds, or 7.405 points.
Guards now deal .0667 wounds, at 8.004 points.
Now the gap in sheer shooting is very narrow, and marines still hold the edge when it comes to leadership, taking cover, and concentrated power making it easier to make use of the entire squad.
Had we reduced the marines to 11, we'd get the 11 guards dealing 0.611 wounds, or 6.721 points-the guards are now outright out-gunned by the marines, while the marines still keep all the benefits of being easier to bring to bear, get good positions and being virtually immune to moral.
Had you tuned tac marines to 11 points, they would VASTLY outclass a 5 point guard to the point of rendering them non-viable.
The moment infantry become the proper 5 point, tac marines are nearly good. 1 point reduction makes them competitive, 2 point reduction makes them too good.
You're not taking into account the fact that the Guard squad is better at simply taking up space to stop Deep Strikes and similar, but you're taking into account the advantages of force concentration the Tacticals provide.
It is VERY easy to block your entire table half even with marines. any unit that does not provide extra deployment options does not actually provide all that much value by taking more space.
The effectiveness of taking more space is really quick to be extinguished by the fact you don't need to push all that far away, just to push enough. 15 models across 3 units is honestly enough to block huge swats of land from enemy drops (and a decent marine army will have more than that available in units you can afford to take the hit with.), and you dont need to block every possible drop site-only block any meaningful drop site.
The value of getting that extra space taken just don't compare to the value of your units being much harder to clean up (cover and moral edges) and given that a small marine squad is basically immune to moral, and is very easy to hand cover for its a big thing.
Or just 2 Infantry squads with 2 Commanders, not hard.
Here's the problem with your statement:
How many models are in an Infantry Squad?
10.
How many of those can carry Lasguns?
9.
The Sergeant CANNOT EVER HAVE A LASGUN. 2 Infantry Squads will never be able to fully take advantage of FRFSRF because of the simple fact that Infantry Squads, when being fielded seriously as the core of a Guard army, are:
A) Carrying a Special Weapon(-1 Lasgun)
B) Carrying a Heavy Weapons Team(-1 Lasgun)
So right there you're down to 7 models in a 10 man squad firing as part of FRFSRF, meaning 14 shots at beyond Rapid Fire range and 28 shots in Rapid Fire range while exchanging all of the other possible Orders that you could receive.
Get now why I am pointing this out? It requires you to assume, mathwise, that you've got something that just isn't possible.
The same math holds for Veterans and Scions as well; it always starts at 9 models able to take advantage of FRFSRF.
The only unit that ever has gotten solid 100% coverage from FRFSRF is Conscripts.
Or just 2 Infantry squads with 2 Commanders, not hard.
Here's the problem with your statement:
How many models are in an Infantry Squad?
10.
How many of those can carry Lasguns?
9.
The Sergeant CANNOT EVER HAVE A LASGUN. 2 Infantry Squads will never be able to fully take advantage of FRFSRF because of the simple fact that Infantry Squads, when being fielded seriously as the core of a Guard army, are:
A) Carrying a Special Weapon(-1 Lasgun)
B) Carrying a Heavy Weapons Team(-1 Lasgun)
So right there you're down to 7 models in a 10 man squad firing as part of FRFSRF, meaning 14 shots at beyond Rapid Fire range and 28 shots in Rapid Fire range while exchanging all of the other possible Orders that you could receive.
Get now why I am pointing this out? It requires you to assume, mathwise, that you've got something that just isn't possible.
The same math holds for Veterans and Scions as well; it always starts at 9 models able to take advantage of FRFSRF.
The only unit that ever has gotten solid 100% coverage from FRFSRF is Conscripts.
I just assume that people are being generous when they make these assumptions, and go off naked as a worst case scenario. Because you're right, the squad will have a special weapon and it'll probably be plasma. Using the old numbers (4 ppm) that's 3:1 roughly, they could go 2:1 and load up on weapons vs that still naked tactical squad and then the numbers for damage caused changes quite a bit.
edit: 5 man naked tactical squad, 65 points. 10 man guard squad with plasma gun and heavy bolter: 55 points. The ratios remain the same, so as you scale up for the marines, you scale up for the guard. At 5ppm guard, it becomes equal, only guard are kitted out.
Some rough head math tells me that 5 tacticals at long range will do 3-4 hits, 2-3 wounds and 1-2 kills on average assuming they go first. If guard roll disastrously for morale they lose, what, another model? Then they return fire.
a few things to note. GW really feths up 3+ save models. I think they are assuming a 3+ is still a 3+ (which it was still overpriced when it was) these days the pleathora of ap 4-5 weapons in the game before that marines just laughed off, now turn your power armor into flakk armor or at best carapace armor, that's a huge swath of weapons in the game making marines 16% less durable. So instead of marines being 13ppm they need to start out at a base of 11, as a bare minimum. That's the most expedient way to fix marines.
Better idea would be make marines 2+, terminators 1+.
as for the discussion on guardsmen. The price of guardsmen is a red herring. 4ppm or 5ppm makes 0 difference. as a guard player i've converted over entirely to troops that are 15ppm and have no gun: crusaders. and they still wreck fething face. Grinding advance was a mistake. the base russ needs to be about 20 points cheaper and the price of Executioner cannons, punishers, ect Double or triple. Making the executioner/punisher about 20-40 points more.
or they could simply remove grinding advance.sad but true.
Martel732 wrote: I don't care about models. I care about points.
People forget how this works seriously.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also people need to quit suggesting to make Marines into a horde army. How about we make the models worth their points instead of just cutting the cost?
gendoikari87 wrote: a few things to note. GW really feths up 3+ save models. I think they are assuming a 3+ is still a 3+ (which it was still overpriced when it was) these days the pleathora of ap 4-5 weapons in the game before that marines just laughed off, now turn your power armor into flakk armor or at best carapace armor, that's a huge swath of weapons in the game making marines 16% less durable. So instead of marines being 13ppm they need to start out at a base of 11, as a bare minimum. That's the most expedient way to fix marines.
Did you forget the part where they now get a save vs old AP 2-3 weapons?
gendoikari87 wrote: a few things to note. GW really feths up 3+ save models. I think they are assuming a 3+ is still a 3+ (which it was still overpriced when it was) these days the pleathora of ap 4-5 weapons in the game before that marines just laughed off, now turn your power armor into flakk armor or at best carapace armor, that's a huge swath of weapons in the game making marines 16% less durable. So instead of marines being 13ppm they need to start out at a base of 11, as a bare minimum. That's the most expedient way to fix marines.
Did you forget the part where they now get a save vs old AP 2-3 weapons?
That actually helps a lot less than you think it would.
I love it when people claim that a 1 point bump won't affect anything.
How many lists have an extra 10pts per guard/marine squad lying around? That's some kind of good (plasma/power/las/etc) weapon not being taken to fit the same number of dudes in. Or a buff character has to hit the bench to allow for the same number of troops to hit the field.
Assuming someone is taking 3 squads of 10 man guard or 3 five man tac squads, that's 30 and 15 points respectively to find in order to keep that +3 CP brigade bonus.
Small point increases don't matter for the 1v1, they matter because of everything else you have to adjust, crimp, and size down to make room.
How many lists have an extra 10pts per guard/marine squad lying around? That's some kind of good (plasma/power/las/etc) weapon not being taken to fit the same number of dudes in. Or a buff character has to hit the bench to allow for the same number of troops to hit the field.
Assuming someone is taking 3 squads of 10 man guard or 3 five man tac squads, that's 30 and 15 points respectively to find in order to keep that +3 CP brigade bonus.
Small point increases don't matter for the 1v1, they matter because of everything else you have to adjust, crimp, and size down to make room.
Greetings, i play guard.... I will tell you when making my lists i generally have 45-90 points lying around. granted i do not normally take infantry.
gendoikari87 wrote: a few things to note. GW really feths up 3+ save models. I think they are assuming a 3+ is still a 3+ (which it was still overpriced when it was) these days the pleathora of ap 4-5 weapons in the game before that marines just laughed off, now turn your power armor into flakk armor or at best carapace armor, that's a huge swath of weapons in the game making marines 16% less durable. So instead of marines being 13ppm they need to start out at a base of 11, as a bare minimum. That's the most expedient way to fix marines.
Did you forget the part where they now get a save vs old AP 2-3 weapons?
That actually helps a lot less than you think it would.
This. Particularly if it's a -3 with a 3+. a 6+ save is basically non existent
Or just 2 Infantry squads with 2 Commanders, not hard.
Here's the problem with your statement: How many models are in an Infantry Squad? 10. How many of those can carry Lasguns? 9. The Sergeant CANNOT EVER HAVE A LASGUN. 2 Infantry Squads will never be able to fully take advantage of FRFSRF because of the simple fact that Infantry Squads, when being fielded seriously as the core of a Guard army, are: A) Carrying a Special Weapon(-1 Lasgun) B) Carrying a Heavy Weapons Team(-1 Lasgun)
So right there you're down to 7 models in a 10 man squad firing as part of FRFSRF, meaning 14 shots at beyond Rapid Fire range and 28 shots in Rapid Fire range while exchanging all of the other possible Orders that you could receive.
Get now why I am pointing this out? It requires you to assume, mathwise, that you've got something that just isn't possible. The same math holds for Veterans and Scions as well; it always starts at 9 models able to take advantage of FRFSRF. The only unit that ever has gotten solid 100% coverage from FRFSRF is Conscripts.
You may want to re-read his original post, he said 36 lasgun shots (ie, 2 unupgraded Guard Squads). Last I checked, infantry squads aren't forced to take Special and Heavy weapons (if it's wise to do so).
Also seriously? 3+ is worse against old AP4, the basically the same against old AP5,6 & - (and better in cover), better vs old AP3 and the same vs old AP2 & 1 (though worse in cover). It's basically a wash. Also weren't people literally complaining last edition about Heavy Bolters being useless because AP4 is worthless while simultaneously complaining about there being too much AP1/2/3?
Marines are just a generalist purpose unit that would be great irl. You don't see armies of transports with miniguns or armies of explictly heavy weapon teams. But on tabletop, there are different laws. It's not the weapons that make tactical marines bad. It's actually that there is no tactics in the game.
koooaei wrote: Marines are just a generalist purpose unit that would be great irl. You don't see armies of transports with miniguns or armies of explictly heavy weapon teams. But on tabletop, there are different laws. It's not the weapons that make tactical marines bad. It's actually that there is no tactics in the game.
The problem is TAC/CSM squads should have access to two special weapons.
In the army a 5 man squad (Fire Team) usually has 2-3 special weapons depending on the unit. Usually a SAW and at least one GL not to mention 240-B and other crew served weapons.
Martel732 wrote: I don't care about models. I care about points.
People forget how this works seriously.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also people need to quit suggesting to make Marines into a horde army. How about we make the models worth their points instead of just cutting the cost?
Im saying neither give every CSM and TAC marine Bolter, Bolt pistol, and Chainsword with any upgrade swapping for the appropriate weapon. That way they have the flexability they need. Being able to get 4 S4 attacks in a turn will make them worth thier points.
I confess it is a little odd that Imperial Guardsmen and Space Marines have access to the exact same number and type of weapons, except for Grav and only because that's a recent kit and nu mod nu roolz.
Like. They're SPACE MARINES. Surely the Imperum can bend the rules so they can have two melta guns per 5 men, not one? Guardsmen are expendable and cost less than their weapons. Surely the marine is more expensive than the meltagun? It can't be they don't have the means to access mass meltaguns I mean, even the sisters of battle can do that...
Adding flexibility like that to your average tactical squad would go a long way to making them more playable.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I confess it is a little odd that Imperial Guardsmen and Space Marines have access to the exact same number and type of weapons, except for Grav and only because that's a recent kit and nu mod nu roolz.
Like. They're SPACE MARINES. Surely the Imperum can bend the rules so they can have two melta guns per 5 men, not one? Guardsmen are expendable and cost less than their weapons. Surely the marine is more expensive than the meltagun? It can't be they don't have the means to access mass meltaguns I mean, even the sisters of battle can do that...
Adding flexibility like that to your average tactical squad would go a long way to making them more playable.
It's a lot odd. The squads Sgt. having a special weapon is weird, the number of special weapons is weird, the inflexability is weird, the inability to carry a CCW and a Rifle equivalent is weird. An actual General would look at this and go cross eyed.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: I confess it is a little odd that Imperial Guardsmen and Space Marines have access to the exact same number and type of weapons, except for Grav and only because that's a recent kit and nu mod nu roolz.
Like. They're SPACE MARINES. Surely the Imperum can bend the rules so they can have two melta guns per 5 men, not one? Guardsmen are expendable and cost less than their weapons. Surely the marine is more expensive than the meltagun? It can't be they don't have the means to access mass meltaguns I mean, even the sisters of battle can do that...
Adding flexibility like that to your average tactical squad would go a long way to making them more playable.
It's a lot odd. The squads Sgt. having a special weapon is weird, the number of special weapons is weird, the inflexability is weird, the inability to carry a CCW and a Rifle equivalent is weird. An actual General would look at this and go cross eyed.
Ah. Good old Reboot Girlieman.
It's His fault. That's why the Primaris have no options at all. Clearly allowing tacticals the tiny bit of flexibility they do have was a concession to another primarch. Perhaps Magnus. He likes a bit of a change.
AdmiralHalsey wrote: It can't be they don't have the means to access mass meltaguns I mean, even the sisters of battle can do that...
Even Sisters of Battle have something it means Marines must have the same thing but even better while Sisters get access to nothing that the marines have of course!
AdmiralHalsey wrote: It can't be they don't have the means to access mass meltaguns I mean, even the sisters of battle can do that...
Even Sisters of Battle have something it means Marines must have the same thing but even better while Sisters get access to nothing that the marines have of course!
Did someone blow the horn for SoB martyrs to come in with the "woe is me"?
.
on. There are literally dozens of units that just don't see play even in casual contexts, but we're focused on 5ish units with wildly different roles across two unrelated factions because ... they're all T4 and 
