So I think most people can agree that the space marine chassis is over priced. Mostly curious on what people think a tac should cost in order for it to be a playable unit,
11 might be okay, but any cheaper would be unfair. Sisters cost 9, with their only downside over a Marine being Strength and Toughness 3, and lack of rerolls for morale (And They Shall Know No Fear). Marines shouldn't cost that much more.
Really it's Assault Marines that need a boost, though, as they just don't do anything well at all. Tacticals at least can hold objectives (even if Intercessors do it better).
Wew, the big problem with these questions is: "Does it apply to ALL space marines?".So, Blood lovers, Wolfbois, Codex Nerds and even the Edgy Betrayer marines?
That's why I believe there's no "Easy" fix for marine points. I'd rather see Tac and Assault squads (That use the base codex) get some specific stratagems a la the necron treatment.
Honestly, I don't think the problem is with Space Marines. I think the problem is with rules of AP and cover.
3+ saves used to be much more resilient than they are now. That's the big problem. You can make Space Marines cheap, but that just turns what should be an elite army into a horde one, and then suddenly people are taking a hundred tacs in an army to bolter-spam against the enemy.
Give the standard Space Marine something else to write home about. Give them an extra attack in close combat, or give the standard Bolter the same -1 ap that the Bolt Rifle has. Anything to make them more useful on the table and not the awkward 1 wound nephews of the Primaris.
Give the standard Space Marine something else to write home about. Give them an extra attack in close combat, or give the standard Bolter the same -1 ap that the Bolt Rifle has. Anything to make them more useful on the table and not the awkward 1 wound nephews of the Primaris.
Better yet, just get rid of the Primaris/non-Primaris distinction entirely and give the Primaris rules to everything. The disconnect does nothing but hurt both sides by locking Primaris out of Transports and shackling non-Primaris with bad rules.
A Necron warrior is 12 points for worse armour, better morale, better weapon and reanimation protocols. So I'd say 11 would be okay.
I think their armor is fine, it was okay during last editions and it's still good due to cover in this edition.
The bolter never was a strong weapon, AP5 never came into play and when it did models with 5+ save died either way against everything.
People want movie marines, but the usual tactical marine isn't like that. And if we look at what people say about primaris that's good for them.
Instead of just tweaking points I would've liked if they made Space Marines feel like Space Marines and not just fodder. I mean Primaris stats should be the baseline for normal marines. Primaris should be 3W and Terminators 4W (like Custodes). And yeah boltguns -1ap, maybe even rapid fire 2 to boot. Tweak the points accordingly.
It's sad that a mighty space marine cannot weather a stiff breeze.
That isn’t the best choice though as it inflated the number of models on the table. 11 points is probably fair based on a comparison to scouts but I’d rather see them at 14-15 points with the primaris stat line.
On the sisters comparison sisters are -1 WS,S, and T at 9 points. Cannot re-roll morale, but get a 6++ save and useless deny the witch.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As for bolters make them assault 3.
ZergSmasher wrote: 11 might be okay, but any cheaper would be unfair. Sisters cost 9, with their only downside over a Marine being Strength and Toughness 3, and lack of rerolls for morale (And They Shall Know No Fear). Marines shouldn't cost that much more.
(edited) You notice it in the assault phase most of all where a sister is worth half a marine, if that (hence them all being small suicide squads and/or hidden in vehicles).
Space marines cost 15 points in 3rd ed, before grenades. Back then they fired once up to 12 inches after moving.
15 is a good price point because your basic tac squad becomes 150, which is a nice block for an army. Re-cost Space marines to 15 and then you can recost every other model in the game around this principle.
=Angel= wrote: Space marines cost 15 points in 3rd ed, before grenades. Back then they fired once up to 12 inches after moving.
15 is a good price point because your basic tac squad becomes 150, which is a nice block for an army. Re-cost Space marines to 15 and then you can recost every other model in the game around this principle.
Martel732 wrote: Sisters have access to more effective weapons that are cheap AND they get extra turns. On top of being cheaper. It's nuts.
S6-S7 doesn NOT inflict twice as many casualties. And S4 does not cause 50% more casualties. Try that again.
Sisters have access to more effective weapons that are cheap?
Are you referring to the exactly one weapon on the sisters' special weapon list that isn't on the marines' special weapon list, the storm bolter? That appears to be the only option along with the "mighty" condemnor boltgun that sisters have on any of their weapon lists that marines don't get. Man, those sisters, getting so many options while the poor marine victims are deprived of choice with their extremely limited model range.
Yeah, 1 less point of toughness does not equal twice as many casualties. It equals 1/6 more casualties, as you'd kind of expect from something that causes a one die shift change in wounding.
I think around 12pts would be okay, though I think it would be more useful if all points were at least doubled, so that they could be more easily adjusted.
Sgt. Cortez wrote: A Necron warrior is 12 points for worse armour, better morale, better weapon and reanimation protocols. So I'd say 11 would be okay.
Except that Necron Warriors really aren't good. AP-1 looks nice . . . but it's all they have. No Special weapons. No Heavy weapons. No melee weapons. Nothing. All they can bring is more AP-1 bolters, which really aren't all that useful.
Better morale is disingenuous. They have a higher Ld, sure, but they also lack ATSKNF. Moreover, whilst marines can do fine in minimum squads (basically making morale a non-issue), Necrons are encouraged to take maximum squads so that RPs aren't completely worthless, meaning morale is a big issue - especially since any morale losses can't be revived with RPs.
I'd rather the upthread suggestion of 15, then rebalance the game. That's been a dream of mine. It's too bad that won't happen.
If they took ASM/Devs/Tacs, base 15 pts, then balanced everything in regards to those, using more Index than Codex style rules and points, it'd be a very different game. And a much better game.
Marines, to "do it right", need to make use of their specials/heavies. But they've added so many "LC squad +1" and "Flamer squad +1" and "CC squad +1" type units to the game, and escalated from there, that they just aren't as impactful as they should be.
That said, Tacs have been a big part of top lists at several points over the past few years. Sisters, not so much.
That's funny, because I've beaten a lot of lists with tac marines, but I have not a single victory vs Sisters yet. They just don't care about anything I do. They are basically power armor guardsmen.
My personal opinion is that Plasma Guns should be nerfed across the board for all armies that have access to them or their equivalents.
Basically reduce plasma to s5, and s6 on overcharge. Now Plasma Guns do not outshine Melta guns at 12 inches (4 v 3.5), and people can't use Plasma Guns for both anti-marine and anti-vehicle filling the same role in their list.
This would simultaneously create a niche for melta guns vs medium to heavy tanks, plasma guns for elite infantry and light tanks. Now that armies aren't able to spam Plasma equivalents and be secure for both Anti-Tank and Anti-Infantry there is no longer a huge incentive to take this marine busting weapon. With less Plasma everywhere Marines can leverage their ability to withstand small arms, especially in cover, far better.
The best way to make Marines more viable is to reduce the amount of high armor penetration weapons the various factions are able to field. Plasma Guns should never have been viable against both elite infantry and all tanks. Of course this means looking at other codex's like Tau and Eldar as well, and reducing some of their high Ap shenanigans as well. High rate of fire weapons should universally have poor penetration.
A single S4 AP 0 hit kills 0.22 sisters, or 1.98 points.
A single S4 AP hit kills 0.17 marines, or 2.21 points.
So sisters are actually MORE durable vs S4 AP0 than marines.
Autocannon hits:
A single S7 AP -1 hit kills 0.42 sisters, or 3.75 points.
A single S7 AP -1 hit kills 0.33 marines, or 4.33 points.
So sisters are more durable against autocannons as well.
I notice that now in a speculative thread where we're trying to determine what marines should cost, your apologetics have sneakily substituted the metric of comparison - "Casualties" - to one that just confirms the subject of the current discussion - "points of damage".
In a thread about how many points marines *should* cost, current point costs are irrelevant. When you look at casualties
.17 to .22 - 29% increase in casualties.
.33 to .42 - 27% increase in casualties.
add in S3 here because that's the other value where T3-4 gives a shift,
single S3 hit kills .11 marines, .17 sisters - 55% increase in casualties.
If we consider sisters' pre-codex performance as either lower mid-tier or upper low-tier (which is usually about where they sit) to be a pretty good benchmark at 9 ppm, how many points should a marine pay for roughly 30% durability increase vs 4 strength values, 2 being arguably the most common in the game?
ATSKNF vs AOF, a couple points of melee stats that aren't worth much, choice between special and heavy on the sisters vs just heavy on the marines, I think overall sisters gain a couple of extra advantages, so only a 22% increase in cost (11 points) seems like about the right value for the major advantage, being the toughness gain.
Marines shouldn't be cheaper, they should be better.
I think the easiest fix would be to give all Marines +1 Wound. As in ALL Marines. Tacs, Bikes, Terminators, Primaris, etc. No points increase, just an extra wound.
Apply this to Chaso Marines as well, and both armies should play more effectively in comparison to other factions
Galef wrote: Marines shouldn't be cheaper, they should be better.
I think the easiest fix would be to give all Marines +1 Wound. As in ALL Marines. Tacs, Bikes, Terminators, Primaris, etc. No points increase, just an extra wound.
Apply this to Chaso Marines as well, and both armies should play more effectively in comparison to other factions
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I maintain that trying to make them better is folly. GW's trying that, and they are just making multiple wound weapons crazy strong. It just makes things like overcharged riptides even better. Mitigating how many points my opponent can take off the table in one shooting phase is critical.
If your only use for troops is give up fewest points, Marines can't be that unless you either strip out what remains of their effectiveness or make them completely OP.
Units based on "so what if I die" should care less if they lose models than units based on other things.
Marines aren't Guard. They shouldn't be fielded like Guard.
That's not to say they're worth 13ppm, but they shouldn't reach point parity in the open vs heavy weapons with Guard.
When you compare durability per point between Marines and the non-horde non-tanky Troops, Marines do well. Twice the durability of FW or DAs to small arms, for much less than double the points. When you compare their durability per point to Guardsmen, you shouldn't come out ahead.
Martel732 wrote: Stormbolters. They get 3 per 5 chicks. That's amazingly efficient.
Slightly less efficient in that they pay Deathwatch rather than regular marine prices for their SB's (4 points vs 2, unless I've missed something in a FAQ) but a 40% increase in price for a 100% increase in firepower is pretty solid though.
Does kind of make your price point complaint interesting that you're factoring in the sisters as having no gear (9ppm) when they're getting shot, but you're factoring them as having 3 storm bolters per 5 when they're shooting. Raises the average price of a sister in the squad to 11.4.
I'm a much bigger fan of toning down the game as opposed to dropping the points of Marines, as stated. But, again as stated, it's not going to happen.
If a single Melta or Flamer were actually something to fear, and if good S/AP weapons won't so cheap or easy to bring to bear, the Marine statline would mean a lot more. Marines in cover are already quite resiliant to small arms.
In this edition, they took all PGs, made them completely safe, then added a GetsHot version that is simply much better. Without making Plas harder to get or notably more expensive.
They've made things like Reapers far too cheap, and made T3 not as big a handicap as it was last edition.
Some changes did help the Marines (Cover is a *lot* better for them than it was, and they stripped AP5 from everybody instead of giving it AP-1, which would murder Marines), but this upscaling of firepower makes midling-survivability pointless.
I vote 10 - scouts should drop to 10 too - 1 T for special deployment is a fair tradeoff. Seriously guy - PA has been avoided like plague in every edition - it has never been worth it's points.
Out of curiosity, would you pay 10 points for a T4, S3, WS 4+ tactical/assault/devastator marine?
Yeah, that'd be a steal, obviously not on the assault marine but on the other two all day every day.
+1 to WS and S on a shooting oriented model with 1 attack is worth a fraction of a point. Nothing's worth zero, but it cannot be worth much at all. The point of toughness and the access to a somewhat deeper weapon pool/many more character buffs is the primary balance factor for me here, which is why I'm inclined to round up to 11.
sisters don't have a "reroll all hits and all wounds" aura anywhere in their army. Heck, they don't even get Lieutenants.
Martel732 wrote: Stormbolters. They get 3 per 5 chicks. That's amazingly efficient.
Slightly less efficient in that they pay Deathwatch rather than regular marine prices for their SB's (4 points vs 2, unless I've missed something in a FAQ) but a 40% increase in price for a 100% increase in firepower is pretty solid though.
Does kind of make your price point complaint interesting that you're factoring in the sisters as having no gear (9ppm) when they're getting shot, but you're factoring them as having 3 storm bolters per 5 when they're shooting. Raises the average price of a sister in the squad to 11.4.
And you don't think the marines are going to have gear? MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE gear? Get real. I'm giving the marines the benefit of the doubt here. A single plasma gun takes them to 15.6 ppm.
Bharring wrote: I'm a much bigger fan of toning down the game as opposed to dropping the points of Marines, as stated. But, again as stated, it's not going to happen.
If a single Melta or Flamer were actually something to fear, and if good S/AP weapons won't so cheap or easy to bring to bear, the Marine statline would mean a lot more. Marines in cover are already quite resiliant to small arms.
In this edition, they took all PGs, made them completely safe, then added a GetsHot version that is simply much better. Without making Plas harder to get or notably more expensive.
They've made things like Reapers far too cheap, and made T3 not as big a handicap as it was last edition.
Some changes did help the Marines (Cover is a *lot* better for them than it was, and they stripped AP5 from everybody instead of giving it AP-1, which would murder Marines), but this upscaling of firepower makes midling-survivability pointless.
Honestly - I'd be a fan of 30-40 point marines which were actually powerful but people just make fun of me for suggesting those things. They sure like golden boys though.
Out of curiosity, would you pay 10 points for a T4, S3, WS 4+ tactical/assault/devastator marine?
Yeah, that'd be a steal, obviously not on the assault marine but on the other two all day every day.
+1 to WS and S on a shooting oriented model with 1 attack is worth a fraction of a point. Nothing's worth zero, but it cannot be worth much at all. The point of toughness and the access to a somewhat deeper weapon pool/many more character buffs is the primary balance factor for me here, which is why I'm inclined to round up to 11.
sisters don't have a "reroll all hits and all wounds" aura anywhere in their army. Heck, they don't even get Lieutenants.
Overcosted reroll batteries applied to overcosted models is not getting you ahead.
As a question, how are regular Chaos Space Marines doing?
Are they suffering from the same problems as Tactical Marines?
If not, what's different about them that allows them to be more effective? Anything that we can apply to Tacticals to improve them without just dropping their cost?
"Twice the durability of FW or DAs to small arms, for much less than double the points."
"Marines' don't have twice the durability of FW. The cost too much for that. [continues to show durability/pt]".
You're now doublecounting points - they have double the durabilty *per model*, at less than double the points. Meaning they have more durability per point. Being 4x as efficient at surviving S4AP0 would be crazy.
FW, at 9ppm, give up 18 points for every 13 points Marines give up to S4AP0 - which is good, because they have better standard guns. DAs have it worse - 24 pts for every 13 pts of Marines. But both of those have better guns. One has more range but less flexability and the other has more flexibility but less range.
It's easy to forget the Marine's strengths when they are overcosted, but it's foolish to ignore them.
Regular Chaos Space Marines aren't taken because Cultists, Berzerkers, Death Guard, and Thousand Sons exist. They're bad and there's much better options available.
So pretty much the same as Tac Marines except the alternative Troops choices are even better.
"PA has been avoided like plague in every edition - it has never been worth it's points."
Except when it has been?
PA lists have done well more often than most *armies*. Tacs were spammed in top lists in at least two different periods of 7th. Tac spam (with Bobby G) was actually a thing in 8th before CA. Rhino Rush years ago. And more.
To say nothing of other PA units that have been a thing.
Marines are in a bad spot now, but how can we hope to consider balance if we blind ourselves to when they did well?
vipoid wrote: As a question, how are regular Chaos Space Marines doing?
Are they suffering from the same problems as Tactical Marines?
If not, what's different about them that allows them to be more effective? Anything that we can apply to Tacticals to improve them without just dropping their cost?
They are equally as bad - they have slight QOL differences. Can take 2 heavies at 10 - Can be taken in 20 mans. Better spells to use on them. They still sucks badly. They shoudl realistically drop to 10-11 also.
If we have to change the points rather than change the stats, then I'd say 11ppm for Tac Marines and CSMs with just bolters
I still think they should be elevated in durability instead, but if that is too much to ask, then 11ppm it is.
10 would be too cheap and they are supposed to be boarder-line Elite Shock troopers, not generic rank-n-file schmoes.
Bharring wrote: "PA has been avoided like plague in every edition - it has never been worth it's points."
Except when it has been?
PA lists have done well more often than most *armies*. Tacs were spammed in top lists in at least two different periods of 7th. Tac spam (with Bobby G) was actually a thing in 8th before CA. Rhino Rush years ago. And more.
To say nothing of other PA units that have been a thing.
Marines are in a bad spot now, but how can we hope to consider balance if we blind ourselves to when they did well?
They did well in spite of tacs, not because of them.
Bharring wrote: "PA has been avoided like plague in every edition - it has never been worth it's points."
Except when it has been?
PA lists have done well more often than most *armies*. Tacs were spammed in top lists in at least two different periods of 7th. Tac spam (with Bobby G) was actually a thing in 8th before CA. Rhino Rush years ago. And more.
To say nothing of other PA units that have been a thing.
Marines are in a bad spot now, but how can we hope to consider balance if we blind ourselves to when they did well?
They haven't been dude - it is a farce. Index 8th is not 8th edition and literally every aspect of that list went up in points. Gman/Razors/Storm Ravens - all up in price. You can't honestly suggest gladius - where buying a tac squad granted you a free transport as being a justification for their absurd point cost. Imagine if buying 10 necron warriors got you a free ghost ark? Do you really think gladius would have faired well against that?
Care to elaborate where I'm ignoring them? The "double" was before points were taken into account, and compared to the divisor - which was less than 2.
1 S4 AP0 hit kills:
13x(1/2)(1/3) = 13/6 pts/hit vs Marines - about 2.17
12x(2/3)(1/2) = 4 pts/hit vs DAs 7x(2/3)(1/2) = 7/3 pts/hit vs FWs - about 2.33
If that's the form you want, it's fairly clear. Marines are *much* more durable per point than FWs or DAs.
The original point figured we didn't need to math it out that far. Twice the durability divided by less than twice the points is necessarily more, without doing any further math. But that's certainly not ignoring points.
To say nothing of cover. Better save units benefit a *lot* more from cover than lower save units.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Edit - Martel, sorry forgot FW were 7ppm now. Point still stands, but marginally so (FW are thus 13/14ths as durable as Marines).
Xeno/Martel - the point is that, if we want to constructively discuss balance, we need to understand how they have performed.
Claims like they've always been avoided like the plague make it a lot harder to actually discuss balance. And how can saying "They have not always been trash that was avoided" somehow mean I'm justifying the *current* points?
And do you really still think lists from before the 7e SM codex were using Gladius? And that lists with 6 Tac squads beyond min in that era were "avoiding PA like the plague"?
Do you also think Gladius was involved in the Rhino Rush tactics that preceeded 7th Ed?
Do we really need another 10 pages of denial and revisionism?
Martel732 wrote: I'm not double counting. You are ignoring point costs.
We are ignoring points costs because the thread is about speculating how much marines *SHOULD* cost, so *CURRENT* point costs are irrelevant, except when you're looking at the comparison point units that you are holding up as properly costed - i.e. if a Sister is balanced at 9 points, one should look at what a marine gets compared to a sister and decide how much of a points increase that is worth.
Galef wrote: If we have to change the points rather than change the stats, then I'd say 11ppm for Tac Marines and CSMs with just bolters
I still think they should be elevated in durability instead, but if that is too much to ask, then 11ppm it is.
What do you have in mind in terms of increasing their durability?
I already mentioned it: +1 Wound for all Marines/ CSMs. If things like Bikes have 3 wounds and Jump pack Marines have 2wounds each, that takes more pressure off the Troops, which by having 2 wounds each, now you kinda have to use multi-damage weapons on them. 3 wounds also makes Terminators closer to viable.
Yes, I know the counter argument is that "players will just use more multi-damage weapons", but think that through. Most armies CANNOT take that much multi-damage weaponry, and MOST multi-damage weapons do more than 2 wounds. If your opponent is having to use a Lascannon to take out a 13ppm Marine, who is the real winner there?
Yes, there are units and armies that can take a ton of 2-3 damage weapons, but those weapons are still killing Marines right now anyway. Having +1W across the board for non-vehicle/non-character Marines/CSMs is a simple and quite frankly elegant solution for help not only Tac Marines, but also Jump packs and Terminators be more efficient, particularly against small arms fire, which is the point
Martel732 wrote: Stormbolters. They get 3 per 5 chicks. That's amazingly efficient.
Slightly less efficient in that they pay Deathwatch rather than regular marine prices for their SB's (4 points vs 2, unless I've missed something in a FAQ) but a 40% increase in price for a 100% increase in firepower is pretty solid though.
Does kind of make your price point complaint interesting that you're factoring in the sisters as having no gear (9ppm) when they're getting shot, but you're factoring them as having 3 storm bolters per 5 when they're shooting. Raises the average price of a sister in the squad to 11.4.
Yep you did miss it in CA - Sisters now pay 2pts for Stormbolters.
Sisters get -1 in WS, S and T, far less heavy weapon selections, no ATSKNF, currently don't have Regimental tactics or loads of Stratagems and only "may" get them in 6-8 months time "Emperor Willing".
They have a 6++ Save (occasionally useful), a ultra crap Deny the Witch and a couple of Acts of Faith which are seldom used on Battle Sisters.
If you make Marines 10pts then make Sisters 7-8pts max.
On the problem - no easy answer - GW always wanted to sell lots of SM so they were relatively weak compared to fluff, they also had the snowflake chapter marines who have to be a bit better than their vanilla equivalents to justify their own existence.
Bharring wrote: Xeno/Martel - the point is that, if we want to constructively discuss balance, we need to understand how they have performed.
Claims like they've always been avoided like the plague make it a lot harder to actually discuss balance. And how can saying "They have not always been trash that was avoided" somehow mean I'm justifying the *current* points?
And do you really still think lists from before the 7e SM codex were using Gladius? And that lists with 6 Tac squads beyond min in that era were "avoiding PA like the plague"?
Do you also think Gladius was involved in the Rhino Rush tactics that preceeded 7th Ed?
Do we really need another 10 pages of denial and revisionism?
Bharring wrote: Xeno/Martel - the point is that, if we want to constructively discuss balance, we need to understand how they have performed.
Claims like they've always been avoided like the plague make it a lot harder to actually discuss balance. And how can saying "They have not always been trash that was avoided" somehow mean I'm justifying the *current* points?
And do you really still think lists from before the 7e SM codex were using Gladius? And that lists with 6 Tac squads beyond min in that era were "avoiding PA like the plague"?
Do you also think Gladius was involved in the Rhino Rush tactics that preceeded 7th Ed?
Do we really need another 10 pages of denial and revisionism?
Rhino rush in 7th was never a thing - I played marines all through 7th. Never once did I think - man - I'd rather take a rhino over a drop pod. EVER. Never once did I consider putting tacs in a drop pod ether except as bare minimum tax with a 2x flamer or melta or gravcannon. I always took scouts in a LSS over them because they were clearly better. Scouts in LSS compared favorably to a tac squad with a free razor lol.
Plus - warhammer world tornaments are a joke. Bunch of fluff players that got beat by a power gamer.
Hyperbole is absolutely ridiculous to bring up in a discussion that essentially revolves around whether it's more fair to round a point value to 10 or 11.
Galef wrote: If we have to change the points rather than change the stats, then I'd say 11ppm for Tac Marines and CSMs with just bolters
I still think they should be elevated in durability instead, but if that is too much to ask, then 11ppm it is.
What do you have in mind in terms of increasing their durability?
I already mentioned it: +1 Wound for all Marines/ CSMs. If things like Bikes have 3 wounds and Jump pack Marines have 2wounds each, that takes more pressure off the Troops, which by having 2 wounds each, now you kinda have to use multi-damage weapons on them. 3 wounds also makes Terminators closer to viable.
Yes, I know the counter argument is that "players will just use more multi-damage weapons", but think that through. Most armies CANNOT take that much multi-damage weaponry, and MOST multi-damage weapons do more than 2 wounds. If your opponent is having to use a Lascannon to take out a 13ppm Marine, who is the real winner there?
Yes, there are units and armies that can take a ton of 2-3 damage weapons, but those weapons are still killing Marines right now anyway.
Having +1W across the board for non-vehicle/non-character Marines/CSMs is a simple and quite frankly elegant solution for help not only Tac Marines, but also Jump packs and Terminators be more efficient, particularly against small arms fire, which is the point
.
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My buddy already has his 13 autocannon list ready for dw. Lascannons are old news thanks to the last three codices.
Bharring wrote: Xeno/Martel - the point is that, if we want to constructively discuss balance, we need to understand how they have performed.
Claims like they've always been avoided like the plague make it a lot harder to actually discuss balance. And how can saying "They have not always been trash that was avoided" somehow mean I'm justifying the *current* points?
And do you really still think lists from before the 7e SM codex were using Gladius? And that lists with 6 Tac squads beyond min in that era were "avoiding PA like the plague"?
Do you also think Gladius was involved in the Rhino Rush tactics that preceeded 7th Ed?
Do we really need another 10 pages of denial and revisionism?
Rhino rush in 7th was never a thing - I played marines all through 7th. Never once did I think - man - I'd rather take a rhino over a drop pod. EVER. Never once did I consider putting tacs in a drop pod ether except as bare minimum tax with a 2x flamer or melta or gravcannon. I always took scouts in a LSS over them because they were clearly better. Scouts in LSS compared favorably to a tac squad with a free razor lol.
Plus - warhammer world tornaments are a joke. Bunch of fluff players that got beat by a power gamer.
Martel732 wrote: Stormbolters. They get 3 per 5 chicks. That's amazingly efficient.
Slightly less efficient in that they pay Deathwatch rather than regular marine prices for their SB's (4 points vs 2, unless I've missed something in a FAQ) but a 40% increase in price for a 100% increase in firepower is pretty solid though.
Does kind of make your price point complaint interesting that you're factoring in the sisters as having no gear (9ppm) when they're getting shot, but you're factoring them as having 3 storm bolters per 5 when they're shooting. Raises the average price of a sister in the squad to 11.4.
Yep you did miss it in CA - Sisters now pay 2pts for Stormbolters.
Sisters get -1 in WS, S and T, far less heavy weapon selections, no ATSKNF, currently don't have Regimental tactics or loads of Stratagems and only "may" get them in 6-8 months time "Emperor Willing".
They have a 6++ Save (occasionally useful), a ultra crap Deny the Witch and a couple of Acts of Faith which are seldom used on Battle Sisters.
If you make Marines 10pts then make Sisters 7-8pts max.
On the problem - no easy answer - GW always wanted to sell lots of SM so they were relatively weak compared to fluff, they also had the snowflake chapter marines who have to be a bit better than their vanilla equivalents to justify their own existence.
I vote - just give battle sisters the exact same stats as space marines for the exact same points. Removing the stats that don't really matter str, T, Leadship reroll to make yourself cheaper will always be better than paying for stats that matter...3+ save number of shots per point.
Bharring wrote: Xeno/Martel - the point is that, if we want to constructively discuss balance, we need to understand how they have performed.
Claims like they've always been avoided like the plague make it a lot harder to actually discuss balance. And how can saying "They have not always been trash that was avoided" somehow mean I'm justifying the *current* points?
And do you really still think lists from before the 7e SM codex were using Gladius? And that lists with 6 Tac squads beyond min in that era were "avoiding PA like the plague"?
Do you also think Gladius was involved in the Rhino Rush tactics that preceeded 7th Ed?
Do we really need another 10 pages of denial and revisionism?
Rhino rush in 7th was never a thing - I played marines all through 7th. Never once did I think - man - I'd rather take a rhino over a drop pod. EVER. Never once did I consider putting tacs in a drop pod ether except as bare minimum tax with a 2x flamer or melta or gravcannon. I always took scouts in a LSS over them because they were clearly better. Scouts in LSS compared favorably to a tac squad with a free razor lol.
Plus - warhammer world tornaments are a joke. Bunch of fluff players that got beat by a power gamer.
the_scotsman wrote: a couple points of melee stats that aren't worth much[/quoteYeah, that'd be a steal, obviously not on the assault marine but on the other two all day every day.
It's kind of a package deal though - part of the trade off for being cheaper is that all of your units would be worse in that category, not just the ones that get to ignore the penalty for the most part.
How does T not matter - just played 3 games of 40k in 40 mins last night and T was important for us all.
Consequently I think Str does matter as well and WS.
re which edition was Rhino Rush - just saying he was saying pre 7th - likely he will come back on specifics.
Same cost/stats for Sisters as marines - well it would be a shame - I think it would be better to get rid of all the snowflake marines variants and give them to basic Marines as an option.
So Combine the Tac Marines, Grey Hunters etc as one "marine" option which would allow more variety for Chapters. Same with Terminators, combine the two squads so you can have squads of shooty and fighty Marines.
Galef wrote: If we have to change the points rather than change the stats, then I'd say 11ppm for Tac Marines and CSMs with just bolters
I still think they should be elevated in durability instead, but if that is too much to ask, then 11ppm it is.
What do you have in mind in terms of increasing their durability?
I already mentioned it: +1 Wound for all Marines/ CSMs. If things like Bikes have 3 wounds and Jump pack Marines have 2wounds each, that takes more pressure off the Troops, which by having 2 wounds each, now you kinda have to use multi-damage weapons on them. 3 wounds also makes Terminators closer to viable.
Yes, I know the counter argument is that "players will just use more multi-damage weapons", but think that through. Most armies CANNOT take that much multi-damage weaponry, and MOST multi-damage weapons do more than 2 wounds. If your opponent is having to use a Lascannon to take out a 13ppm Marine, who is the real winner there?
Yes, there are units and armies that can take a ton of 2-3 damage weapons, but those weapons are still killing Marines right now anyway.
Having +1W across the board for non-vehicle/non-character Marines/CSMs is a simple and quite frankly elegant solution for help not only Tac Marines, but also Jump packs and Terminators be more efficient, particularly against small arms fire, which is the point
.
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My buddy already has his 13 autocannon list ready for dw. Lascannons are old news thanks to the last three codices.
That's fine. That list will still kill as many Marines as they currently are. I am not seeing your point. An Autocannon still gives a Marine a 4+ armour (or 3+ in cover)
If that save is failed, it should kill the Marine outright.
Having an additional wound would make Marines twice as durable against the lasgun fire accompanying those Autocannons. Which, again, should be the point.
Heavier weapons should still be able to kill Marines, but small arms fire should not. And if you also bump Bikes and Terminators up to 3 wounds each, those Autocannons won't be as effective against those units. Everything gets improved effectiveness in one go with out rejigging points cost to making those units immune to X
First off, assuming cover is a huge mistake, but almost everyone I know puts all the objectives they can out in the open vs marines. Also, armies like Drukhari ignore it just cuz.
I didn't say S3. I said S5. And yes, DA are in deep crap in 8th b/c of their price point. I wasn't talking about DA. YOU brought them up. I'm talking about the cheap, throwaway troops that are 7 pts or less, or those rocking power armor for 9 pts.
Splinter:
0.17 marines per hit, or 2.16 points
0.25 firewarroris per hit, or 1.75 points
cover is a bad assumption against drukhari, but with it,
0.08 marines per hit, 1.08 points
0.16 firewarriors per hit, or 1.12 points.
Marines have a marginal advantage in cover, but this is completey neglecting the fact the firewarriors have almost double the shots!
Now for the really bad stuff
Disintegrators:
0.56 marines per hit, or 7.2 points
0.66 firewarrior per hit, or 4.6 points.
In cover:
0.44 marines per hit, or 5.7 points
0.55 firewarriors, or 3.9 points.
The price point of the model always dominates. Quit acting like it doesn't. DA are bad because they are costed like marines. But that doesn't make marines good, it just makes DA really bad.
What do you want to compare them to? A guardsman vs a marine has a 6% chance of killing a marine vs a 30% chance of a marine killing a guardsman (or to put it another way outside of rapid fire range you need 18 guardsmen to shoot their lasguns to kill a marine, or 3.4 marines to fire their bolters to kill a guardsman. Note give marines a -1AP and it changes to 2.7 marines needed).
Galef wrote: If we have to change the points rather than change the stats, then I'd say 11ppm for Tac Marines and CSMs with just bolters
I still think they should be elevated in durability instead, but if that is too much to ask, then 11ppm it is.
What do you have in mind in terms of increasing their durability?
I already mentioned it: +1 Wound for all Marines/ CSMs. If things like Bikes have 3 wounds and Jump pack Marines have 2wounds each, that takes more pressure off the Troops, which by having 2 wounds each, now you kinda have to use multi-damage weapons on them. 3 wounds also makes Terminators closer to viable.
Yes, I know the counter argument is that "players will just use more multi-damage weapons", but think that through. Most armies CANNOT take that much multi-damage weaponry, and MOST multi-damage weapons do more than 2 wounds. If your opponent is having to use a Lascannon to take out a 13ppm Marine, who is the real winner there?
Yes, there are units and armies that can take a ton of 2-3 damage weapons, but those weapons are still killing Marines right now anyway.
Having +1W across the board for non-vehicle/non-character Marines/CSMs is a simple and quite frankly elegant solution for help not only Tac Marines, but also Jump packs and Terminators be more efficient, particularly against small arms fire, which is the point
.
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My buddy already has his 13 autocannon list ready for dw. Lascannons are old news thanks to the last three codices.
That's fine. That list will still kill as many Marines as they currently are. I am not seeing your point. An Autocannon still gives a Marine a 4+ armour (or 3+ in cover)
If that save is failed, it should kill the Marine outright.
Having an additional wound would make Marines twice as durable against the lasgun fire accompanying those Autocannons. Which, again, should be the point.
Heavier weapons should still be able to kill Marines, but small arms fire should not. And if you also bump Bikes and Terminators up to 3 wounds each, those Autocannons won't be as effective against those units. Everything gets improved effectiveness in one go with out rejigging points cost to making those units immune to X
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It's an anti-primaris ploy that also works over Durkhari and Tau and Necrons pretty well. The +1 W thing is a good idea, actually.
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The_Real_Chris wrote: What do you want to compare them to? A guardsman vs a marine has a 6% chance of killing a marine vs a 30% chance of a marine killing a guardsman (or to put it another way outside of rapid fire range you need 18 guardsmen to shoot their lasguns to kill a marine, or 3.4 marines to fire their bolters to kill a guardsman. Note give marines a -1AP and it changes to 2.7 marines needed).
Guardsmen are an unfair bar because they are insanely good at 4ppm. I'm looking at the 7-9 ppm bracket.
Mr Morden wrote: How does T not matter - just played 3 games of 40k in 40 mins last night and T was important for us all.
Consequently I think Str does matter as well and WS.
re which edition was Rhino Rush - just saying he was saying pre 7th - likely he will come back on specifics.
Same cost/stats for Sisters as marines - well it would be a shame - I think it would be better to get rid of all the snowflake marines variants and give them to basic Marines as an option.
So Combine the Tac Marines, Grey Hunters etc as one "marine" option which would allow more variety for Chapters. Same with Terminators, combine the two squads so you can have squads of shooty and fighty Marines.
Str and WS are meaningless on 1 attack models with 0 CC weapons - it could matter for the sargent but even then you are wasting points giving him anything but a gun. You could give them str 1 and it wouldn't make a difference. T does increase durability - but it's not enough Vs str 5 (a very common anti infantry str) it doesn't even make a difference. The difference between wounding on 2's and 3's is also minimal both result in catastrophic damage for the sqaud or if you get to take your 2+ saves in cover vs trash weapons - again - it doesn't make much a difference. Not to justfiy a 4 point increase. It barely justifies a 1 point increase.
This doesn't even take into account weapons like plasma which treat a sister and a marine exactly the same. Increased point lost per wound risk without any return. (ofc this is the biggest problem) Paying for stats you don't get any benefit from.
The difference between space marines and sisters needs to be worked out with sisters having some special rule to make up for their similar cost to a 10 point marine...like holy bolts or something or some useful act of faith they can use because they are moderately less durable. Sisters existing though should not prevent marines being properly priced against other infantry like kabalites(doesn't care about t3/4)/firewarriors(doesn't care about t3/4)/IS(doesn't care about anything - cost 4 points - gets around str 3 problems by shooting at t5 targets).
If you think S and WS aren't relevant and T doesn't mean much for your purposes, have you considered taking a unit that doesn't pay for those? Like Sisters or Necrons, depending on what you're looking for?
I'd agree that S4 WS4 vs 3 is probably not worth a full point on it's own, but if you want to take Marines, it should be because you want what Marines do. Which is, in part, being passable at both CC and shooting.
Now it's quite possible that they overpay for that capability, and/or are otherwise overcosted (they do/are), but when trying to balance the Marine, we should consider their whole toolchest.
Marines with +1 W do exist. They're called Primaris. They also have all the other things Marines wanted - all guys take a weapon, better boltguns, etc. The game put a much higher price point on them. It could be argued, but isn't this argument. I'd rather Primaris still had the 1 special/1heavy/1 sarge the way Tacs did, but that's just me wishlisting.
Sure, against S5 being T4 isn't any better than T3. But against S3 and S4, it's a big deal. And there's a lot more volume of S3/S4 than S5.
Sure, T4 isn't worth 4 pts on its own compared to sisters. I'm not sure many, if any, posters here are saying so.
The S and WS would be more relevant if I could get more than 10/35 marines into CC without being cut to bloody ribbons. And having more than one swing would be nice, too.
Martel732 wrote: We have even gotten to marines' terrible offense.
It takes 23-24 boltgun shots to cause 7 casualties to guardsmen, which is about where you can expect them to break due to battle shock.
That's 300 pts of marines outside double tap range to remove 40 pts. But tell me again how the boltgun is good against light infantry.
Even if we made them 11ppm, that's still 250 pts of marines to remove 40 pts of guardsmen.
How good are you expecting Marines to be when not even within the optimal range of their weapons?
Regardless, what would you suggest to improve the Boltgun?
Make marines cheaper. It's an indirect buff for the boltgun. My point is that for 13 ppm, they should be able to gun down 4 ppm models better than that. I shouldn't have to fire 8X point value at 4ppm models. Ever.
Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
This is my problem with your arguments, Martel. You argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, slipping in gak like that little "oh, armies like drukhari just ignore cover" and shifting things from 'number of models removed' to 'number of points removed'. Even when I agree with you, it's hard to have a discussion when any data you bring up is either twisted or hyperbolic.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
Everyone in my group is using it, because they can put other obsessions in the boat and get double tactics. Ignoring cover makes splinter mow throw 3+ armor save models, and everyone in my play group knows it.
Martel732 wrote: We have even gotten to marines' terrible offense.
It takes 23-24 boltgun shots to cause 7 casualties to guardsmen, which is about where you can expect them to break due to battle shock.
That's 300 pts of marines outside double tap range to remove 40 pts. But tell me again how the boltgun is good against light infantry.
Even if we made them 11ppm, that's still 250 pts of marines to remove 40 pts of guardsmen.
Miscostedness hits on both ends.
*All* rapid-fire weapons are horribly point inefficient outside of rapid fire range.
You sure about that? It looks more passable to me with 11 ppm marines than 13 ppm. Those marines still aren't that efficient even *in* rapid fire range. Of course, guardsmen are the worst targets ever, I know.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
This is my problem with your arguments, Martel. You argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, slipping in gak like that little "oh, armies like drukhari just ignore cover" and shifting things from 'number of models removed' to 'number of points removed'. Even when I agree with you, it's hard to have a discussion when any data you bring up is either twisted or hyperbolic.
Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
Everyone in my group is using it, because they can put other obsessions in the boat and get double tactics. Ignoring cover makes splinter mow throw 3+ armor save models, and everyone in my play group knows it.
no, they can't get two tactics on a single unit, if they're doing that, they're cheating. The Flayed Skull tactic clearly says "MODELS WITH THIS OBSESSION get these benefits when on board a transport that can fly".
The transport does not magically grant ignores cover and reroll hit rolls of one to the units embarked inside it.
I somewhat agree that space marines are overcosted, but not by more than a point. they are on the low end of what is worth 13 points and high end of 12. 11 would be pushing it, 10 would make them probably the best deal in the game.
now I could get behind giving them an extra wound to show just how tough they are supposed to be, but that extra wound would need a cost to be balanced. obviously that should not double their cost and as I think the attacks, and rest of the stat block should stay the same a 2w tactical marine would IMHO be worth around 1 more point than now at 14-15 ppm would need to play it out to see how they are doing. I'd like to see them get +1 attack too which would probably bring them into solid 15 ppm territory but make them more the dangerous terrible warriors they are supposed to be. primaris then also get another wound and attack at the same points changes.
note I am comparing to a lot of other troops here and some of the considered great troops are a bit too good for the points. the necron warrior as an example should be a 14 point model that costs 12 points for some reason. a guardsman should cost 5 points per model but is only 4 because... reasons.
on the other side of the coin you have dire avengers that cost 12 points and return probably 10-11 points worth of performance. orks that are barely worth 6 points, but are there (would be worth it if the ignored wounds on a 6 instead of 6+ armor). strike teams are probably the most appropriately costed imo at 7 ppm.
Xenomancers wrote: Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
Because no one is allowed to play a theme for fun. It's mathhammer or GTFO.
G00fySmiley wrote: I somewhat agree that space marines are overcosted, but not by more than a point. they are on the low end of what is worth 13 points and high end of 12. 11 would be pushing it, 10 would make them probably the best deal in the game.
now I could get behind giving them an extra wound to show just how tough they are supposed to be, but that extra wound would need a cost to be balanced. obviously that should not double their cost and as I think the attacks, and rest of the stat block should stay the same a 2w tactical marine would IMHO be worth around 1 more point than now at 14-15 ppm would need to play it out to see how they are doing. I'd like to see them get +1 attack too which would probably bring them into solid 15 ppm territory but make them more the dangerous terrible warriors they are supposed to be. primaris then also get another wound and attack at the same points changes.
note I am comparing to a lot of other troops here and some of the considered great troops are a bit too good for the points. the necron warrior as an example should be a 14 point model that costs 12 points for some reason. a guardsman should cost 5 points per model but is only 4 because... reasons.
on the other side of the coin you have dire avengers that cost 12 points and return probably 10-11 points worth of performance. orks that are barely worth 6 points, but are there (would be worth it if the ignored wounds on a 6 instead of 6+ armor). strike teams are probably the most appropriately costed imo at 7 ppm.
We have the confounding problem that all other marine roles are based on the tac marine. Tac marines suck in CC, so assault marines do too. Devs get no special shooting abilities over a tac over than a signum and cherub. But the fundamental guy is the same. So the 13 ppm miscosting just gets propagated through the whole codex.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
This is my problem with your arguments, Martel. You argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, slipping in gak like that little "oh, armies like drukhari just ignore cover" and shifting things from 'number of models removed' to 'number of points removed'. Even when I agree with you, it's hard to have a discussion when any data you bring up is either twisted or hyperbolic.
Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
You can do that, but in my experience playing with and talking to players on the top level competitive circuit, they're much more likely to take their kabalites as Poison Tongue and Obsidian Rose and all their vehicles/transports as Black Heart so that their opponent can't alpha strike their whole BH detachment off the board and to get the vehicles a 6++.
FS is the Mordia/Imp Fist/Vostroya of Kabals. Decent, and you gain some benefits for using it, but it is suboptimal, if only slightly. Claiming that Drukhari ignore cover is exactly identical to claiming that Marines or Chaos Marines ignore cover, and leaving out that only imp fists/iron warriors get to do that - fundamentally dishonest.
I just assumed everyone was doing it because its so strong. The way the game plays now, I think ignore cover is stronger than 6+++. This set of players agrees, evidently.
Again, models removed is meaningless without a cost. If a marine cost the same a sister or a fire warrior, they'd be great! Not looking at points removed per shot is the twisted way to look at things.
Xenomancers wrote: Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
Because no one is allowed to play a theme for fun. It's mathhammer or GTFO.
If you care about winning ya. I don't really think if your running demi company style list you should expect to do well vs an optimized list.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
Everyone in my group is using it, because they can put other obsessions in the boat and get double tactics. Ignoring cover makes splinter mow throw 3+ armor save models, and everyone in my play group knows it.
no, they can't get two tactics on a single unit, if they're doing that, they're cheating. The Flayed Skull tactic clearly says "MODELS WITH THIS OBSESSION get these benefits when on board a transport that can fly".
The transport does not magically grant ignores cover and reroll hit rolls of one to the units embarked inside it.
I've quit asking Xenos how they're doing what they're doing. I just assume GW allows it.
G00fySmiley wrote: I somewhat agree that space marines are overcosted, but not by more than a point. they are on the low end of what is worth 13 points and high end of 12. 11 would be pushing it, 10 would make them probably the best deal in the game.
now I could get behind giving them an extra wound to show just how tough they are supposed to be, but that extra wound would need a cost to be balanced. obviously that should not double their cost and as I think the attacks, and rest of the stat block should stay the same a 2w tactical marine would IMHO be worth around 1 more point than now at 14-15 ppm would need to play it out to see how they are doing. I'd like to see them get +1 attack too which would probably bring them into solid 15 ppm territory but make them more the dangerous terrible warriors they are supposed to be. primaris then also get another wound and attack at the same points changes.
note I am comparing to a lot of other troops here and some of the considered great troops are a bit too good for the points. the necron warrior as an example should be a 14 point model that costs 12 points for some reason. a guardsman should cost 5 points per model but is only 4 because... reasons.
on the other side of the coin you have dire avengers that cost 12 points and return probably 10-11 points worth of performance. orks that are barely worth 6 points, but are there (would be worth it if the ignored wounds on a 6 instead of 6+ armor). strike teams are probably the most appropriately costed imo at 7 ppm.
We have the confounding problem that all other marine roles are based on the tac marine. Tac marines suck in CC, so assault marines do too. Devs get no special shooting abilities over a tac over than a signum and cherub. But the fundamental guy is the same. So the 13 ppm miscosting just gets propagated through the whole codex.
I can agree there, many units in the book are just not worth their cost. and when their platform is around 1 point too high you are not starting at a great spot. honestly I think a lot of the marine profile is designed around ease of use rather than matching any fluff or making them a particularly interesting army to play. I would love to see some starter game stats that look like regular stats and then some special rules to add flavor. as an example a devastator well trained in marksmanship beyond even a normal astartes. add 6" to the range of all heavy weapons to reflect that. assault marines automatically reroll 1s to hit in melee when they charge. things that are not game breaking but make the units feel special and to reflect their special training in their field.
Martel732 wrote: I just assumed everyone was doing it because its so strong. The way the game plays now, I think ignore cover is stronger than 6+++. This set of players agrees, evidently.
Again, models removed is meaningless without a cost. If a marine cost the same a sister or a fire warrior, they'd be great! Not looking at points removed per shot is the twisted way to look at things.
Sure, it's ridiculously strong if you decide to cheat. But if you don't, and you're trying to create a competitive drukhari list, you have much more of a choice, and that choice includes things like "rapid fire at 15" and "reroll 1s to wound with all poison weapons whether you're in or out of a transport." Even if they're relatively balanced against one another, which they probably are - that still only means 1/4 of Dark Eldar armies are going to be ignoring cover.
...Except when you're discussing how much things should cost. Current cost is completely irrelevant when we've already decided that one unit costs too much and the other about enough. The discussion then becomes "how much should a marine cost over a SoB", and comparing everything by points costs is fundamentally dishonest.
"Marines should be 10ppm instead of 13ppm, let me justify that by calculate how many points of marines are killed by various weapons at 13ppm".
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
Everyone in my group is using it, because they can put other obsessions in the boat and get double tactics. Ignoring cover makes splinter mow throw 3+ armor save models, and everyone in my play group knows it.
no, they can't get two tactics on a single unit, if they're doing that, they're cheating. The Flayed Skull tactic clearly says "MODELS WITH THIS OBSESSION get these benefits when on board a transport that can fly".
The transport does not magically grant ignores cover and reroll hit rolls of one to the units embarked inside it.
I've quit asking Xenos how they're doing what they're doing. I just assume GW allows it.
So you're essentially saying that you believe things are OP because you allow your opponents to cheat?
Even without that little trick, I think Drukhari are pretty OP. The 12 disintegrators last game didn't care if I was in cover with or without that rule.
I think if you recalculate at 11 ppm, marines fare significantly better. I was using 13 ppm to show how screwed they are at current prices.
A percentage increase is casualties doesn't much without point values attached to them, theoretical or otherwise.
Martel732 wrote: Even without that little trick, I think Drukhari are pretty OP. The 12 disintegrators last game didn't care if I was in cover with or without that rule.
I think if you recalculate at 11 ppm, marines fare significantly better. I was using 13 ppm to show how screwed they are at current prices.
A percentage increase is casualties doesn't much without point values attached to them, theoretical or otherwise.
DE are definitely great, and will (if you don't count them as having done so already) change the meta significantly to favor lower-strength anti tank weaponry that doesn't care for invuln saves. Wych cults are also going to significantly prey on the gunline meta armies, which is not a bad thing.
From what we've seen so far, they've impacted the tournament scene about as hard as nids did, and it'll be interesting to see how things pan out after people start building to counter them. Don't see a lot of Hydras in competitive IG lists, but they're great vs drukhari. Similarly their vehicles lose their - to hits and their invulns when they're in close combat, so vs kabal at least fast assault does good work against them.
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Martel732 wrote: Even without that little trick, I think Drukhari are pretty OP. The 12 disintegrators last game didn't care if I was in cover with or without that rule.
I think if you recalculate at 11 ppm, marines fare significantly better. I was using 13 ppm to show how screwed they are at current prices.
A percentage increase is casualties doesn't much without point values attached to them, theoretical or otherwise.
It does when you have one point value that you think is relatively balanced - it's pretty easy to correlate that increase in durability (almost entirely the substantive diffeerence between the two units) to a desired increase in points.
Tau and Necrons also favor that weaponry. I've considered getting a second stalker, but it's $50, and I'm not sure how much it's really going to help... marines.
" kabal at least fast assault does good work against them. "
You would think that, but I run out of marines every time. Also, you can't shoot the passengers if you have to melee the vehicle. Drukhari would be more fair if we could declare charges on the passengers of open topped vehicles. They are too OPatm.
Martel732 wrote: Tau and Necrons also favor that weaponry. I've considered getting a second stalker, but it's $50, and I'm not sure how much it's really going to help... marines.
Looks about equivalent to a hydra vs dark eldar at least. If your meta is heavy on the flying vehicles, definitely looks like something you'd want to consider. But given that your meta seems to hard-shift at lightspeed to whatever is stomping your poor, helpless blood angels on this particular week or month, it may not be worth buying something just to get the rules. It is worth noting that disintegrators have pretty poor returns against T7 3+, and if your opponents are spamming I'm assuming 3 Ravagers and 3 Raiders to make 12 disintegrators, i.e. 700 points right there, then a significant amount of armor would do pretty well against that.
Maybe. If I'm going armor, that means primaris is basically out.
Stalkers do pretty well against all kinds of Xeno crap actually ,but I'm not sure they can make up for the marineness of marines.
GW's ultimate goal I realize is to make me soup, but I'm not sure I'm willing to commit the cash.
And no one is gaming vs BA at this point. BA are a joke again. BA were fearsome-ish for a few months, and then got passed by. The Drukhari surge is because of fething Nids. The same Nids who got my deep strikes nerfed.
Martel732 wrote: Tau and Necrons also favor that weaponry. I've considered getting a second stalker, but it's $50, and I'm not sure how much it's really going to help... marines.
" kabal at least fast assault does good work against them. "
You would think that, but I run out of marines every time. Also, you can't shoot the passengers if you have to melee the vehicle. Drukhari would be more fair if we could declare charges on the passengers of open topped vehicles. They are too OPatm.
If you're fighting Venoms at least, you only need to surround the base in order to one-shot the passengers inside along with the vehicle. You don't have to charge one or the other if you can instantly pop the passengers with the transport. Units in raiders definitely take more killing, but Raiders are significantly easier to shoot with no -1 to hit.
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Martel732 wrote: Maybe. If I'm going armor, that means primaris is basically out.
Stalkers do pretty well against all kinds of Xeno crap actually ,but I'm not sure they can make up for the marineness of marines.
GW's ultimate goal I realize is to make me soup, but I'm not sure I'm willing to commit the cash.
And no one is gaming vs BA at this point. BA are a joke again. BA were fearsome-ish for a few months, and then got passed by. The Drukhari surge is because of fething Nids. The same Nids who got my deep strikes nerfed.
But martel, think of how sad you'd be if you couldn't do your blood angels eeyore impression on every thread that even mentions marines in passing day after day - what would you do?
It still takes a crazy amount of marine shooting to down a raider with lascannon/missile launchers. It's really cost-prohibitive given what raiders cost.
They can always pop the -1 to hit stratagem, too. And turn off my stratagems. I'm already sick of them and they just came out.
"But martel, think of how sad you'd be if you couldn't do your blood angels eeyore impression on every thread that even mentions marines in passing day after day - what would you do? "
Actually, I'd much rather have an OP codex again for once. It's been a long time. Arguably 5th, but really 3rd.
Martel732 wrote: We have even gotten to marines' terrible offense.
It takes 23-24 boltgun shots to cause 7 casualties to guardsmen, which is about where you can expect them to break due to battle shock.
That's 300 pts of marines outside double tap range to remove 40 pts. But tell me again how the boltgun is good against light infantry.
Even if we made them 11ppm, that's still 250 pts of marines to remove 40 pts of guardsmen.
Well that isn't quite complete -
If you want to take out 7 guardsmen to get a squad of 10 (40 points) it takes indeed 23-24 bolter shots, so 12-24 marines or 156-312 points.
To take out 40 points of Marines (roughly 3 guys) you need 55 lasgun shots, so 28-55 guys or 112-220 points. Nerfing guard to 5 points makes that 140-275 points. Of course that isn't quite true, guard always have officers and orders so just looking at rapid fire range and doubling the lasgun shot, it now casts roughly 6 points per guardsman for 4 lasgun shots so now 14 guys or 84 points...
Buffing all astartes bolters to be -1AP changes things a bit - it now takes 19 bolter shots or 10 (130 points) to 19 (247) marines and makes them far more comparable to guard before orders and buffs.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
This is my problem with your arguments, Martel. You argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, slipping in gak like that little "oh, armies like drukhari just ignore cover" and shifting things from 'number of models removed' to 'number of points removed'. Even when I agree with you, it's hard to have a discussion when any data you bring up is either twisted or hyperbolic.
Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
You can do that, but in my experience playing with and talking to players on the top level competitive circuit, they're much more likely to take their kabalites as Poison Tongue and Obsidian Rose and all their vehicles/transports as Black Heart so that their opponent can't alpha strike their whole BH detachment off the board and to get the vehicles a 6++.
FS is the Mordia/Imp Fist/Vostroya of Kabals. Decent, and you gain some benefits for using it, but it is suboptimal, if only slightly. Claiming that Drukhari ignore cover is exactly identical to claiming that Marines or Chaos Marines ignore cover, and leaving out that only imp fists/iron warriors get to do that - fundamentally dishonest.
Its's not fundamentally dishonest because it's also reroll 1's from inside the transport. It's just flat out better than all the other traits. Ignore cover is essentially +1 AP - it only sucks for IF because space marines suck at everything.
the_scotsman wrote: Drukhari ignore cover in exactly the same way Chaos Marines and Space Marines ignore cover. i.e, it's available on the kabal trait that nobody's going to be taking because they're all going to be going black heart for agents of vect.
This is my problem with your arguments, Martel. You argue in a fundamentally dishonest way, slipping in gak like that little "oh, armies like drukhari just ignore cover" and shifting things from 'number of models removed' to 'number of points removed'. Even when I agree with you, it's hard to have a discussion when any data you bring up is either twisted or hyperbolic.
Flayed skull is superior to black heart. Smart DE players just run their warriors as flayed skull and their ravagers as blackheart though.
You can do that, but in my experience playing with and talking to players on the top level competitive circuit, they're much more likely to take their kabalites as Poison Tongue and Obsidian Rose and all their vehicles/transports as Black Heart so that their opponent can't alpha strike their whole BH detachment off the board and to get the vehicles a 6++.
FS is the Mordia/Imp Fist/Vostroya of Kabals. Decent, and you gain some benefits for using it, but it is suboptimal, if only slightly. Claiming that Drukhari ignore cover is exactly identical to claiming that Marines or Chaos Marines ignore cover, and leaving out that only imp fists/iron warriors get to do that - fundamentally dishonest.
Its's not fundamentally dishonest because it's also reroll 1's from inside the transport. It's just flat out better than all the other traits. Ignore cover is essentially +1 AP - it only sucks for IF because space marines suck at everything.
it isn't. Flayed Skull is by no means bad, but it isn't the be-all-end-all people think it is the first time they look at drukhari.
Black Heart gets AOV. That makes it the very first kabal you *have* to take if you're looking from purely competitive terms. The trait could be literally anything and you'd have to take your first detachment - so it's a good thing that the trait is arguably the best for Ravagers, Raiders and Flyers. You can argue over ignores cover if you're not factoring in AoV, but as soon as you do (and you should) BH becomes mandatory.
So, you look at the other three if you're looking to run a second kabal detachment. Most competitive lists we are seeing at recent GTs aren't - because as soon as you take a second kabal, you have to give up either a wych detachment or a coven detachment in a 3-detachment limit.
PT gives you rerolls of wounds on all the same weapons that FS gives you rerolls of hits on. Given that you can get rerolls of hits from archon auras (at the point where you're at a second kabal, you have 3 mandatory archons, so you're going to have those auras) most people have been rating PT as slightly better for damage. Then you have Obrose, which gives you +6" range on evvvvvvvverything. 20-man blocks of warriors that drop into rapid fire range and fire and fade so they're 22" away from enemy models are pretty good. 24" range blasters are pretty good. For an army that loses half its shooting for the turn if anything charges their transport, rapid firing at 15" instead of 12" is huge - it means most enemies are making 9" charges instead of 6" charges if they walk at you.
Didn't you just get finished lambasting a dude in another thread for making a judgement on the Grey Knights codex without having experience playing them?
Flayed skull is fine - it provides a large number of benefits, and any given unit is probably going to make use out of one if not all of them. But taken as a whole package, it's totally outclassed by BH and slightly outclassed by PT and obrose with common meta army builds. If you somehow built a DE army where you didn't have 3-4 mandatory archons running around you had to figure out what to do with, sure, FS would probably be autoinclude, but you can't really do that.
13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Case in point: In the recent 300 page london GT list dump, players took 25 Black Heart detachments, 5 Obsidian Rose detachments, 1 Poison Tongue detachment and zero Flayed Skull detachments in their drukhari lists.
Martel732 wrote: Okay, so they're not even using the most brutal thing they can. Doesn't make me feel a lot better.
So if I told you, completely unsupported, that the reason there were zero Black Templars detachments taken in the tournament because all the marine players were just choosing not to bring "the most brutal thing they can" - how hard would you laugh at me?
At anything more than ten points I’m going to scoff. Compare them to scions and ask why space marines cost so much.
T 4 means nothing most of the time.
Saves are over priced the higher they get.
Bolters are literally worthless.
A space marine as a 10 point speed bump might be okay, and even then I’m sure people could argue that they’re overpriced for doing nothing but being ablative.
Tac marines are trash. Lower their price to 10, or even 9 points.
Vets need a price drop and bs2
Combi weapons should only be +1 in price compared to normal guns
the_scotsman wrote: Case in point: In the recent 300 page london GT list dump, players took 25 Black Heart detachments, 5 Obsidian Rose detachments, 1 Poison Tongue detachment and zero Flayed Skull detachments in their drukhari lists.
Wow...No one took the reoll 1's from inside the transports with ignore cover in an army that practically every unit rides in a transport...seem brilliant actually. It even gives you +3 movement with fly units. It is 3 traits for the price of 1 lol.
Trusting the top list at a tourny to have picked the right things isn't a guarentee, but trusting that at least one list out of the 300 pages Scotsman went through would have seen just how obviously OP that one trait is seems... not 100%, but extremely suggestive.
Like why take Tacs beyond the min when you can take Devs instead - perhaps there's more to the DE we haven't realized?
Agents of vect is really strong. In fact it's busted. I'm gonna assume they are only taking 1 kabal detachment and value it above flayed skull. In that case it is probably the right call. However - if you are running a double kabal like I do - you basically run the min blackheart and take your ravagers there because they benefit the most from the detachment (I take a flyer in there too)
For warriros in venoms and radiers though - 6+FNP is vastly outperformed by reroll 1's ignore cover and +3 move speed. (this is really the core of a DE army).
If you ignore the fact that the vast majority of basic weapons are eithe S3 or S4.
Yes, so your T4 means your being wounded on 5s by lasguns and 3s by pulse rifles.
Congratulations, most heavy rate of fire/weight of numbers weapons are scary to you.
Lasguns are a "weight of numbers" weapon. If marines were T3 they'd kill marines 50% faster. Bolters, 33% faster. Saying T4 means nothing most of the time is a non-starter.
Well, if you want to stay in your ride the whole game, you don't pay MEQ prices. You pick Scouts and Storm Guardians. But nobody stays in rides the whole game.
Wave serpent is pretty sexy, but a 5 DA tax makes it a lot less sexy, I'll admit.
Tau transports. LOL. But firewarriors are cheap enough to be throwaway fodder on foot. And they shoot much farther than DA, as well. Devilfish are more expensive than the unit they protect, and so are basically useless. Just take more bodies. You can never go wrong with that in 8th.
Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
While I think a lot of these changes are fine for the game as a whole, they all reduce the effectiveness of most marine units significantly.
In previous editions a 5 man tac squad with a special and Combi weapon in a rhino was at least a semi-effective unit. Bring able to shoot once or twice before the rhino got popped allowed the unit some durability and a reasonably effective damage output. When they did finally get out, they could shoot and charge, with bolters that did more damage to units with bad saves, and 5 more close combat attacks than they have now. The unit + rhino also cost significantly less.
Now the unit costs more, can't shoot out of the rhino, and is worse in both shooting and close combat. So they went from being a cheap, fairly effective unit, to an expensive bad one.
Additionally, the changes to vehicle durability make it so 2 melta guns by themselves are significantly less likely to destroy an enemy vehicle by themselves, making a unit that can only take 1 special + Combi much less worth taking as an anti vehicle unit. The added general uselessness of grav and flamers make plasma the only real choice of weapon, but again the main way to get into range is to take an overpriced vehicle and no one is particularly scared of two plasma guns for how much you are paying to get them there. Doubling up two Tacs for 1 transport helps this, but not by much. The buff to Combi weapons no longer being 1 shot per game is also nice, except you can't stay in the tank anymore, so you probably die after that first turn anyway.
The alternative to the rhino tac squad is the single heavy weapon
tac squad. This can sit on objectives and shoot at stuff. The issue here is that 1 las cannon is a lot less scary than it used to be only doing an average of 3.5 damage if it both hits and wounds, and the rest of the squad being utterly useless. Yes, they can hold objectives fairly well, but if that's all you are doing, you might as well bring intercessors, who are significantly better at staying alive in cover, and have better basic guns.
So to me the issue is that regardless of how much they cost, tac Marines just aren't good units for the current state of the game.
I think in order for them to be decent again, we'd some significant changes.
Some combination of the following would start to address the problems:
All power armor is +1 to save vs 1d weapons.
Terminator armor takes -1 damage to a min of 1.
All Marines gain +1 attack base
Chainswords are -1 AP Bolters are -1 AP Tac squads can take 2 special or heavy weapons per 5 models, plus a Combi.
Assault squads get +1 attack on the charge
Grav is d3 damage vs everything, and gets +1 to wound vs 3+ saves.
Flamers get 2d6 hits to a max of the number of models in the unit, and ignore cover.
OC Plasma always causes a single mortal wound on a natural roll of 1 despite rerolls or modifiers.
Rhinos have two fire points and get cheaper.
Drop pods get cheaper and can hold dreads again.
ATSKNF changes to also always allow all Marines to fall back from CC and still shoot at -1.
Ultramarines CT changes to let them shoot all their guns in close combat.
All vehicles get chapter tactics and ATSKNF.
Roboute's aura changes to only rerolls of 1s to hit and wound and is extended to 12".
The strats that require 3 units now only require 2.
SM get a strat to shoot a unit twice.
White scars CT changes to advance and charge (their strat changes to fall back and charge)
Salamanders CT changes to letting 1 weapon per unit fire twice per turn (like a free cherub).
Iron Hands get 6+ FNP, +1 to existing FNP rolls, and no penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons.
Ravenguard CT changes to always count as in cover if over 12" away. Their strat changes to let 1-3 units deploy exactly like scouts do currently.
Emperial fists CT gains +1 to armor saves when in cover (doesn't count as a cover save) and still ignore enemy cover.
Sternguard can use their ammo on storm bolters.
Bikes can get cover like infantry.
Land speeders can deepstrike and double up on their weapons again.
Land speeder storms get a scout deploy.
Chaplains aura changes to reroll all wounds in cc instead of hits.
Apothecaries return D3 wounds worth of healing to 1 unit per turn. This is healing to existing models if possible, but whole models if not.
Dreads have a 5+ invul save.
These would be Marines i would want to play. It's definitely possible some/many points costs would have to go up, but I think they would feel like Marines again so that would be fine. Obviously these things won't all happen, but it's the dream, and to me sort of shows just how bad Marines are now.
So, a Sister might die more readily to a bolter. A Tac might lose more points per death.
But there are only so many shots that will occur in a game. And so many wounds to apply them to. This is where the edge might go to Sisters.
It takes 6.8 bolter shots to kill a Sister and 9 for a Tac.
It takes 76% of the bolter shots to kill a Sister over a Tac, but that Sister is 69% of the cost. Read as more bolter shots required proportional to the cost differential.
A GEQ is 31% (kill) and 38% (cost) to a Tac.
Now what happens with S6 AP1?
3.6 - Sister
4.5 - Marine
Or 80% (keep in mind the 69% cost ratio). It takes more! Even the GEQ goes up to 48%.
(assuming my brain has functioned properly)
Now if we assume you'll get the following in a game:
100 bolter shots (if even)
24 AC shots
etc
You might be able to see how you just won't be able to put in enough shots to affect Sisters like you can affect Marines or GEQ for that matter.
It's important to bear in mind that these figures are WILDLY off. The marines don't have far to go, but I would start with 12 points. It also gets more complex when you start to consider weapons/upgrades.
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
The problem is that tac marines have lost more than they gained.
Split fire would be huge if they weren't paying silly costs for heavy weapons.
Also the aura re-rolls hobbles them into castleing in a corner and hoping they don't get tabled its a terrible army design to play.
While I think his suggestions would turn marines into the next OP army, and some of the suggestion are actually worse than the rules as they stand.
Insectum7 wrote: 13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Wait, what's wrong with giving marines +1 W? I think Primaris have the stats that all marines should have. And what does their relationship with "staple" units matter at all? If anything, marines look flabby next to other "staple" units.
And as for playing Primaris, well, they don't get the same gun options, or transports options so it's not the same.
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
The problem is that tac marines have lost more than they gained.
Split fire would be huge if they weren't paying silly costs for heavy weapons.
Also the aura re-rolls hobbles them into castleing in a corner and hoping they don't get tabled its a terrible army design to play.
While I think his suggestions would turn marines into the next OP army, and some of the suggestion are actually worse than the rules as they stand.
Captains have a move characteristic. They shouldn't be just standing in a corner.
Insectum7 wrote: 13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Wait, what's wrong with giving marines +1 W? I think Primaris have the stats that all marines should have. And what does their relationship with "staple" units matter at all? If anything, marines look flabby next to other "staple" units.
And as for playing Primaris, well, they don't get the same gun options, or transports options so it's not the same.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Martel732 wrote: Captains and lts are just too costly, along with every other entry.
If a captain is only providing buffs and not making "use" of it's wounds, attacks, or BS then maybe. And it depends what he buffs.
4 LCdevs - 2.7 hits goes to 3.1 (ignoring cherub, etc). That's like adding 24 points to that unit's value.
10 Tacs w/ 2 Plasma? 6.7 hits goes to 7.7 and adds 23 points of value. Double that in rapid fire. And add on that plasma wielders will die less.
If a Captain is buffing one unit and not doing anything else - he's not worth it. Two units might break even (or better) based on various circumstances.
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
The problem is that tac marines have lost more than they gained.
Split fire would be huge if they weren't paying silly costs for heavy weapons.
Also the aura re-rolls hobbles them into castleing in a corner and hoping they don't get tabled its a terrible army design to play.
While I think his suggestions would turn marines into the next OP army, and some of the suggestion are actually worse than the rules as they stand.
Captains have a move characteristic. They shouldn't be just standing in a corner.
Insectum7 wrote: 13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Wait, what's wrong with giving marines +1 W? I think Primaris have the stats that all marines should have. And what does their relationship with "staple" units matter at all? If anything, marines look flabby next to other "staple" units.
And as for playing Primaris, well, they don't get the same gun options, or transports options so it's not the same.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Play primaris then.
That's a pretty good point, knights have 4x as many wounds. Maybe they should have 6 again
With all the inflated amount of damage/shots/mortal wounds even at 24 wounds knights still CAN go down in a single turn
They could easily move to 11 and still be considered "just mediocre troops." Atsknf is worthless, they don't have the bodies to cover much table space, their guns suck, their melee output REALLY sucks, and most of their special options are overcosted when put on such fragile bodies in tiny squads.
It would take a LOT of pushing to actually have them cross into overpowered territory.
Unfortunately this will never be fixed, as there are a TON of people who hate marines, hate marine players, hate marine lore, hate marine models, hate any kind of marine update...and they are extremely vocal about it. You know the type. The ones that say you aren't allowed to suggest marines aren't the best ever because they can have imperium allies, and used to have free transports, and a hundred other illogical arguments.
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
The problem is that tac marines have lost more than they gained.
Split fire would be huge if they weren't paying silly costs for heavy weapons.
Also the aura re-rolls hobbles them into castleing in a corner and hoping they don't get tabled its a terrible army design to play.
While I think his suggestions would turn marines into the next OP army, and some of the suggestion are actually worse than the rules as they stand.
Captains have a move characteristic. They shouldn't be just standing in a corner.
Insectum7 wrote: 13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Wait, what's wrong with giving marines +1 W? I think Primaris have the stats that all marines should have. And what does their relationship with "staple" units matter at all? If anything, marines look flabby next to other "staple" units.
And as for playing Primaris, well, they don't get the same gun options, or transports options so it's not the same.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Play primaris then.
That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that anything with a heavy weapon just took a -1 to hit and just for the double screw you now have a miss you can't re-roll
Also even say you manage to build and army which has no heavy weapons in it and that moving isn't an issue. If you need to hold and objective on multiple locations that are more than 12 inch apart well that's atleast one unit who just became combat ineffective, or atleast pretty ignorable as their damage output just dropped like a stone.
Marines pay 25points for a lascannon at BS3+
Guard pay 20 points at BS4+
Thats 20% less or a 25% premium for an additional 17% chance to hit? Please tell what I'm missing here as that doesn't work
My main issue is GW have costed most of the units as if they are always under full buffs and static, but playing that way doesn't win games unless you can table, and thats in 3 turns competitive, marines don't do enough damage to table armies in 3 turns.
(I don't want them to be able to table I just wish I could actually play them as anything but a giant blob that looses if it moves.)
There's a world of difference between saying "marines aren't the best ever" and "marines have never been OP". The references to past setups is more about refuting the extreme claim that Marines have never been good / Marines have always been terrible.
Bharring wrote: There's a world of difference between saying "marines aren't the best ever" and "marines have never been OP". The references to past setups is more about refuting the extreme claim that Marines have never been good / Marines have always been terrible.
The actual marines themselves? Like the tacs, asm, and devs? Yeah those have been pretty trashy for a long time now. The marine army has been pretty stout at times, but it wasn't the battle brothers towing that cable.
Daedalus81 wrote: You might be able to see how you just won't be able to put in enough shots to affect Sisters like you can affect Marines or GEQ for that matter.
Against bolters - the Iron Hands chapter tactic will put the marines ahead of the sisters. Standing in cover will put them ahead of the guard.
So do both, less models mean it's easier to find cover. It's the big guns that favour the weaker units, not the small ones (aside from poison).
jcd386 wrote: Even with a points reduction, 8th edition changes have crippled the classic marine play style without giving it anything (or not much) new to make up for it.
These changes include:
1. Rhinos no longer have fire points
2. Units no longer get +1 attack on the charge
3. AP changes modifying saves (this hurts good saves way more than bad ones)
4. Close combat locking up vehicles
5. ATSKNF changes
6. The new S and T to wound tables.
7. Bolters having no AP 8. Vehicles getting lots of wounds.
9. Changes to vehicle cover rules
They gained split fire, which is huge for Tacs.
SM in general gained excellent reroll opportunities. Lieutenants being a specific addition to supprt that.
The problem is that tac marines have lost more than they gained.
Split fire would be huge if they weren't paying silly costs for heavy weapons.
Also the aura re-rolls hobbles them into castleing in a corner and hoping they don't get tabled its a terrible army design to play.
While I think his suggestions would turn marines into the next OP army, and some of the suggestion are actually worse than the rules as they stand.
Captains have a move characteristic. They shouldn't be just standing in a corner.
Insectum7 wrote: 13 is fine, they could be 12. They should not have two wounds even at a points increase. That would skew their relationship to too many other staple units, like Aspect Warriors, Genestealers, etc. If you wan't uber marines, play primaris. That's what they're for.
Wait, what's wrong with giving marines +1 W? I think Primaris have the stats that all marines should have. And what does their relationship with "staple" units matter at all? If anything, marines look flabby next to other "staple" units.
And as for playing Primaris, well, they don't get the same gun options, or transports options so it's not the same.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Play primaris then.
That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that anything with a heavy weapon just took a -1 to hit and just for the double screw you now have a miss you can't re-roll
Also even say you manage to build and army which has no heavy weapons in it and that moving isn't an issue. If you need to hold and objective on multiple locations that are more than 12 inch apart well that's atleast one unit who just became combat ineffective, or atleast pretty ignorable as their damage output just dropped like a stone.
Marines pay 25points for a lascannon at BS3+
Guard pay 20 points at BS4+
Thats 20% less or a 25% premium for an additional 17% chance to hit? Please tell what I'm missing here as that doesn't work
A: Don't move with the heavy as the rest of the squad moves. That's usually easy enough.
B: you can get multiple Captains, or use a Dreadnought+Wisdom to get more rerolls if you need. I find that a single Captain + Lt. Can cover enough area though. If not everybody, enough to get by. Oftentimes objective grabbers aren't requiring increased damage output.
C: 17% and 20% are close enough for me. But it also takes a lot less effort to kill Guardsmen than Marines, so their Lascannon is likely to be around for less time. Guard don't have the same reroll abilities, also they're more hurt by -1s to hit.
If not for Primaris junk they'd still be the one of the hardest to kill ->TROOP<- units in the game (I mean Crons can ignore being killed a lot of times and Mary Sue Gold and Mary Sue Silver Marines got their shenanigans but whatever). 14 is more then fair.
Primark G wrote: If the basic Marine was changed to 10 points a week later the same people would complain just as much as now.
How many people were complaining about 10pt marines 30k vs 40k?
people have been playing that for YEARS and never even once have i seen anyone complain about 10pt marines, sure they lack ATSKNF, but so do the current ones (i.e immunity to losing models to a failed morale test)
Fafnir wrote: I'm not a fan of the scale creep, regardless of how fairly pointed you'd want tac marines to be. If anything, everything else needs to come up.
That, and this Primaris/non-primaris distinction crap needs to get tossed out, and just be run with a standard 2W statline.
It's easier to fix one faction than suckify everyone else.
Honestly the sad part is that if people want cheaper marines in lists, they just use scouts. Same statline, slightly worse save. Why pay a tax for an extra save that's going to be ignored by certain kinds of weapons anyway? People save the points, use scouts as screen units, and ignore Tactical Marines entirely.
I definitely think the problem is not a points problem, but a problem with the system of AP. Rending weapons are given to too many things, and there's no distinction between a Land Raider and a Guardsman when a Lascannon fires at them.
I'm not a fan of making 40k any more complicated than it is anyway, but I do really miss the old AP and cover mechanics. I don't miss the old vehicle rules, but something's gotta budge if Tactical Marines will ever come back to the fore.
Or, this could be a grand plan by GW to phase out the Tactical and push people to get more Primaris Marines for when they eventually eschew tacticals completely.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Play primaris then.
Because it'll make them more fun and elite? Also, 30 years of consistency went down the drain with 2W terminators. And then there's 2W stealthsuits, 3W crisis suits and plenty of other units that got bumped.
Also, primaris lack a lot of options. And it's the thing that bothers me most about them. Players are forced to choose between options and durability when we could easily have both.
To be honest I also dislike the idea of making space marines cheaper, just because I think one of the biggest problem of the game is that theres so much cheap infantry that you don't have enough room for balance.
Plus, cheaper models means more expensive armies, moneywise.
Because why should marines all of a sudden just be twice as durable in proportion to the other races? There's nearly 30 years of 1 wound consistency here.
Play primaris then.
Because it'll make them more fun and elite? Also, 30 years of consistency went down the drain with 2W terminators. And then there's 2W stealthsuits, 3W crisis suits and plenty of other units that got bumped.
Also, primaris lack a lot of options. And it's the thing that bothers me most about them. Players are forced to choose between options and durability when we could easily have both.
30 years of consistency did not go out the window with terminators. Prior to 3rd they had a 3+ on 2D6, and 3-7 they had a 2+ vs. everything up to AP2 weapons. They have always been tough, 2w plus their 2+5++ is how thats currently expressed.
Marines have always been slighly tougher than an Aspect Warrior in heavy armor, due to a T4. That's where they should be, slightly tougher. As tough as an Ork, in Heavy Aspect Armor. Not more than twice as tough. The relationship between the units has stayed relatively consistent.
Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
I think the whole game needs to be re-priced rather than just tactical marines more like ten thousand points to play with and a basic guardsman starting out at ten points.
But scale has never been a particularly great part of 40k.
Dakka Wolf wrote: I think the whole game needs to be re-priced rather than just tactical marines more like ten thousand points to play with and a basic guardsman starting out at ten points.
But scale has never been a particularly great part of 40k.
That would be cutting the relative cost of a guardsman by more than half, assuming a 2000 point standard for the game as it is.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Isn't the whole deal with eldar that they are glass cannons? Being less durable than marines makes sense, just so long as they hit harder.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Isn't the whole deal with eldar that they are glass cannons? Being less durable than marines makes sense, just so long as they hit harder.
They're going to hit a lot less hard if marines have 2 wounds.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Isn't the whole deal with eldar that they are glass cannons? Being less durable than marines makes sense, just so long as they hit harder.
They're going to hit a lot less hard if marines have 2 wounds.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Okay? Most of the warrior aspects are pretty trash right now too. Maybe that's also worth considering.
Age of Sigmar's closest equivalents tend to have 2 wounds, and it works out pretty well for semi-elite infantry, both in giving them some much needed durability, and establishing an echelon of units separate from the lowest level line infantry. Considering that 8th edition borrows heavily from AoS, it's odd that they didn't take this route as well.
So you might conclude marines are a bit fragile - but this could potentially be mitigated if you could reliably get cover and I think at least some tables are starting to make that more plausible.
The real problem is you pay 13 points for a boltgun - and this is a joke. Kabalites pay less than half and get a gun which is the same or better in a lot of situations. Tau pay just over half and get a gun which is always better.
Galas wrote: To be honest I also dislike the idea of making space marines cheaper, just because I think one of the biggest problem of the game is that theres so much cheap infantry that you don't have enough room for balance.
Plus, cheaper models means more expensive armies, moneywise.
You can't let your personal feeling get in the way of balance - this obviously seems to be a problem with GW.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Elite Eldar infatry lost something that they always had on marines. High inititive. Initiaive has been removed from the game. They didn't revice any compensation for that - aspect warriors need increased ablity also - no one takes the close combat aspects.
Mr Morden wrote: Splinter weapons are a bit odd as their guns always wound on 4+ so they are weaker against T3 opponents than Bolters which wound on a 3+.
Right but a lasgun wounds t3 on 4+ too. That is the only place a splinter rifle is not a great weapon - witch the exception of vehials....but that's why you have shreders and blasters - both respectively wreck what splinters are weak against. When you are wounding a hive tyrant on 4+ with splinters though - you really start to see how good of a weapon it is.
Xenomancers wrote: Elite Eldar infatry lost something that they always had on marines. High inititive. Initiaive has been removed from the game. They didn't revice any compensation for that - aspect warriors need increased ablity also - no one takes the close combat aspects.
Mr Morden wrote: Splinter weapons are a bit odd as their guns always wound on 4+ so they are weaker against T3 opponents than Bolters which wound on a 3+.
Right but a lasgun wounds t3 on 4+ too. That is the only place a splinter rifle is not a great weapon - witch the exception of vehials....but that's why you have shreders and blasters - both respectively wreck what splinters are weak against. When you are wounding a hive tyrant on 4+ with splinters though - you really start to see how good of a weapon it is.
Yeah the Spinter weapon is the opposite of a bolter against other basic infantry - its the same when firing at Marines, Stealers etc but weaker against Guard, Cultists, Sisters, Gaunts, etc but as you say great against non vehicle big things.
Although Dark Eldar also do have their photon grenades which are Strength 4 IIRC from Thursdays game.
Galas wrote: To be honest I also dislike the idea of making space marines cheaper, just because I think one of the biggest problem of the game is that theres so much cheap infantry that you don't have enough room for balance.
Plus, cheaper models means more expensive armies, moneywise.
You can't let your personal feeling get in the way of balance - this obviously seems to be a problem with GW.
Fafnir wrote: Well, yes, but at least point values serve a purpose.Not so much in the case of making Marines have 1W, not anymore. The fluff certainly doesn't depict them that way, and it's becoming pretty clear that there's no niche for them as 1W models in 8th edition. Keeping them the same just because they've had 1W in previous editions serves no purpose.
Which fluff are you reading? IMO Marines and Aspect Warriors are roughly equal opponents, and 2W marines would skew that heavily.
Elite Eldar infatry lost something that they always had on marines. High inititive. Initiaive has been removed from the game. They didn't revice any compensation for that - aspect warriors need increased ablity also - no one takes the close combat aspects.
I think we need to give up this fight. This ship sailed a long time ago. The only simple way forward is to make (old) space marines basically a pseudo horde army which doesn’t seem right. The design space to make them worth their points is already taken by Primaris marines. The cost cutting, and inevitable rise of models on the table, is already out of control.
Pity when GW rebooted the game they didn't take the time to re-base it as well.
Make a bog standard marine say S6, T6, 3W, 3A or something - then scale from there, specifically to provide space to go down.
GW have always had a serious problem in that they like to make things bigger, then when things get smaller it distorts the game and the basic marine gets left in the dust as unable to do enough damage against the small stuff and likewise against the bigger stuff
But that wouldn't fit in with GW's sell you more stuff goal.
It has got out of hand though when they have cornered themselfs into just pricing everything cheaper and cheaper rather than fixing the underpriced unit. Because if they make everything else as silly people will need twice the models.
Ice_can wrote: But that wouldn't fit in with GW's sell you more stuff goal.
It had gotnout of hand though when they have cornered themselfs into just pricing everything cheaper and cheaper rather than fixing the underpriced unit. Becuase if they make verything else as silly people will need twice the models.
it would however allow them to make horde stuff even cheaper so you could have even more of it...
Ice_can wrote: But that wouldn't fit in with GW's sell you more stuff goal.
It had gotnout of hand though when they have cornered themselfs into just pricing everything cheaper and cheaper rather than fixing the underpriced unit. Becuase if they make verything else as silly people will need twice the models.
it would however allow them to make horde stuff even cheaper so you could have even more of it...
Dakka Wolf wrote: I think the whole game needs to be re-priced rather than just tactical marines more like ten thousand points to play with and a basic guardsman starting out at ten points.
But scale has never been a particularly great part of 40k.
That would be cutting the relative cost of a guardsman by more than half, assuming a 2000 point standard for the game as it is.
Yes it would, but if the entire game gets re-priced off that ten point guardsman in a ten thousand point game rather than a thirteen point Space Marine in a two thousand point game that you'll wind up with room to modify points costs, there is probably a better model to do this with but if you start with the lowest statted model, I mean the model at the bottom and give it wriggle room it is easier to find balance than starting with something nearish the bottom and running out of room for models below that.
Ice_can wrote: But that wouldn't fit in with GW's sell you more stuff goal.
It has got out of hand though when they have cornered themselfs into just pricing everything cheaper and cheaper rather than fixing the underpriced unit. Because if they make everything else as silly people will need twice the models.
Of course, that's the same attitude that caused WHFB to become a massive, esoteric wall of infantry that became unapproachable to the point of its inglorious death. AoS ended up making an impressive comeback, but it took considerable time and was not without cost. One of the main features that contributed to its survival and later thriving is the fact that the system became much more approachable without needing legions of models just to start playing.
Ice_can wrote: But that wouldn't fit in with GW's sell you more stuff goal.
It has got out of hand though when they have cornered themselfs into just pricing everything cheaper and cheaper rather than fixing the underpriced unit. Because if they make everything else as silly people will need twice the models.
Of course, that's the same attitude that caused WHFB to become a massive, esoteric wall of infantry that became unapproachable to the point of its inglorious death. AoS ended up making an impressive comeback, but it took considerable time and was not without cost. One of the main features that contributed to its survival and later thriving is the fact that the system became much more approachable without needing legions of models just to start playing.
I don't think this is true. Nothing forces you to play WHFB at 2000 points or nothing. You didn't "need" more units to play a game just because the general points reduction made it possible.
Only the internet had the view that if say you collected Empire the first thing you had to do, had tot do was go and buy 40~ halberdiers.
And even then a massive wall of infantry is cool. I'll never get why people like cavalryhammer.
I think the real problem with WHFB was that the rules created a bad game. It wasn't gamey - which I think AoS is - but it also wasn't an interesting ruleset to simulate fantasy battles.
It became an annoying mix of "Can you manoeuvre so as to avoid charge arcs, so you can't be charged even if you are right next to the enemy" and "Can I cast my game winning spell?"
Which means the moment someone moves beyond beer and pretzels and trying to make the game work (rather than trying to win) it kind of sucks.
Anyway with that said I struggle to see how Marines would become a horde army if the base for MEQ became say 11 points.
fraser1191 wrote: Points accross the board need to be looked at again.
Riptide HBC is 35 pts, S6 Ap-1 2D 12 shots
Heavy onslaught gattling cannon is 36 pts, S5 Ap-1 1D 12 shots
Um okay?
This is just one of the many glaring issues I think Marines as a whole have
Well, there is the difference of BS. If we look at guard prices, a plasma gun is 7 pts, but it's 13 pts at BS 3+. So by that logic the HBC would be 70 or so points if it had BS 3+.
Of course that assumes there was logic in the first place...
IMO most special weapons are not costed appropriately, not just marines. A Tau plasma rifle is 11 pts but is BS 4+, S6, and has no overcharge. Missile pods are basically autocannons but at 24 pts a piece, despite high yield missile pods being 25 pts for twice the shots. A Taurox gatling cannon is 18 pts for 20 S4 shots at BS 3+, while a burst cannon is 8 pts for 4 S5 shots at BS 4+ etc..
fraser1191 wrote: Points accross the board need to be looked at again.
Riptide HBC is 35 pts, S6 Ap-1 2D 12 shots
Heavy onslaught gattling cannon is 36 pts, S5 Ap-1 1D 12 shots
Um okay?
This is just one of the many glaring issues I think Marines as a whole have
Duh! Their guns are better because tau. Marines have to overpay for everything because they are so awesome in all the other aspects of the game. Check out that psychic phase were you can give a single model +1 T - that's a duzzie. Then there's all the insane mobility that is factors into their cost - tanks that move 10" is pretty impressive (so impressive that space marine army traits can't possibly apply to these vehicles - it would be overpowered) - plus marines move as fast as gaurdsmen - that's pretty fast in the warhammer universe. Then there is the assault phase were even our basic trooper with 1 attack has str 4!!! Gosh golly you might kill a 4 point gaurdsmen with that if you don't get destroyed by 120 lasgun shots from an equivalent point unit before you get there. Then theres that amazing ability to reroll failed morale checks - it would be OP if marines paid fair points for their weapons.
Bharring wrote: Well, the Boltgun costs no more points than a Lasgun - both at 0. But the Boltgun has +1S.
So raw points differences aren't always that enlightening.
That's true - it almost seems like points are completely made up out of thin air. In general though things that cost 0 points I think are considered to be factored into the cost of the model.
I think "free" weapons in general were a mistake. Maybe it's fine for certain units that can't have the weapon swapped out like the vindicator. But by that logic a marine that gets a plasma gun is still paying for the boltgun. If a plasma gun is priced at 13 for BS 3+ a Scion gets the better end of things seeing as how his Hotshot lasgun actually cost points.
I kind of wonder if troops above GEQs need a price reduction in general. It seems like people tend to use MSUs to get as little investment in troops as possible in more elite armies. If that's the case, then people aren't finding the troops worth the points.
I still believe A la Carte is a mistake on the whole. A powerfist on a Captain should be worth more than a powerfist on a Sarge.
I think Marines are still somewhat priced with the assumption that they're taking a special and/or heavy. It's like part of those weapons is costed into the 13ppm Marine. But then they still pay full price for the specials/heavies.
I liked how, in earlier Dexes, Marines payed an extra PPM, but got a 10 point reduction on their Heavy. It didn't make 10-mans with full gear worthwhile, but did make them less bad.
Bharring wrote: I still believe A la Carte is a mistake on the whole. A powerfist on a Captain should be worth more than a powerfist on a Sarge.
I think Marines are still somewhat priced with the assumption that they're taking a special and/or heavy. It's like part of those weapons is costed into the 13ppm Marine. But then they still pay full price for the specials/heavies.
I liked how, in earlier Dexes, Marines payed an extra PPM, but got a 10 point reduction on their Heavy. It didn't make 10-mans with full gear worthwhile, but did make them less bad.
Yeah - a la carte is trash - plus they aren't even consistent with it. If it were consistent - better weapons would cost more points like in the riptide example. It's only like that sometimes.
After seeing the results, and that 11% of the people actually believe Marines need a nerf, i should have voted 9 or less to balance out the scales rather than being reasonable.
10 points is a good price for what you get. You're getting a boltgun and crap melee.
If we were using the old AP system, and there were not that many AP2 or AP3 weapons out there, then i'd say 13 would be fine. In fact the more time goes by the more I think we should go back to the AP system. The -X to save game has forced people to build lists that focus entirely on invuln saves or chaff. I don't think that's good.
It's the 2nd ed effect. 2nd ed was all invulns or as cheap as you could get. Although more expensive models could be protected by chaff much more easily, but marines had no chaff.
Marmatag wrote: After seeing the results, and that 11% of the people actually believe Marines need a nerf, i should have voted 9 or less to balance out the scales rather than being reasonable.
People were voting 14+pts and saying that marines should have 2 wounds.
If you want a 9 point marine then ally-in sisters. Bolter and crap melee - everything you are looking for in a model.
I think people would still take scouts over tacticals for the alternate deployment option and I don't think 3+ armour is worth the same as deploying farther out. But I guess with the new deepstrike rule it's not as crucial
Basically that's why I voted 10. I already see sisters going down to 8 at the rate troop costs are dropping
I think people would still take scouts over tacticals for the alternate deployment option and I don't think 3+ armour is worth the same as deploying farther out. But I guess with the new deepstrike rule it's not as crucial
Basically that's why I voted 10. I already see sisters going down to 8 at the rate troop costs are dropping
Exactly. Sisters will drop to 8. Tac should drop to 10 and scouts also 10.
Marmatag wrote: After seeing the results, and that 11% of the people actually believe Marines need a nerf, i should have voted 9 or less to balance out the scales rather than being reasonable.
People were voting 14+pts and saying that marines should have 2 wounds.
If you want a 9 point marine then ally-in sisters. Bolter and crap melee - everything you are looking for in a model.
I think people would still take scouts over tacticals for the alternate deployment option and I don't think 3+ armour is worth the same as deploying farther out. But I guess with the new deepstrike rule it's not as crucial
Basically that's why I voted 10. I already see sisters going down to 8 at the rate troop costs are dropping
Exactly. Sisters will drop to 8. Tac should drop to 10 and scouts also 10.
I realy wish I could say that your wrong, but sadly I suspect that your correct which does worry me for where this scale creep ends.
I think people would still take scouts over tacticals for the alternate deployment option and I don't think 3+ armour is worth the same as deploying farther out. But I guess with the new deepstrike rule it's not as crucial
Basically that's why I voted 10. I already see sisters going down to 8 at the rate troop costs are dropping
Exactly. Sisters will drop to 8. Tac should drop to 10 and scouts also 10.
I realy wish I could say that your wrong, but sadly I suspect that your correct which does worry me for where this scale creep ends.
Scounts at 8 tacs at10 and intercessors at 12?
Yes I hate to seem like some sort of Doom Sayer but 8th is currently a race to the bottom and anyone who denies that is probably at the bottom.
I'd love a marine with an extra wound and attack sitting at 15 for starters to see how it fits, then I'd see intercessors get the same treatment and either go back to 20ppm or 19 to maintain the roughly 1.5x cost
I think people would still take scouts over tacticals for the alternate deployment option and I don't think 3+ armour is worth the same as deploying farther out. But I guess with the new deepstrike rule it's not as crucial
Basically that's why I voted 10. I already see sisters going down to 8 at the rate troop costs are dropping
Exactly. Sisters will drop to 8. Tac should drop to 10 and scouts also 10.
I realy wish I could say that your wrong, but sadly I suspect that your correct which does worry me for where this scale creep ends.
Scounts at 8 tacs at10 and intercessors at 12?
A scout is equal in value to a tac marine IMO. He loses armor and weapon options for infiltrate ability. It is a straight fair trade off IMO - they should have the exact same point cost.
I propose a 3 point drop on all power armor marines including CSM except bezerkers. 5 points on all gravis armor and terminator armor units (with additional buffs for terminators) Centurians down 20 points.
Intersessors I think are special case and would need to drop to 14 from 15 - just to keep them compeititve with 10 point tacs (that or a 6+FNP) - it would also be great if they got a real heavy weapon/stalker bolters were buffed/had a transport too.
DeathWatch, DA, BA all make it impossible to have a base cost for marines balanced across chapters.
The strats and tactics are so powerful for BA that pricing vanguard vets for them is different than what those same models do in a ultra-marine army.
DW intercessors are solid to good troops. Those same models in a black templar army are not worth close to the same amount of points.
It's crazy that GW thought they could have a base cost for units that are used across such a wide variety of armies and somehow have it balanced. It's like marines and guard paying the same price for weapons, it just doesn't work.
I've been crying about it since the IG codex dropped that vanilla marines were going to be bottom tier. Now that we are mostly through the codexes the only dex worse than the space marine one is grey knights. Given the price increases in the last CA and most recent FAQGW doesn't see it this way and this hope that somehow GW will all of a sudden get the picture is a lost cause.
Forget about your current paint jobs and conversions. Run your intercessors and aggressors as DW, some DA inceptors and some BA characters. Put the rest of them high up on the shelf so you don't have to look at them. Do your best to never field tacs, termies, dreads or anything else you've seen in a GW battle report, book, picture or poster and you will have a lot less aggravation.
Marines don't need a points decrease, they need a stats reworking across the board. IMO all SM infantry needs to go up a wound, and all bolters need to be ap-1.
bananathug wrote: DeathWatch, DA, BA all make it impossible to have a base cost for marines balanced across chapters.
The strats and tactics are so powerful for BA that pricing vanguard vets for them is different than what those same models do in a ultra-marine army.
DW intercessors are solid to good troops. Those same models in a black templar army are not worth close to the same amount of points.
It's crazy that GW thought they could have a base cost for units that are used across such a wide variety of armies and somehow have it balanced. It's like marines and guard paying the same price for weapons, it just doesn't work.
I've been crying about it since the IG codex dropped that vanilla marines were going to be bottom tier. Now that we are mostly through the codexes the only dex worse than the space marine one is grey knights. Given the price increases in the last CA and most recent FAQGW doesn't see it this way and this hope that somehow GW will all of a sudden get the picture is a lost cause.
Forget about your current paint jobs and conversions. Run your intercessors and aggressors as DW, some DA inceptors and some BA characters. Put the rest of them high up on the shelf so you don't have to look at them. Do your best to never field tacs, termies, dreads or anything else you've seen in a GW battle report, book, picture or poster and you will have a lot less aggravation.
Well, this is type of hyperbole I come to dakka for. Just exquisite!
If you want to play or do cool conversions with marines - do it. But this constant obsession with what is or is not top table competitive needs to end. It doesn't apply to 98% of the people that frequent this site.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Marines don't need a points decrease, they need a stats reworking across the board. IMO all SM infantry needs to go up a wound, and all bolters need to be ap-1.
That has already happened. They got an extra attack too.
CREEEEEEEEED wrote: Marines don't need a points decrease, they need a stats reworking across the board. IMO all SM infantry needs to go up a wound, and all bolters need to be ap-1.
That has already happened. They got an extra attack too.
Now we just need to give them more special weapons. Then we can delete "primaris" from all their names.
No primaris or oldboys, roll them all into one single statline, building off of the primaris base.
All astartes pattern bolters use the bolt rifle statline, with the following additional faction rule:
Astartes Pattern Bolt Weapon: When a Rapid Fire, Assault, or Heavy weapon with this rule fires at a target within half of its maximum range, increase the amount of shots fired by 1.
So a bolter firing within 15" would fire three shots, a heavy bolter within 18" would fire four shots, a storm bolter within 12" would fire five shots, and so on.
No primaris or oldboys, roll them all into one single statline, building off of the primaris base.
All astartes pattern bolters use the bolt rifle statline, with the following additional faction rule:
Astartes Pattern Bolt Weapon: When a Rapid Fire, Assault, or Heavy weapon with this rule fires at a target within half of its maximum range, increase the amount of shots fired by 1.
So a bolter firing within 15" would fire three shots, a heavy bolter within 18" would fire four shots, a storm bolter within 12" would fire five shots, and so on.
All that for 16ppm.
I like this except for the first thing, but that's just personal preference. I could get behind it.
By bringing TAC's down to ~10 points you're also inflating the value of a single point; There will be more cries of X doesn't match the output of a TAC! Lower points!
I find it is all too convenient to argue about marine point costs in a vacuum. They ARE the central game balance point - a bit like Ryu in any iteration of Street Fighter. I'd rather we see reduced AP effectiveness against marines and their heavy armoured equivalents (Which are universally agreed as bad, who runs terminators these days?).
How that reduced effectiveness is implemented? No idea. Could be as simple as: Halve any the AP value of any weapon fired at a < POWER ARMOR > unit, rounding down (minimum 0) to something complex like the suggested 5+ save rolling two dice (Which also has the the theoretical impact of halving the AP value).
Afterwards points need to be increased, not decreased. The idea of balancing a game where 4 points is the difference between a BS 5+, SV 6+ ork and a BS 3+, SV 3+ marine is mad; how do you balance with that level of granuality?
Eonfuzz wrote: By bringing TAC's down to ~10 points you're also inflating the value of a single point. Afterwards there will be more cries of X doesn't match the output of a TAC! Lower points!
I find its all too convenient to argue about marine point costs in a vacuum. They ARE the central game balance point - a bit like Ryu in any iteration of Street Fighter. I'd rather we see reduced AP effectiveness against marines and their heavy armoured equivalents (Which are universally agreed as bad, who runs terminators these days?).
How that reduced effectiveness is implement? No idea. Could be as simple as: Halve any the AP value of any weapon fired at a < POWER ARMOR > unit, rounding down (minimum 0) to something complex like the suggested 5+ save rolling two dice (Which also has the the theoretical impact of halving the AP value).
Afterwards points need to be increased, not decreased. The idea of balancing a game where 4 points is the difference between a BS 5+, SV 6+ ork and a BS 3+, SV 3+ marine is mad; how do you balance with that level of granuality?
Lowering Marines to be competitive with other units dose not inflate the value of a point because other units are already their.
Lowering Marines to be competitive with other units dose not inflate the value of a point because other units are already their.
And how often to we clamour that the units in the lower end of that bracket are overpowered? I've seen posts that: Orks Boyz are OP! Infantry is OP! Guard is OP! Dark Eldar is OP!
I've seen those cries before. Do we really want to have a bandaid fix (Horde marines), or an actual fix?
Lowering Marines to be competitive with other units dose not inflate the value of a point because other units are already their.
And how often to be clamour that the units in the lower end of that bracket are overpowered? I've seen cries that: Orks Boyz are OP! Infantry is OP! Guard is OP! Dark Eldar is OP!
I've seen those cries before. Do we really want to have a bandaid fix (Horde marines), or an actual fix?
I mean making them a competitively priced unit is not a bandaid fix since they would be worth taking on their own merits rather then that free Rhino or Gmans buff Aura.
mew28 wrote: - snip -
I mean making them a competitively priced unit is not a bandaid fix since they would be worth taking on their own merits rather then that free Rhino or Gmans buff Aura.
A point reduction is a literal bandaid fix. I agree with the goal of making marines competitive - but I do not agree with reducing their point costs as a means to make it happen.
mew28 wrote: - snip -
I mean making them a competitively priced unit is not a bandaid fix since they would be worth taking on their own merits rather then that free Rhino or Gmans buff Aura.
A point reduction is a literal bandaid fix. I agree with the goal of making marines competitive - but I do not agree with reducing their point costs as a means to make it happen.
A band aid fix implies it is a temporary solution. It fixes literally every problem a unit has since it brings up both durability and damage output something marines are both lacking.
I wouldn't have a problem with "horde marines". But they'll have to fix their fluff from the hilarious 1000 marines to 100 Million marines per chapter.
Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
Why not make every space marine a space wolf?
Actually that was an option and the case some eds back. You didn't have to even pay for it.
Also why should space wolves keep it if the rest of non special marines can go and take a hike of a cliff right?
You mean pay 1 more point to lose cheap Plazma guns, being able to take all plasma, and deep strike.
PG are the same cost for Scions and SM. Who needs army-wide deepstrike?
And now you're going to need to adjust the cost of Primaris down and every thing else by quite a bit giving quite a few ways to get multiple PGs per squad.
Insectum7 wrote: If marines were 10 points I'd field 120+ if them.
Meh? I'd just run them for CP and screening like now but actually get to play with another 45-90 points in the list. 50 point tac squads still wouldn't be worth spamming, they just wouldn't feel like such a tax like they do now.
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
Why not make every space marine a space wolf?
We should give them the same options - there is no real reason for the difference and plenty of Chapters would use a similar laod out.
Its one of the many problems with marines at the moment that becuase of the Snowflake chapters basic marines have to be a weaker so they can self justify their super special codexes when in reality it would be better to have almost all of the options avaiable to all marines and just have actual special rules for the actual unusual units not just everything with the word Dark, Blood or Wulf in front of it.
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
Insectum7 wrote: If marines were 10 points I'd field 120+ if them.
Meh? I'd just run them for CP and screening like now but actually get to play with another 45-90 points in the list. 50 point tac squads still wouldn't be worth spamming, they just wouldn't feel like such a tax like they do now.
The problem here is you still see them as a tax (as in something you're forced to do) at that price when they would be way more powerful.
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
If you want to get a rough idea of what that looks like on the Table, play a couple games with Emperor's Children and use Noise Marines as your basic troops. They are still slightly over costed but for 19 points you get 1 wound, 2 attacks, and an assault 3 bolter that ignores cover.
24 inch assault 3 weapons is actually quite a lot of firepower, especially in large numbers. You might find that making Marines that heavily shooting oriented is a mistake- especially at 15-16 points per model. Its something worth considering, especially since I have actually felt for a while that Noise Marines are the closest to what all Marines should be. The extra Attack Built in, the access to superior small arms fire. etc.
The difficulty with marines is that they are elite human soldiers- but not so elite that they are immune to weapons of war.
While the Primaris may play more like movie marines- they break the game in that you have a basic soldier from a human army with more than one wound.
This is poison to a battle game, not progress- and is more suited to skirmish level play (kill team/deathwatch overkill). A failed save should result in a removed model in an engagement the size of a 40k 1500+ points battle- barring medics and so forth.
I would even advocate T5 marines before +1 wound marines- with the new toughness system its not such a leap. In this edition, delivery systems like the rhino which used to be a cheap addition adding lots of survivability have become relatively expensive compared to the troops it is supposed to protect.
I don't agree with the concept of a failed save = removed model. There is not a large enough differentiation in saves for that to represent more elite forces. T5 is another way to go, but is much more susceptible to hot/cold dice. I would rather see marines as the army with fewer multi-wound models than high T, especially when the T curve is so narrow for what actually gets used. Raising T for regular marines means making Bikes, Gravis models, Plague marines T6. I Rhino is only T7, which has very little upside over T6, So do we bump its T as well? What about T8 models? DO they go to T9 making heavy weapons less effective?
You are talking about a basic soldier from a super human army.
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
If you want to get a rough idea of what that looks like on the Table, play a couple games with Emperor's Children and use Noise Marines as your basic troops. They are still slightly over costed but for 19 points you get 1 wound, 2 attacks, and an assault 3 bolter that ignores cover.
24 inch assault 3 weapons is actually quite a lot of firepower, especially in large numbers. You might find that making Marines that heavily shooting oriented is a mistake- especially at 15-16 points per model. Its something worth considering, especially since I have actually felt for a while that Noise Marines are the closest to what all Marines should be. The extra Attack Built in, the access to superior small arms fire. etc.
Yeah it would be reasonably close, and maybe 15-16 would be too cheap, Noise Marines always fight first in combat as well though do they not? So that is another benefit.
Strength 5 is a heavy weapon. Strength 4 is a super-powerful small arms. Strength 3 is small arms.
Marines are plenty durable against small arms - firing Lasguns at a marine in cover works out pretty much the way it ought to in the fluff - something like two entire squads of unbuffed guardsmen (actually, exactly 2 unbuffed squads in rapid fire). That's 20-1. Outside of rapid fire? 40-1.
Marines are not durable against heavy weapons. That's imo, a good thing. As soon as we start using pulse rifles and heavy bolters as our measure of what "small arms" is, you start the lethality creep, where "Str 5 AP-1 is a small arm". In three editions, when autocannons are everywhere, Str 7 AP-1 will become the new small arm against which Space Marines are measured...
And before someone says "REEE FIRE WARRIORS" - the whole 'neato shtick' about the Tau fire warrior is his weapon is as strong as a heavy weapon. It used to be a viable tactic to use it to kill tanks in earlier editions, remember, even when tanks were generally immune to small arms.
No, the profile and the price of marines is and was always ok, the main problem is that a 3rd of the equipment got lost somewhere, especially hurtfull for regular marines.
I am fine with paying for tactical flexibility, which is provided by Tacmarines and CSM, however, when we literally pay now 2 ppm less for losing the BP Chainsword aka a 3rd of the equipment they used to have, then in no way is the reduction in price enough.
When a kabalite literally touts the same profile, without the armor or T4 but is less then half the points, then no, in no way those under equiped tacs are usefull.
Even worse is it when you play CSM you get 3 1/4 cultists for ONE marine.
If i run 2 10 man squdas in CSM i can run for the same ammount 65 cultists.
Also remember Cultists are not equal to guardsmen.
Strength 5 is a heavy weapon.
Strength 4 is a super-powerful small arms.
Strength 3 is small arms.
Marines are plenty durable against small arms - firing Lasguns at a marine in cover works out pretty much the way it ought to in the fluff - something like two entire squads of unbuffed guardsmen (actually, exactly 2 unbuffed squads in rapid fire). That's 20-1. Outside of rapid fire? 40-1.
Marines are not durable against heavy weapons. That's imo, a good thing. As soon as we start using pulse rifles and heavy bolters as our measure of what "small arms" is, you start the lethality creep, where "Str 5 AP-1 is a small arm". In three editions, when autocannons are everywhere, Str 7 AP-1 will become the new small arm against which Space Marines are measured...
And before someone says "REEE FIRE WARRIORS" - the whole 'neato shtick' about the Tau fire warrior is his weapon is as strong as a heavy weapon. It used to be a viable tactic to use it to kill tanks in earlier editions, remember, even when tanks were generally immune to small arms.
Eonfuzz wrote: Do you really want Space Marines to be Horde Marines ^TM forever? Otherwise it's a bandaid fix.
Yes, because that's the only real option in 8th. There's way too many xeno weapons that pick up marines like grots for anything else.
Well if standard Marines were bumped up to 2 wounds (and an extra attack) sure a DE disintegrater with kill him easily. But then if primaris are scaled up to 3 wounds even with hot dice it can only kill 1 and wound another.
Also if primaris had 3 attacks base I could actually see Reivers killing something in CC for once, a 5 man squad with knives would have 21 S4 ap- attacks lol
Not Online!!! wrote: No, the profile and the price of marines is and was always ok, the main problem is that a 3rd of the equipment got lost somewhere, especially hurtfull for regular marines.
I am fine with paying for tactical flexibility, which is provided by Tacmarines and CSM, however, when we literally pay now 2 ppm less for losing the BP Chainsword aka a 3rd of the equipment they used to have, then in no way is the reduction in price enough.
When a kabalite literally touts the same profile, without the armor or T4 but is less then half the points, then no, in no way those under equiped tacs are usefull.
Even worse is it when you play CSM you get 3 1/4 cultists for ONE marine.
If i run 2 10 man squdas in CSM i can run for the same ammount 65 cultists.
Also remember Cultists are not equal to guardsmen.
Cultists don't need to be equal to guardsmen. The point of cultists is being able to apply force multipliers to a large degree. The problem with cultists is needing to underpin their morale with more points.
You're a bit off on the kabalite.
A poison weapon doesn't make it equivalent to a marine.
It's still T3/S3/5+
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
I absolutely agree. More costly, capable, and durable rather than cheap would be my preference as well. Would this extend to Primaris going up 1 wound, 1 attack, and the bolt rifle gaining a different profile as well?
I also liked the idea someone else had of a Fireblade style buff that gave marines an extra shot at half range. I think that might be overall more interesting - instead of staying out of 12'' rapid fire range, marines would plow forward, confident they'll match or surpass the fire of the enemy. Not a huge fan of the idea of marines dancing around outside weapons range - I always imagine them marching INTO the gunfire, not slinking away from it.
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
I absolutely agree. More costly, capable, and durable rather than cheap would be my preference as well. Would this extend to Primaris going up 1 wound, 1 attack, and the bolt rifle gaining a different profile as well?
Well I'd say so. It seems like GW wanted Primaris Marines to be more upgraded Marines so they would need to be scaled up in points and such. I'm not sure how this would work with the boltgun/ bolt rifle, that's a whole other mess
Not Online!!! wrote: Actually i think the main problem is that Tac marines are supposed to be a jack of all trades, just like regular CSM.
However they are both restricted by their loadouts to fullfill their "all purpose" role.
Why not lower their cost to 12ppm and add the option to buy additional Boltpistols and Chainswords for 1 point per model?
That way they would remain the same but actually would be a unit that really allows for tactical options and versatility?
I said earlier the real solution to making a marine a jack of all trades is to cost them at 15-16 points with 2 wounds, 2 attacks and make bolters assault 3. This makes them durable, better than average in close combat, and good at shooting vs horde units, and have the option of good mobility on shooting or staying out of 12" rapid fire.
This change to the base statline also helps units like assault marines who with a chainsword now have 3 attacks each.
I'd rather see marines be more costly and durable than cheap. IT adds flavor to the army. You could also if you want leave scouts as is making it a choice for a worse statline and infiltrate, or a better statline
I absolutely agree. More costly, capable, and durable rather than cheap would be my preference as well. Would this extend to Primaris going up 1 wound, 1 attack, and the bolt rifle gaining a different profile as well?
I also liked the idea someone else had of a Fireblade style buff that gave marines an extra shot at half range. I think that might be overall more interesting - instead of staying out of 12'' rapid fire range, marines would plow forward, confident they'll match or surpass the fire of the enemy. Not a huge fan of the idea of marines dancing around outside weapons range - I always imagine them marching INTO the gunfire, not slinking away from it.
Except those Raven Guard blokes.
I would apply said changes to all marine models +1 W and attack (except maybe Guiliman as doing so would actually make him worse)
SO Bikes, Termies and Primaris 3 wounds. Primaris, Termies, Vets 3 attacks etc. Then have a corresponding cost increase where needed. Multi-damage weapons would still mow down marines but they should, they are designed to take out elite infantry, monsters, and tanks.
As for guns, you could also leave them as is and allow pistols to be shot in addition to any other gun. It makes 0 sense that a marine can shoot a storm bolter, bolter, and shot gun simultaneously but not bolter and bolt pistol. Essentially this would give them 3 shots at 12".
Not Online!!! wrote: No, the profile and the price of marines is and was always ok, the main problem is that a 3rd of the equipment got lost somewhere, especially hurtfull for regular marines.
I am fine with paying for tactical flexibility, which is provided by Tacmarines and CSM, however, when we literally pay now 2 ppm less for losing the BP Chainsword aka a 3rd of the equipment they used to have, then in no way is the reduction in price enough.
When a kabalite literally touts the same profile, without the armor or T4 but is less then half the points, then no, in no way those under equiped tacs are usefull.
Even worse is it when you play CSM you get 3 1/4 cultists for ONE marine.
If i run 2 10 man squdas in CSM i can run for the same ammount 65 cultists.
Also remember Cultists are not equal to guardsmen.
Cultists don't need to be equal to guardsmen. The point of cultists is being able to apply force multipliers to a large degree. The problem with cultists is needing to underpin their morale with more points.
You're a bit off on the kabalite.
A poison weapon doesn't make it equivalent to a marine.
It's still T3/S3/5+
First off, i just mentioned that cultists were worse.
Secondly they are easily underpinned with no points, don't forget that Cold and Bitter exists and Word Bearers also have better morale without additional points.
Thirdly my point was , that the Tac Marines and CSM lost to much in equipment and that cheaper alternatives have taken over. Also in regards to kabalites, i know that their weaponry is diffrent, however my point stands that their profile is to good, when compared to a regular marine.
I again would be fine with paying additional ppm if i would get the tactical flexibility with the bolter and cqc loadout, as it stands tho i don't get that, even though it was allready the case some eds back. The main problem is, there is no advantage for normal CSM over an equal ammount in points in Cultists.
Shooting for my exemple above is on average 32.5 hits with s3 against t3 targets i will wound on 4s so again half of those wounds. 16.25 wounds
the 20 marines will shoot 20 times 2/3rds are hits and against a t3 target 2/3rds will wound= 8,88888.... wounds.
So to conclude cultists allow you more firepower, and are way better at area denial.
3 wound primaris are just bonkers. 2 wound Primaris Marines already require borderline anti-tank weapons like Autocannons to harm.
3 wound Primaris is an order of magnitude worse in some ways. Autocannons? Useless. Plasma guns? Useless. Small arms? Useless. d3 damage weapons? Useless.
At the point where you need literal anti-tank weapons (d6 damage) or superheavy weapons (3 damage) to kill a single model that's a basic troops choice in an army, you've jumped the shark. Custodes were already ridiculous, and they're 56 points per model or something like that.
This edition as a whole has not worked out how GW expected I don’t think; Gravis Armour giving +1T accomplishes very little but was expected to be good.
There isn’t solely one issue with marines, Tac marines especially. The changes to hitting/wounding charts, the way AP works, etc. Basically things that used to absolutely obliterate cheap troops (even the lowly heavy bolter killing little nids on a 2+), heavy flamers, flamestorm cannons, etc. have lost killing power. Every piece of crap troop in the game became more resilient against small arms fire with the change of the edition, while plasma being abundant means there are myriad cheap ways to kill elite troops. It’s a depressing state of affairs. I remember when my Guardians getting hit by a bolter meant death with a successful wound. I’m not sure what the solution is but I can say I miss the way AP used to work, and modified saves like WHFB don’t make much sense with high powered rifles instead of getting smacked by greatswords.
If rules stay the same then a points break for marines is the only solution. 11 ppm Tacs sounds reasonable in my mind. 3W Primaris is too ridiculous. 3W terminators would be alright. The distinction between mini marines and Primaris should never have been made imo; they should have made all marines 2W base, and intercessors should have been a new better sculpt of Tacs.
Bremon wrote: This edition as a whole has not worked out how GW expected I don’t think; Gravis Armour giving +1T accomplishes very little but was expected to be good.
There isn’t solely one issue with marines, Tac marines especially. The changes to hitting/wounding charts, the way AP works, etc. Basically things that used to absolutely obliterate cheap troops (even the lowly heavy bolter killing little nids on a 2+), heavy flamers, flamestorm cannons, etc. have lost killing power. Every piece of crap troop in the game became more resilient against small arms fire with the change of the edition, while plasma being abundant means there are myriad cheap ways to kill elite troops. It’s a depressing state of affairs. I remember when my Guardians getting hit by a bolter meant death with a successful wound. I’m not sure what the solution is but I can say I miss the way AP used to work, and modified saves like WHFB don’t make much sense with high powered rifles instead of getting smacked by greatswords.
If rules stay the same then a points break for marines is the only solution. 11 ppm Tacs sounds reasonable in my mind.
I think this was part of the point of this edition, actually - part of the complaints about earlier editions was "troops don't matter" and "basic armies that look like actual armies are bad" and "deathstars are too op". The only way to address this problem is make basic line infantry actually good, and the only way to make them "actually good" without making them 'elite' is to have them die slowly enough that they provide a function for the army. I think GW accomplished that, for sure, and it can't be denied that some armies are actually taking troopers now, even above and beyond the minimum requirements.
The problem is Marines don't really have a 'basic trooper'. Their basic trooper is considerably better than AM Scions, stat wise (and arguably armament wise though that's target dependent). And scions are the "elite troopers" for AM.
Bremon wrote: 3W Primaris is too ridiculous. 3W terminators would be alright. The distinction between mini marines and Primaris should never have been made imo; they should have made all marines 2W base, and intercessors should have been a new better sculpt of Tacs.
Agreed on these points, which I missed in my first quote.
Unit1126PLL wrote: 3 wound primaris are just bonkers. 2 wound Primaris Marines already require borderline anti-tank weapons like Autocannons to harm.
3 wound Primaris is an order of magnitude worse in some ways. Autocannons? Useless. Plasma guns? Useless. Small arms? Useless. d3 damage weapons? Useless.
At the point where you need literal anti-tank weapons (d6 damage) or superheavy weapons (3 damage) to kill a single model that's a basic troops choice in an army, you've jumped the shark. Custodes were already ridiculous, and they're 56 points per model or something like that.
Pretty much this.
As I said back on page 1, the distinction between Primaris and non-Primaris is hurting both by shackling non-Primaris with bad rules and preventing Primaris using Transports.
Kill the distinction. Make all Marines have the Primaris +1W/A, and AP-1 on all infantry Bolters/Bolt Pistols/Storm Bolters/Chainswords/Combat Knives. Say ‘it’s the year 40,300 now. Every old marine who isn’t dead has had the Primaris implants.’ Bump your basic Marine to 15-16 points and adjust elites from there.
Bremon wrote: This edition as a whole has not worked out how GW expected I don’t think; Gravis Armour giving +1T accomplishes very little but was expected to be good.
There isn’t solely one issue with marines, Tac marines especially. The changes to hitting/wounding charts, the way AP works, etc. Basically things that used to absolutely obliterate cheap troops (even the lowly heavy bolter killing little nids on a 2+), heavy flamers, flamestorm cannons, etc. have lost killing power. Every piece of crap troop in the game became more resilient against small arms fire with the change of the edition, while plasma being abundant means there are myriad cheap ways to kill elite troops. It’s a depressing state of affairs. I remember when my Guardians getting hit by a bolter meant death with a successful wound. I’m not sure what the solution is but I can say I miss the way AP used to work, and modified saves like WHFB don’t make much sense with high powered rifles instead of getting smacked by greatswords.
If rules stay the same then a points break for marines is the only solution. 11 ppm Tacs sounds reasonable in my mind.
I think this was part of the point of this edition, actually - part of the complaints about earlier editions was "troops don't matter" and "basic armies that look like actual armies are bad" and "deathstars are too op". The only way to address this problem is make basic line infantry actually good, and the only way to make them "actually good" without making them 'elite' is to have them die slowly enough that they provide a function for the army. I think GW accomplished that, for sure, and it can't be denied that some armies are actually taking troopers now, even above and beyond the minimum requirements.
The problem is Marines don't really have a 'basic trooper'. Their basic trooper is considerably better than AM Scions, stat wise (and arguably armament wise though that's target dependent). And scions are the "elite troopers" for AM.
Bremon wrote: 3W Primaris is too ridiculous. 3W terminators would be alright. The distinction between mini marines and Primaris should never have been made imo; they should have made all marines 2W base, and intercessors should have been a new better sculpt of Tacs.
Agreed on these points, which I missed in my first quote.
I guess the removal of small and big templates did also it's part for that.For exemple a flamer now hits max 6 models on average 3.5. wounds a guardsmen in 2/3rds so 2.333 wounds.
A nade launcher on frag generates 3.5 shots and deals now on average against a guardsmen target 1.75 wound.
I guess my point is that dedicated anti infantery weaponry, mainly frag nades, flammers and others are way to innefective.
At the bare minimum 12 points, but really their current points are fine, they need something like a stratagem or better chapter tactics (make the Chapter Tactics give a bigger bonus to tacticals, for exmaple).
Melissia wrote: At the bare minimum 12 points, but really their current points are fine, they need something like a stratagem or better chapter tactics (make the Chapter Tactics give a bigger bonus to tacticals, for exmaple).
That was my idea! XD
Each Chapter Tactic should have a second paragraph/sentence/whatever dealing with Tactical Marines. For example: "Tactical Marine squads with the Iron Hands Chapter Tactics ignore wounds on a 5+ rather than a 6+" or something. Essentially the Chapter Tactic +1.
As for why the Veterans don't get it? Because Tactical Marines need something. You can't just give everything the Tactical Marines have going for them to everyone else, because that's reinforcing the problem of Tactical Marines being "X unit but worse".
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think this was part of the point of this edition, actually - part of the complaints about earlier editions was "troops don't matter" and "basic armies that look like actual armies are bad" and "deathstars are too op". The only way to address this problem is make basic line infantry actually good, and the only way to make them "actually good" without making them 'elite' is to have them die slowly enough that they provide a function for the army. I think GW accomplished that, for sure, and it can't be denied that some armies are actually taking troopers now, even above and beyond the minimum requirements.
The problem is Marines don't really have a 'basic trooper'. Their basic trooper is considerably better than AM Scions, stat wise (and arguably armament wise though that's target dependent). And scions are the "elite troopers" for AM..
Your point is well taken and I agree with where you’re coming from. The changes made have largely changed the game so armies look like armies. The problem is marines took an absolute beating in that transition, and they’re left with troops that still aren’t worth taking. Tacticals aren’t tactical enough; they’re just bad. I think even if Tacs could take 2 heavies/specials per 5 men they’d be in a better place. If I could get 5 Tacs with 2 Heavy Bolters for 75 points (factoring in 11 point Tacs) I'd be much more inclined to put more troops in my BA. Intercessors being 30k style mono squads after Guilliman supposedly learned that the codex is too rigid is a mistake. 110 points for 5 intercessors with 2 HBs would make a nice building block for a firebase. Instead I’m encouraged to take min troops to generate CP so that my high damage dealing Death Stars can do enough damage to win some games. I love the Intercessor sculpts; if I could make intercessors more useful than “choose your flavour of bolter and for one point you can Hail Mary a grenade” I’d enjoy playing them as much as I enjoy painting them.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think this was part of the point of this edition, actually - part of the complaints about earlier editions was "troops don't matter" and "basic armies that look like actual armies are bad" and "deathstars are too op". The only way to address this problem is make basic line infantry actually good, and the only way to make them "actually good" without making them 'elite' is to have them die slowly enough that they provide a function for the army. I think GW accomplished that, for sure, and it can't be denied that some armies are actually taking troopers now, even above and beyond the minimum requirements.
The problem is Marines don't really have a 'basic trooper'. Their basic trooper is considerably better than AM Scions, stat wise (and arguably armament wise though that's target dependent). And scions are the "elite troopers" for AM..
Your point is well taken and I agree with where you’re coming from. The changes made have largely changed the game so armies look like armies. The problem is marines took an absolute beating in that transition, and they’re left with troops that still aren’t worth taking. Tacticals aren’t tactical enough; they’re just bad. I think even if Tacs could take 2 heavies/specials per 5 men they’d be in a better place. If I could get 5 Tacs with 2 Heavy Bolters for 75 points (factoring in 11 point Tacs) I'd be much more inclined to put more troops in my BA. Intercessors being 30k style mono squads after Guilliman supposedly learned that the codex is too rigid is a mistake. 110 points for 5 intercessors with 2 HBs would make a nice building block for a firebase. Instead I’m encouraged to take min troops to generate CP so that my high damage dealing Death Stars can do enough damage to win some games. I love the Intercessor sculpts; if I could make intercessors more useful than “choose your flavour of bolter and for one point you can Hail Mary a grenade” I’d enjoy playing them as much as I enjoy painting them.
2 problems: 1) Space Marines are not really an army. I'll say it here and everyone will jump down my throat, but as far as "line armies fighting slogging matches against other line armies" (open warfare seems to be the style 40k games are going for), elite special-forces type shock troops just won't be as useful as line infantry. There's a reason the Army Rangers are bigger than the Navy SEALs, and why the Army's line infantry brigades are much much more massive than the Army Rangers: there's a point at which "elite" becomes "too expensive to train and equip" for open-warfare line engagements.
Marines getting mediocre is a natural consequence of making "real armies" good, and Guard getting stronger is in the same vein, because they are the quintessential "open warfare line army". The best army, is, of course, a soup of both, and coincidentally that's exactly how the Imperium operates in the fluff...
2) 2 specials per 5 is good, but 2 heavies isn't, imo. 2 heavy bolters for 75 points (that are BS3+, have 3 ablative wounds, and a 2+ save if parked in cover) is extremely good. Like holy gak good. Specials are fine because generally the army has to maneuver to employ them, but getting 10 such squads for 750 points is ridiculous. A 10 man tactical squad with 4/10 would literally be indistinguishable from a 10 man devastator squad with 4/10.
I agree with that, but that isn't what they did so the distinction exists, and without all the options of normal marines if you don't give primaris something they cease to have a point in the game. You act like 2 w primaris don't die. They die all the time in my games. Sure if you sit them in cover against weapons with no AP they are hard to remove. But they should be. I'm not saying don't adjust their points to add the extra stuff, You say all those weapons are useless...that is a really strong word. Plasma would still kill them off, overcharged would wound on 2s, and give them a 6+ save. it just wouldn't be 1 wound = 1 kill. Heck, I'd be fine with inceptors being ~30 points with 3 wounds because it is a big step up in resiliance over 2 wounds.
Alternatively make keep them at 2 wounds and make them T5 for the extra durability from their size, then make gravis armor primaris 3 wounds with higher cost.
Or eliminate mini-marines entirely, and flesh out the primaris line, then just have people counts as.
I agree it was a mistake to have both styles of marines at the same time, it makes the design space tough to work in. But that isn't the way GW went because they did not want rage from all the marine players for "invalidating" their army.
What I don't want though is cheap horde marines, the game in general needs less models not more. It will never go that way, because GW want to sell more models, but it should..
2 problems:
1) Space Marines are not really an army. I'll say it here and everyone will jump down my throat, but as far as "line armies fighting slogging matches against other line armies" (open warfare seems to be the style 40k games are going for), elite special-forces type shock troops just won't be as useful as line infantry. There's a reason the Army Rangers are bigger than the Navy SEALs, and why the Army's line infantry brigades are much much more massive than the Army Rangers: there's a point at which "elite" becomes "too expensive to train and equip" for open-warfare line engagements.
Marines getting mediocre is a natural consequence of making "real armies" good, and Guard getting stronger is in the same vein, because they are the quintessential "open warfare line army". The best army, is, of course, a soup of both, and coincidentally that's exactly how the Imperium operates in the fluff...
2) 2 specials per 5 is good, but 2 heavies isn't, imo. 2 heavy bolters for 75 points (that are BS3+, have 3 ablative wounds, and a 2+ save if parked in cover) is extremely good. Like holy gak good. Specials are fine because generally the army has to maneuver to employ them, but getting 10 such squads for 750 points is ridiculous. A 10 man tactical squad with 4/10 would literally be indistinguishable from a 10 man devastator squad with 4/10.
The problem with the idea of soup is even then marines are out shone massively by Custodes, hence why imperial soup always tastes like Custard soup.
If marines are supposed to be imperial shock troops they need some sort of rule to make them shocking to play against. The obvious solution being allow drop pods to break the beta rule, but that isn't going to happen and probably isn't enough to save them as an army also it would just turn them into turn 1 suicide drops like scions.
I get that GW wanted to push primaris models hard and shift them in volume, but they need to about face on that one its a lost cause.
They either need to launch the full range and accept that they will loose a lot of business or accept it was a bad plan and merge them back into the same stat line and wait for natural transition from old to primaris sculpts, over a couple of years.
The rules/points adjustments show a clear bias towards primaris but even they aren't realy that great in a competitive setting.
Unit1126PLL wrote: 2) 2 specials per 5 is good, but 2 heavies isn't, imo. 2 heavy bolters for 75 points (that are BS3+, have 3 ablative wounds, and a 2+ save if parked in cover) is extremely good. Like holy gak good. Specials are fine because generally the army has to maneuver to employ them, but getting 10 such squads for 750 points is ridiculous. A 10 man tactical squad with 4/10 would literally be indistinguishable from a 10 man devastator squad with 4/10.
Except the devs get to fire twice once and get to shoot one at 2+ BS. I also should have said 2 of each max, so double what they can do now; nobody takes 10 Tacs with a heavy bolter and a plasma gun. No one will take 10 with two of each. Not many people currently take 5 ablative wounds in their dev squads either.
Do IG not have ablative wounds for their specials? Tac marines still die to a stiff breeze in 8th. Intercessors die to 2 stiff breezes, and 2 heavy bolters is still only 4 S5 -1 hits on average...they aren’t taking down tanks and are only slightly better at killing grunts than a standard crappy Tac marine. A tax marine squad with 2 heavy bolters is likely still worse at killing guardsman or nids etc. than a naked squad of Tac marines was prior to 8th, so I really don’t see the problem. Basically every army I play against has better basic troops than me (per point and for weapon options) and doubling the amount of specials or heavies I can take in a troop squad doesn’t swing the tides massively the other way.
This is literally the definition of a basic troop. Plasma guns and autocannons are heavy and special weapons, akin to 30mm RARDEN and LAW rocket launchers. As soon as you have an army whose basic troop is one against which an autocannon manifestly struggles then you've jumped the shark.
Like I said, Custodes are that army, and are already ridiculous.
DakkaDakka is really the place where you need anti-tank guns to kill basic dudes, because anything less isn't durable enough.
Unit1126PLL wrote: I think this was part of the point of this edition, actually - part of the complaints about earlier editions was "troops don't matter" and "basic armies that look like actual armies are bad" and "deathstars are too op". The only way to address this problem is make basic line infantry actually good, and the only way to make them "actually good" without making them 'elite' is to have them die slowly enough that they provide a function for the army. I think GW accomplished that, for sure, and it can't be denied that some armies are actually taking troopers now, even above and beyond the minimum requirements.
The problem is Marines don't really have a 'basic trooper'. Their basic trooper is considerably better than AM Scions, stat wise (and arguably armament wise though that's target dependent). And scions are the "elite troopers" for AM..
Your point is well taken and I agree with where you’re coming from. The changes made have largely changed the game so armies look like armies. The problem is marines took an absolute beating in that transition, and they’re left with troops that still aren’t worth taking. Tacticals aren’t tactical enough; they’re just bad. I think even if Tacs could take 2 heavies/specials per 5 men they’d be in a better place. If I could get 5 Tacs with 2 Heavy Bolters for 75 points (factoring in 11 point Tacs) I'd be much more inclined to put more troops in my BA. Intercessors being 30k style mono squads after Guilliman supposedly learned that the codex is too rigid is a mistake. 110 points for 5 intercessors with 2 HBs would make a nice building block for a firebase. Instead I’m encouraged to take min troops to generate CP so that my high damage dealing Death Stars can do enough damage to win some games. I love the Intercessor sculpts; if I could make intercessors more useful than “choose your flavour of bolter and for one point you can Hail Mary a grenade” I’d enjoy playing them as much as I enjoy painting them.
2 problems:
1) Space Marines are not really an army. I'll say it here and everyone will jump down my throat, but as far as "line armies fighting slogging matches against other line armies" (open warfare seems to be the style 40k games are going for), elite special-forces type shock troops just won't be as useful as line infantry. There's a reason the Army Rangers are bigger than the Navy SEALs, and why the Army's line infantry brigades are much much more massive than the Army Rangers: there's a point at which "elite" becomes "too expensive to train and equip" for open-warfare line engagements.
Marines getting mediocre is a natural consequence of making "real armies" good, and Guard getting stronger is in the same vein, because they are the quintessential "open warfare line army". The best army, is, of course, a soup of both, and coincidentally that's exactly how the Imperium operates in the fluff...
2) 2 specials per 5 is good, but 2 heavies isn't, imo. 2 heavy bolters for 75 points (that are BS3+, have 3 ablative wounds, and a 2+ save if parked in cover) is extremely good. Like holy gak good. Specials are fine because generally the army has to maneuver to employ them, but getting 10 such squads for 750 points is ridiculous. A 10 man tactical squad with 4/10 would literally be indistinguishable from a 10 man devastator squad with 4/10.
The answer to #1 is that you actually need to make the army "elite" enough to operate that way. SO I agree it is a problem. With soup right now you may as well throw out 90% of the marine options because they are bad. If GW just made imperium an army things would work a lot better. But they have spent years splitting the imperium into 500 different distinct factions, which is the problem. A real fix to marines, is to make imperium like the DE codex. Have Marine chapters, Imperial guard regiments etc. Remove options from some of those books, and make it so that the intent is that they funciton as 1. SO make do things like eliminate scouts (those models are ugly) and give their deployment option to "tactical squads' primaris marines. Have marines function much more like deathwatch, but with chapter tactics etc. I'd be fine with that. What I don't like is requiring tons of books to run that army optimally.
Bremon wrote: Do IG not have ablative wounds for their specials? Tac marines still die to a stiff breeze in 8th. Intercessors die to 2 stiff breezes, and 2 heavy bolters is still only 4 S5 -1 hits on average...they aren’t taking down tanks and are only slightly better at killing grunts than a standard crappy Tac marine. A tax marine squad with 2 heavy bolters is likely still worse at killing guardsman or nids etc. than a naked squad of Tac marines was prior to 8th.
It depends on what way the IG take their specials, but no, not always. And Tactical Marines do not die to a stiff breeze.Heavy Weapons Are Not A Stiff Breeze. Call it the "Unit" Principle, with the premise that "heavy weapons are not a stiff breeze" and "If you need a 20-1 advantage in small arms to reliably kill a foe, then that foe does not die to a stiff breeze."
And the problem isn't the two heavy bolters per five specifically, but rather the dramatically increasing lethality of the game. If the problem with tactical marines is that heavy weapons kill them too quickly, then the problem is not fixed by saying yay more heavy weapons.
Breng77 wrote: The answer to #1 is that you actually need to make the army "elite" enough to operate that way. SO I agree it is a problem. With soup right now you may as well throw out 90% of the marine options because they are bad. If GW just made imperium an army things would work a lot better. But they have spent years splitting the imperium into 500 different distinct factions, which is the problem. A real fix to marines, is to make imperium like the DE codex. Have Marine chapters, Imperial guard regiments etc. Remove options from some of those books, and make it so that the intent is that they funciton as 1. SO make do things like eliminate scouts (those models are ugly) and give their deployment option to "tactical squads' primaris marines. Have marines function much more like deathwatch, but with chapter tactics etc. I'd be fine with that. What I don't like is requiring tons of books to run that army optimally.
So literally the problem is you have to carry too many books.
If only there was some sort of device we could read books on, some sort of storage unit with a screen, with oodles of information at our fingertips... like something out of TNG. They could read gak on these little pads, it was so cool. Tis a pity we don't have that nowadays.
This is literally the definition of a basic troop. Plasma guns and autocannons are heavy and special weapons, akin to 30mm RARDEN and LAW rocket launchers. As soon as you have an army whose basic troop is one against which an autocannon manifestly struggles then you've jumped the shark.
Like I said, Custodes are that army, and are already ridiculous.
DakkaDakka is really the place where you need anti-tank guns to kill basic dudes, because anything less isn't durable enough.
Except when the army in question isn't supposed to have any "basic dudes", If anything the marine issue shows that you cannot both have "elite" armies and "basic dudes" it doesn't work. Either you have elite horde armies (9-10 point MEQ) or you raise points and make model themselves better. Custodes are an entirely different thing that a T4 3 wound 3+ save marine. You are looking at an entire army with FNP against mortal wounds, 2+ saves, 4++ saves, and T5. They also have WS and BS 2+ So small arms wounds them on 5s not 4s, Plasma wounds them on 3s not 2s. And they get a 4+ save against it in the open. For that you are paying 40 points base. SO -1T, -1 armor, -1 S, -1 WS, -1 BS. Seems reasonable for 25-30 points. The model isn't a basic trooper, it is a troop in an elite army. Beyond that custodes are ridiculous in the exact function you would have them do, as a component to soup. As an army with no guard etc, they are good but not broken, because they lack board presence. I mean the discussion of "basic trooper" is dumb anyway in a game where custodes exist, knights exist etc. You have armies already where you don't field basic troops.
Breng77 wrote: You have armies already where you don't field basic troops.
But those armies make lots of sacrifices to do so. Mono-knights is not a good army, nor is really mono-Custodes, as you mention.
Wanting to make Marines "elite" and also wanting to make them "competitive" in a mono-codex setting strikes me as trying to have your cake and eat it to - to date, mono-armies have been worse than soup, and elite mono-armies even more extremely so.
Bremon wrote: Do IG not have ablative wounds for their specials? Tac marines still die to a stiff breeze in 8th. Intercessors die to 2 stiff breezes, and 2 heavy bolters is still only 4 S5 -1 hits on average...they aren’t taking down tanks and are only slightly better at killing grunts than a standard crappy Tac marine. A tax marine squad with 2 heavy bolters is likely still worse at killing guardsman or nids etc. than a naked squad of Tac marines was prior to 8th.
It depends on what way the IG take their specials, but no, not always. And Tactical Marines do not die to a stiff breeze.Heavy Weapons Are Not A Stiff Breeze. Call it the "Unit" Principle, with the premise that "heavy weapons are not a stiff breeze" and "If you need a 20-1 advantage in small arms to reliably kill a foe, then that foe does not die to a stiff breeze."
And the problem isn't the two heavy bolters per five specifically, but rather the dramatically increasing lethality of the game. If the problem with tactical marines is that heavy weapons kill them too quickly, then the problem is not fixed by saying yay more heavy weapons.
Breng77 wrote: The answer to #1 is that you actually need to make the army "elite" enough to operate that way. SO I agree it is a problem. With soup right now you may as well throw out 90% of the marine options because they are bad. If GW just made imperium an army things would work a lot better. But they have spent years splitting the imperium into 500 different distinct factions, which is the problem. A real fix to marines, is to make imperium like the DE codex. Have Marine chapters, Imperial guard regiments etc. Remove options from some of those books, and make it so that the intent is that they funciton as 1. SO make do things like eliminate scouts (those models are ugly) and give their deployment option to "tactical squads' primaris marines. Have marines function much more like deathwatch, but with chapter tactics etc. I'd be fine with that. What I don't like is requiring tons of books to run that army optimally.
So literally the problem is you have to carry too many books.
If only there was some sort of device we could read books
on, some sort of storage unit with a screen, with oodles of information at our fingertips... like something out of TNG. They could read gak on these little pads, it was so cool. Tis a pity we don't have that nowadays.
No the problem is i have to buy too many books. Beyond witch tablets suck for trying to play with. I have most books on digital and hard copy, but always have a hard copy of my rules at a game because it is easier to flip back and forth, show my opponent etc.
It is an unpopular opinion, but the game would be better balanced if fewer options existed. People don't want that though they want the option to do whatever they want and have it work. As Marines are clearly meant to be a stand alone army, and not require soup, it is no more valid to say, "make them cheaper", than it is to say "make them better but more expensive". For me I'd rather seem them 2 steps down from a custodes army, than 2 steps up from a guard one. Then they become a useful option. Right now in soup for the most part they aren't even that competitively because as you pointed out custodes are better at what you would want the marines for.
Breng77 wrote: You have armies already where you don't field basic troops.
But those armies make lots of sacrifices to do so. Mono-knights is not a good army, nor is really mono-Custodes, as you mention.
Wanting to make Marines "elite" and also wanting to make them "competitive" in a mono-codex setting strikes me as trying to have your cake and eat it to - to date, mono-armies have been worse than soup, and elite mono-armies even more extremely so.
True, but currently Marine Soup is worse than, pure IG in most cases, worse than soup with custodes etc. I don't even really have a large issue with where things are now. I play a "soup army" with sisters and marines, take no tactical marine equivalents because they are pretty bad, and run scouts, Primaris stuff, marine characters, sisters. Because that is what works. Prior to that I ran a "marine soup" with Ravenwing and White scars, again no tactical equivalents. I'm fine with that, but it just means the tactical marine statline is bad, the only thing they are passible at is sitting on a back field objective in cover as your enemy is largely required to use heavy weapons or special weapons to remove them.
Secondly they are easily underpinned with no points, don't forget that Cold and Bitter exists and Word Bearers also have better morale without additional points.
Cold and Bitter means your warlord babysitting cultists, which is not a small amount of points. Sure you could make it some scrub, but then he'll get sniped. Word Bearers get a reroll. You need Apostles to get them up from LD6.
It doesn't matter how you cut it - you're spending points to keep them on the table.
Thirdly my point was , that the Tac Marines and CSM lost to much in equipment and that cheaper alternatives have taken over. Also in regards to kabalites, i know that their weaponry is diffrent, however my point stands that their profile is to good, when compared to a regular marine.
Their poison wounds GEQ on a 4. They die like GEQ for more points. You need to look at the full picture.
Shooting for my exemple above is on average 32.5 hits with s3 against t3 targets i will wound on 4s so again half of those wounds. 16.25 wounds
the 20 marines will shoot 20 times 2/3rds are hits and against a t3 target 2/3rds will wound= 8,88888.... wounds.
So to conclude cultists allow you more firepower, and are way better at area denial.
Again this is not the point. You can put a gak gun on literally anything and as long as the body is cheap enough it doesn't matter.
Your measurement of these units deals with none of their durability either through morale or toughness.
Let's say I get 10 BP/CSCSM stuck in against 32 cultists.
And because tactics don't exist in this game if I approach you correctly you'll lose 1/3 or more of your attacks in the first round just getting to me.
(red lines are 1", blue 2", green 3")
If you're using CCW cultists - great - you can't shoot as far and i'll let you come to me while i'm in cover.
Breng77 wrote: It is an unpopular opinion, but the game would be better balanced if fewer options existed. People don't want that though they want the option to do whatever they want and have it work. As Marines are clearly meant to be a stand alone army, and not require soup, it is no more valid to say, "make them cheaper", than it is to say "make them better but more expensive". For me I'd rather seem them 2 steps down from a custodes army, than 2 steps up from a guard one. Then they become a useful option. Right now in soup for the most part they aren't even that competitively because as you pointed out custodes are better at what you would want the marines for.
Marines are fine in soup, or are Blood Angels not marines now?
Seriously, part of the problem with marines is there are so many options that Marine players are drowning in them. If I owned a neutrally-coloured Marine army, I'd have something over 100 unit options to choose from, and like 20 different factions across 5 codexes. It's no wonder that some get left out to dry while others are the best thing since sliced bread - there is more variation between Keyword: Adeptus Astartes than there is between Keyword: Necrons. And one of those is a lvl 2 faction keyword after Imperium.
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Breng77 wrote: True, but currently Marine Soup is worse than, pure IG in most cases, worse than soup with custodes etc. I don't even really have a large issue with where things are now. I play a "soup army" with sisters and marines, take no tactical marine equivalents because they are pretty bad, and run scouts, Primaris stuff, marine characters, sisters. Because that is what works. Prior to that I ran a "marine soup" with Ravenwing and White scars, again no tactical equivalents. I'm fine with that, but it just means the tactical marine statline is bad, the only thing they are passible at is sitting on a back field objective in cover as your enemy is largely required to use heavy weapons or special weapons to remove them.
You have a basic, generic unit that you admit the enemy is largely required to use heavy or special weapons to shift, and that unit is bad.
That just strikes me as ridiculous. It's like saying "Yeah, my 3 wound marines are so bad. I mean, the enemy can kill one with a lascannon, that's atrocious." *eyeroll*
The problem with the game is ridiculously high lethality, and increasing that lethality is a bad thing. We should instead try to reduce lethality for everyone.
Bremon wrote: Do IG not have ablative wounds for their specials? Tac marines still die to a stiff breeze in 8th. Intercessors die to 2 stiff breezes, and 2 heavy bolters is still only 4 S5 -1 hits on average...they aren’t taking down tanks and are only slightly better at killing grunts than a standard crappy Tac marine. A tax marine squad with 2 heavy bolters is likely still worse at killing guardsman or nids etc. than a naked squad of Tac marines was prior to 8th.
It depends on what way the IG take their specials, but no, not always. And Tactical Marines do not die to a stiff breeze.Heavy Weapons Are Not A Stiff Breeze. Call it the "Unit" Principle, with the premise that "heavy weapons are not a stiff breeze" and "If you need a 20-1 advantage in small arms to reliably kill a foe, then that foe does not die to a stiff breeze."
Except when you take points into consideration, a stiff breeze of any predetermined amount of small arms fire kills chaff and marines practically equally when points are brought into the equation, which they need to be. The state of the game is such that a large amount of wounds holding a large amount of small arms is going to be advantageous to a smaller amount of wounds with a smaller amount of weapons. Point per point 3 guardsmen, Guardians, and Tacticsl marines should have fairly equal killing power. Point per point. The elite army with the smaller footprint needs more elite weaponry to be able to compete; I don’t have the bodies to hold objectives as casually as hordes do. The granularity of points distribution means a horde can bring its forces to bear with far more liquidity. Without more heavies and specials a Tactical isn’t tactical at all. It isn’t jack of all trades, master of none; it’s a jack of no trades. Nearly every army has troops worth taking; marines don’t. How do we fix that?
That unit is good, if I have an objective to sit on in cover, and otherwise contributes 0 to the game. In the open they die to a stiff breeze, against any AP they die. They are not a good unit for the points, and certainly not worth taking more than a single copy. It isn't a good unit. I also always take Intercessors over tacticals in this role because they actually require heavy/special weapons, and can put up a fight in close combat, have better guns, and better range. So the tactical marines are redundant in that role.
Reducing lethality is ok, but the problem is that makes units that are already durable (hordes) even better.
On a per point basis marines are neither durable nor effective at causing damage. The second point is obvious, while the first takes some math. Some of it was already calculated in this thread.
Unit is taking a very fluff based approach, while math is more clarifying in this case.
Bremon wrote: Do IG not have ablative wounds for their specials? Tac marines still die to a stiff breeze in 8th. Intercessors die to 2 stiff breezes, and 2 heavy bolters is still only 4 S5 -1 hits on average...they aren’t taking down tanks and are only slightly better at killing grunts than a standard crappy Tac marine. A tax marine squad with 2 heavy bolters is likely still worse at killing guardsman or nids etc. than a naked squad of Tac marines was prior to 8th.
It depends on what way the IG take their specials, but no, not always. And Tactical Marines do not die to a stiff breeze.Heavy Weapons Are Not A Stiff Breeze. Call it the "Unit" Principle, with the premise that "heavy weapons are not a stiff breeze" and "If you need a 20-1 advantage in small arms to reliably kill a foe, then that foe does not die to a stiff breeze."
Except when you take points into consideration, a stiff breeze of any predetermined amount of small arms fire kills chaff and marines practically equally when points are brought into the equation, which they need to be. The state of the game is such that a large amount of wounds holding a large amount of small arms is going to be advantageous to a smaller amount of wounds with a smaller amount of weapons. Point per point 3 guardsmen, Guardians, and Tacticsl marines should have fairly equal killing power. Point per point. The elite army with the smaller footprint needs more elite weaponry to be able to compete; I don’t have the bodies to hold objectives as casually as hordes do. The granularity of points distribution means a horde can bring its forces to bear with far more liquidity. Without more heavies and specials a Tactical isn’t tactical at all. It isn’t jack of all trades, master of none; it’s a jack of no trades. Nearly every army has troops worth taking; marines don’t. How do we fix that?
That's not necessarily true. Having a smaller number of models in the game with equal weapons but higher durability compared to their foes should be viable in the game, because it improves force concentration. A firefight between 20 marines and 20 guardsmen will be won by the marines; there may be 60 guardsmen on the battlefield for the price of 20 marines, but it should be unwieldy to utilize those larger numbers when compared to the smaller numbers of marines.
I suspect the reasons this don't happen are varied and myriad, but terrain can influence it for sure. I think the general terrain used for 40k games is bad - I know that if I set up the amount of terrain I'm comfortable with for a game, force concentration absolutely becomes a problem for large horde armies. Additionally, playing the game on a 12x8 really makes the Marines shine, as they can use things like drop pods and speedy, cheapo Rhinos to outmaneuver most Imperial Guard forces quite handily. But no one uses that size table because "it's too hard" so we're stuck with weapon ranges that cross the entire board in one turn carried by like, a dude. Force concentration goes away when Fred can shoot across the entire board.
Breng77 wrote:That unit is good, if I have an objective to sit on in cover, and otherwise contributes 0 to the game. In the open they die to a stiff breeze, against any AP they die. They are not a good unit for the points, and certainly not worth taking more than a single copy. It isn't a good unit. I also always take Intercessors over tacticals in this role because they actually require heavy/special weapons, and can put up a fight in close combat, have better guns, and better range. So the tactical marines are redundant in that role.
Reducing lethality is ok, but the problem is that makes units that are already durable (hordes) even better.
I guess I have to invoke the Unit Principle: With a few notable exceptions, weapons with AP are heavy weapons, and no army in the game should expect to just mill around out of cover and not take horrific casualties. Not even the vaunted Imperial Guard tolerates being out of cover without suffering tremendous casualty rates. And yes, I'd say they're not good for their points and I agree they need looking at, but some of the suggestions here are bonkers. I'd be okay giving Tacts 2 wounds, for sure, or 2 specials/5, definitely. 3 wound primaris marines?!! That's beyond the pale.
Martel732 wrote:On a per point basis marines are neither durable nor effective at causing damage. The second point is obvious, while the first takes some math. Some of it was already calculated in this thread.
Unit is taking a very fluff based approach, while math is more clarifying in this case.
Marines are durable. But individually, they are durable for sure. This "math" you say proves it is that it takes 2 squads of unbuffed guardsmen in rapid fire range of a marine in cover to kill him, or 4 squads when he isn't in cover. That's pretty goddamn durable.
Daed provided some of the math upthread vs Cultists. And a bit of tactics about how to use them beyond just throw them around.
I still think their core problem is the game isn't balanced around a flamer/melta being scary anymore. They still work in a lot of ways, but aren't the ideal for tournies. I'm still ok with a points drop, though.
Bremon wrote: Basically every army I play against has better basic troops than me (per point and for weapon options) and doubling the amount of specials or heavies I can take in a troop squad doesn’t swing the tides massively the other way.
I disagree that the tac marine should be considered 'the' space marine basic troop squad. It is certainly 'a' troop choice - but not the only one. Scouts are simply way better. Is there a reason why we consider tactical marines the only troop choice here?
Bremon wrote: Basically every army I play against has better basic troops than me (per point and for weapon options) and doubling the amount of specials or heavies I can take in a troop squad doesn’t swing the tides massively the other way.
I disagree that the tac marine should be considered 'the' space marine basic troop squad. It is certainly 'a' troop choice - but not the only one. Scouts are simply way better. Is there a reason why we consider tactical marines the only troop choice here?
Or Primaris, too. The role of a Tactical Marine is "Intercessor, but ~30% cheaper and less durable."
This thread has got me thinking a bit. Do bolters need buffing? It seems like the consensus in the thread is they're a waste of time. Would giving them a -AP make standard Tacticals more viable?
I think Tacticals would be in a good place if pistols came free along with a bolter, Chainsword for 1 or 2 points as an upgrade for CCW, Make Bolters + Pistols AP-1, and leaving them at their current cost. I really like my painted up demi-company and wish I had more reasons to run it with every squad at 10 man and kitted out.
I think you get that consensus because you're in a thread with mostly Marine players. Sure, they aren't that effective against Marines in cover. But DAs in the open? Or other non-Marines? They're scarier than most SM players realize, because most SM players aren't on the receiving end of what small arms can do.
Making bolters + pistols AP-1 would hurt Marines too. It's just pushing up the firepower. Marines actually lose out, despite it being a buff to Marines.
I think they need to tone firepower *down* and readjust to the point where the 'basic' specials/heavies (basically, what Tacs can take, and their equivelents in other factions) are actually a threat. Unfortunately, doing so would take a ton of rebalancing. Which is too bad, because it'd make Tacs freaking awesome.
I don't think there is much place for 13 ppm one wound models/troops in 8th. How do you that fix the problems that that ratio causes?
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Bharring wrote: I think you get that consensus because you're in a thread with mostly Marine players. Sure, they aren't that effective against Marines in cover. But DAs in the open? Or other non-Marines? They're scarier than most SM players realize, because most SM players aren't on the receiving end of what small arms can do.
Making bolters + pistols AP-1 would hurt Marines too. It's just pushing up the firepower. Marines actually lose out, despite it being a buff to Marines.
I think they need to tone firepower *down* and readjust to the point where the 'basic' specials/heavies (basically, what Tacs can take, and their equivelents in other factions) are actually a threat. Unfortunately, doing so would take a ton of rebalancing. Which is too bad, because it'd make Tacs freaking awesome.
Doesn't matter, marines still have terrible output/pt.
DAs are in the same price range at 1W. Half the durability to small arms. Twice the firepower (compared to naked tacs) on hard targets. They aren't amazing, but are good at what they do.
Necron Warriors are in the same price range at 1W. Super durable, but super inflexible. Do they really have no place to be?
Scioons are 1W infantry that wouldn't be terrible at 13ppm.
I'm with Bharring here. Small arms are strength three, and Strength 5 is the realm of Heavy Weapons.
Strength 4 is pretty boss, and devastating. It's a 20-1 advantage to kill a single marine in cover for Imperial Guard in rapid fire; conversely, it's only 2(roughly, it's 2.25 precisely) marines shooting back to kill one Imperial Guardsman who is in cover on average.
Martel732 wrote: On a per point basis marines are neither durable nor effective at causing damage. The second point is obvious, while the first takes some math. Some of it was already calculated in this thread.
Unit is taking a very fluff based approach, while math is more clarifying in this case.
I'm not disagreeing with the premise that marines are weak. I just disagree with the degree, the assumptions fueling it, and the proposed changes.
This is 100 hits of each weapon weighted to points.
Clearly marines need to be in cover to match up to GEQ at 4 points (which is why IS should be 5...anyway), but perform admirably compared to Kabalites.
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This is a 10 point marine:
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This is 12 point marine, 7 kabalite, 5 IS. Notice how these results track closely to just dropping a marine to 10 points.
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This is weighted damage dealt.
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Change the points here will close the game some, but IS and Kabalites will still be better - there HAS to be a trade off for the durability. SM will still be heavily more durable and stronger (relatively) in CC. Add combat squadding and strong weapon choice and you're doing just fine.
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Hatachi wrote: This thread has got me thinking a bit. Do bolters need buffing? It seems like the consensus in the thread is they're a waste of time. Would giving them a -AP make standard Tacticals more viable?
I think Tacticals would be in a good place if pistols came free along with a bolter, Chainsword for 1 or 2 points as an upgrade for CCW, Make Bolters + Pistols AP-1, and leaving them at their current cost. I really like my painted up demi-company and wish I had more reasons to run it with every squad at 10 man and kitted out.
Maybe. There are 2 directions:
1) Make marines more durable by dropping them to 12 points (no more than this).
2) Make marines more killy by making the bolter better.
AP is problematic, because so many other bolter variants have AP and would be affected. Personally I think the bolter could get Bolter Drill as standard and make Bolter Drill +1 to hit with Bolters.
