A lot of folks seem to be of the opinion that maybe the marine supplements take them a bit over the top, but marine codex 2.0 is right about how marines are supposed to operate. That the primaris stat boosts, various beta rules and point drops put them in just about the right spot relative to everything else. Marines should be elite! They should be jacks of all trades, able to hold up in melee and shooting! Other armies are allowed to have their special things they're good at, but marines are MARINES, they should be true masters of war?
So here's a little thought experiment. Let's take a number of Intercessors equal to the point cost of another unit, and a number of that unit equal to the point cost of Intercessors. We're going to ignore Doctrines (which obviously always benefits the marines), ignore chapter tactics (Which usually benefits the marines), ignore morale (Which nearly always benefits marines) ignore Overwatch (which always benefits the marines), and ignore stuff like sergeants and unit caps for simplicity. All we're going to do is give the marines Shock Assault and Bolter Discipline, and assume the two units are both charging/being charged and attacking simultaneously. The shooting contests will take place at 30" range, or 24" range if the unit the marines are fighting have a shorter range.
Remember, each of these contests is going to be 17 models of the Challenger versus a number of Intercessors equal to the point value of the Challenger (E.G. 6 Intercessors vs 17 Daemonettes)
Melee contests:
Genestealers: 6.2 dead intercessors(105.2pts), 10 dead Genestealers (150pts)
Howling Banshees (-1 to hit exarch trait): 3.1 dead intercessors (52.7pts), 5.5 dead Banshees (60.5pts)
Harlequin (with Harlequin's Embrace making them 17ppm): 9.35 dead intercessors (159pts), 11.22 dead Harlequins (190.7pts)
Ork Boyz (Choppa): 2.83 dead Intercessors (48pts), 5 dead Orks (30pts)
Daemonettes: 2.6 dead Intercessors (44.2pts), 6.2 dead daemonettes (37.2pts)
Bloodletters: 8 dead Intercessors (136pts), 6.2 dead bloodletters (43.4pts)
Here's Intercessors in melee versus melee specialist units of other factions who have extremely little to zero of their power budget put into shooting. I found a few units that do have some margin of mathmatical advantage, and one that had a really strong advantage thanks to their bonus on the charge and near perfect rules for fighting Intercessors, Bloodletters.
Shooting Contests:
Fire Warriors: 0.9 dead Intercessors (16pts), 4.13 dead Fire Warriors (28.9pts)
Dark Reapers (S5 AP-2 D2 profile): 10.04 dead Intercessors (170.7pts), 13.75 dead Dark Reapers (426.3pts)
Imperial Guardsmen: 0.47 dead Intercessors (8pts), 3 dead Guardsmen (12pts)
Necron Warriors: 1.41 dead Intercessors (24pts), 3.25 dead Necrons (36pts)
Chaos Space Marines: 1.89 dead Intercessors (32pts), 3.66 dead CSM (40.3pts)
Here's Intercessors fighting at long range versus long range specialist units of other factions with as close to zero of their power budget put into melee as possible. I put CSMs in there because I wanted to see how they fared also getting beta bolters and with their points discount for getting no doctrines stacked up.
In this scenario, we are ignoring a number of hugely advantageous mechanics that marines enjoy: Doctrines, their near immunity to morale, their access to reroll to hit/reroll 1s to wound double aura bubbles for a total of 2CP and 125pts, their top tier chapter tactics, their access to twice as many stratagems, relics, psychic powers and warlord traits than most factions get, etc.
"Marines shoot the choppy and chop the shooty" has always been the common advice given on how to play marines. When they're strong enough to shoot the shooty and chop the choppy, what do you do against them?
In the competitive meta right now, the answer seems to be either "Load up on a massive turn 2 alpha strike in an attempt to cripple their whole army at once and pray you luck out and don't have to face the Alpha Strike flavored marines who get to show up turn 1" or "Take the few remaining specialized shooting units that can effectively kill Primaris and spend the rest of your points protecting them."
To the folks who like marines where they're at right now, what in your eyes would be an acceptable limit to the power of a basic space marine? Do you find it fair that they enjoy a mathmatical advantage over units like Genestealers, Banshees and Harlequins in melee who are specialized in fighting lower toughness higher Sv units when they're also equipped with a gun that attacks as effectively at 30" range as it does at 2" range?
If not, do you think it would make sense if marines costed more? If they had fewer special rules backing them up? If the units designed to kill marines cost less? Marines "Dying too easily" is a complaint I've heard pretty much throughout 8th, so it doesn't seem like increasing the power or decreasing the cost of anti-MEQ specialists is the answer. So where would you be willing to give?
To be clear: I am not presenting this from a place of wanting to see marines completely kneecapped. I'm also aware that some 30-40% of the competitive meta has managed to remain non-marine, and that there are some tactics that seem to work, like teleporting a large unit of bloodletters or Orks or something straight into combat with them. It just seems like a unit as ubiquitous as the Space Marine in 40k should not present this insurmountable mathmatical challenge to an enormous percentage of the game that requires weird edge-case tactics to fight against, considering that the new marine playstyle is pretty much as simple as 40k gets: Set up in a stationary block 30" away from target and shoot all game.
First: Marines aren't supposed to be masters of absolutely everything. They're supposed to be their own rapid-reaction shock force, capable of performing in a variety of areas, but they're not supposed to be a better gunline than Guard/Tau, faster than the Eldar, choppier than Khorne, etc. They're supposed to be good at their own things, not better than everyone else at everything.
Second: "Feeling elite" doesn't require your army to be more cost-effective than everyone else. If one Marine is supposed to be able to take five Guardsmen in a firefight, sure, that's fine, whee, but he shouldn't then be the cost of three Guardsmen, because points are supposed to be there to give us a guide as to what should feel like a fair game against what, not to show off how good Space Marines are by making them better than equal points of everything else.
The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
It's mostly melee units, with special rules to help them get into combat faster- which isn't helpful if you then lose once you get there.
Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, and CSM don't get any innate special abilities either to give them non-combat utility. OP didn't even take morale into account, which is a real killer for Guard and Tau.
The point being that even withoutCTs and Doctrines, which are far and above more powerful than any subfaction ability other factions get, Intercessors are fully capable of beating specialists that, if they're just supposed to be jacks of all trades, they should be losing to.
This may not be relevant for a super high tier competitive meta where Tau aren't taking Fire Warriors and Guardsmen are CP batteries first and foremost, but it's basically ruined casual gaming at least in my local meta.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
Which special rules am I missing out on here? Help me out. I did give the Necrons Resurrection Protocols, even though in practice that rule certainly isn't a given. Genestealers got their bonus attack, Bloodletters got their charge bonus, banshees got their -1 to hit.
I didn't give Tau markerlights or Guardsmen orders, because we're not including supporting buff units - Marines certainly didn't get full hit rerolls and reroll 1s to wound. I wanted to keep it simple, just look at stats vs stats to get a general trend and compare Marines in melee vs dedicated melee units who don't have inbuilt delivery systems and Marines at long range vs units who don't stand a snowballs chance in hell in melee.
marines aren't unbeatable. But just by putting them down on the table, you present your opponent with a challenge they've got to figure out a creative answer to - how to get some specialist shooting unit to appear 12" away from them before getting shot up, or how to get some specialist melee unit (one of the ones that work) into melee with them ignoring overwatch, denying Heroic Interventions, avoiding melee interrupts and using one of the units that can actually get them off the table in significant numbers.
Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups. Taking away the rules would just revert the game to where the minority of players using xeno armies would be beating the majority of marine players. I think people are going to struggle to convince people to ask for nerfs to their own armies, for nothing in return, Specially when future codex, may buff the xeno armies above what marines have now. And I doubt all those people that cry for marine nerfs now, are going to ask for nerfs of their own books.
Karol wrote: Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups.
I feel like Marine players just collectively skip over the changes between Codex 1.0 and Codex 2.0, because the points drops to everything in CA18 combined with the standardization of Bolter Discipline as an official rule made for a hell of a difference in how they fared.
Karol wrote: Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups. Taking away the rules would just revert the game to where the minority of players using xeno armies would be beating the majority of marine players. I think people are going to struggle to convince people to ask for nerfs to their own armies, for nothing in return, Specially when future codex, may buff the xeno armies above what marines have now. And I doubt all those people that cry for marine nerfs now, are going to ask for nerfs of their own books.
Nope. When Tau are really strong and people complain they have boring, uninteractive gunline rules, I tend to agree. When guard are strong and it feels like these baseline level humans are outperforming supposed superhuman soldiers, I tend to agree. When Eldar are strong and it feels like they have 9000 special rules for how their special guys are the specialest and bestest at everything, I tend to agree.
I'm just applying those exact same standards to marines right now. Pretty much all at once.
Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
It's mostly melee units, with special rules to help them get into combat faster- which isn't helpful if you then lose once you get there.
Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, and CSM don't get any innate special abilities either to give them non-combat utility. OP didn't even take morale into account, which is a real killer for Guard and Tau.
The point being that even withoutCTs and Doctrines, which are far and above more powerful than any subfaction ability other factions get, Intercessors are fully capable of beating specialists that, if they're just supposed to be jacks of all trades, they should be losing to.
This may not be relevant for a super high tier competitive meta where Tau aren't taking Fire Warriors and Guardsmen are CP batteries first and foremost, but it's basically ruined casual gaming at least in my local meta.
I wouldn't even count talking about Chaos Marines, because GW had always treated them like trash since 4th. So meh. Regarding the other units though, you have a point. Tau get a cool Overwatch bonus, but if your opponent never charges you it might as well not exist. Plus getting into combat easier is good when you can better choose favorable combats.
The question is, how much are all those extra abilities worth? Suppose Howling Banshees are suddenly equal in combat with Intercessors, wouldn't they become absurd because they choose their combats and stop Overwatch? Don't get me wrong, I'm for a total rework of different units.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
Which special rules am I missing out on here? Help me out. I did give the Necrons Resurrection Protocols, even though in practice that rule certainly isn't a given. Genestealers got their bonus attack, Bloodletters got their charge bonus, banshees got their -1 to hit.
I didn't give Tau markerlights or Guardsmen orders, because we're not including supporting buff units - Marines certainly didn't get full hit rerolls and reroll 1s to wound. I wanted to keep it simple, just look at stats vs stats to get a general trend and compare Marines in melee vs dedicated melee units who don't have inbuilt delivery systems and Marines at long range vs units who don't stand a snowballs chance in hell in melee.
marines aren't unbeatable. But just by putting them down on the table, you present your opponent with a challenge they've got to figure out a creative answer to - how to get some specialist shooting unit to appear 12" away from them before getting shot up, or how to get some specialist melee unit (one of the ones that work) into melee with them ignoring overwatch, denying Heroic Interventions, avoiding melee interrupts and using one of the units that can actually get them off the table in significant numbers.
I kinda laugh at giving Warriors RP, because it's such a non-rule and has been for the entire edition. However I was more referring to the Aspect Warriors listed and Genestealers.
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
100% this!
ATSKNF used to be the winning marine rule. You could kill some marines, but they would snap right back into action while other factions would effectively lose-a-turn.
Now it's MOAR BIGGUR and BIGGERUR BOLTER.
Stupid.
As an aside, who crews the 2000 guns on a Repulsor?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
It's mostly melee units, with special rules to help them get into combat faster- which isn't helpful if you then lose once you get there.
Fire Warriors, Guardsmen, and CSM don't get any innate special abilities either to give them non-combat utility. OP didn't even take morale into account, which is a real killer for Guard and Tau.
The point being that even withoutCTs and Doctrines, which are far and above more powerful than any subfaction ability other factions get, Intercessors are fully capable of beating specialists that, if they're just supposed to be jacks of all trades, they should be losing to.
This may not be relevant for a super high tier competitive meta where Tau aren't taking Fire Warriors and Guardsmen are CP batteries first and foremost, but it's basically ruined casual gaming at least in my local meta.
I wouldn't even count talking about Chaos Marines, because GW had always treated them like trash since 4th. So meh. Regarding the other units though, you have a point. Tau get a cool Overwatch bonus, but if your opponent never charges you it might as well not exist. Plus getting into combat easier is good when you can better choose favorable combats.
The question is, how much are all those extra abilities worth? Suppose Howling Banshees are suddenly equal in combat with Intercessors, wouldn't they become absurd because they choose their combats and stop Overwatch? Don't get me wrong, I'm for a total rework of different units.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The thing is, Intercessors don't have any special rules themselves. Ignoring Chapter Tactics and Doctrines (which is more a rule than the silly ATSKNF, so we can count that as the army wide rule comparable to FTGG and such), they rely on their raw stats. Around half the units you mention have special rules in place for the.
Which special rules am I missing out on here? Help me out. I did give the Necrons Resurrection Protocols, even though in practice that rule certainly isn't a given. Genestealers got their bonus attack, Bloodletters got their charge bonus, banshees got their -1 to hit.
I didn't give Tau markerlights or Guardsmen orders, because we're not including supporting buff units - Marines certainly didn't get full hit rerolls and reroll 1s to wound. I wanted to keep it simple, just look at stats vs stats to get a general trend and compare Marines in melee vs dedicated melee units who don't have inbuilt delivery systems and Marines at long range vs units who don't stand a snowballs chance in hell in melee.
marines aren't unbeatable. But just by putting them down on the table, you present your opponent with a challenge they've got to figure out a creative answer to - how to get some specialist shooting unit to appear 12" away from them before getting shot up, or how to get some specialist melee unit (one of the ones that work) into melee with them ignoring overwatch, denying Heroic Interventions, avoiding melee interrupts and using one of the units that can actually get them off the table in significant numbers.
I kinda laugh at giving Warriors RP, because it's such a non-rule and has been for the entire edition. However I was more referring to the Aspect Warriors listed and Genestealers.
Yeah...I know. I gave a bunch of units rules that they would not always get. For starters, I took a unit with a THIRTY INCH RANGE GUN and then assumed a bunch of melee-only specialists would magically teleport into range with them. I ignored the free round of shooting that the harlequins/banshees/genestealers/daemonettes would have to take before their 8" move+Advance and Charge would get them into melee, or the points you'd have to pay for transports/CPs to pay for Teleports you'd have to use to bypass that. I ignored the overwatch all but banshees would be tanking.
Intercessors are a gunline shooting unit first and have their melee rules as a fething backup plan. If Banshees did the same damage as intercessors in melee, they would not be absurd because you can't plonk howling banshees down on the table and hose Fire Warriors and Guardsmen down from 30" away, you have to get their squishy asses into melee to make all their rules do anything.
Fluff and lore-wise? Movie marines. But that doesn't sell people a large army of plastic. This is understandable for an "army" based game. Fluff and lore-wise, Eldar Aspect Warriors should be a close second, but they're nowhere near as good as they're said to be in books, etc. I don't think most players would be happy with a single marine or aspect warrior chopping through ten of their Ork boys as if they were chaff.
Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
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Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
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Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
Even the internal marines balance is gak. Primaris units were made to sell. They are too cheap and too good compared to other factions units and to regular marines too.
Gitdakka wrote: Even the internal marines balance is gak. Primaris units were made to sell. They are too cheap and too good compared to other factions units and to regular marines too.
This is untrue. The only primaris units that really sees play are the intercessor and the eliminators. Why? Because it is a troop and you have to take troops and eliminators are amazing. Aggressors too are pretty good but not good enough for most armies to include them in their list. Get it through your head. It is okay for marines to have some good units. The internal balance is really bad though you got that right.
SR/LR/Rhino/Razor/drop pod/ preditor / Repulsors/ Repulsor executioner. All that gak is totally unplayable compared to impuslors and venerable dreads. Then you have assault cents (not primaris ether) (chaplain dreads - which they don't even make a model for anymore) None of GW rules have anything to do with being priced to sell. They just don't put a lot of thought into it at all.
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
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Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
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Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
In this scenario, we are ignoring a number of hugely advantageous mechanics that marines enjoy: Doctrines, their near immunity to morale, their access to reroll to hit/reroll 1s to wound double aura bubbles for a total of 2CP and 125pts, their top tier chapter tactics, their access to twice as many stratagems, relics, psychic powers and warlord traits than most factions get, etc.
Seeking out a monolith within marines does a disservice to the real issues.
1) The doctrines do not apply until turn 2 in the scenario you made - unless they're SBRs and IH 2) Morale is a meh this edition - nids run less than my rubrics do and they're just dust...
3) Rerolls come at a cost (as noted) and don't usually cover the whole army (barring IH)
4) Most Chapters offer little in regards to this scenario (barring IH)
5) Stratagems / Powers come at a (sometimes too low) cost (See : IH)
The thing I find most absurd about marines is the option to take as many relics as they wish without an increase in cost as well as the very strong WL traits, but will UM super doc matter much if genestealers are charging turn 1? Will WS ever get to utilize their D2?
Full his rerolls are also problematic on units with higher BS when targeting units with negatives to hit, but this mostly affects stacking flyers.
In this scenario, we are ignoring a number of hugely advantageous mechanics that marines enjoy: Doctrines, their near immunity to morale, their access to reroll to hit/reroll 1s to wound double aura bubbles for a total of 2CP and 125pts, their top tier chapter tactics, their access to twice as many stratagems, relics, psychic powers and warlord traits than most factions get, etc.
Seeking out a monolith within marines does a disservice to the real issues.
1) The doctrines do not apply until turn 2 in the scenario you made - unless they're SBRs and IH 2) Morale is a meh this edition - nids run less than my rubrics do and they're just dust...
3) Rerolls come at a cost (as noted) and don't usually cover the whole army (barring IH)
4) Most Chapters offer little in regards to this scenario (barring IH)
5) Stratagems / Powers come at a (sometimes too low) cost (See : IH)
The thing I find most absurd about marines is the option to take as many relics as they wish without an increase in cost as well as the very strong WL traits, but will UM super doc matter much if genestealers are charging turn 1? Will WS ever get to utilize their D2?
Full his rerolls are also problematic on units with higher BS when targeting units with negatives to hit, but this mostly affects stacking flyers.
Yeah - as I just said to Xeno, equivalent points of genestealers still lose to marines if they get the charge off turn 1, with no rerolls, no doctrines, no chapter tactics, no marine player even needing to fall back, no nothing. Just overwatch, genestealers attack with their +1A bonus, marines hit back, marines shoot pistols, and then marines hit first on their turn. That's enough for 10 marines to kill 11 genestealers comfortably (rounding down because you technically get 11.3 genestealers but they lose 1.2 to overwatch).
To be blunt, I don't think what you and I consider "the real issues" are the same thing. I honestly couldn't give less of a gak about what faction is winning competitively if it didn't affect simple games with people just playing their model collections against each other. If a list made up of 90 scout bikes+saint celestine or 26 culexus assassins was totally unbeatable at LVO and was 100% of the competitive lists people brought, it would do precisely nothing to affect me.
The_scotsman, I agree with your overall point but I think you're off regarding Genestealers specifically. You should be able to get 17 Genestealers for the price of 12 Intercessors.
12 Intercessors fire Overwatch against 17 Genestealers, they kill 1.33 on average.
15.67 Genestealers swing, 4 attacks each, average 14 wounds for 7 kills.
5 Intercessors swing back, 3.33 kills.
The Genestealers have taken out 58% of their opposition, while the Intercessors have taken out 27%.
Which means that the glassiest of glass hammers, designed specifically to kill Marines in melee, making it into charge range completely unscathed, going up against basic Marines- barely average twice the efficiency, can't kill their own points' worth, and will certainly die in the opponent's next turn.
This is all in a scenario concocted to avoid the massive investment that Tyranids need to get a full-strength T1 Genestealer charge (Swarmlord, usually Kraken, going first), and ignoring the myriad tricks that Marines have to ruin the whole thing.
That's extremely underwhelming. And Genestealers are generally regarded as pretty good, so the problem isn't with them.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
catbarf wrote: The_scotsman, I agree with your overall point but I think you're off regarding Genestealers specifically. You should be able to get 17 Genestealers for the price of 12 Intercessors.
12 Intercessors fire Overwatch against 17 Genestealers, they kill 1.33 on average.
15.67 Genestealers swing, 4 attacks each, average 14 wounds for 7 kills.
5 Intercessors swing back, 3.33 kills.
The Genestealers have taken out 58% of their opposition, while the Intercessors have taken out 27%.
Which means that the glassiest of glass hammers, designed specifically to kill Marines in melee, making it into charge range completely unscathed, going up against basic Marines- barely average twice the efficiency, can't kill their own points' worth, and will certainly die in the opponent's next turn.
This is all in a scenario concocted to avoid the massive investment that Tyranids need to get a full-strength T1 Genestealer charge (Swarmlord, usually Kraken, going first), and ignoring the myriad tricks that Marines have to ruin the whole thing.
That's extremely underwhelming. And Genestealers are generally regarded as pretty good, so the problem isn't with them.
Am I going nuts or do genestealers cost 1 point more for GSC then? I could swear they were 15ppm. Least that's what I paid for them in my last list.
I went for 10 vs 11 because it allowed me to field an actually legal squad of intercessors (IIRC you can't field 12 Intercessors) and it allowed the GS to still get their extra attack after the Overwatch, because I knew if they didn't get it someone would complain.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
Or, you know. Stronger than an ork nob, slightly slower than an eldar, WAY tougher than a necron, WAY better guns than a Tau, and...well "Relentless" isn't really a word that means anything, you just said it because it's a thing you can say Tyranids are.
Intercessors have gone from trash to the best troop on the game. And with that they are also better than many other infantry units.
The best thing about intercessors is that they dont need that much support to be good. I eat intercessors for breakfast with my saggitarum, unless they are IH with stalkers. But other troops? They are bonned
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
To be blunt, I don't think what you and I consider "the real issues" are the same thing. I honestly couldn't give less of a gak about what faction is winning competitively if it didn't affect simple games with people just playing their model collections against each other. If a list made up of 90 scout bikes+saint celestine or 26 culexus assassins was totally unbeatable at LVO and was 100% of the competitive lists people brought, it would do precisely nothing to affect me.
Yea, I got to witness the absurd-ness of IH dreads two weekends ago. It got crushed by DA of all things.
Intercessors were barely ever part of the equation.
Firstly, your maths is wrong for several of those calculations.
17 Genestealers attacking with rending claws is 68 attacks, 45.33 hits, 15.11 wounds at AP-1 and 7.55 wounds at AP-4 for a total of 15.11 unsaved wounds and 7.55 dead intercessors (128 points).
12 Intercessors including sergeant is 37 attacks, 24.66 hits, 12.33 wounds and 8.22 unsaved wounds for 99 points of dead genestealers.
Secondly, the most important aspect of a melee unit is its ability to get into melee. The game is littered with high damage melee units that simply can't get there. Raven Guard Assault Cents = amazing. Other Assault Cents = opposite of amazing.
Along a similar vein, Reapers come off horribly in your comparison despite being an excellent anti marine unit, but you ignored range.
For what it's worth, I do think Shock Assault is too powerful, I think it would be better if marines only got it when they charged.
Am I going nuts or do genestealers cost 1 point more for GSC then? I could swear they were 15ppm. Least that's what I paid for them in my last list.
You aren't going nuts. GSC Purestrain genestealers cost 15ppm, while tyranid hive fleet genestealers cost 12ppm. In addition to being 3 points cheaper, the tyranid version also get a bunch of extra upgrade options, and are able to take a hive fleet ability (the GSC version does not get to use a cult ability). All the GSC version gets in exchange is cult ambush, which is basically just the ability to deepstrike. Genestealer cults get gakky genestealers.
EDIT: Oh nevermind, I thought this was in relation to you realizing GSC ones cost more than tyranid ones. I think I misread that post.
To be blunt, I don't think what you and I consider "the real issues" are the same thing. I honestly couldn't give less of a gak about what faction is winning competitively if it didn't affect simple games with people just playing their model collections against each other. If a list made up of 90 scout bikes+saint celestine or 26 culexus assassins was totally unbeatable at LVO and was 100% of the competitive lists people brought, it would do precisely nothing to affect me.
Yea, I got to witness the absurd-ness of IH dreads two weekends ago. It got crushed by DA of all things.
Intercessors were barely ever part of the equation.
Sure. But some Forgeworld chaplain dreadnought discontinued sculpt that people can take 3 of and have this hyper-efficient tank hunting thing - I'll just never have to care about it. That's just not how people tend to play around here, Forgeworld in general is incredibly rare due to its price and the fact you can't buy it from the store, and seeing someone take 3 of any 200+ point unit is incredibly unusual.
Problems like those, 12 flyrant lists, 3 crimson hunter/3 Hemlock lists, triple riptide+60 drone lists, a dozen such other crazy competitive meta problems come and go without ever affecting any of the 50 odd people that play around here. And the really amazing thing about that is that a bunch of the names you see cropping up again and again at tournament top 8s are people who play in this local area. They just play eachother, because only they are good practice.
ryuken87 wrote: Firstly, your maths is wrong for several of those calculations.
17 Genestealers attacking with rending claws is 68 attacks, 45.33 hits, 15.11 wounds at AP-1 and 7.55 wounds at AP-4 for a total of 15.11 unsaved wounds and 7.55 dead intercessors (128 points).
12 Intercessors including sergeant is 37 attacks, 24.66 hits, 12.33 wounds and 8.22 unsaved wounds for 99 points of dead genestealers.
Secondly, the most important aspect of a melee unit is its ability to get into melee. The game is littered with high damage melee units that simply can't get there. Raven Guard Assault Cents = amazing. Other Assault Cents = opposite of amazing.
Along a similar vein, Reapers come off horribly in your comparison despite being an excellent anti marine unit, but you ignored range.
For what it's worth, I do think Shock Assault is too powerful, I think it would be better if marines only got it when they charged.
It has been pointed out by others that my army's genestealers are 3PPM more than another army's genestealers and I didn't realize because I don't play Tyranids.
I think I realised why I don't like Space Marines as much as everyone else seems to. Being the best at everything at once just isn't as compelling to me, regardless of how its portrayed.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
Having a race that's better than everyone at everything is neither good writing nor good game design.
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
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Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
Charging does not. make. a difference.
Nono - I was saying harliquens perform better against tougher units. They have str 5 and -2 ap on their attacks with caress and twice as many attacks for I think the exact same cost. Not to mention the ability to advance and charge and fall back and charge.
Quins vs custodian guards wound on 4's and drop them to a 4+ save where as intercessors wound on 5's and they get a 2+.
Intercessors vs custodian guard a full 10 man squad charging has 32 attacks and does 1.14 wounds
A 10 man harlequin does 6.66 (and this is without the obligatory frozen stars +1 attack ability)
How elite do intercessors feel in this situation? Not very. I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying just the conclusion you are reaching. Intercessors are good against any kind of infantry that isn't bringing heavy armor and can't penetrate theirs. This is exactly what a marine should feel like. You should need the right weapons to kill marines. Plasmaguns / dessie cannons / power weapons. If anything a unit like geensteelers doesn't feel nearly as strong as they used to. They used to shred everything now they just scratch at you with claws fishing for 6's and a few acid maws. The real issue here is this unit never makes it to combat without losing half the unit unless it's charging turn 1 or you are in a city fight.
Karol wrote: Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups.
I feel like Marine players just collectively skip over the changes between Codex 1.0 and Codex 2.0, because the points drops to everything in CA18 combined with the standardization of Bolter Discipline as an official rule made for a hell of a difference in how they fared.
And yet events were still being won, by tau and eldar, and top placing were not marines. bolter drill didn't help marines to beat the top armies. the new rules do.
Nope. When Tau are really strong and people complain they have boring, uninteractive gunline rules, I tend to agree. When guard are strong and it feels like these baseline level humans are outperforming supposed superhuman soldiers, I tend to agree. When Eldar are strong and it feels like they have 9000 special rules for how their special guys are the specialest and bestest at everything, I tend to agree.
I'm just applying those exact same standards to marines right now. Pretty much all at once.
what standards. Eldar players loved it when they armies were good. I can't think of a single thread made by eldar players being upset how edition after edition they are on the top. If anything, eldar players anwser to their armies being above avarge good, was L2P issue or they say that they never used those powerful rules, followed by them claiming to win with those weaker armies anyway.
But I get it, when a minority army is good, people are okey with it. Specially if the army costs a lot. But the idea that someone can slap two starter sets, make snipers out of 9 ETB reavers, and start winning, with 2 weeks of expiriance, vs 20 years vets as if it was nothing.
If knights could dominate for a year, if eldar could dominate for multiple editions, maybe this is the time for marines to be the top army for a year or two. Seems the way GW designs and makes their rules.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
Well and on the whole the choas units do cost slightly less. The csm compared to a tactical for example. I agree with you - the disparity is not fair. Esp when compared to something like Ironhands or imperial fist. Then again - those are clear outliers in power.
Karol wrote: Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups.
I feel like Marine players just collectively skip over the changes between Codex 1.0 and Codex 2.0, because the points drops to everything in CA18 combined with the standardization of Bolter Discipline as an official rule made for a hell of a difference in how they fared.
And yet events were still being won, by tau and eldar, and top placing were not marines. bolter drill didn't help marines to beat the top armies. the new rules do.
Competitive events aren't about basic troops anyways. I don't really care about whether the pre-2.0, post-CA18 Marine codex could take on a Triptide or IH Levi Dread spam list. That metric isn't at all relevant to the game I'm playing. In a casual meta they were fine.
All SM1.0 not showing up to tournaments tells you is that you couldn't make a broken, imbalanced list out of the codex to compete with all the other broken, imbalanced lists that show up at top-tier tournament play. Now even fluffy, casual SM have been kicked up to that level, and it's pretty un-fun to have to build a competitive list to be on even footing.
Once again I feel tournament play completely skews the discussion surrounding the game. Intercessors beat the crap out of any other faction's basic infantry and did so even before SM2.0, but tournament players don't mind because they're not taking Fire Warriors or Guardians to begin with.
But the idea that someone can slap two starter sets, make snipers out of 9 ETB reavers, and start winning, with 2 weeks of expiriance, vs 20 years vets as if it was nothing.
If knights could dominate for a year, if eldar could dominate for multiple editions, maybe this is the time for marines to be the top army for a year or two. Seems the way GW designs and makes their rules.
It is usually a bad sign. Among the winners of GT I see relatively new players using meta armies.
While these players are probably smart and motivated, it doesn’t precisely highlight balance and depth of the game.
Try that with chess and tell me how it works out.
Some of it seems to be carried by primaris and some marine armies like IH.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
Well and on the whole the choas units do cost slightly less. The csm compared to a tactical for example. I agree with you - the disparity is not fair. Esp when compared to something like Ironhands or imperial fist. Then again - those are clear outliers in power.
For the...only example.
IIRC all the other CSM units have the same costs as loyalist units. All the (effectively) identical HQs, all the shared vehicles who don't get chapter tactics, all the guns that won't be getting -1AP turn 1... Terminators *might* be 1-2 points chaeaper base, I honestly don't remember.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
Charging does not. make. a difference.
Nono - I was saying harliquens perform better against tougher units. They have str 5 and -2 ap on their attacks with caress and twice as many attacks for I think the exact same cost. Not to mention the ability to advance and charge and fall back and charge.
Quins vs custodian guards wound on 4's and drop them to a 4+ save where as intercessors wound on 5's and they get a 2+.
Intercessors vs custodian guard a full 10 man squad charging has 32 attacks and does 1.14 wounds
A 10 man harlequin does 6.66 (and this is without the obligatory frozen stars +1 attack ability)
How elite do intercessors feel in this situation? Not very. I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying just the conclusion you are reaching. Intercessors are good against any kind of infantry that isn't bringing heavy armor and can't penetrate theirs. This is exactly what a marine should feel like. You should need the right weapons to kill marines. Plasmaguns / dessie cannons / power weapons. If anything a unit like geensteelers doesn't feel nearly as strong as they used to. They used to shred everything now they just scratch at you with claws fishing for 6's and a few acid maws. The real issue here is this unit never makes it to combat without losing half the unit unless it's charging turn 1 or you are in a city fight.
Maybe that has something to do with those tougher units actually paying a fair cost for their durability and abilities. There is no reason a model with a S4 AP-3 d1 (or S5 AP-2 D1, they're basically identical I just used the embrace because IIRC it's one point cheaper and made them *exactly* the same cost) should not do well against a T4 3+ infantry unit that puts most of its points budget into shooting.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
Well and on the whole the choas units do cost slightly less. The csm compared to a tactical for example. I agree with you - the disparity is not fair. Esp when compared to something like Ironhands or imperial fist. Then again - those are clear outliers in power.
For the...only example.
IIRC all the other CSM units have the same costs as loyalist units. All the (effectively) identical HQs, all the shared vehicles who don't get chapter tactics, all the guns that won't be getting -1AP turn 1... Terminators *might* be 1-2 points chaeaper base, I honestly don't remember.
Pretty much every unit in csm got a drop in points in the last chapter approved. By comparison you can count the number of drops on 1 hand for loyalists (which is good - because marines would be REALLY REALLY OP if they got those drops too).
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
Charging does not. make. a difference.
Nono - I was saying harliquens perform better against tougher units. They have str 5 and -2 ap on their attacks with caress and twice as many attacks for I think the exact same cost. Not to mention the ability to advance and charge and fall back and charge.
Quins vs custodian guards wound on 4's and drop them to a 4+ save where as intercessors wound on 5's and they get a 2+.
Intercessors vs custodian guard a full 10 man squad charging has 32 attacks and does 1.14 wounds
A 10 man harlequin does 6.66 (and this is without the obligatory frozen stars +1 attack ability)
How elite do intercessors feel in this situation? Not very. I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying just the conclusion you are reaching. Intercessors are good against any kind of infantry that isn't bringing heavy armor and can't penetrate theirs. This is exactly what a marine should feel like. You should need the right weapons to kill marines. Plasmaguns / dessie cannons / power weapons. If anything a unit like geensteelers doesn't feel nearly as strong as they used to. They used to shred everything now they just scratch at you with claws fishing for 6's and a few acid maws. The real issue here is this unit never makes it to combat without losing half the unit unless it's charging turn 1 or you are in a city fight.
Maybe that has something to do with those tougher units actually paying a fair cost for their durability and abilities. There is no reason a model with a S4 AP-3 d1 (or S5 AP-2 D1, they're basically identical I just used the embrace because IIRC it's one point cheaper and made them *exactly* the same cost) should not do well against a T4 3+ infantry unit that puts most of its points budget into shooting.
@the_scotsman
Custodian gaurds probably should come down a few points that is not the issue though. The point is custodian gaurds are going to destroy intercessors in a brawl but they are probably going to lose to harlequins. We are just talking about rock paper scissors here.
Martel always says this and I totally agree. For cheaper units with lower ppm. A big % of their total cost is just existing with 1 wound. Taking up space - the cheapest units should not be able to compete against higher ppm units who are actually putting more "risk" on top their wounds with the amount of points you can remove with a wound. So basically - the cheaper a model is - the less efficient it should be.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
Well and on the whole the choas units do cost slightly less. The csm compared to a tactical for example. I agree with you - the disparity is not fair. Esp when compared to something like Ironhands or imperial fist. Then again - those are clear outliers in power.
For the...only example.
IIRC all the other CSM units have the same costs as loyalist units. All the (effectively) identical HQs, all the shared vehicles who don't get chapter tactics, all the guns that won't be getting -1AP turn 1... Terminators *might* be 1-2 points chaeaper base, I honestly don't remember.
Pretty much every unit in csm got a drop in points in the last chapter approved. By comparison you can count the number of drops on 1 hand for loyalists (which is good - because marines would be REALLY REALLY OP if they got those drops too).
Chaos Lord 74
SM Captain 74
Sorceror 88
Librarian 88
CSMs 55
Tacticals 60
Chaos Terminators (Fist and Power Sword champ) 165
Tactical Terminators 165
Raptors 75
Assault Squad Jump Packs 75
Bike Squad 69 (nice)
Bike Squad 69 (nice)
Havocs 116 (heavy bolters)
Devastators 105 (Heavy Bolters)
Chaos Land Raider 277
Land Raider 277
Chaos Predator 125
Predator 125
Chaos Vindicator 125
Vindicator 125
Chaos Rhino 67
Rhino 67
Is my battlescribe out of date? Am I missing something somewhere? Where are these point drops on Chaos stuff vs Loyalist stuff?
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
Charging does not. make. a difference.
Nono - I was saying harliquens perform better against tougher units. They have str 5 and -2 ap on their attacks with caress and twice as many attacks for I think the exact same cost. Not to mention the ability to advance and charge and fall back and charge.
Quins vs custodian guards wound on 4's and drop them to a 4+ save where as intercessors wound on 5's and they get a 2+.
Intercessors vs custodian guard a full 10 man squad charging has 32 attacks and does 1.14 wounds
A 10 man harlequin does 6.66 (and this is without the obligatory frozen stars +1 attack ability)
How elite do intercessors feel in this situation? Not very. I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying just the conclusion you are reaching. Intercessors are good against any kind of infantry that isn't bringing heavy armor and can't penetrate theirs. This is exactly what a marine should feel like. You should need the right weapons to kill marines. Plasmaguns / dessie cannons / power weapons. If anything a unit like geensteelers doesn't feel nearly as strong as they used to. They used to shred everything now they just scratch at you with claws fishing for 6's and a few acid maws. The real issue here is this unit never makes it to combat without losing half the unit unless it's charging turn 1 or you are in a city fight.
Maybe that has something to do with those tougher units actually paying a fair cost for their durability and abilities. There is no reason a model with a S4 AP-3 d1 (or S5 AP-2 D1, they're basically identical I just used the embrace because IIRC it's one point cheaper and made them *exactly* the same cost) should not do well against a T4 3+ infantry unit that puts most of its points budget into shooting.
@the_scotsman
Custodian gaurds probably should come down a few points that is not the issue though. The point is custodian gaurds are going to destroy intercessors in a brawl but they are probably going to lose to harlequins. We are just talking about rock paper scissors here.
Martel always says this and I totally agree. For cheaper units with lower ppm. A big % of their total cost is just existing with 1 wound. Taking up space - the cheapest units should not be able to compete against higher ppm units who are actually putting more "risk" on top their wounds with the amount of points you can remove with a wound. So basically - the cheaper a model is - the less efficient it should be.
But...what? Harlequins and intercessors are..they're exactly the same points. EXACTLY the same points. You're saying that them having 1 wound instead of 2 is a BONUS they're getting? I figured you guys would be calling major bs if I tried to compare naked harlequins to Intercessors, because...the numbers there are just fething laughable...but harlequins with a melee option take up LESS board space than intercessors, they have smaller bases.
Also, one of the worst matchups I looked into was Intercessors vs Dark Reapers, and they're both anti-marine specialists AND have basically zero board presence at 31ppm for a 25mm base.
Darsath wrote: I think I realised why I don't like Space Marines as much as everyone else seems to. Being the best at everything at once just isn't as compelling to me, regardless of how its portrayed.
I'm with you there, and it's only gotten worse over time. Over the past two decades Marines have gone from skilled, smart, physically augmented, coordinated, and experienced- but still threatened by the extreme capabilities of the xenos races in the setting- to harder to kill than tanks, faster than Usain Bolt, never missing a shot, basically not threatened by anything they fight, with their only weakness being that they can't be everywhere at once.
'Movie Marines' were a joke when they released- a play on how cinematics exaggerate the capabilities of the heroes and invoke over-the-top tropes. Now, fifteen years later, they're regarded as 'lore accurate' Marines.
I think this is part of why players misunderstand the problem with balance. If a unit is good at everything, it should be expensive enough to be mediocre at everything for its points. If a generalist unit can, point-for-point, compete in melee with a melee specialist or compete at range with a ranged specialist, that's not Marines being good as they should be, that's Marines being underpriced. Sure, you can outshoot a Fire Warrior one-on-one, but if 100pts of Marines can out-shoot 100pts of Fire Warriors then something is very wrong.
Xenomancers wrote: Martel always says this and I totally agree. For cheaper units with lower ppm. A big % of their total cost is just existing with 1 wound. Taking up space - the cheapest units should not be able to compete against higher ppm units who are actually putting more "risk" on top their wounds with the amount of points you can remove with a wound. So basically - the cheaper a model is - the less efficient it should be.
Take this argument to its logical conclusion and you wind up with Knights dominating everyone again.
I find board presence to be regularly overvalued. Taking up more space is a double-edged sword when you can't fit in cover, can't escape LOS, can't get everyone in range, can't keep all your units within an aura bubble, can't maneuver multiple units around terrain, or can't stay alive on an objective. People like to theoryhammer about Straken and a Priest leading a whole platoon of Catachans into melee but in practice it's damn near impossible to herd that many cats. 90 Boyz sounds great, but it is a work of art getting them all into combat at the same time against an opponent who positions to restrict your maximum frontage.
You're not taking extra 'risk' by taking a 8.5PPW Intercessor over a 4pt Guardsman; you pay more per-wound because each of those wounds is a lot harder to remove and represents a greater amount of firepower. You're just trading resilience against anti-tank weapons for resilience against anti-infantry weapons.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me. I was trying to argue that sm units that are shared with csm are under costed, not just against csm, but against everyone, as they are superior due to doctrines and stronger chapter tactics. Before c:sm 2.0 and the supplements those units were basically equal without buffing effects, so it made sense for them to be the same price. That's no longer the case.
Well and on the whole the choas units do cost slightly less. The csm compared to a tactical for example. I agree with you - the disparity is not fair. Esp when compared to something like Ironhands or imperial fist. Then again - those are clear outliers in power.
For the...only example.
IIRC all the other CSM units have the same costs as loyalist units. All the (effectively) identical HQs, all the shared vehicles who don't get chapter tactics, all the guns that won't be getting -1AP turn 1... Terminators *might* be 1-2 points chaeaper base, I honestly don't remember.
Pretty much every unit in csm got a drop in points in the last chapter approved. By comparison you can count the number of drops on 1 hand for loyalists (which is good - because marines would be REALLY REALLY OP if they got those drops too).
Chaos Lord 74
SM Captain 74
Sorceror 88
Librarian 88
CSMs 55
Tacticals 60
Chaos Terminators (Fist and Power Sword champ) 165
Tactical Terminators 165
Raptors 75
Assault Squad Jump Packs 75
Bike Squad 69 (nice)
Bike Squad 69 (nice)
Havocs 116 (heavy bolters)
Devastators 105 (Heavy Bolters)
Chaos Land Raider 277
Land Raider 277
Chaos Predator 125
Predator 125
Chaos Vindicator 125
Vindicator 125
Chaos Rhino 67
Rhino 67
Is my battlescribe out of date? Am I missing something somewhere? Where are these point drops on Chaos stuff vs Loyalist stuff?
Xenomancers wrote: In this game when you charge you win the combat. Marines can win a combat if they charge...however - they have basically no mechanics to charge with.
Literally all the examples you listed are much more likely to charge the marines due to the fact they are faster or have deep strike charge mechanics.
Transports are terrible and or too expensive. They aren't quick. Plus no real other methods of mobility (yes RG and WS do have mechanics for this) more often than not though - Marines melee ability is an afterthought.
Another point. Intercessors do really well against light infantry but do really poorly against tough units like custodians guards and broadsides. I assure you a unit of harlequin troops out-damages intercessors vs broadsides or custodian gaurd in melee. Just speaking on stats here...I agree that some of the chapter tactics / super-doctrines are absurd.
In general. Intercessors rek light units and do poorly against actual elite units - youd rather have chaff or no troops at all against really elite unit - like knights or SG or shinning spears.
IMO they finally got the marine feel right with the base stats on the intercessor - marines being terrible really wasn't doing it for anyone but marine haters (of which there are plenty).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gadzilla666 wrote: Isn't part of the problem the sheer number of good units sm have? They have the best internally balanced codex in the game, with few bad options.
And when compared to supposedly equal units, at least in name and cost, fielded by csm the loyalists option is still better. If a loyalist land raider, predator, vindicator, or leviathan goes up against its heretic counterpart it's going to win the majority of the time. For the same points. Doctrines need to be taken into consideration in all sm points costs just as they were in the case of tacticals vs csm.
In the choas vs loyalist balance issues it appears they have gone for a different approach. Choas has weaker base rules - but better stratagem efficiency. I don't like it anymore than you do but...there is no denying that choas can buff a unit out the wazzo - much more than space marines can.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Not sure what fluff you are reading...marines are certainly always outnumbered and outgunned. Outclassed though? Nope...their quality can not be overstated. Mary sue? Maybe. They are the heros of the story though. A marine should be a lot harder to kill than an ork.
I'm sorry, do we live in a universe where it makes sense for a space marine equipped with a gun to compete with a dedicated melee specialist against a unit like a custode? Regardless, Harlequins are fething horrible against custodes, 0.44 wounds on average. Want to kill 1 Custode? Take 7 harlequins. And then the remaining 2 custodes in the minimum squad kill 2 harlequins in your turn, then 2 harlequins when they strike first in their turn, and finish off the squad if you don't fall back on your turn. But YoU wIn WhEn YoU cHaRgE.
Just for you, let's do an actual full mathhammer for that harlequin vs intercessor fight given your claim here. We'll ignore doctrines and chapter tactics again, and give the harlequins the ability to instantly materialize 2" away and charge, they can't fail. But since we're talking about their ability to advance and charge, no pistol attacks for the harlequins.
Overwatch: .56 dead harlequins.
Harlequin first round: 4.9 wounds.
Intercessor first round: 2.44 dead harlequins
Intercessors turn, 3 pistols kill .66 harlequins and 8 melee attacks kill 1.77.
5.4 average harlequins dead. 2 intercessors dead, 1 wounded.
A game where a melee specialist can get the first strike against a 30" range gunline infantry unit that costs exactly equal points and lose all their models before they can even take the other guy down under half strength is fethed.
taking it out to the big squads I looked at in the initial example makes it even worse, because other factions actually have morale rules to some extent. You get a little over 11 genestealers for the cost of 10 intercessors. It's about 11.33, the intercessors kill 1.2 in overwatch so we'll say 10 make it in. The genestealers kill 4.1 intercessors in the first round and lose 6.6 in return, taking 1 from morale on average. Then the next round the intercessors kill the remaining 5 genestealers easily between pistols and melee.
Charging does not. make. a difference.
Nono - I was saying harliquens perform better against tougher units. They have str 5 and -2 ap on their attacks with caress and twice as many attacks for I think the exact same cost. Not to mention the ability to advance and charge and fall back and charge.
Quins vs custodian guards wound on 4's and drop them to a 4+ save where as intercessors wound on 5's and they get a 2+.
Intercessors vs custodian guard a full 10 man squad charging has 32 attacks and does 1.14 wounds
A 10 man harlequin does 6.66 (and this is without the obligatory frozen stars +1 attack ability)
How elite do intercessors feel in this situation? Not very. I am not disagreeing with anything you are saying just the conclusion you are reaching. Intercessors are good against any kind of infantry that isn't bringing heavy armor and can't penetrate theirs. This is exactly what a marine should feel like. You should need the right weapons to kill marines. Plasmaguns / dessie cannons / power weapons. If anything a unit like geensteelers doesn't feel nearly as strong as they used to. They used to shred everything now they just scratch at you with claws fishing for 6's and a few acid maws. The real issue here is this unit never makes it to combat without losing half the unit unless it's charging turn 1 or you are in a city fight.
Maybe that has something to do with those tougher units actually paying a fair cost for their durability and abilities. There is no reason a model with a S4 AP-3 d1 (or S5 AP-2 D1, they're basically identical I just used the embrace because IIRC it's one point cheaper and made them *exactly* the same cost) should not do well against a T4 3+ infantry unit that puts most of its points budget into shooting.
@the_scotsman
Custodian gaurds probably should come down a few points that is not the issue though. The point is custodian gaurds are going to destroy intercessors in a brawl but they are probably going to lose to harlequins. We are just talking about rock paper scissors here.
Martel always says this and I totally agree. For cheaper units with lower ppm. A big % of their total cost is just existing with 1 wound. Taking up space - the cheapest units should not be able to compete against higher ppm units who are actually putting more "risk" on top their wounds with the amount of points you can remove with a wound. So basically - the cheaper a model is - the less efficient it should be.
But...what? Harlequins and intercessors are..they're exactly the same points. EXACTLY the same points. You're saying that them having 1 wound instead of 2 is a BONUS they're getting? I figured you guys would be calling major bs if I tried to compare naked harlequins to Intercessors, because...the numbers there are just fething laughable...but harlequins with a melee option take up LESS board space than intercessors, they have smaller bases.
Also, one of the worst matchups I looked into was Intercessors vs Dark Reapers, and they're both anti-marine specialists AND have basically zero board presence at 31ppm for a 25mm base.
Base size is kind of negligible. A single 25mm base is a 18"+ diameter no deep strike zone and smaller base can be an advantage sometimes if you want to fit into smaller areas.
The quin has double the attacks and basically moves twice as fast - ignores vertical distances. They are both great units I'm not saying which is better. Whoever hits first is going to win the fight (quins ether go naked or with caress)
Also I see a lot of utility in naked harlequins. Put a 12 man squad out on the table next to a shadowseer and give them a 3++ save (for CP) with -1 to wound (6+fnp if you get to go first). Advance them up - double move them. Blizz up your solitare to maybe remove overwatch if you are lucky and then lock up as much as you can. Turn 2 your whole army is charging.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Yeah but CSM aren't primaris and they don't pay primaris prices. They are unique in their own way. Can take 20 man squads. We don't write the fluff man.
Darsath wrote: I think I realised why I don't like Space Marines as much as everyone else seems to. Being the best at everything at once just isn't as compelling to me, regardless of how its portrayed.
I'm with you there, and it's only gotten worse over time. Over the past two decades Marines have gone from skilled, smart, physically augmented, coordinated, and experienced- but still threatened by the extreme capabilities of the xenos races in the setting- to harder to kill than tanks, faster than Usain Bolt, never missing a shot, basically not threatened by anything they fight, with their only weakness being that they can't be everywhere at once.
'Movie Marines' were a joke when they released- a play on how cinematics exaggerate the capabilities of the heroes and invoke over-the-top tropes. Now, fifteen years later, they're regarded as 'lore accurate' Marines.
I think this is part of why players misunderstand the problem with balance. If a unit is good at everything, it should be expensive enough to be mediocre at everything for its points. If a generalist unit can, point-for-point, compete in melee with a melee specialist or compete at range with a ranged specialist, that's not Marines being good as they should be, that's Marines being underpriced. Sure, you can outshoot a Fire Warrior one-on-one, but if 100pts of Marines can out-shoot 100pts of Fire Warriors then something is very wrong.
Xenomancers wrote: Martel always says this and I totally agree. For cheaper units with lower ppm. A big % of their total cost is just existing with 1 wound. Taking up space - the cheapest units should not be able to compete against higher ppm units who are actually putting more "risk" on top their wounds with the amount of points you can remove with a wound. So basically - the cheaper a model is - the less efficient it should be.
Take this argument to its logical conclusion and you wind up with Knights dominating everyone again.
I find board presence to be regularly overvalued. Taking up more space is a double-edged sword when you can't fit in cover, can't escape LOS, can't get everyone in range, can't keep all your units within an aura bubble, can't maneuver multiple units around terrain, or can't stay alive on an objective. People like to theoryhammer about Straken and a Priest leading a whole platoon of Catachans into melee but in practice it's damn near impossible to herd that many cats. 90 Boyz sounds great, but it is a work of art getting them all into combat at the same time against an opponent who positions to restrict your maximum frontage.
You're not taking extra 'risk' by taking a 8.5PPW Intercessor over a 4pt Guardsman; you pay more per-wound because each of those wounds is a lot harder to remove and represents a greater amount of firepower. You're just trading resilience against anti-tank weapons for resilience against anti-infantry weapons.
You are actually taking a huge risk. Lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage. That is a huge risk. Not to mention AP.
So you're just gonna ignore the two differenr ways I just proved you wrong? Harlequins do not win in melee vs primaris wirh any weapon, and csm pay exactly the same prices loyalists do for all their shared stuff except for 1ppm for marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What army has every weapon damage 2 or D3? Knights? Im coming up with one troop unit with only d3d guns, battle servitors.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Yeah but CSM aren't primaris and they don't pay primaris prices. They are unique in their own way. Can take 20 man squads. We don't write the fluff man.
Points, etc. are really beside the point in this branch of the conversation here. Is it appropriate to have your baseline heroes so powerful compared to opposing units that have been much more comparable in the past? What does it do to your setting? What does it do to the units of other factions?
catbarf wrote: The_scotsman, I agree with your overall point but I think you're off regarding Genestealers specifically. You should be able to get 17 Genestealers for the price of 12 Intercessors.
12 Intercessors fire Overwatch against 17 Genestealers, they kill 1.33 on average.
15.67 Genestealers swing, 4 attacks each, average 14 wounds for 7 kills.
5 Intercessors swing back, 3.33 kills.
The Genestealers have taken out 58% of their opposition, while the Intercessors have taken out 27%.
Which means that the glassiest of glass hammers, designed specifically to kill Marines in melee, making it into charge range completely unscathed, going up against basic Marines- barely average twice the efficiency, can't kill their own points' worth, and will certainly die in the opponent's next turn.
This is all in a scenario concocted to avoid the massive investment that Tyranids need to get a full-strength T1 Genestealer charge (Swarmlord, usually Kraken, going first), and ignoring the myriad tricks that Marines have to ruin the whole thing.
That's extremely underwhelming. And Genestealers are generally regarded as pretty good, so the problem isn't with them.
They aren't really glass they are t4 with a 5++ and hit them with catalyst. They are ignoring about half of all incoming wounds and they best part about it is it is guaranteed durability. I stopped taking the steelers though in favor of warriors.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Yeah but CSM aren't primaris and they don't pay primaris prices. They are unique in their own way. Can take 20 man squads. We don't write the fluff man.
Points, etc. are really beside the point in this branch of the conversation here. Is it appropriate to have your baseline heroes so powerful compared to opposing units that have been much more comparable in the past? What does it do to your setting? What does it do to the units of other factions?
Well unless they make tac loyalist unplayable in the modern game they aren't comparable units. CSM are to be compared against tac marines.
the_scotsman wrote: So you're just gonna ignore the two differenr ways I just proved you wrong? Harlequins do not win in melee vs primaris wirh any weapon, and csm pay exactly the same prices loyalists do for all their shared stuff except for 1ppm for marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What army has every weapon damage 2 or D3? Knights? Im coming up with one troop unit with only d3d guns, battle servitors.
Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
the_scotsman wrote: So you're just gonna ignore the two differenr ways I just proved you wrong? Harlequins do not win in melee vs primaris wirh any weapon, and csm pay exactly the same prices loyalists do for all their shared stuff except for 1ppm for marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What army has every weapon damage 2 or D3? Knights? Im coming up with one troop unit with only d3d guns, battle servitors.
Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Youre right, ill just take the natural predator of primaris marines when I want to counter them: primaris marines.
This is why I made this thread. I knew itd be comedy gold. You could take a 2000 point army of harlequins equipped with their best anti-MEQ weaponry, deploy them 2" away and guarantee they get the first turn and theyd lose to 2000 points of intercessors.
the_scotsman wrote: So you're just gonna ignore the two differenr ways I just proved you wrong? Harlequins do not win in melee vs primaris wirh any weapon, and csm pay exactly the same prices loyalists do for all their shared stuff except for 1ppm for marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What army has every weapon damage 2 or D3? Knights? Im coming up with one troop unit with only d3d guns, battle servitors.
Yeah knights is possible. DE and eldar too.
The tau missle spam that is coming (oh they get free AP too) - happy me (I have 15 tau suits with rocket pods).
I'm not sure you are correct here. If the quins (frozen stars) attack. They kill 7 primaris marines with caress (without reroll wounds which they gonna have). They completely make up their points in 1 turn if they have a troop master nearby.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Yeah but CSM aren't primaris and they don't pay primaris prices. They are unique in their own way. Can take 20 man squads. We don't write the fluff man.
Points, etc. are really beside the point in this branch of the conversation here. Is it appropriate to have your baseline heroes so powerful compared to opposing units that have been much more comparable in the past? What does it do to your setting? What does it do to the units of other factions?
Well unless they make tac loyalist unplayable in the modern game they aren't comparable units. CSM are to be compared against tac marines.
Sigh. Have you read the OP? The OP that talks about Intercessors? Did you follow any of the reasoning at all in the thread of conversation that you replied to?
Xenomancers wrote: They aren't really glass they are t4 with a 5++ and hit them with catalyst. They are ignoring about half of all incoming wounds and they best part about it is it is guaranteed durability. I stopped taking the steelers though in favor of warriors.
So they have a quarter of the durability of Primaris despite being 70% the cost, until you layer on a psychic power- which we aren't, because this comparison is based on the units themselves and not all the other buffs that armies can stack on.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
the_scotsman wrote: So you're just gonna ignore the two differenr ways I just proved you wrong? Harlequins do not win in melee vs primaris wirh any weapon, and csm pay exactly the same prices loyalists do for all their shared stuff except for 1ppm for marines.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What army has every weapon damage 2 or D3? Knights? Im coming up with one troop unit with only d3d guns, battle servitors.
Yeah knights is possible. DE and eldar too.
The tau missle spam that is coming (oh they get free AP too) - happy me (I have 15 tau suits with rocket pods).
I'm not sure you are correct here. If the quins (frozen stars) attack. They kill 7 primaris marines with caress (without reroll wounds which they gonna have). They completely make up their points in 1 turn if they have a troop master nearby.
So you're comparing sm troops against other factions' elites, heavy support, and fething super heavys?
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons. My Tau generally can't outside of missile pods on the turret drone, however my suits kill primaris just fine.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
I mean, he also claimed that csm got huge points drops in CA... Do we get to call that a lie or is it also "hyperbole" because of the 1ppm discount on csm vs Tacs?
the_scotsman wrote: I mean, he also claimed that csm got huge points drops in CA... Do we get to call that a lie or is it also "hyperbole" because of the 1ppm discount on csm vs Tacs?
Well, they did. They just didn't get huge drops on analogues.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
I mean, this is the company that made the Ultramarines movie, lol. You can see how much they value narrative tension and faction parity in that one
the_scotsman wrote: I mean, he also claimed that csm got huge points drops in CA... Do we get to call that a lie or is it also "hyperbole" because of the 1ppm discount on csm vs Tacs?
Well, they did. They just didn't get huge drops on analogues.
Mmmmm. Got it. So conveniently all the units they share are the same, but we can say they got a drop on something marines dont have so its fair.
It's almost as though GW just writing CSM as mostly stragglers with less equipment doesn't actually work and we need a total rewrite to properly represent the Legions.
What do I know though? The happiest CSM players were in years was the Legion supplement in 7th, despite obvious balance flaws (anyone remember how absurd Death Guard were?), and that wasn't a brilliant piece of writing either.
the_scotsman wrote: I mean, he also claimed that csm got huge points drops in CA... Do we get to call that a lie or is it also "hyperbole" because of the 1ppm discount on csm vs Tacs?
Well, they did. They just didn't get huge drops on analogues.
And loyalists didn't get any drops in ca because they had already gotten theirs in c:sm.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Which begs the question: how would people feel on merging of statlines?
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Which begs the question: how would people feel on merging of statlines?
Sounds great. But how about we price them in a way that every other faction in the game doesnt feel like vastly weaker second fiddles.
"Necrons are the highly durable faction. Theyre nearly HALF as tough as a space marine!!"
the_scotsman wrote: I mean, he also claimed that csm got huge points drops in CA... Do we get to call that a lie or is it also "hyperbole" because of the 1ppm discount on csm vs Tacs?
Hey now, the CSM army gets exploding hits on a 6 vs Imperium units! That's pretty fething hardcore of a rule! Sure it doesn't work against half the armies you'll face but GW was totally writing with fluff in mind which is what the people want! Generic exploding 6s would just be broken!
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Which begs the question: how would people feel on merging of statlines?
Sounds great. But how about we price them in a way that every other faction in the game doesnt feel like vastly weaker second fiddles.
"Necrons are the highly durable faction. Theyre nearly HALF as tough as a space marine!!"
Necrons haven't been the tough faction since 7.5th edition. RP has always basically been a rule that's really easily denied and overall useless. As someone that started in 4th with Necrons as their first army, I can easily say this. What they were though is very middling toughness but some decent mobility with an overall lack of killing tools.
I gotta say that Marines DO feel like a Faction that does everything. And, generally, can do something better than Factions that are supposed to be specialized in it. Will this always be the case? I don't know. 40k favors "going all in" on a gimmick, so it might be that, in the near future, the specialized Factions will get Buffs which drop Marines to the bottom of the meta (as they're more generalists). Eldar are still at the "top" because they have that skew mechanic.
But, in regards to "take options to deal with Primaris", I find that doing so tends to leave you vulnerable to other builds. For example, taking weaponry to deal with Marines can leave you lacking in options to take out Aeldari Flyers. Which kinda just goes back to the whole "skew is King" thing I alluded to.
I feel like I might be going on a bit of a tangent here, so I'll just stop here. The tldr; is that Marines DO feel like an elite army right now, but that may change quickly as the rest of the game "catches up" to the Codex 2.0 format.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
Stormonu wrote:Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
But the thing is, even marines are generally inferior to many of the Xenos they face - not as swift or elegant in warfare as the Eldar, not as indestructible as the Necrons, not the unstoppable flood of biomass of the Tyranids or as technologically adaptive as the Tau. Nor are they as brutally cunning as the orcs and their endless destructive waves of hate.
Marines should be outgunned, outmanned and outclassed. But they hold the line because they must and win where they can through sheer tenacity of the human spirit. Not because they are 2W and have better faction doctrines.
Eh, can't say I agree. You're welcome to your interpretation, but I've never seen it that way.
A Space Marine should be feared by all who face them. It's GUARDSMEN who are inferior in every way to xenos races, but not the Astartes. The Astartes are as strong as an Ork Nob, as fast as an Eldar, as resilient as a Necron, as relentless as a Tyranid, and on a similar technological parity with Tau (Marines have power through brute force, Tau have power through perfect science and engineering).
Where a Space Marine fails is that there are so few of them. Each one is a squad, a small army unto itself, but the enemy is so much more numerous that even the apex of humanity (barring the Custodes, who are pretty much just the same thing to Marines as Marines are to everything else) must rely on their fearlessness and wits to triumph.
So no, I can agree that they should be outmanned, and as a result, outgunned (by volume, not quality), but outclassed? Hell no. If an Eldar is faced with a Space Marine, they should be scared. An Ork fighting a Space Marine will see it as a great challenge, or flee, if sufficiently prompted. A Tyranid synapse creature will see a Space Marine as a high priority target and allocate far more resources than necessary to take one out, as a grave threat to the Hive. Tau will look on in awe and terror as great brutish battlesuits shrugging off their fire rip and tear through their lines. Space Marines are, and should be, terrifyingly powerful. The catch is that they're mortal, and there's never enough of them.
It's guardmen who are the embodiment of human spirit, not the Space Marines. Astartes are the embodiment of humanity's brutality in war, and their answer to the horrors of the void.
And what about a Chaos Space Marine? Should Marines have more wounds and attacks and a better gun than CSM?
It doesn't tact marines and csm have the exact same base stats.
Intercessors, my friend, is what we're talking about. The new "marine baseline". AKA, the subject in the OP.
Which begs the question: how would people feel on merging of statlines?
Sounds great. But how about we price them in a way that every other faction in the game doesnt feel like vastly weaker second fiddles.
"Necrons are the highly durable faction. Theyre nearly HALF as tough as a space marine!!"
I mean I'm all for lots of revisiting of points AND stats. Because of how weapons work now, I'm all for Exarchs getting the WS/BS2+ and W2 they had last edition for example, and actually making sure the Aspects accomplish what they're supposed to do in fluff.
Keep in mind, as you already know, I'm for a total revision of core rules as well, and believe some of these problems are greatly exacerbated because of poor terrain rules, IGOUGO, and the God awful Fall Back rules.
If you said "we want to make nearly every elite unit in 40k more expensive and more durable" I would probably say that sounds like exactly what 40k needs right now.
It also has a 0% chance of happening. Units like kabalites, guardians and genestealers being horde units that you shovel off the table a bucket at a time is exactly what makes gw the most money.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
What about other "slow heavy infantry" with t4 and s4 guns? Should they be complete pushovers for them? Point for point?
The problem is that troops are a "tax" unit and intercessors are good enough that they don't feel like a tax whereas other armies troops feel exactly like a tax. In fact intercessors can often go toe to toe with elite options for other armies in their specialized roles.
"They feel like Marines should feel" is one of the most subjective and poorly defined phrases I repeatedly hear on this forum.
If a unit "feels like Marines should feel", they're probably broken, because Marines are ridiculously OP in almost every piece of lore they feature in and this is synonymous with our thinking of what a marine is.
Unfortunately this does not make for a fun or balanced game, as we are now realising.
I've read Scotsman's maths on the first page and I'm not surprised. We have these units that are better at everything than the specialists. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is probably not a good game state to exist in.
So are Striking Scorpions. But Intercessors are primarily a ranged unit, while Scorpions are primarily a melee unit, and yet the Intercessors are better in melee. Why's that?
I think there's a problem when a generic, basic, jack-of-all-trades infantry choice can reliably beat most specialist infantry while requiring very specific weapons to counter. There is very little risk in taking Primaris infantry because they serve as counters to a huge chunk of the game's units, while it requires a high investment in very specific units and weapons to effectively counter Primaris.
I've stopped playing my Guard because the only way to fight against 2.0 Marines is to take a skew list of all tanks, and even then it's an uphill battle. Infantry- even the 4pt Guardsmen that used to be the poster child for game imbalance- just aren't worth fielding.
Striking Scorpions weren't that good to begin with though, and pay for that Deep Strike that should've been an Infiltrate. Their problems aren't related to whether or not Intercessors are too good. If a unit wasn't worth taking, a supposed broken unit being released never changed that, it merely exaggerated the issue.
So are Striking Scorpions. But Intercessors are primarily a ranged unit, while Scorpions are primarily a melee unit, and yet the Intercessors are better in melee. Why's that?
I think there's a problem when a generic, basic, jack-of-all-trades infantry choice can reliably beat most specialist infantry while requiring very specific weapons to counter. There is very little risk in taking Primaris infantry because they serve as counters to a huge chunk of the game's units, while it requires a high investment in very specific units and weapons to effectively counter Primaris.
I've stopped playing my Guard because the only way to fight against 2.0 Marines is to take a skew list of all tanks, and even then it's an uphill battle. Infantry- even the 4pt Guardsmen that used to be the poster child for game imbalance- just aren't worth fielding.
Sword and pistol infantry have pretty much sucked all edition. The second marine codex didn't change that.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Striking Scorpions weren't that good to begin with though, and pay for that Deep Strike that should've been an Infiltrate. Their problems aren't related to whether or not Intercessors are too good. If a unit wasn't worth taking, a supposed broken unit being released never changed that, it merely exaggerated the issue.
Thats why I used Banshees - theyre the anti marine killing aspect and GW just released new models for them, which is supposedly when they release the "broke rules to drive sales."
Believe me, there are plenty of pound for pound comparisons of supposed melee units that intercessors shellack pound for pound even worse. My premise was an intentional steelman situation where melee specialists magically teleport into combat ignoring oberwatch and the marines opt not to fall back.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
Ahh, but you see, Striking Scorpions are also infantry killing specialists, and they've held rough parity with Marines troops with an emphasis and advantage in CC for 20+ years. And at the same time, Dire Avengers have been roughly equivalent to Tac Marines at shooting, and are also anti infantry specialists. Both units are now totally outclassed in each of their specialties by Intercessors. Likewise Necrons, who are billed as very tough troops, are now totally outclassed by the 2W Intercessors. Do you see the trend here?
Im surpised ishagu hasn't yet logged on to tell us how were all wrong and marines are weak in actuality(especialy UM) and IH are the only "strong" marines. (strong but not OP) But I guess it mus be early in the day.
Its been a good read, made me chuckle how its like talking to a wall lol. It seems no matter what, some people just flat out refuse to accept endless stacking rules, superior number of options, and strategems and re-rolls maybe just maaaaybe gives some statistical advantages. radical I know...
Having one faction that is just plan good at everything and better than everyone makes for terrible game. If you cant see that I don't know what to tell you lol. Its funny that competitive marine players in my local area are asking for games saying that they would like to play game against "different armies" by which they mean they don't want to play other marines lol.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
Ahh, but you see, Striking Scorpions are also infantry killing specialists, and they've held rough parity with Marines troops with an emphasis and advantage in CC for 20+ years. And at the same time, Dire Avengers have been roughly equivalent to Tac Marines at shooting, and are also anti infantry specialists. Both units are now totally outclassed in each of their specialties by Intercessors. Likewise Necrons, who are billed as very tough troops, are now totally outclassed by the 2W Intercessors. Do you see the trend here?
GW lost their damn mind with the marines. Instead of making reasonable changes, they layered on rules on top of new rules. Marines just needed to be cheaper.
Argive wrote: Im surpised ishagu hasn't yet logged on to tell us how were all wrong and marines are weak in actuality(especialy UM) and IH are the only "strong" marines.
Its been a good read, made me chuckle how its like talking to a wall lol.
It seems no matter what, some people just flat out refuse to accept endless stacking rules, optons, and strategems and re-rolls maybe just maaaaybe gives some statistical advantages. radical I know...
Having one faction that is just plan good at everything and better than everyone makes for terrible game.
Its funny that competitive marine players in my local area are asking for games saying that they would like to play game against "different armies" by which they mean they don't want to play other marines lol.
not a tourny player but even if they weren't OP I know I'd get bored playing the same Iron Hands netlist every game
I would say as marines are now, namely Ultramarines, feel elite compared to my Admech for instance and generally can do more than another armies infantryman. Small model count roughly 30 including vehicles. Admech I average on 70 models.
Being out numbered 2:1 I'd expect marines/custodes/etc to have more rules, or better stats, etc than a Ranger
That being said with the lethality of the game "elite" armies or status is more of a hindrance. I've yet to play a game past turn 2 since I got the codex with a win ratio of like 33%, near perfect win ratio with Admech (Mars) but I struggle with marines
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
Ahh, but you see, Striking Scorpions are also infantry killing specialists, and they've held rough parity with Marines troops with an emphasis and advantage in CC for 20+ years. And at the same time, Dire Avengers have been roughly equivalent to Tac Marines at shooting, and are also anti infantry specialists. Both units are now totally outclassed in each of their specialties by Intercessors. Likewise Necrons, who are billed as very tough troops, are now totally outclassed by the 2W Intercessors. Do you see the trend here?
DA are 11pts btw.. just saying.
I don't follow?
My point is that DA are also anti infantry specialists, whose firepower in the past has roughly equaled tac marine bolter output or better. And now Intercessors shooting output is far superior.
Argive wrote: Im surpised ishagu hasn't yet logged on to tell us how were all wrong and marines are weak in actuality(especialy UM) and IH are the only "strong" marines.
Its been a good read, made me chuckle how its like talking to a wall lol.
It seems no matter what, some people just flat out refuse to accept endless stacking rules, optons, and strategems and re-rolls maybe just maaaaybe gives some statistical advantages. radical I know...
Having one faction that is just plan good at everything and better than everyone makes for terrible game.
Its funny that competitive marine players in my local area are asking for games saying that they would like to play game against "different armies" by which they mean they don't want to play other marines lol.
not a tourny player but even if they weren't OP I know I'd get bored playing the same Iron Hands netlist every game
Its virtually every colour of marines under the sun with people trying to come up with new "COCOCOCOOOOMBO!!!!" Obviously IF/IH/RG being the most prevailent no doubt.
Blood Hawk wrote: Marines have stalkers that d2. It's not hard to build lists with most factions that have lots of multiple damage weapons. Primaris Marines are easy to plan for with most armies.
Leaving aside that your example of a unit capable of countering Primaris Marines is a Primaris Marine, there is a massive difference between 'you can plan for it and take units that are a good counter' versus 'lots of armies basically every weapon they shoot at you does 2 flat or d3 damage', which is what Xeno said and is nonsense.
It's Xeno, his posts are almost always hyperbolic. I have played with primaris Marines all edition, trust me they die fast when people plan for them. So the smart version of his point is armies can bring a good amount of multiple damage weapons if they want. Those weapons shred primaris.
Also I just mentioned stalkers because that is what came to mind (probably because I primary play Marines). Plenty of other troops can take at least some multiple damage weapons, for instance lots of troops can take plasma weapons.
I think that's a bit beside the point though. If I understand the OP correctly, the question should be about how elite marines should feel when compared to other "common" opposing units. How strong should marines feel against typical 40K enemies.
Like, they should beat up on GEQ. They should beat up on Orks, sorta. Should they be handily pummeling Striking Scorpions though? And my point, should they be pummeling Chaos Marines, because that's what Intercessors do. Half of the comparison is points to points, but also what are we after in terms of imagery? Loyalist Marines (Intercessors) just standing there and mowing down waves of the best troops the opponent can toss at them?
Intercessors are infantry killing specialists. Complaining about them killing your T3 infantry is odd to me no offense. It would be like complaining that my cold star Tau commander with quad fusion is killing your T7 vehicle without an inv. That is kinda his whole job. If he doesn't do that well then I won't take him.
So yes I do think slow heavy infantry infantry with S4 guns should be good at fighting infantry. Because if they weren't I won't take them.
Also I do rather like the new Marines. They actually feel like Marines should feel on the table. You are free to disagree.
Ahh, but you see, Striking Scorpions are also infantry killing specialists, and they've held rough parity with Marines troops with an emphasis and advantage in CC for 20+ years. And at the same time, Dire Avengers have been roughly equivalent to Tac Marines at shooting, and are also anti infantry specialists. Both units are now totally outclassed in each of their specialties by Intercessors. Likewise Necrons, who are billed as very tough troops, are now totally outclassed by the 2W Intercessors. Do you see the trend here?
DA are 11pts btw.. just saying.
I don't follow?
My point is that DA are also anti infantry specialists, whose firepower in the past has roughly equaled tac marine bolter output or better. And now Intercessors shooting output is far superior.
Yep, and if you magically teleported equal points of DA into 18" range, and the marine player decided to play without Chapter Tactics or Doctrines, those Intercessors would kill more points of DA.
Karol wrote: Everyone does remember though how the game looked like, when marines did not have those IF, IH and RG rules right? Eldar and tau were running rings around them. They couldn't kill enough orcs before being overun, and struggles against stuff like knights or chaos soups. Taking away the rules would just revert the game to where the minority of players using xeno armies would be beating the majority of marine players. I think people are going to struggle to convince people to ask for nerfs to their own armies, for nothing in return, Specially when future codex, may buff the xeno armies above what marines have now. And I doubt all those people that cry for marine nerfs now, are going to ask for nerfs of their own books.
Nope. When Tau are really strong and people complain they have boring, uninteractive gunline rules, I tend to agree. When guard are strong and it feels like these baseline level humans are outperforming supposed superhuman soldiers, I tend to agree. When Eldar are strong and it feels like they have 9000 special rules for how their special guys are the specialest and bestest at everything, I tend to agree.
I'm just applying those exact same standards to marines right now. Pretty much all at once.
Please give my Crisis Suits JSJ back, and I personally, would be pleased as punch.
Units like kabalites, guardians and genestealers being horde units that you shovel off the table a bucket at a time is exactly what makes gw the most money.
Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
Units like kabalites, guardians and genestealers being horde units that you shovel off the table a bucket at a time is exactly what makes gw the most money.
Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
Imo this is less to do about point values and more to do about how individual models feel compared to other individual models, in a narrative sort of way. Should the Intercessor-as-new-marine-baseline be so outright superior to other common baselines? Instead of telling stories where a squad of marines and a squad of Aspect Warriors met and have a hard-fought battle, do we instead tell stories of Intercessors roflstomping their quarry?
Given how many posts you see from people just whanging themselves raw every time gw posts a picture of a marine being taller than some other factions guys or a marine doing a stab at a fire warrior, I think I know what kind of narratives people are looking to tell.
Yeah, a lot of people don't like the idea of "shoveling [their minis] off the table a bucket at a time". They like to feel their units are effective, too. Maybe not "elite" but still effective at what they do.
Complaining that other armies don't exclusively exist to give marine players something to spank off to is kinda sad. I'm glad I don't win every single game with my BA.
Melissia wrote: Yeah, a lot of people don't like the idea of "shoveling [their minis] off the table a bucket at a time". They like to feel their units are effective, too. Maybe not "elite" but still effective at what they do.
Well, removal of AP5 for 8th sure stung in terms of Marine vs. GEQ, and the removal of templates/blasts had a big part to do with that as well. So there was definitely part of the equation that was lost. But Primaris stats threw things out of whack in terms of individual-model-vs.-opposing-model.
40ks fans who grew up with it are now writing it and marines are getting beyond ridiculous.
Jes Goodwin's 7 foot marine was all they needed to be.
But then hilarious hyperbole ensued and fans regularly described then as 10 foot tall monsters that shoot coke cans at their enemies.
They went from the elite strike force of the imperium that descended on key targets to break an enemy already at war with other imperial forces, to prosecuting whole wars by themselves.
Their armour went from being the best protection humans could make, to tank armour that doesn't restrict movement but somehow is also stronger than inches thick armour plates on vehicles.
When Matt ward went nuts with 5th I said that this would just create a never ending DBZ one-upmanship and that's what's happened.
GW are caught between marketing and greed. They want to make marines seem like the best doods Eva and get customers hooked, but they also want to sell lots of them too.
Their hype makes their product so good you shouldn't need many of them, but their business wants you to buy lots of them...
8th ed has gone out of control with its buffs and auras. Every time GW does something good, they have to over do it to keep selling it and eventually ruin it in the process.
An Actual Englishman wrote: "They feel like Marines should feel" is one of the most subjective and poorly defined phrases I repeatedly hear on this forum.
If a unit "feels like Marines should feel", they're probably broken, because Marines are ridiculously OP in almost every piece of lore they feature in and this is synonymous with our thinking of what a marine is.
Unfortunately this does not make for a fun or balanced game, as we are now realising.
I've read Scotsman's maths on the first page and I'm not surprised. We have these units that are better at everything than the specialists. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this is probably not a good game state to exist in.
Englishman, just you wait until we get the Psychic Awakening book that focuses on Orks, surely with the release of Ghaz we'll see an awesome shift in lore an -
The next Psychic Awakening book, Saga of the Beast, will centre around the Space Wolves’ attempts to finally end Waaagh! Ghazghkull, and you’ll be able to pick it up next month
Oh, looks like Space Marines are the only ones in the galaxy that have narrative power. nevermind.
Units like kabalites, guardians and genestealers being horde units that you shovel off the table a bucket at a time is exactly what makes gw the most money.
Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
You know.. this is whats been said since SM 2.0 dropped and yet.. here we are how many months? And CA2019 later.. CA 2019 could have absolutely adjusted some points _ they released comprehensive errata after all..
Its not happening until PA is done and the next proper full 2.0 codex comes out that will make marines look pedestrian in line with the power creep trend and that will start the new arms race.
Bear in mind FW books are incoming so I fully expect the character dreads stupidity to be curbed there (at least all the OOp options will be going legends or just vanishing)
But yes FAQ are sorely needed to really curb some of this nonsense down. But where on earth do you start where there is sooooo many layered rules??
Give everyone else T1 DS and infiltrate back would be a start.
Daedalus81 wrote: Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
Like I said before, this is less because Marines still sucked pre-2.0 and more that Marine players either ignore that period post-Bolter Discipline, post-CA18, but pre-2.0, or they analyze it solely through the lens of high-tier competitive play.
At least in my local meta, as soon as Marine infantry started consistently out-shooting and out-fighting most other infantry in the game thanks to points drops and Bolter Discipline, casual play started to become less enjoyable. It just wasn't until the supplements that things got ridiculous enough for tournament players to start to complain.
To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
Daedalus81 wrote: Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
Like I said before, this is less because Marines still sucked pre-2.0 and more that Marine players either ignore that period post-Bolter Discipline, post-CA18, but pre-2.0, or they analyze it solely through the lens of high-tier competitive play.
At least in my local meta, as soon as Marine infantry started consistently out-shooting and out-fighting most other infantry in the game thanks to points drops and Bolter Discipline, casual play started to become less enjoyable. It just wasn't until the supplements that things got ridiculous enough for tournament players to start to complain.
So I gotta ask, when you say Marine infantry, is this experience Classics, Primaris, baseline units or stuff like Aggressors? Because my impression is that "classics", and namely Tacs are pretty fine. Like, I think optimal marine balance is Classics with codex 2.0 and without 90% of the supplement stuff. Or something like that.
Daedalus81 wrote: Which is against the sentiment of, I would dare say, most of the forum. So GW made them stronger.
But the chicken little about Intercessors is quite silly, because the rules Scotsman used for his analysis - all of the ones used - were exactly that way before the supplements by a good number of months.
But now, suddenly, that stat line is amaaaazzzziing. It's frankly a little ridiculous given the sentiment about Primaris from before supplements.
People just need to chill out until Big FAQ. If GW can't / don't / won't fix marines then you can go nuts.
Like I said before, this is less because Marines still sucked pre-2.0 and more that Marine players either ignore that period post-Bolter Discipline, post-CA18, but pre-2.0, or they analyze it solely through the lens of high-tier competitive play.
At least in my local meta, as soon as Marine infantry started consistently out-shooting and out-fighting most other infantry in the game thanks to points drops and Bolter Discipline, casual play started to become less enjoyable. It just wasn't until the supplements that things got ridiculous enough for tournament players to start to complain.
Exactly this. Plus 1.0 codex traits should have applied to vehicle in line with other armies..
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
What are you talking about? 3+ saves are bad, 2 wounds are bad. Too much glass!
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
It is great, traditionally. A Tac Marine has the toughness of an Ork at T4, the armor of a Heavy Aspect Warrior at 3+, is stronger than both at S4, and is more disciplined with AKSKNF. In turn they suffer from being fewer than Orks, and less specialized than Eldar. CSM were balanced at less disciplined, but potentially more individual power as granted by Marks or Cult status.
So I gotta ask, when you say Marine infantry, is this experience Classics, Primaris, baseline units or stuff like Aggressors? Because my impression is that "classics", and namely Tacs are pretty fine. Like, I think optimal marine balance is Classics with codex 2.0 and without 90% of the supplement stuff. Or something like that.
The optimal marine balance is when they’re really hard to suppress and they’re very good at scoring critical hits even after they advance. Aaaaand they aren’t any of those things because those mechanics don’t exist in the game, we have stratagems and command points instead. So we just gotta have some extra bolter shots without having super doctrines
Like I said before, this is less because Marines still sucked pre-2.0 and more that Marine players either ignore that period post-Bolter Discipline, post-CA18, but pre-2.0, or they analyze it solely through the lens of high-tier competitive play.
At least in my local meta, as soon as Marine infantry started consistently out-shooting and out-fighting most other infantry in the game thanks to points drops and Bolter Discipline, casual play started to become less enjoyable. It just wasn't until the supplements that things got ridiculous enough for tournament players to start to complain.
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
It is great, traditionally. A Tac Marine has the toughness of an Ork at T4, the armor of a Heavy Aspect Warrior at 3+, is stronger than both at S4, and is more disciplined with AKSKNF. In turn they suffer from being fewer than Orks, and less specialized than Eldar. CSM were balanced at less disciplined, but potentially more individual power as granted by Marks or Cult status.
Last time I checked an Ork Nob costed as much as an intercessor. Why should the nob not get a 3+ save and a 3+ BS?
I think the real issue, and the reason for such disagreement, when it comes down to it, is the simple question. What should Space Marines be like on the tabletop?
Should they be generalist? Best at everything but few in number? Take whatever you believe they should be, and try to reason a balanced place for that role in the game, and you hit the roadblock. Generalists just such right now, and we've already had a meta with few-in-number unkillable factions (Hey 3++ Imperial Knights) and it was pretty abysmal for all involved. So where does that leave us?
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
It is great, traditionally. A Tac Marine has the toughness of an Ork at T4, the armor of a Heavy Aspect Warrior at 3+, is stronger than both at S4, and is more disciplined with AKSKNF. In turn they suffer from being fewer than Orks, and less specialized than Eldar. CSM were balanced at less disciplined, but potentially more individual power as granted by Marks or Cult status.
Last time I checked an Ork Nob costed as much as an intercessor. Why should the nob not get a 3+ save and a 3+ BS?
How many points do you think Nobs and Intercessors are? I am kinda curious.
You know.. this is whats been said since SM 2.0 dropped and yet.. here we are how many months? And CA2019 later.. CA 2019 could have absolutely adjusted some points _ they released comprehensive errata after all..
Its not happening until PA is done and the next proper full 2.0 codex comes out that will make marines look pedestrian in line with the power creep trend and that will start the new arms race.
Bear in mind FW books are incoming so I fully expect the character dreads stupidity to be curbed there (at least all the OOp options will be going legends or just vanishing)
But yes FAQ are sorely needed to really curb some of this nonsense down. But where on earth do you start where there is sooooo many layered rules??
Give everyone else T1 DS and infiltrate back would be a start.
Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
I think it could, if GW toned back on the "everything has to be different from everything else" mentality. Which is absolutely fine when trying to be "true to the fluff", but it makes a Tabletop game incredibly difficult to balance when you have to account for thousands of interactions when introducing new rules/datasheets.
No, it didn't work in 2nd, and doesn't work well in 8th. It makes costing too difficult. -1 AP halves the effectiveness of terminator armor. That's REALLY hard to cost. Now -1 didn't have that effect in 2nd, but that game had -6 everywhere and mass spam -3.
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
It is great, traditionally. A Tac Marine has the toughness of an Ork at T4, the armor of a Heavy Aspect Warrior at 3+, is stronger than both at S4, and is more disciplined with AKSKNF. In turn they suffer from being fewer than Orks, and less specialized than Eldar. CSM were balanced at less disciplined, but potentially more individual power as granted by Marks or Cult status.
Last time I checked an Ork Nob costed as much as an intercessor. Why should the nob not get a 3+ save and a 3+ BS?
How many points do you think Nobs and Intercessors are? I am kinda curious.
Sorry, it's 3 points difference. Nobs 14 Intercessors 17.
Guess those 3 points are for +2BS, +18" range, +2ap, +1 ranged shot, +1 movement, +2 save, +2ap in melee and +4 leadership huh.
Sorry, it's 3 points difference. Nobs 14 Intercessors 17.
Guess those 3 points are for +2BS, +18" range, +2ap, +1 ranged shot, +1 movement, +2 save, +2ap in melee and +4 leadership huh.
Where are Primaris getting AP2 in melee?
Only +1 save.
Nobs are LD7 so only 1 extra LD, but access to be easily better than that.
You also forgot Nobs are S5, +1A (+2 with Choppa), and get a "drone" for 4 points.
If Nobs has access to basic Kustom Shootas they'd produce more hits than Primaris would (at shorter range).
Nobs certainly aren't perfect, but they're not garbage, either. It just becomes a problem of delivering a primarily melee unit.
Daedalus81 wrote: Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
A combination of those could work, especially the first and third, I think. The last idea would be great, but I seriously doubt it would ever be done in FAQ. That would probably have to wait for the fabled 9th edition.
Martel732 wrote: No, it didn't work in 2nd, and doesn't work well in 8th. It makes costing too difficult. -1 AP halves the effectiveness of terminator armor. That's REALLY hard to cost. Now -1 didn't have that effect in 2nd, but that game had -6 everywhere and mass spam -3.
You say this all the time and it’s true but it works when getting the mod is conditional. I used the ap system haravikk posted on this forum several times. The only things that gave a -1 or -2 to TDA were ap3 like missiles or ap2 like las cannons, and if you could manage ap1 like a melta then it ignored the armor totally. It was tres bien, and no need for d12s.
Daedalus81 wrote: Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
A combination of those could work, especially the first and third, I think. The last idea would be great, but I seriously doubt it would ever be done in FAQ. That would probably have to wait for the fabled 9th edition.
I don't know either man lol. there's just soo much going on with those books. So far we've only seen the most obvious things. Like character dreads unkillable levis (which people said wouldint be a problem)
Again this will hopefully likely be addressed with FW books.
I think flat out no mixing and matching supplement rules with base codex. I.e. If you choose to play supplement you get that super doctrine and only access to those strats and relics present in the supplement.
This gets rid of a lot of the interactions and unkillabile stuff.. Obviously IH doctrine/trait needs to be adjusted and nerfed a bit.
Basically there should be a downside to gaining heaps of rules..
Sorry, it's 3 points difference. Nobs 14 Intercessors 17.
Guess those 3 points are for +2BS, +18" range, +2ap, +1 ranged shot, +1 movement, +2 save, +2ap in melee and +4 leadership huh.
Where are Primaris getting AP2 in melee?
Only +1 save.
Nobs are LD7 so only 1 extra LD, but access to be easily better than that.
You also forgot Nobs are S5, +1A (+2 with Choppa), and get a "drone" for 4 points.
If Nobs has access to basic Kustom Shootas they'd produce more hits than Primaris would (at shorter range).
Nobs certainly aren't perfect, but they're not garbage, either. It just becomes a problem of delivering a primarily melee unit.
Right. Primaris don't have base AP -1 in melee, my bad.
Guess those 3 points are for +2BS, +18" range, +2ap, +1 ranged shot, +1 movement, +1 save, +1ap in melee and +1 leadership huh.
Slap on Blood Angels, Black Templars or Space Wolves and you've got a more efficient shooting and melee unit.
Edit: Kustom Shootas are legend, so we can't get those anymore.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Honestly super doctrines should be more interactive.
ie, "At the start of the game select a turn and a doctrine. The doctrine becomes active on that turn and only for that turn.
Pay 1CP to select a previously unchosen doctrine and gain that for the turn afterwards,
Pay 3CP to extend the duration of the current doctrine by 1 turn"
That way players can use terrain and positioning to their advantage outside of turn 1 alphas and magic boxes.
I don't know either man lol. there's just soo much going on with those books. So far we've only seen the most obvious things. Like character dreads unkillable levis (which people said wouldint be a problem)
Again this will hopefully likely be addressed with FW books.
Changing the keyword on the leviathan so it can't benefit from Duty Eternal would be a start, along with moving oop models (read chaplain dreads) to legends.
Of course knowing gw they're currently digging the mold for the chaplain dread out of mothball status right now because $$$.
Anything with a lot of shots and 1 Damage should have AP0.
Anything with Damage 2 and a middling amount of shots should have AP-1 or 2.
Anything with Damage 3 or greater and a low number of shots should have AP-3 or 4.
I think this blanderizes weapons far too much.
I can relate, but a lot of the issues of this game arise from having too many variables to account for in the design process.
I'll disagree with you here, a lot of the issues this game has is because there's not the system granularity required to maintain so many "Unique and interesting options" without there being clear cut better ones.
flandarz wrote: To be fair, I always thought the Marine statline was great. I'd have daydreams of Ork Nobs with the datasheet of a Tactical Marine (which even now is considered "awful").
It is great, traditionally. A Tac Marine has the toughness of an Ork at T4, the armor of a Heavy Aspect Warrior at 3+, is stronger than both at S4, and is more disciplined with AKSKNF. In turn they suffer from being fewer than Orks, and less specialized than Eldar. CSM were balanced at less disciplined, but potentially more individual power as granted by Marks or Cult status.
Last time I checked an Ork Nob costed as much as an intercessor. Why should the nob not get a 3+ save and a 3+ BS?
How many points do you think Nobs and Intercessors are? I am kinda curious.
Sorry, it's 3 points difference. Nobs 14 Intercessors 17.
Guess those 3 points are for +2BS, +18" range, +2ap, +1 ranged shot, +1 movement, +2 save, +2ap in melee and +4 leadership huh.
Yeah, I know what each unit can do and how much points they were. I was just wondering if you thought Intercessors were only 14 points. I would assume that as an Ork player you already knew what the cost of an Ork Nob was. I will completely agree that a 14ppm Intercessor is way too cheap. A good portion of this thread doesn't seem to know what units do and appear to exaggerate Intercessors' ability. Intercessors haven't changed all that much from half a year ago. Yet, before the codex dropped they weren't anything special. I would argue they were the best of a bad lot. Now they are suddenly the Emperor's Wrath incarnate.
I won't deny that Intercessors aren't better post-codex. Which is what the title should be. The OP isn't talking about marines. The OP isn't even talking about Primaris. The OP is only talking about Intercessors. And I get it. I also have a Genestealer Cult army and Intercessors are right hard unit to deal with. They killy enough at range and melee while being pretty tough and just cheap enough to have me struggle. At the same time, I already knew that if I want to take Genestealers not to take them as GSC and take them in a Tyranid detachment. I shouldn't have to, as I don't think Deep Strike is worth 3ppm, the loss of subfaction trait and evolution options, but I didn't make the rules. I think GSC has a lot issues that Psychic Awakening didn't really help. I don't think gimping Space Marines is going to help either. I personally have far more of an issue with Rubrics who mostly deny my Cult Creed (Rusted Claw) while also being incredibly hard to kill.
Now as a Primaris and Chaos Space Marine player, I don't see too much wrong with marines in general. Perhaps the supplements went overboard and should have been more of sidegrades than upgrades. And some chapters [cough] Iron Warriors were given a little too much. I don't know. I only play the codex only with my Primaris only army., and continuing shortages in certain roles (melee, Anti-tank) asideI do okay but not great with them. I do think that Bolter Discipline isn't a good rule in that it incentivizes marines to stand still way too much. Personally, I think Bolter Discipline should allow the Rapid Fire Bolt weapons to have the option to be treated as Assault weapons a la the Black Legion trait. That way it is better than nothing, just barely, and keeps marines on the move where I think they should be. Standing in way the back in cover is what guardsmen do. Marines move to engage the enemy.
Would we rather take a trip back to the past to Leaf Blower Guard, Necron Flying Bakeries, Ork Battle Wagons Full of Lootas and Burna Boyz, Fateweaver Bomb, Invisible Deathstars, etc... Compared to prior versions of the game Iron Hands seem positively tame.
There's a couple of problems with how people feel about space marine "eliteness"
1) As mentioned before, 40k lore is... very marine slanted, to put it nicely. Every army will get pumped up in their codex as a means to selling it to people interested in that army, but no one quite gets that treatment to the same level as Marines, and since they get the lion shares of stories it's likely someone coming into the game that would be interested in Space Marine would hear amazing stories of single squads of space marines taking on entire armies on their own and winning. And if they get into the game, and read the stories in there that only push that up even more.
I think this instills an idea that how space marines work is much like OGREs do in their respective game, where it's this asymmetrical battle between a massive killing machine vs an entire army. The problem is that 40k isn't that kind of asymmetrical battle, and OGRE makes it clear from the get go that it's slanted against the defenders. So Bobby puts his tac squads down thinking his men can heroically walk across the field, slaying enemies by the truck full. Only by using their options and tactics carefully can the enemy even have a chance to defeat the Emperor's chosen!. And then they slam their face into a brick wall because their opponent actually is being smart by playing against the new marine player's naivety.
I think most people learn their lesson after that, but there is still that feeling of pain when the stories don't line up the game, that longing for something like how they remember it, while others never grow out of that idea that other armies should exist to be baby shake'd by Marines.
2). The focus on math hammer creates a bad idea on how *effective* a unit is, because the metric most people use is *efficiency*. Specially, single aspect efficiency which makes generalist look bad by default because you're thinking of a model as paying it's full cost for only part of it's kit. It's actually the worst way to balance things, as scotsman shows, because trying to balance around that results in the current situation where you have units that are better or as good as the specialist... but with none of the drawbacks.
*Effectively*, space marines were better that guardsman. A space marine squad could beat an Infantry squad, without a doubt. Efficiently, they had a had time getting over three squads or two squads and a commander. Problem was that the people took this a meaning that space marines *couldn't* handle IS and guard was overpowered, rather than learning the lesson "Maybe I shouldn't be trying to get in a pissing contest with that out of cover". People who tend to use Mathhammer a lot advocate it as being fair, but different variable aren't equal even when applied equally. If the guardsmen and space marine are both in cover, the space marine benefits more than the guard do. If there's a LoS blocking terrain in the middle of both forces, the marines benefit more because they have better force concentration. If the marines are placed in a flanking position while the guardsmen are in a line, the guardsmen are losing shots to range while the marines aren't. Marines are better when they're not lining up at the scrim line out of cover trying to, but it's easier to argue about two sides lining up on the planet cueballia than about why positioning is useful.
3) There's a few bad habits that everyone can fall in, but is worse for marines because there's so many people who play them A lack of understanding melee tends to make it look worse for non-melee specialist than it actually is, because if the only melee you get into is the melees you don't want to be in, you're going to never think to use those melee stats you do have to your advantage and will just throw your hands up when you're charged.
Everyone likes the idea of their units are able to be workable without needing a dozen supports units and special abilities to work. That's fine. But as we've seen example of in this very thread, that's not extended to other armies. So people want to be able to have their unsupported units in the middle of no man's land being able to go toe to toe with a unit who's stacked with everything. This goes double with thing that are meant to counter that unit.
And of course, bad rolls hurt people playing elite armies more. If you lose a handful of models in a horde army, it doesn't really matter as long as you still have board control. Rolling a 1 on a hit/wound/armor save for marines is a bigger deal, psychologically. People want less of those those bad feel moments, which can poorly balance the game if people push for it hard enough.
Space Marines didn't feel elite pre 2.0 because a lot of expectations wasn't met, proof used was based calculations that were intentionally worse for marines, and general lack of understanding that resulted in changes that were much more significant for smaller armies than the larger ones they were being compared to. They feel more elite now, sure, but it was done by stacking stat boosts and special rules that just make them flat out better rather than changing the army to allow it to benefit from it's natural advantages.
Daedalus81 wrote: Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
A combination of those could work, especially the first and third, I think. The last idea would be great, but I seriously doubt it would ever be done in FAQ. That would probably have to wait for the fabled 9th edition.
Super Doctrines shouldn't have been a thing to begin with. Relics are not an issue, Doctrines by themselves aren't an issue, but Super Doctrines are all broken. Even the melee ones are absurd.
There's also no need for as many rules as there is. The Angels should not be separate codices, there shouldn't be 6 Warlord Traits for each Chapter on top of the generic ones ON TOP of the Phobos ones. There shouldn't be 15+ Stratagems for whatever reason, TWO relics each for the promoted Characters, on top of that many relics for each Chapter...
It's ridiculous. This is the same garbage we were promised that we would move away from in 7th.
Daedalus81 wrote: Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
A combination of those could work, especially the first and third, I think. The last idea would be great, but I seriously doubt it would ever be done in FAQ. That would probably have to wait for the fabled 9th edition.
Super Doctrines shouldn't have been a thing to begin with. Relics are not an issue, Doctrines by themselves aren't an issue, but Super Doctrines are all broken. Even the melee ones are absurd.
There's also no need for as many rules as there is. The Angels should not be separate codices, there shouldn't be 6 Warlord Traits for each Chapter on top of the generic ones ON TOP of the Phobos ones. There shouldn't be 15+ Stratagems for whatever reason, TWO relics each for the promoted Characters, on top of that many relics for each Chapter...
It's ridiculous. This is the same garbage we were promised that we would move away from in 7th.
As somebody who's been away from the game a while this seems like a great time to play 40k. Do we want to go back to the days when Tau and Necrons essentially only had 1 Troop, 2 Elites, 2 Fast Attack, and maybe 3 heavy support choices and when named characters never saw play on most people's tables?
I'll disagree with you here, a lot of the issues this game has is because there's not the system granularity required to maintain so many "Unique and interesting options" without there being clear cut better ones.
Granularity is all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that a single weapon needs to be priced and balanced in accordance to a)the units that can field it, b) the rules which can affect it, and c) the units that will be targeted by it, which (in turn) influences how those units and rules are priced and balanced. Even if the granularity was increased to a d20 size, the fact remains that you still need to account for all those variables during the design process. And the more options that there are, the larger the complexity becomes and the more "impossible" balance is.
Stormonu wrote: Marines are supposed to be the epitome - if not superhuman model of humanity.
I'll just point out that for 7 editions of the game that title in the fluff belonged to Grey Knights (as "the elite marines"), and then for the last 2 editions has been Custodes, who fluffwise are to marines what marines are to guardsmen. And in a game with Imperial Knights, giant Tyranids and Primarchs there is definitely room for Marines to NOT be the best...and we shouldn't expect that they are.
That said, there's no problem with making something in the game "super elite", as long as you cost it appropriately. That's the entire purpose of points/power level.
Luke_Prowler wrote: There's a couple of problems with how people feel about space marine "eliteness"
Spoiler:
1) As mentioned before, 40k lore is... very marine slanted, to put it nicely. Every army will get pumped up in their codex as a means to selling it to people interested in that army, but no one quite gets that treatment to the same level as Marines, and since they get the lion shares of stories it's likely someone coming into the game that would be interested in Space Marine would hear amazing stories of single squads of space marines taking on entire armies on their own and winning. And if they get into the game, and read the stories in there that only push that up even more.
I think this instills an idea that how space marines work is much like OGREs do in their respective game, where it's this asymmetrical battle between a massive killing machine vs an entire army. The problem is that 40k isn't that kind of asymmetrical battle, and OGRE makes it clear from the get go that it's slanted against the defenders. So Bobby puts his tac squads down thinking his men can heroically walk across the field, slaying enemies by the truck full. Only by using their options and tactics carefully can the enemy even have a chance to defeat the Emperor's chosen!. And then they slam their face into a brick wall because their opponent actually is being smart by playing against the new marine player's naivety.
I think most people learn their lesson after that, but there is still that feeling of pain when the stories don't line up the game, that longing for something like how they remember it, while others never grow out of that idea that other armies should exist to be baby shake'd by Marines.
2). The focus on math hammer creates a bad idea on how *effective* a unit is, because the metric most people use is *efficiency*. Specially, single aspect efficiency which makes generalist look bad by default because you're thinking of a model as paying it's full cost for only part of it's kit. It's actually the worst way to balance things, as scotsman shows, because trying to balance around that results in the current situation where you have units that are better or as good as the specialist... but with none of the drawbacks.
*Effectively*, space marines were better that guardsman. A space marine squad could beat an Infantry squad, without a doubt. Efficiently, they had a had time getting over three squads or two squads and a commander. Problem was that the people took this a meaning that space marines *couldn't* handle IS and guard was overpowered, rather than learning the lesson "Maybe I shouldn't be trying to get in a pissing contest with that out of cover". People who tend to use Mathhammer a lot advocate it as being fair, but different variable aren't equal even when applied equally. If the guardsmen and space marine are both in cover, the space marine benefits more than the guard do. If there's a LoS blocking terrain in the middle of both forces, the marines benefit more because they have better force concentration. If the marines are placed in a flanking position while the guardsmen are in a line, the guardsmen are losing shots to range while the marines aren't. Marines are better when they're not lining up at the scrim line out of cover trying to, but it's easier to argue about two sides lining up on the planet cueballia than about why positioning is useful.
3) There's a few bad habits that everyone can fall in, but is worse for marines because there's so many people who play them A lack of understanding melee tends to make it look worse for non-melee specialist than it actually is, because if the only melee you get into is the melees you don't want to be in, you're going to never think to use those melee stats you do have to your advantage and will just throw your hands up when you're charged.
Everyone likes the idea of their units are able to be workable without needing a dozen supports units and special abilities to work. That's fine. But as we've seen example of in this very thread, that's not extended to other armies. So people want to be able to have their unsupported units in the middle of no man's land being able to go toe to toe with a unit who's stacked with everything. This goes double with thing that are meant to counter that unit.
And of course, bad rolls hurt people playing elite armies more. If you lose a handful of models in a horde army, it doesn't really matter as long as you still have board control. Rolling a 1 on a hit/wound/armor save for marines is a bigger deal, psychologically. People want less of those those bad feel moments, which can poorly balance the game if people push for it hard enough.
Space Marines didn't feel elite pre 2.0 because a lot of expectations wasn't met, proof used was based calculations that were intentionally worse for marines, and general lack of understanding that resulted in changes that were much more significant for smaller armies than the larger ones they were being compared to. They feel more elite now, sure, but it was done by stacking stat boosts and special rules that just make them flat out better rather than changing the army to allow it to benefit from it's natural advantages.
A good post that breaks down a number of issues.
I'll supplement it by throwing out the "generalists suck" sentiment which is symptomatic of point 2. Generalists give you flexibility with the balance point that they can be harder to use than more specialized units. "Decent" at everything but not highly "efficient" at anything when it comes down to points vs. points. thus, less exciting math-hammer because math-hammer rarely encompasses anything beyond a very tight/controlled scenario. Generalists are the opposite of role-defined specialists, and instead their role will be more informed by the opposing models. TLDR: Shoot the punchy stuff, and punch the shooty stuff.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: The reintroduction of AP to the game makes marines and other heavy infantry VERY difficult to cost.
I don't think this is really an issue. Certainly far less of an issue than lackluster terrain rules and the escalation of invuln saves. Arguably 3rd through 7th AP system is harder to price because of it's all-or-nothing-ness.
And the "perfectly balanced points" fantasy should really die. It won't happen, it can't happen, and it's not even in GWs interest for it to happen if it were possible. All we can hope for is "close enough". There are far to many unquantifiable variables (like terrain) and contexts (a Drop Pod is worth more for some units than others).
All or nothing only have two modes. The AP system gives marines anything from a 3+ to no save at all. Invuln is also a problem. Terrain is a total wild card as different events have access to completely different terrain.
Daedalus81 wrote: Points won't get them out of this mess and there's two parts to it.
A) Community hopes
B) GW procedures
The community hopes that GW will address the issue as quickly as possible, but the reality is GW will address the problem during the procedure which is most appropriate - that being Spring FAQ (and 2 week FAQs).
We all wished they would have done it in CA through rules changes, but the reality is any planned and tested changes would not be ready in time. It is the same thing that happened with Castellans - they address the pieces of the problem mainly within the scope of their procedure only occasionally breaking to put points in the FAQs.
As for where to start? I dunno. I have a bunch of dumb, half-baked ideas.
- Super Docs replace normal docs. No more stacking.
- Super Docs last 1 turn. CP to make use of it once more.
- Increase CP of various strats -- 2 or 3 CP for extra stacking trait, etc
- Only 2 or 3 relics instead of infinite
- Change how CP is made available and prevent massive CP dumping
A combination of those could work, especially the first and third, I think. The last idea would be great, but I seriously doubt it would ever be done in FAQ. That would probably have to wait for the fabled 9th edition.
Super Doctrines shouldn't have been a thing to begin with. Relics are not an issue, Doctrines by themselves aren't an issue, but Super Doctrines are all broken. Even the melee ones are absurd.
There's also no need for as many rules as there is. The Angels should not be separate codices, there shouldn't be 6 Warlord Traits for each Chapter on top of the generic ones ON TOP of the Phobos ones. There shouldn't be 15+ Stratagems for whatever reason, TWO relics each for the promoted Characters, on top of that many relics for each Chapter...
It's ridiculous. This is the same garbage we were promised that we would move away from in 7th.
As somebody who's been away from the game a while this seems like a great time to play 40k. Do we want to go back to the days when Tau and Necrons essentially only had 1 Troop, 2 Elites, 2 Fast Attack, and maybe 3 heavy support choices and when named characters never saw play on most people's tables?
You'd be completely incorrect.
The endless bloat doesn't add flavor, it just adds calories. It doesn't matter how many options of Lasguns you give Intercessors if they're still gonna just stick to their Bolt Rifle variants, so why even make it an option? More options does NOT equal depth.
Luke_Prowler wrote: There's a couple of problems with how people feel about space marine "eliteness"
Spoiler:
1) As mentioned before, 40k lore is... very marine slanted, to put it nicely. Every army will get pumped up in their codex as a means to selling it to people interested in that army, but no one quite gets that treatment to the same level as Marines, and since they get the lion shares of stories it's likely someone coming into the game that would be interested in Space Marine would hear amazing stories of single squads of space marines taking on entire armies on their own and winning. And if they get into the game, and read the stories in there that only push that up even more.
I think this instills an idea that how space marines work is much like OGREs do in their respective game, where it's this asymmetrical battle between a massive killing machine vs an entire army. The problem is that 40k isn't that kind of asymmetrical battle, and OGRE makes it clear from the get go that it's slanted against the defenders. So Bobby puts his tac squads down thinking his men can heroically walk across the field, slaying enemies by the truck full. Only by using their options and tactics carefully can the enemy even have a chance to defeat the Emperor's chosen!. And then they slam their face into a brick wall because their opponent actually is being smart by playing against the new marine player's naivety.
I think most people learn their lesson after that, but there is still that feeling of pain when the stories don't line up the game, that longing for something like how they remember it, while others never grow out of that idea that other armies should exist to be baby shake'd by Marines.
2). The focus on math hammer creates a bad idea on how *effective* a unit is, because the metric most people use is *efficiency*. Specially, single aspect efficiency which makes generalist look bad by default because you're thinking of a model as paying it's full cost for only part of it's kit. It's actually the worst way to balance things, as scotsman shows, because trying to balance around that results in the current situation where you have units that are better or as good as the specialist... but with none of the drawbacks.
*Effectively*, space marines were better that guardsman. A space marine squad could beat an Infantry squad, without a doubt. Efficiently, they had a had time getting over three squads or two squads and a commander. Problem was that the people took this a meaning that space marines *couldn't* handle IS and guard was overpowered, rather than learning the lesson "Maybe I shouldn't be trying to get in a pissing contest with that out of cover". People who tend to use Mathhammer a lot advocate it as being fair, but different variable aren't equal even when applied equally. If the guardsmen and space marine are both in cover, the space marine benefits more than the guard do. If there's a LoS blocking terrain in the middle of both forces, the marines benefit more because they have better force concentration. If the marines are placed in a flanking position while the guardsmen are in a line, the guardsmen are losing shots to range while the marines aren't. Marines are better when they're not lining up at the scrim line out of cover trying to, but it's easier to argue about two sides lining up on the planet cueballia than about why positioning is useful.
3) There's a few bad habits that everyone can fall in, but is worse for marines because there's so many people who play them A lack of understanding melee tends to make it look worse for non-melee specialist than it actually is, because if the only melee you get into is the melees you don't want to be in, you're going to never think to use those melee stats you do have to your advantage and will just throw your hands up when you're charged.
Everyone likes the idea of their units are able to be workable without needing a dozen supports units and special abilities to work. That's fine. But as we've seen example of in this very thread, that's not extended to other armies. So people want to be able to have their unsupported units in the middle of no man's land being able to go toe to toe with a unit who's stacked with everything. This goes double with thing that are meant to counter that unit.
And of course, bad rolls hurt people playing elite armies more. If you lose a handful of models in a horde army, it doesn't really matter as long as you still have board control. Rolling a 1 on a hit/wound/armor save for marines is a bigger deal, psychologically. People want less of those those bad feel moments, which can poorly balance the game if people push for it hard enough.
Space Marines didn't feel elite pre 2.0 because a lot of expectations wasn't met, proof used was based calculations that were intentionally worse for marines, and general lack of understanding that resulted in changes that were much more significant for smaller armies than the larger ones they were being compared to. They feel more elite now, sure, but it was done by stacking stat boosts and special rules that just make them flat out better rather than changing the army to allow it to benefit from it's natural advantages.
A good post that breaks down a number of issues.
I'll supplement it by throwing out the "generalists suck" sentiment which is symptomatic of point 2. Generalists give you flexibility with the balance point that they can be harder to use than more specialized units. "Decent" at everything but not highly "efficient" at anything when it comes down to points vs. points. thus, less exciting math-hammer because math-hammer rarely encompasses anything beyond a very tight/controlled scenario. Generalists are the opposite of role-defined specialists, and instead their role will be more informed by the opposing models. TLDR: Shoot the punchy stuff, and punch the shooty stuff.
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Martel732 wrote: The reintroduction of AP to the game makes marines and other heavy infantry VERY difficult to cost.
I don't think this is really an issue. Certainly far less of an issue than lackluster terrain rules and the escalation of invuln saves. Arguably 3rd through 7th AP system is harder to price because of it's all-or-nothing-ness.
And the "perfectly balanced points" fantasy should really die. It won't happen, it can't happen, and it's not even in GWs interest for it to happen if it were possible. All we can hope for is "close enough". There are far to many unquantifiable variables (like terrain) and contexts (a Drop Pod is worth more for some units than others).
Except when you're purchasing upgrades and not list tailoring, you can't be a generalist. Especially in what is primarily a shooting game, when you get to shoot with everything at once, it isn't hard to get things to a more correct point value. People screaming "you can't make perfect balance" miss the grand point that GW isn't even TRYING. You can't even defend them on that, especially with the PAID updates that do silly things like 40 Thunder Hammers (while missing the fact it was particular smash captains), more expensive Ogryns (had to balance them somehow with that broken mortal wound Stratagem!), and the disparity of power between Genestealers in two separate codices, let alone that same disparity between Loyalist Marines.
So can we please not pretend generalist works in the current rule set? It doesn't the moment you put a modicum of effort into making a list for a game that isn't even hard to break. Hell we found all the combos in each Marine supplement in less than a day, with some stuff that could just be done by accident!
The endless bloat doesn't add flavor, it just adds calories. It doesn't matter how many options of Lasguns you give Intercessors if they're still gonna just stick to their Bolt Rifle variants, so why even make it an option? More options does NOT equal depth.
Except that a lot of the debate here is centred around the casual players not enjoying the sudden surge the power of Marines invalidating their old unoptimized lists. These casual players might actually use some of the trap options because they enjoy the fluff and that's to be encouraged. Focusing on balance to exclusion of everything else leads to D&D 4e and nobody wants that.
Luke_Prowler wrote: There's a couple of problems with how people feel about space marine "eliteness"
Spoiler:
1) As mentioned before, 40k lore is... very marine slanted, to put it nicely. Every army will get pumped up in their codex as a means to selling it to people interested in that army, but no one quite gets that treatment to the same level as Marines, and since they get the lion shares of stories it's likely someone coming into the game that would be interested in Space Marine would hear amazing stories of single squads of space marines taking on entire armies on their own and winning. And if they get into the game, and read the stories in there that only push that up even more.
I think this instills an idea that how space marines work is much like OGREs do in their respective game, where it's this asymmetrical battle between a massive killing machine vs an entire army. The problem is that 40k isn't that kind of asymmetrical battle, and OGRE makes it clear from the get go that it's slanted against the defenders. So Bobby puts his tac squads down thinking his men can heroically walk across the field, slaying enemies by the truck full. Only by using their options and tactics carefully can the enemy even have a chance to defeat the Emperor's chosen!. And then they slam their face into a brick wall because their opponent actually is being smart by playing against the new marine player's naivety.
I think most people learn their lesson after that, but there is still that feeling of pain when the stories don't line up the game, that longing for something like how they remember it, while others never grow out of that idea that other armies should exist to be baby shake'd by Marines.
2). The focus on math hammer creates a bad idea on how *effective* a unit is, because the metric most people use is *efficiency*. Specially, single aspect efficiency which makes generalist look bad by default because you're thinking of a model as paying it's full cost for only part of it's kit. It's actually the worst way to balance things, as scotsman shows, because trying to balance around that results in the current situation where you have units that are better or as good as the specialist... but with none of the drawbacks.
*Effectively*, space marines were better that guardsman. A space marine squad could beat an Infantry squad, without a doubt. Efficiently, they had a had time getting over three squads or two squads and a commander. Problem was that the people took this a meaning that space marines *couldn't* handle IS and guard was overpowered, rather than learning the lesson "Maybe I shouldn't be trying to get in a pissing contest with that out of cover". People who tend to use Mathhammer a lot advocate it as being fair, but different variable aren't equal even when applied equally. If the guardsmen and space marine are both in cover, the space marine benefits more than the guard do. If there's a LoS blocking terrain in the middle of both forces, the marines benefit more because they have better force concentration. If the marines are placed in a flanking position while the guardsmen are in a line, the guardsmen are losing shots to range while the marines aren't. Marines are better when they're not lining up at the scrim line out of cover trying to, but it's easier to argue about two sides lining up on the planet cueballia than about why positioning is useful.
3) There's a few bad habits that everyone can fall in, but is worse for marines because there's so many people who play them A lack of understanding melee tends to make it look worse for non-melee specialist than it actually is, because if the only melee you get into is the melees you don't want to be in, you're going to never think to use those melee stats you do have to your advantage and will just throw your hands up when you're charged.
Everyone likes the idea of their units are able to be workable without needing a dozen supports units and special abilities to work. That's fine. But as we've seen example of in this very thread, that's not extended to other armies. So people want to be able to have their unsupported units in the middle of no man's land being able to go toe to toe with a unit who's stacked with everything. This goes double with thing that are meant to counter that unit.
And of course, bad rolls hurt people playing elite armies more. If you lose a handful of models in a horde army, it doesn't really matter as long as you still have board control. Rolling a 1 on a hit/wound/armor save for marines is a bigger deal, psychologically. People want less of those those bad feel moments, which can poorly balance the game if people push for it hard enough.
Space Marines didn't feel elite pre 2.0 because a lot of expectations wasn't met, proof used was based calculations that were intentionally worse for marines, and general lack of understanding that resulted in changes that were much more significant for smaller armies than the larger ones they were being compared to. They feel more elite now, sure, but it was done by stacking stat boosts and special rules that just make them flat out better rather than changing the army to allow it to benefit from it's natural advantages.
A good post that breaks down a number of issues.
I'll supplement it by throwing out the "generalists suck" sentiment which is symptomatic of point 2. Generalists give you flexibility with the balance point that they can be harder to use than more specialized units. "Decent" at everything but not highly "efficient" at anything when it comes down to points vs. points. thus, less exciting math-hammer because math-hammer rarely encompasses anything beyond a very tight/controlled scenario. Generalists are the opposite of role-defined specialists, and instead their role will be more informed by the opposing models. TLDR: Shoot the punchy stuff, and punch the shooty stuff.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: The reintroduction of AP to the game makes marines and other heavy infantry VERY difficult to cost.
I don't think this is really an issue. Certainly far less of an issue than lackluster terrain rules and the escalation of invuln saves. Arguably 3rd through 7th AP system is harder to price because of it's all-or-nothing-ness.
And the "perfectly balanced points" fantasy should really die. It won't happen, it can't happen, and it's not even in GWs interest for it to happen if it were possible. All we can hope for is "close enough". There are far to many unquantifiable variables (like terrain) and contexts (a Drop Pod is worth more for some units than others).
Except when you're purchasing upgrades and not list tailoring, you can't be a generalist.
Why not? You can buy special weapons for shooting, and CC weapons for CC, and then play the unit to do both/either.
Insectum7 wrote: Why not? You can buy special weapons for shooting, and CC weapons for CC, and then play the unit to do both/either.
Then you'll proceed to lose to the lists that actually specialize.
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Why did you use two posts to reply to my single post?
A list filled with generalist units, is paying points for capabilities that a unit won't use. There's a reason why you wouldn't buy a 10 man marine unit a lascannon, flamer, power sword, meltabombs, and combi plasma the unit just doesn't do anything well enough to justify taking it at that point.
A tournament winning TAC list will take units that each do a specific thing and if you ask the person why they took each unit they'll tell you what it does, what threats it was taken to counter, and how effective it was at actually dealing with said threats. They won't bring a bunch of units that are sort of okay at everything and win by shooting the choppy stuff and chopping the shooty stuff with it.
Why not just use units that can shot both the melee and shoting units of other armies in to oblivion. Then you don't risk that, if something wrong happens or someone has a skew build, your army is still working at 100% capacity. It is the core of why IH are so good, and why other armies that were good in the past.
Good armies often don't care what they opponent do, just like in boxing or wrestling, if your bigger with a longer reach, you just dominate and fight every fight more or less the same way, generating win after win. Why would anyone want to chang ethat?
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Why did you use two posts to reply to my single post?
A list filled with generalist units, is paying points for capabilities that a unit won't use. There's a reason why you wouldn't buy a 10 man marine unit a lascannon, flamer, power sword, meltabombs, and combi plasma the unit just doesn't do anything well enough to justify taking it at that point.
A tournament winning TAC list will take units that each do a specific thing and if you ask the person why they took each unit they'll tell you what it does, what threats it was taken to counter, and how effective it was at actually dealing with said threats. They won't bring a bunch of units that are sort of okay at everything and win by shooting the choppy stuff and chopping the shooty stuff with it.
You know what's a pretty great strategy for Orks? When you're playing an Ork da jump list, you generally want a mix of shoota AND choppas boyz, usually 1 to 2 in a group of 30. This allows you to do some decent shooting damage once they've dropped in, then any ork boyz lost in overwatch are taken off the shoota boyz so you're not "wasting" the actions, making it more effective than "take all choppa boyz and hope you don't lose any on the way in".
Like any unit, generalist work better when you've actually made a strategy around their use, rather than making absurd examples.
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Why did you use two posts to reply to my single post?
A list filled with generalist units, is paying points for capabilities that a unit won't use. There's a reason why you wouldn't buy a 10 man marine unit a lascannon, flamer, power sword, meltabombs, and combi plasma the unit just doesn't do anything well enough to justify taking it at that point.
I disagree, the responsibility is just on you to make sure they get to use those abilities, so you play around that. A unit that shoots and assaults can often net more damage than a unit that just shoots, or just assaults. As the player you're the one deciding on how the unit is used.
Straying from Marines because it's a hot issue. I have an army of Tyranid Warriors, sometimes I field over 60 of them. They're fearless and have 3A and 3W each. I give most a Deathspitter (basically an Assault Heavy Bolter), 1 in 3 models often carries both a Venom Cannon and Boneswords. I pump them with Primes and Jorm, giving them a BS3+, a WS2+ and a save of 3+. The Boneswords give +1 Attack. Each squad of nine has 18 Heavy Bolter shots and 6 S8 AP2 D3D shots. Each Squad has 18 S4 Attacks and 12 S4 AP-2 Attacks in CC. As units, they all shoot reasonably well, and they assault reasonably well, and I expect them to do both in a game. It's not a tourney level list, but it finds solid success even against some pretty nasty lists. They are a solid generalist unit.
Luke_Prowler wrote: You know what's a pretty great strategy for Orks? When you're playing an Ork da jump list, you generally want a mix of shoota AND choppas boyz, usually 1 to 2 in a group of 30. This allows you to do some decent shooting damage once they've dropped in, then any ork boyz lost in overwatch are taken off the shoota boyz so you're not "wasting" the actions, making it more effective than "take all choppa boyz and hope you don't lose any on the way in".
Like any unit, generalist work better when you've actually made a strategy around their use, rather than making absurd examples.
Show me that working against a properly made list where your jump isn't countered by auspex scan and shot off the board before it can do anything and I might take you seriously.
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Insectum7 wrote: I disagree, the responsibility is just on you to make sure they get to use those abilities, so you play around that. A unit that shoots and assaults can often net more damage than a unit that just shoots, or just assaults. As the player you're the one deciding on how the unit is used.
Straying from Marines because it's a hot issue. I have an army of Tyranid Warriors, sometimes I field over 60 of them. They're fearless and have 3A and 3W each. I give most a Deathspitter (basically an Assault Heavy Bolter), 1 in 3 models often carries both a Venom Cannon and Boneswords. I pump them with Primes and Jorm, giving them a BS3+, a WS2+ and a save of 3+. The Boneswords give +1 Attack. Each squad of nine has 18 Heavy Bolter shots and 6 S8 AP2 D3D shots. Each Squad has 18 S4 Attacks and 12 S4 AP-2 Attacks in CC. As units, they all shoot reasonably well, and they assault reasonably well, and I expect them to do both in a game. It's not a tourney level list, but it finds solid success even against some pretty nasty lists. They are a solid generalist unit.
It's unsurprising that the two examples of 'good' generalist units Boys and Da Jump and Warriors come from armies that literally have zero tournament presence because they suck.
It's unsurprising that the two examples of 'good' generalist units Boys and Da Jump and Warriors come from armies that literally have zero tournament presence because they suck.
But if they were pointed slightly less they'd be steamrolling. Claiming they suck doesn't help your theory because a small adjustment changes everything.
It's unsurprising that the two examples of 'good' generalist units Boys and Da Jump and Warriors come from armies that literally have zero tournament presence because they suck.
But if they were pointed slightly less they'd be steamrolling. Claiming they suck doesn't help your theory because a small adjustment changes everything.
When was the last time a list full of generalist units was the meta defining list?
It's unsurprising that the two examples of 'good' generalist units Boys and Da Jump and Warriors come from armies that literally have zero tournament presence because they suck.
But if they were pointed slightly less they'd be steamrolling. Claiming they suck doesn't help your theory because a small adjustment changes everything.
When was the last time a list full of generalist units was the meta defining list?
I don't know as I don't generally follow the tournament circuit. But it doesn't matter, the point stands.
Arguably Intercessors are generalist, with their WS3+ and 2A, and I bet they're in a lot of tourney lists currently. For a while, people were infuriated by Catachan Guardsmen with their S4. Those are generalists.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't know as I don't generally follow the tournament circuit. But it doesn't matter, the point stands.
Arguably Intercessors are generalist, with their WS3+ and 2A, and I bet they're in a lot of tourney lists currently. For a while, people were infuriated by Catachan Guardsmen with their S4. Those are generalists.
So, you have no idea what's actually viable then... I can safely ignore you from here on out.
One last word for the road though.
Intercessors are not generalist units, they're troop choices that happen to actually have a role as a primary source of anti chaff shooting. Their melee profile could literally read WS6+ and 1A and people would still take them.
Insectum7 wrote: I don't know as I don't generally follow the tournament circuit. But it doesn't matter, the point stands.
Arguably Intercessors are generalist, with their WS3+ and 2A, and I bet they're in a lot of tourney lists currently. For a while, people were infuriated by Catachan Guardsmen with their S4. Those are generalists.
So, you have no idea what's actually viable then... I can safely ignore you from here on out.
One last word for the road though.
Intercessors are not generalist units, they're troop choices that happen to actually have a role as a primary source of anti chaff shooting. Their melee profile could literally read WS6+ and 1A and people would still take them.
The competitive circuit is a small fraction of the player base, if anything appeasing the casual gamer is more important. A generalist list should be the better way to play since you can adapt to more opponents and missions, it should lose to some skew lists who in turn are then unable to compete in other areas of the game or lose to other skew lists.
Although an intercessor is a literal generalist unit, it fights capably in melee, is fairly durable and shoots reasonably well. The why people take them doesn't change that fact.
Going back to the matter of AP, I think one of the issues with this are Invulnerable Saves, as their current usage tends to skew weapon performances.
That is to say, when you have big, armoured Knights boasting 5+ or 4+ Invulnerable Saves, it means that the weapons that pay for the full AP-5 actually end up being less effective than weapons with less AP. I know it's not the only issue but I do think weapon diversity would be improved by GW showing a lot more restraint when handing out Invulnerable Saves - especially on heavily-armoured vehicles/monsters.
Incidentally, I think one of the game's problem with bloat is the perpetual one-upmanship of offence and defence:
- Most models have armour saves for protection.
- But many weapons have AP to counter that protection.
- But many models have invulnerable saves, which are unaffected by AP.
- But some weapons and psychic powers cause Mortal Wounds, which ignore both armour and Invulnerable saves.
- But some models have FNP, which allows saves against all wounds - even Mortal ones.
etc.
I look forward to Marines eventually getting Extremely-Mortal-Wounds, which ignore armour saves and invulnerable saves, aren't affected by FNP and kill wounded models instantly.
Dudeface wrote: The competitive circuit is a small fraction of the player base, if anything appeasing the casual gamer is more important. A generalist list should be the better way to play since you can adapt to more opponents and missions, it should lose to some skew lists who in turn are then unable to compete in other areas of the game or lose to other skew lists.
Although an intercessor is a literal generalist unit, it fights capably in melee, is fairly durable and shoots reasonably well. The why people take them doesn't change that fact.
The NFL is a small percentage of all football players, guess what the rules of football are built around... The same goes for literally every other game that has a competitive scene.
Shoulds and coulds are all well and good but show me a meta where a list focused around generalist units has ever actually been viable. The fact of the matter is that any moderately tuned list running competitive and semi-competitive units list will eat a generalists lunch 9 times out of 10. The reason being that a generalist will never have the initiative to use your their units strengths. The listed examples of Jumping Orks and Tyranid Warriors are both countered by cheap screening units eating their alpha strike and then the meat of the army blowing them off the table. You literally don't need to do anything special to counter them.
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vipoid wrote: Going back to the matter of AP, I think one of the issues with this are Invulnerable Saves, as their current usage tends to skew weapon performances.
That is to say, when you have big, armoured Knights boasting 5+ or 4+ Invulnerable Saves, it means that the weapons that pay for the full AP-5 actually end up being less effective than weapons with less AP. I know it's not the only issue but I do think weapon diversity would be improved by GW showing a lot more restraint when handing out Invulnerable Saves - especially on heavily-armoured vehicles/monsters.
Incidentally, I think one of the game's problem with bloat is the perpetual one-upmanship of offence and defence:
- Most models have armour saves for protection.
- But many weapons have AP to counter that protection.
- But many models have invulnerable saves, which are unaffected by AP.
- But some weapons and psychic powers cause Mortal Wounds, which ignore both armour and Invulnerable saves.
- But some models have FNP, which allows saves against all wounds - even Mortal ones.
etc.
I look forward to Marines eventually getting Extremely-Mortal-Wounds, which ignore armour saves and invulnerable saves, aren't affected by FNP and kill wounded models instantly.
It's almost as if fake war on a tabletop has the same cycles of offence-vs-defence that real-life militaries face. It's actually interesting to see a game that models one of the more interesting facets of real-world military buildups.
Dudeface wrote: The competitive circuit is a small fraction of the player base, if anything appeasing the casual gamer is more important. A generalist list should be the better way to play since you can adapt to more opponents and missions, it should lose to some skew lists who in turn are then unable to compete in other areas of the game or lose to other skew lists.
Although an intercessor is a literal generalist unit, it fights capably in melee, is fairly durable and shoots reasonably well. The why people take them doesn't change that fact.
The NFL is a small percentage of all football players, guess what the rules of football are built around... The same goes for literally every other game that has a competitive scene.
Shoulds and coulds are all well and good but show me a meta where a list focused around generalist units has ever actually been viable. The fact of the matter is that any moderately tuned list running competitive and semi-competitive units list will eat a generalists lunch 9 times out of 10. The reason being that a generalist will never have the initiative to use your their units strengths. The listed examples of Jumping Orks and Tyranid Warriors are both countered by cheap screening units eating their alpha strike and then the meat of the army blowing them off the table. You literally don't need to do anything special to counter them.
You need to bring cheap screens/chaff, which you're assuming all lists have, which makes that part of a generalist approach no?
Pretty sure (american) football was a community developed and played game which eventually evolved a rules governing body, rather than a miniatures game having rules written then a minority of players taking incredibly seriously.
Marines have always been the jack of all trades and master of none with a good solid stat line and great armor.
Now they are the living breathing Mary Sues of the galaxy, heck I play marines and I've watched them rise to such a state. It was one of the reason I used to love playing them as they felt easy to pick up, hard to dominate with. Now, less so.
Canadian 5th wrote:Intercessors are not generalist units
Not sure I'd agree with that. Resilient, good melee presence (3 attacks in the first round of combat?? Nice), solid shooting at good range that can threaten a range of enemies (S4 allows them to shoot at tanks with the same kind of efficiency as S5 and S6 weapons, so heavy bolters and krak grenades), and their AP can drastically reduce the effectiveness of even heavy armoured units.
They can threaten just about anything, at both range and combat, through solid firepower, or weight of attacks, not including their bevy of doctrines, tactics, and stratagems.
they're troop choices that happen to actually have a role as a primary source of anti chaff shooting.
Since when were stalker bolters meant for anti-chaff? If you're using 1 shot AP-2 D2 attacks on chaff, I have to question your target priority.
Their melee profile could literally read WS6+ and 1A and people would still take them.
Yes, they would, for their shooting potential, but given their substantially better melee profile, they're also a great choice for a counter-charge unit that can hold their own against even dedicated assault units. A lack of AP hurts, but when each guy is putting out 3 hits at good WS and S, you can definitely threaten things.
More than anything else, they're VERSATILE, and not 'versatile' like Tacticals were (so little difference in power compared to baseline chaff like guardsmen) - they can engage a variety of enemies at range, can dish out a god number of hits in melee, and are tanky enough to take on meaningful threats. In my opinion, an Intercessor is a very good feeling of what a Space Marine "should" feel like. I'd like for more special weapons than just the AGL, but it's not a bad support weapon, and it still feels Marine-y to me.
Dudeface wrote: The competitive circuit is a small fraction of the player base, if anything appeasing the casual gamer is more important. A generalist list should be the better way to play since you can adapt to more opponents and missions, it should lose to some skew lists who in turn are then unable to compete in other areas of the game or lose to other skew lists.
Although an intercessor is a literal generalist unit, it fights capably in melee, is fairly durable and shoots reasonably well. The why people take them doesn't change that fact.
The NFL is a small percentage of all football players, guess what the rules of football are built around... The same goes for literally every other game that has a competitive scene.
Shoulds and coulds are all well and good but show me a meta where a list focused around generalist units has ever actually been viable. The fact of the matter is that any moderately tuned list running competitive and semi-competitive units list will eat a generalists lunch 9 times out of 10. The reason being that a generalist will never have the initiative to use your their units strengths. The listed examples of Jumping Orks and Tyranid Warriors are both countered by cheap screening units eating their alpha strike and then the meat of the army blowing them off the table. You literally don't need to do anything special to counter them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
vipoid wrote: Going back to the matter of AP, I think one of the issues with this are Invulnerable Saves, as their current usage tends to skew weapon performances.
That is to say, when you have big, armoured Knights boasting 5+ or 4+ Invulnerable Saves, it means that the weapons that pay for the full AP-5 actually end up being less effective than weapons with less AP. I know it's not the only issue but I do think weapon diversity would be improved by GW showing a lot more restraint when handing out Invulnerable Saves - especially on heavily-armoured vehicles/monsters.
Incidentally, I think one of the game's problem with bloat is the perpetual one-upmanship of offence and defence:
- Most models have armour saves for protection.
- But many weapons have AP to counter that protection.
- But many models have invulnerable saves, which are unaffected by AP.
- But some weapons and psychic powers cause Mortal Wounds, which ignore both armour and Invulnerable saves.
- But some models have FNP, which allows saves against all wounds - even Mortal ones.
etc.
I look forward to Marines eventually getting Extremely-Mortal-Wounds, which ignore armour saves and invulnerable saves, aren't affected by FNP and kill wounded models instantly.
It's almost as if fake war on a tabletop has the same cycles of offence-vs-defence that real-life militaries face. It's actually interesting to see a game that models one of the more interesting facets of real-world military buildups.
You are wrong on many points.
1) Tyranid warriors are one of the mainstay of competitive nids right now, and nids are also decently represented in the competitive setting. You see them snatching second and third places here and there, which for the numbers of players of that faction is quite remarkable. (we are talking unit balance here, so i'm using non ITC results)
2) Intercessors are definitely a generalist unit. If they didn't have that melee profile they wouldn't be half as good. Reason why, a lot of lists actually purchase melee upgrades for the sergeant.
3) There are many examples of generalists units being good, even at top level play. Examples are: Disco lords (buffer, shooter, assaulter), Hyve Tyrants (buffer, psy, shooter, assaulter), assault centurions (shooters assaulters), hemlock (debuffer, psy, shooter), talon masters with heavenfall blade (buffer, shooter, assaulter) , shield captains (buffer, shooter, assaulter)... And this is only in the current meta. If i had to list all the generalist units which have been good in some period of 8th, the list would be endless.
Saying that generalist units are bad, means being an armchair mathammerer with no experience about real play.
Saying that generalist units are bad, means being an armchair mathammerer with no experience about real play.
That sums up the tread: intercessors are too good in terms of damage output and resilience to be a generalist unit.
Honestly, they could have just said that instead of primaris we had an upgrade for veterans / elite chapter specific units (a new type of armor / weapon) and called it a day.
The issue is that they want to replace the entire SM marine line over time, and to encourage us they need to make them better. That is creating obvious balance issues.
Dudeface wrote: You need to bring cheap screens/chaff, which you're assuming all lists have, which makes that part of a generalist approach no?
Pretty sure (american) football was a community developed and played game which eventually evolved a rules governing body, rather than a miniatures game having rules written then a minority of players taking incredibly seriously.
We're not taking about a TAC style of list building which should have answers to common threats we're talking about generalist units that can shoot the choppy stuff and chop the shooty stuff. There's a massive difference.
Also, also sports started out as pure recreation and as they gained popularity they eventually had rules devised to facilitate organized play using standardized rules. They then developed into the multibillion-dollar leagues we see today.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Not sure I'd agree with that. Resilient, good melee presence (3 attacks in the first round of combat?? Nice), solid shooting at good range that can threaten a range of enemies (S4 allows them to shoot at tanks with the same kind of efficiency as S5 and S6 weapons, so heavy bolters and krak grenades), and their AP can drastically reduce the effectiveness of even heavy armoured units.
They can threaten just about anything, at both range and combat, through solid firepower, or weight of attacks, not including their bevy of doctrines, tactics, and stratagems.
A) They're point for point less resilient than the humble tactical marine owing to their weakness against D2 weapons.
B) A 5-man squad, which is the only way they get run on most tables, isn't a melee threat against anything that isn't already the next best thing to dead already. 16 S4 AP0 attacks on the charge simply don't generate enough wounds to clear hordes or get past 3+ armour saves.
C) They shouldn't shoot at vehicles because they're bad at it.
Since when were stalker bolters meant for anti-chaff? If you're using 1 shot AP-2 D2 attacks on chaff, I have to question your target priority.
Here's a tournament-winning list, tell me what unit he'd be better off shooting at chaff?
Spoiler:
Adeptus Astartes Brigade
Iron Hams: Master Artisans, Stealthy, Iron Hands Successor
Fast Attack
Landspeeder w/Heavy Bolter, Typhoon missiles
Suppressors
Suppressors
Heavy Support
5 devastators w/4 grav cannons, cherub
Thunderfire Cannon
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3
Dedicated Transport
Terrax Drill w/Volkite
Yes, they would, for their shooting potential, but given their substantially better melee profile, they're also a great choice for a counter-charge unit that can hold their own against even dedicated assault units. A lack of AP hurts, but when each guy is putting out 3 hits at good WS and S, you can definitely threaten things.
No, they can't hold their own against dedicated assault units.
A full-strength unit of barebones Intercessors against a pair of Deathwing Knights doesn't go well for the Intercessors.
Intercessors Charge the Deathwing Knights:
Intercessors: 16 attacks, 10.67 hits, 5.33 wounds, 0.83 failed saves, 0 to 1 dead Knights
Deathwing Knights: 4 attacks, 2.67 hits, 2.22 wounds, ~1.48 failed saves, 1 to 2 dead Intercessors
Deathwing Knights Charge the Intercessor:
Deathwing Knights: 6 attacks, 4 hits, 3.33 wounds, 2.22 failed saves, 2 to 3 dead Intercessors
Intercessors: 7 attacks, 4.66 hits, 2.33 wounds, 0.39 failed saves, 0 to 1 dead Knights
In neither scenario do the Intercessors win in combat without extreme luck. Your assessment of their role and survivability show that you have no clue how units should be used.
You try to keep the topic as general as possible. You provide a dozen different examples around the same theme. You ask general questions, and what do you get?
"Well, things would have looked different if you'd used the tyranid cost instead of the completely current and fully game-legal GSC cost for Genestealers in your one example, and this thread is really only about intercessors..."
No, man, we can also talk about how marines now have this unique turn 1 deep strike infiltrate mechanic, while other factions built around infiltration have to deep strike turn 2 like everyone else. How they can just make a dreadnought with 2 heavy flamers show up 9" away from your stuff, move, shoot you, and then charge you. Or how they can just have a bunch of "no deep strike within 12" aura bubbles to feth over any army that relies on regular *plebian* deep strike.
Oh, or how about this - what faction in 40k has the ability to move a hovering vehicle 14" and dismount their soldiers? Is it the speedy eldar? The reckless orks or GSC? Oh no, it's fancy new space marines. Every other faction that can do that has to spend CP, and usually buy into a specialist detachment with more CP.
It's exactly like what Eldar and Tau felt like in previous editions. Oh, you've got special rules? We've got extra EXTRA special rules, because we're just that much snowflakier than you.
Spoletta wrote: 1) Tyranid warriors are one of the mainstay of competitive nids right now, and nids are also decently represented in the competitive setting. You see them snatching second and third places here and there, which for the numbers of players of that faction is quite remarkable. (we are talking unit balance here, so i'm using non ITC results)
Why are you eliminating ITC results? That smacks of sour grapes about how well Nids fair at the most competitive tournaments.
2) Intercessors are definitely a generalist unit. If they didn't have that melee profile they wouldn't be half as good. Reason why, a lot of lists actually purchase melee upgrades for the sergeant.
Define a lot of lists.
3) There are many examples of generalists units being good, even at top level play. Examples are: Disco lords (buffer, shooter, assaulter), Hyve Tyrants (buffer, psy, shooter, assaulter), assault centurions (shooters assaulters), hemlock (debuffer, psy, shooter), talon masters with heavenfall blade (buffer, shooter, assaulter) , shield captains (buffer, shooter, assaulter)... And this is only in the current meta. If i had to list all the generalist units which have been good in some period of 8th, the list would be endless.
Most of those units aren't generalists unless you skew the definition so much that almost any unit can be considered a generalist. By your standards having an aura buff and a being decent at assault makes you a generalist...
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Spoletta wrote: Intercessors are not good because they can outpunch punchy stuff, there are units who have 400% return against intercessors, with minimal support.
They are good because they can punch stuff who just wants to put them in melee, like hormagaunts.
Are a bad assault unit from a bottom tier codex what we're using as our standards now? I swear the people whining in this thread must be the fluffiest of the fluff bunnies if the best examples we can get are all from terrible codices .
Intercessors are one of the most run troops units in the game, and by a fair margin. Part of that is the shear popularity of Space Marines, but they also feature frequently in high performing lists every month. It's quite funny to read other threads on here (not much on this one) about how Space Marines are fine as is, and are about even in power with my Necrons. Makes you think.
I agree with Canadian 5th here. You guys are grossly overestimating Intercessors melee capabilities. They can put out a good amount of S4 AP0 attacks but other than that are a terrible melee unit. They don't have AP, they are slow (if you can't get into melee then your melee stats are pretty pointless), die horribly to lots of melee threats (striking scorpions do horrible against them but shinning spears do rather well for instance), etc.
Also the only melee weapon on my sergeant that I have found to be worth it for instance is the chain sword, because it is free.
Blood Hawk wrote: I agree with Canadian 5th here. You guys are grossly overestimating Intercessors melee capabilities. They can put out a good amount of S4 AP0 attacks but other than that are a terrible melee unit. They don't have AP, they are slow (if you can't get into melee then your melee stats are pretty pointless), die horribly to lots of melee threats (striking scorpions do horrible against them but shinning spears do rather well for instance), etc.
Also the only melee weapon on my sergeant that I have found to be worth it for instance is the chain sword, because it is free.
I've seen some ITC batreps where the sergeant in a single squad took a Thunderhammer or Fist but I suspect those were simply used as a means to spend the final few points in the list.
Sgt_Smudge wrote:Not sure I'd agree with that. Resilient, good melee presence (3 attacks in the first round of combat?? Nice), solid shooting at good range that can threaten a range of enemies (S4 allows them to shoot at tanks with the same kind of efficiency as S5 and S6 weapons, so heavy bolters and krak grenades), and their AP can drastically reduce the effectiveness of even heavy armoured units.
They can threaten just about anything, at both range and combat, through solid firepower, or weight of attacks, not including their bevy of doctrines, tactics, and stratagems.
A) They're point for point less resilient than the humble tactical marine owing to their weakness against D2 weapons.
And the humble Tactical Marine is generally a wet noodle, barring their one special/heavy weapon.
D2 isn't more common than D1 weaponry, broadly speaking. So that still requires a higher investment to specifically get that D2 equipment.
B) A 5-man squad, which is the only way they get run on most tables, isn't a melee threat against anything that isn't already the next best thing to dead already. 16 S4 AP0 attacks on the charge simply don't generate enough wounds to clear hordes or get past 3+ armour saves.
Disagreed with that. The embedded weapon on the Sergeant (so 4 attacks) isn't far off the same kind of damage HQ choices are putting out, and the sheer weight of attacks is enough to make most enemies think twice.
It's not about clearing hordes, or piercing armour - it's presenting a threat, and being able to make a pretty decent dent before they go down.
As Spoletta points out, it's not about being able to beat dedicated CC units tailor built to crack tough nuts. It's about being able to fend off an attack from something that does want to get them in melee, and not have to punch their way out 1 hit at a time.
C) They shouldn't shoot at vehicles because they're bad at it.
But they *can*, and they're much better at it than most units (bolter Tacticals, guardsmen, fleshborers, etc). That, to me, speaks for them being generalists. They don't need to be *good* at doing everything, just capable of doing it.
Since when were stalker bolters meant for anti-chaff? If you're using 1 shot AP-2 D2 attacks on chaff, I have to question your target priority.
Here's a tournament-winning list, tell me what unit he'd be better off shooting at chaff?
Spoiler:
Adeptus Astartes Brigade
Iron Hams: Master Artisans, Stealthy, Iron Hands Successor
Fast Attack
Landspeeder w/Heavy Bolter, Typhoon missiles
Suppressors
Suppressors
Heavy Support
5 devastators w/4 grav cannons, cherub
Thunderfire Cannon
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3
Eliminators x3
Dedicated Transport
Terrax Drill w/Volkite
Land Speeder, Scouts, TFC, Eliminators with frag rounds, but honestly, I wouldn't have been taking Stalker Bolters on half of those - I'd have been taking bolt rifles instead, specifically FOR chaff duty. I don't see Heavy 1 rounds being as effective.
More likely, this tourney player took Stalkers because they didn't expect much in the way of chaff that his guys couldn't take out, and wanted the stalkers to take out Primaris Marines and suchlike.
Yes, they would, for their shooting potential, but given their substantially better melee profile, they're also a great choice for a counter-charge unit that can hold their own against even dedicated assault units. A lack of AP hurts, but when each guy is putting out 3 hits at good WS and S, you can definitely threaten things.
No, they can't hold their own against dedicated assault units.
They can put a fair amount of Wounds in. After all, isn't that the logic behind Vanguard Veterans?
And all on a Troops choice, without any major upgrades?
A full-strength unit of barebones Intercessors against a pair of Deathwing Knights doesn't go well for the Intercessors.
Why barebones? You wouldn't compare naked Tacticals, so why naked Intercessors? Also, full strength Intercessors are 10 men. I know what you meant, but use the correct terminology please.
Intercessors Charge the Deathwing Knights:
Intercessors: 16 attacks, 10.67 hits, 5.33 wounds, 0.83 failed saves, 0 to 1 dead Knights
Deathwing Knights: 4 attacks, 2.67 hits, 2.22 wounds, ~1.48 failed saves, 1 to 2 dead Intercessors
That's still halved the amount of Deathwing Knights. Not bad for a troops choice, eh?
In neither scenario do the Intercessors win in combat without extreme luck. Your assessment of their role and survivability show that you have no clue how units should be used.
It's not about winning - coming from the person claiming "you have no clue how units should be used", I'm surprised you missed that.
It's about being able to make some kind of impact in return, to actually pose more an 0% of a threat. Even without a Sergeant boasting a special weapon (which there's no reason not to take), they took out half of the Deathwing Knights presented. A generalist unit taking on a dedicated CC unit, and doing that kind of impact is exactly what I want from them - not winning, but hurting.
Spoletta wrote:Intercessors are not good because they can outpunch punchy stuff, there are units who have 400% return against intercessors, with minimal support.
They are good because they can punch stuff who just wants to put them in melee, like hormagaunts.
Exactly - it's not about being able to beat everything. It's about being able to threaten everything, with minimal investment. Bolt rifles of all stripes can face a wide range of enemies at favourable odds. Their wealth of attacks, and access to embedded special melee weapons, makes them a threat against much tougher potential foes.
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Blood Hawk wrote: I agree with Canadian 5th here. You guys are grossly overestimating Intercessors melee capabilities. They can put out a good amount of S4 AP0 attacks but other than that are a terrible melee unit.
A terrible dedicated melee unit, maybe. But they're not a melee unit. They're a generalist Troops unit, with a focus on shooting, that can put out a very good amount of attacks. That's why I rate them.
They don't have AP
Quantity has a quality...
they are slow (if you can't get into melee then your melee stats are pretty pointless)
You use them for counter-charging, not advancing.
die horribly to lots of melee threats (striking scorpions do horrible against them but shinning spears do rather well for instance), etc.
I'm not saying they don't die. I'm saying they go down swinging.
Also the only melee weapon on my sergeant that I have found to be worth it for instance is the chain sword, because it is free.
The power sword and power fist work wonders for me. Just the added threat of the AP is enough to swing encounters with much more optimised melee attackers.
Even the TAC style of list isn't a generalist list, it's just tailored to a specific tournament meta and includes tools to defeat or bypass common threats.
Why did you use two posts to reply to my single post?
A list filled with generalist units, is paying points for capabilities that a unit won't use. There's a reason why you wouldn't buy a 10 man marine unit a lascannon, flamer, power sword, meltabombs, and combi plasma the unit just doesn't do anything well enough to justify taking it at that point.
I disagree, the responsibility is just on you to make sure they get to use those abilities, so you play around that. A unit that shoots and assaults can often net more damage than a unit that just shoots, or just assaults. As the player you're the one deciding on how the unit is used.
Straying from Marines because it's a hot issue. I have an army of Tyranid Warriors, sometimes I field over 60 of them. They're fearless and have 3A and 3W each. I give most a Deathspitter (basically an Assault Heavy Bolter), 1 in 3 models often carries both a Venom Cannon and Boneswords. I pump them with Primes and Jorm, giving them a BS3+, a WS2+ and a save of 3+. The Boneswords give +1 Attack. Each squad of nine has 18 Heavy Bolter shots and 6 S8 AP2 D3D shots. Each Squad has 18 S4 Attacks and 12 S4 AP-2 Attacks in CC. As units, they all shoot reasonably well, and they assault reasonably well, and I expect them to do both in a game. It's not a tourney level list, but it finds solid success even against some pretty nasty lists. They are a solid generalist unit.
40K has always rewarded specialization. Always. You can't really play around that.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And the humble Tactical Marine is generally a wet noodle, barring their one special/heavy weapon.
I wasn't talking about the firepower difference between the two units. I was talking about their ability to take hits...
Disagreed with that. The embedded weapon on the Sergeant (so 4 attacks) isn't far off the same kind of damage HQ choices are putting out, and the sheer weight of attacks is enough to make most enemies think twice.
They don't make anything that would be willing to charge them think twice and anything they'd be happy to charge will just be glad that literally anything else didn't charge them instead.
It's not about clearing hordes, or piercing armour - it's presenting a threat, and being able to make a pretty decent dent before they go down.
Even against GEQ a 5-man unit of Intercessors puts out between 4 and 5 unsaved wounds. That's not a threat worth worrying about.
But they *can*, and they're much better at it than most units (bolter Tacticals, guardsmen, fleshborers, etc). That, to me, speaks for them being generalists. They don't need to be *good* at doing everything, just capable of doing it.
Any unit *can* shoot at and damage a vehicle. For nearly same cost a Tactical squad with a missile launcher and combi-grav/combi-plasma is actually better against most vehicles and yet still wouldn't be considered a good anti-vehicle unit.
Land Speeder, Scouts, TFC, Eliminators with frag rounds, but honestly, I wouldn't have been taking Stalker Bolters on half of those - I'd have been taking bolt rifles instead, specifically FOR chaff duty. I don't see Heavy 1 rounds being as effective.
More likely, this tourney player took Stalkers because they didn't expect much in the way of chaff that his guys couldn't take out, and wanted the stalkers to take out Primaris Marines and suchlike.
I'll give you the speeders and scouts, but I suspect that the TFC was probably better off firing termor shells at something that actually mattered, ditto for the Eliminators having better targets as well.
They can put a fair amount of Wounds in. After all, isn't that the logic behind Vanguard Veterans?
And all on a Troops choice, without any major upgrades?
They literally don't generate enough wounds to threaten anything worth threatening. There are very few things they wouldn't be better off shooting.
Why barebones? You wouldn't compare naked Tacticals, so why naked Intercessors? Also, full strength Intercessors are 10 men. I know what you meant, but use the correct terminology please.
Nobody takes Intercessors with any upgrades aside from the Stalker Bolt Rifle and even fewer people than that run them as 10-man units.
Deathwing Knights: 4 attacks, 2.67 hits, 2.22 wounds, ~1.48 failed saves, 1 to 2 dead Intercessors
That's still halved the amount of Deathwing Knights. Not bad for a troops choice, eh?
Knights have 2 wounds, they actually do less than half kill a single night on average. I made a typo a put dead where it should have been wounded, but thanks for confirming that you literally didn't do the math for yourself.
It's about being able to make some kind of impact in return, to actually pose more an 0% of a threat. Even without a Sergeant boasting a special weapon (which there's no reason not to take), they took out half of the Deathwing Knights presented.
Except that they didn't do that, they put 0.833 wounds onto a pair of Knights that they charged and I made a typo. Try actually doing the math before gloating next time.
Also, if you're adding in a Power Fist or Thunder Hammer to every unit of Intercessors you're throwing away enough points to buy and/or upgrade a unit that's good at something. Don't throw good points after bad.
As was mentioned, being a generalist isn't about being as good as a specialist unit at what they do, it's about being able to do it well enough that you can change your unit tactics depending on the opponent. If you had a unit that was as good at everything as a dedicated unit, you could certainly call it a generalist, but unless it was expensive as gak, it'd be incredibly OP.
Regardless of what Canadian 5th says, I'd trade Intercessors for any of the my troops in a heartbeat. Comparing them to Immortals it's obvious to see the difference. How about it, man? Trade your Intercessors for the best unit in my Codex? Doesn't sound like you like them too much.
Karol wrote: Why not just use units that can shot both the melee and shoting units of other armies in to oblivion. Then you don't risk that, if something wrong happens or someone has a skew build, your army is still working at 100% capacity. It is the core of why IH are so good, and why other armies that were good in the past.
Good armies often don't care what they opponent do, just like in boxing or wrestling, if your bigger with a longer reach, you just dominate and fight every fight more or less the same way, generating win after win. Why would anyone want to chang ethat?
flandarz wrote: As was mentioned, being a generalist isn't about being as good as a specialist unit at what they do, it's about being able to do it well enough that you can change your unit tactics depending on the opponent. If you had a unit that was as good at everything as a dedicated unit, you could certainly call it a generalist, but unless it was expensive as gak, it'd be incredibly OP.
Except that Intercessors aren't even passable in melee unless you waste points that are better spent elsewhere on giving the sergeant a melee weapon. You take them because you need troops to access that sweet CP and they're one of the few options that can do more than just camp an objective all game.
The point of the thread is not that intercessors are so good they're walking them across the table to attack things in melee. The point is that - for what is arguably THE BEST troop choice unit pound for pound at over 24" range - the fact that they can fairly handily beat or come close to beating many dedicated anti-marine assault units in melee range is stupid.
I do love the "One of the most common units in all competitive lists for the past 2-3 months isn't good, it's just things that can't beat them are bad!" argument. Very logic, highly intelligence.
The increasing escalation of what you're supposed to have to bring to the table to fight the new basic, bog-standard space marine is also great. Throw out your...every troop choice you have, Eldar players, Guardians, Storm Guardians, Dire Avengers and Rangers are all trash now - you can't fight the most common troop unit in the game with some kind of piddly anti-infantry weapon! Also, toss out your striking scorpions and banshees, those melee units aren't fit to be fighting the long-range gunline units of the imperium. Dark Reapers, Warp Spiders and Swooping hawks, what do you think this is some kind of joke? A pathetic anti-elite unit like warp spiders should never be expected to win a firefight against space marines, no - bare minimum you need S6 AP-2 D2 attacks out of the 30ppm biker unit to ever expect to win in a fistfight.
Imagine how much fething space marine players would rage if Fire Warriors could sock an assault squad's lights out in melee. Or hell, if they could shoot twice at 30" range if they didn't move. Just fething imagine how uninteractive and anti-fun and miserable they'd say that army is to play against, how they're ignoring every phase of the game but one!
Oh, but Bolter Drill? That's not even enough! That's the bare minimum! We NEED the supplements to compete, we DESERVE IH super dreadnoughts because we shouldn't be catering to these disgusting minority faction players, we should be rewarding marines and making sure they're the best because more people play them!
Darsath wrote: Regardless of what Canadian 5th says, I'd trade Intercessors for any of the my troops in a heartbeat. Comparing them to Immortals it's obvious to see the difference. How about it, man? Trade your Intercessors for the best unit in my Codex? Doesn't sound like you like them too much.
We've had the Orks and Nids already so why not have the Necrons come in and complete the set of players who's armies are in a rough spot complaining about Space Marines. Should I start taking bets on when we see a Dark Eldar player show up in this thread... Your armies have all spent some time being good in 8th so just wait for your next codex creep bump when you'll get to be the new hotness again.
the_scotsman wrote: The point of the thread is not that intercessors are so good they're walking them across the table to attack things in melee. The point is that - for what is arguably THE BEST troop choice unit pound for pound at over 24" range - the fact that they can fairly handily beat or come close to beating many dedicated anti-marine assault units in melee range is stupid.
I do love the "One of the most common units in all competitive lists for the past 2-3 months isn't good, it's just things that can't beat them are bad!" argument. Very logic, highly intelligence.
The increasing escalation of what you're supposed to have to bring to the table to fight the new basic, bog-standard space marine is also great. Throw out your...every troop choice you have, Eldar players, Guardians, Storm Guardians, Dire Avengers and Rangers are all trash now - you can't fight the most common troop unit in the game with some kind of piddly anti-infantry weapon! Also, toss out your striking scorpions and banshees, those melee units aren't fit to be fighting the long-range gunline units of the imperium. Dark Reapers, Warp Spiders and Swooping hawks, what do you think this is some kind of joke? A pathetic anti-elite unit like warp spiders should never be expected to win a firefight against space marines, no - bare minimum you need S6 AP-2 D2 attacks out of the 30ppm biker unit to ever expect to win in a fistfight.
Imagine how much fething space marine players would rage if Fire Warriors could sock an assault squad's lights out in melee. Or hell, if they could shoot twice at 30" range if they didn't move. Just fething imagine how uninteractive and anti-fun and miserable they'd say that army is to play against, how they're ignoring every phase of the game but one!
Oh, but Bolter Drill? That's not even enough! That's the bare minimum! We NEED the supplements to compete, we DESERVE IH super dreadnoughts because we shouldn't be catering to these disgusting minority faction players, we should be rewarding marines and making sure they're the best because more people play them!
Eldar can go 3-2 at ITC events with a collection of random junk that the player running the list had laying around:
Darsath wrote: Regardless of what Canadian 5th says, I'd trade Intercessors for any of the my troops in a heartbeat. Comparing them to Immortals it's obvious to see the difference. How about it, man? Trade your Intercessors for the best unit in my Codex? Doesn't sound like you like them too much.
We've had the Orks and Nids already so why not have the Necrons come in and complete the set of players who's armies are in a rough spot complaining about Space Marines. Should I start taking bets on when we see a Dark Eldar player show up in this thread... Your armies have all spent some time being good in 8th so just wait for your next codex creep bump when you'll get to be the new hotness again.
At what point in 8th edition have Necrons been good? I can tell you other times Space Marines have been good in 8th edition (mostly at the start when they would run those janky Stormraven lists).
Darsath wrote: At what point in 8th edition have Necrons been good? I can tell you other times Space Marines have been good in 8th edition (mostly at the start when they would run those janky Stormraven lists).
Admittedly, Necrons have had the shortest end of the stick this edition. You still do have tournament winning lists though:
Spoiler:
++ Air Wing Detachment +1CP (Necrons) [33 PL, 450pts] ++
Dynasty Choice
. Dynasty: Sautekh
+ Flyer +
Doom Scythe [11 PL, 150pts]
Doom Scythe [11 PL, 150pts]
Doom Scythe [11 PL, 150pts]
++ Outrider Detachment +1CP (Necrons) [51 PL, 909pts] ++
Dynasty Choice
. Dynasty: Sautekh
+ HQ +
Cryptek [5 PL, 85pts]: Artefact: The Veil of Darkness, Canoptek Cloak, Staff of Light
+ Fast Attack +
Destroyers [18 PL, 300pts]
. 5x Destroyer: 5x Gauss Cannon
. Heavy Destroyer: Heavy Gauss Cannon
Tomb Blades [14 PL, 276pts]
. Tomb Blade
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Gauss Blasters: 2x Gauss Blaster . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Gauss Blasters: 2x Gauss Blaster . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
Tomb Blades [14 PL, 248pts]
. . Two Gauss Blasters: 2x Gauss Blaster . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Gauss Blasters: 2x Gauss Blaster . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine . Tomb Blade: Shieldvanes
. . Two Tesla Carbines: 2x Tesla Carbine
++ Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Necrons) [40 PL, 640pts] ++
Dynasty Choice
. Dynasty: Sautekh
+ HQ +
Imotekh the Stormlord [10 PL, 160pts]
+ Heavy Support +
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
++ Total: [124 PL, 1,999pts] ++
Even Post 2019 CA they can still post top 3 results:
Spoiler:
++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Necrons) [97 PL, 8CP, 1,462pts] ++
Dynasty Choice
. Dynasty: Sautekh
+ HQ +
Cryptek [5 PL, 95pts]: Chronometron, Staff of Light
Imotekh the Stormlord [10 PL, 140pts]
+ Troops +
Immortals [8 PL, 135pts]: 9x Immortal, Tesla Carbine
Immortals [8 PL, 105pts]: 7x Immortal, Tesla Carbine
Immortals [8 PL, 105pts]: 7x Immortal, Tesla Carbine
+ Elites +
C'tan Shard of the Deceiver [12 PL, 180pts]
Triarch Stalker [8 PL, 115pts]: Twin Heavy Gauss Cannon
+ Fast Attack +
Destroyers [12 PL, 187pts]
. 3x Destroyer: 3x Gauss Cannon
. Heavy Destroyer: Heavy Gauss Cannon
+ Heavy Support +
Tesseract Ark [13 PL, 200pts]
. Two Gauss Cannons: 2x Gauss Cannon
Tesseract Ark [13 PL, 200pts]
. Two Gauss Cannons: 2x Gauss Cannon
++ Spearhead Detachment +1CP (Necrons) [35 PL, 1CP, 538pts] ++
Dynasty Choice
. Dynasty: Sautekh
+ HQ +
Lord [5 PL, 58pts]: Hyperphase Sword
+ Heavy Support +
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
Doomsday Ark [10 PL, 160pts]
++ Total: [132 PL, 9CP, 2,000pts] ++
The main issue is that they mostly rely on a very specific set of units that some Necron players don't have in the numbers required to make these lists run.
Darsath wrote: Ah, I see. I suppose that means that things are fine in your opinion. I stand corrected.
I literally said Crons have had the shortest stick this edition. In spite of that, you still have a tournament-winning list at your disposal.
As a point of fact, in spite of the complaints about balance, it would seem that every single army managed at least 1 top 3 result at an ITC event in 2019.
You tell me my army is mostly fine because it can still get a win, yet Space Marines were able to get wins before their new codex, and we all agree they sucked hard before it.
Darsath wrote: You tell me my army is mostly fine because it can still get a win, yet Space Marines were able to get wins before their new codex, and we all agree they sucked hard before it.
Please quote me saying that if you'd please. I'd kindly ask you not to put words in my mouth.
Darsath wrote: You did make the comment that the balance wasn't bad, using that as an example.
Compared to previous editions, the balance is in a lovely place. Or would we rather return to the days of unkillable multi-wound unit shenanigans, invisible deathstars, and flying bakeries?
Darsath wrote: If you believe that Space Marines didn't need the new Codex, then you wouldn't be playing defence for the new stuff on past pages on this thread.
Is that so? I was unaware that my participating in a discussion automatically meant I held a certain opinion.
Here's a hint for you, I've been away from the hobby since around the end of 5th edition and didn't really have a stake in the game until around a month ago when I figured it was high time I at least looked at the state of the game. I still haven't actually put models to table, but I have been watching video bat reps and reading reports from the likes of Goonhammer to get back up to speed. So, any stake you think I have in things probably doesn't exist.
Darsath wrote: Ah, I see. I suppose that means that things are fine in your opinion. I stand corrected.
I literally said Crons have had the shortest stick this edition. In spite of that, you still have a tournament-winning list at your disposal.
As a point of fact, in spite of the complaints about balance, it would seem that every single army managed at least 1 top 3 result at an ITC event in 2019.
That's not bad for a game that gets moaned about as much as 40k does.
Balance was pretty damn good throughout most of 2019. The horrible 5th-ed era "This one codex is 60+% of winning competitive lists for months on end" bs only began in, what, november?
Honestly, that's a return to normal for me. 8th ed where you saw any kind of variety at the top is somehwat unusual - I'm used to hearing the tournament guys talking for multiple YEARS on end about how they're going to try a new variant of lasplasrazspam to take on their buddy's screamerstar or how missiledevs are totally out and laslongfangs (totally different!) are the new hotness.
Seeing these tables full of half-assembled knight legs or proxied bottlecaps while the tourney dudes drop multiple grand every 6 months on churning a new commission-painted army is the thing that's weird. Living where I'm at, I am used to wild, egregious displays of wealth - I used to work near a big student housing neighborhood where you had these borderline slum houses all going for 2500$+ rent and each one had a scratched, beaten up sports car with 1 side mirror in it. the term for when all the rich kids too lazy to move at the end of the semester would leave their TVs, leather couches and furniture out on the street for anyone to take was "Allston Christmas".
it's just a strange shift from the hobby I've been used to participating in, where for the most part people just played with the minis they had, bought a new box and painted it up, then brought it in to slightly alter their list a week later, and just kept doing that for multiple editions.
Thinking about it, maybe it's good that things just be totally broken for a while. Give those competitive dudes' bank accounts a break, make sure little timmy can just automatically win the first few games he plays with his starter box, and more relaxed groups can just opt not to play games with all the crazy supplement crap.
Darsath wrote: If you believe that Space Marines didn't need the new Codex, then you wouldn't be playing defence for the new stuff on past pages on this thread.
Is that so? I was unaware that my participating in a discussion automatically meant I held a certain opinion.
Here's a hint for you, I've been away from the hobby since around the end of 5th edition and didn't really have a stake in the game until around a month ago when I figured it was high time I at least looked at the state of the game. I still haven't actually put models to table, but I have been watching video bat reps and reading reports from the likes of Goonhammer to get back up to speed. So, any stake you think I have in things probably doesn't exist.
I never said anything about just existing meaning you had an opinion. I specifically mentioned that you holding an opinion (That the new stuff is mostly fine as is) meant you held that opinion.
Canadian 5th wrote: Except that Intercessors aren't even passable in melee unless you waste points that are better spent elsewhere on giving the sergeant a melee weapon. You take them because you need troops to access that sweet CP and they're one of the few options that can do more than just camp an objective all game.
I dunno how a WS3 S4 A2+1 T4 SVG3+ base profile isn't even "passable in CC" when it's better than some dedicated CC units profile and the sergeant is able to output more damage than certain dedicated CC characters in other armies if "you waste points" on him, while hiding behind up to 18 hit points from his buddies ("it's not the Intercessors that are good, it's the rest that is bad !!!").
And this profile can very easily be buffed by the rest of the army around it.
It's completely anecdotal but before Codex Marines 2.0 I used (once) intercessors in a DA list within a bubble of +1A, +1S, reroll to hit and to wound, can pile in and make one attack before they die.
The tyranid player didn't like it much for some reason. And now, I still have access to these buff but also all the new marines toys.
They sure don't feel like bad in CC. Of course they aren't "destroy a knight or two in one turn" good. But they are way better than a lot of dedicated melee choices out there which makes them better than average, while being quite good at shooting too.
Which was the point of the thread I think ? Not, are you going to make a CC list from intercessors.
Edit : And how can you tell others their opinion is irrelevant to you because they don't follow tournaments when you didn't play since 5th...
Spoletta wrote: 1) Tyranid warriors are one of the mainstay of competitive nids right now, and nids are also decently represented in the competitive setting. You see them snatching second and third places here and there, which for the numbers of players of that faction is quite remarkable. (we are talking unit balance here, so i'm using non ITC results)
Why are you eliminating ITC results? That smacks of sour grapes about how well Nids fair at the most competitive tournaments.
Because it is widely accepted that ITC is a set of houserules which skews the balance between factions and in particular penalizes tyranids and advantages marines, so obviously if you refer some tourney results when speaking about the GW balance, they cannot be ITC results. ITC is a perfectly fine format, but referencing ITC results is useful only in relation to discussions of ITC balance and tactics. When you discuss unit design and the shortcomings of GW, ITC results are no longer applicable.
I restate my idea that you have never actually played many games, all your statements reek of "But this math!" "But they say!" "But i heard!"
dhallnet wrote: And how can you tell others their opinion is irrelevant to you because they don't follow tournaments when you didn't play since 5th...
Spoletta wrote:
I restate my idea that you have never actually played many games, all your statements reek of "But this math!" "But they say!" "But i heard!"
Yeah, for years people decried problems with the Marine codex, like bolters not feeling nearly as strong as they once did, marines not having melee ability to back up their "generalist" style, chapter tactics and strats being super lackluster due to being dropped first in the edition, units being overcosted, weapons like the Demolisher cannon being useless, vehicles not getting chapter tactics, marine players feeling like they have to soup and include allies to feel at all effective...
So GW released this beautiful love letter of a Codex 2.0, fixing all those problems people complained about, and ohrealquickhangon before we get a chance to see how that works competitively here's a gigantic seven layer dip of fething crazy ass rules like Tau Drone Intercessors and unkillable dreadnoughts and make everyone within 6" a character and Ap-2 D2 assault cannons and infiltrating assault centurions and perma-stationary Aggressors... and suddenly the meta goes "Whoops! Only Space Marines!"
And just like the infuriating Eldar apologists in 7th, we now have a dedicated group of marine fanboys shifting wildly between declaring parity with every new rules release because "GW is just changing the power level of the game you guys, you'll get your stuff for sure!" and asserting "everything is fiiiine you guys just need to git gud if marines didn't have all this stuff they'd be so terrible why do you hate fluffy rules?"
Canadian 5th wrote: Except that Intercessors aren't even passable in melee unless you waste points that are better spent elsewhere on giving the sergeant a melee weapon. You take them because you need troops to access that sweet CP and they're one of the few options that can do more than just camp an objective all game.
I dunno how a WS3 F4 A2+1 T4 SVG3+ base profile isn't even "passable in CC" when it's better than some dedicated CC units profile and the sergeant is able to output more damage than certain dedicated CC characters in other armies if "you waste points" on him, while hiding behind up to 18 hit points from his buddies ("it's not the Intercessors that are good, it's the rest that is bad !!!").
And this profile can very easily be buffed by the rest of the army around it.
It's completely anecdotal but before Codex Marines 2.0 I used (once) intercessors in a DA list within a bubble of +1A, +1F, reroll to hit and to wound, can pile in and make one attack before they die.
The tyranid player didn't like it much for some reason. And now, I still have access to these buff but also all the new marines toys.
They sure don't feel like bad in CC. Of course they aren't "destroy a knight or two in one turn" good. But they are way better than a lot of dedicated melee choices out there which makes them better than average, while being quite good at shooting too.
Which was the point of the thread I think ? Not, are you going to make a CC list from intercessors.
Edit : And how can you tell others their opinion is irrelevant to you because they don't follow tournaments when you didn't play since 5th...
Yeah, my last game with my marines was the game I tested out the new Bolter Drill with my deathwatch vs Tau. We lined up 30" away from each other and I lost...maybe 10 models in the whole game?
Since then they've retracted the interaction between SIA and Bolter Drill, but I'm certain you've got folks who think Deathwatch need supplement-tier rules additions in PA to be "Viable." lol.
And just like the infuriating Eldar apologists in 7th, we now have a dedicated group of marine fanboys shifting wildly between declaring parity with every new rules release because "GW is just changing the power level of the game you guys, you'll get your stuff for sure!" and asserting "everything is fiiiine you guys just need to git gud if marines didn't have all this stuff they'd be so terrible why do you hate fluffy rules?"
From someone returning from a long hiatus: how much is it SM in general, and how much primaris and a few key other units?
Something I found absurd in 8th is the suppression of templates, together with these bubble effects that result in some seemingly OP combos that can't really be punished effectively.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: And the humble Tactical Marine is generally a wet noodle, barring their one special/heavy weapon.
I wasn't talking about the firepower difference between the two units. I was talking about their ability to take hits...
Disagreed with that. The embedded weapon on the Sergeant (so 4 attacks) isn't far off the same kind of damage HQ choices are putting out, and the sheer weight of attacks is enough to make most enemies think twice.
They don't make anything that would be willing to charge them think twice and anything they'd be happy to charge will just be glad that literally anything else didn't charge them instead.
It's not about clearing hordes, or piercing armour - it's presenting a threat, and being able to make a pretty decent dent before they go down.
Even against GEQ a 5-man unit of Intercessors puts out between 4 and 5 unsaved wounds. That's not a threat worth worrying about.
Except they don't. the Intercessors win at an arms reach and in melee the win if they charge hands down, if they take the charge they still kill 1-2 guardsmen before dropping 4 more for 1 lost in return and the guardsmen lose 1-2 from morale and get mopped up next battle round. The guardsmen fare worse if the intercessors charge since they ate 10 rounds before the charge then peel off less wounds from the marines. because they're a generalist unit that can perform in all phases.
Lets make it a fair 20 guardsmen vs 5 intercessors deploying from 30 inches away (given there's no reason for the intercessors to deploy on the line), give the guardsmen 1st turn for lols:
Spoiler:
guardsmen move to 24", fire 20 lasgun shots, cause 1 wound
The marines stay still, drop 4 from range on 1 unit, 50/50 odds 1 runs
guardsmen move to 18" fire 16 lasgun shots, kill their 1st intercessor
marines fire back, drop 4 more from the 1st unit, we'll assume one runs this turn to balance maths.
guardsmen move to 12, fire 22 lasgun shots, cause 1 wound
marines move to 6, kill 4 from the 2nd squad, multi charge, take 0 wounds (0.4) from overwatch
marines dish out 4 wounds in melee against the larger squad,
guardsmen do a mighty 0.3 damage in return and finally slay intercessor 2,
1 more flees from morale leaving them on the sarge
next turn the 2 sarges tickle the marines then die leaving 3 intercessors
And just like the infuriating Eldar apologists in 7th, we now have a dedicated group of marine fanboys shifting wildly between declaring parity with every new rules release because "GW is just changing the power level of the game you guys, you'll get your stuff for sure!" and asserting "everything is fiiiine you guys just need to git gud if marines didn't have all this stuff they'd be so terrible why do you hate fluffy rules?"
From someone returning from a long hiatus: how much is it SM in general, and how much primaris and a few key other units?
Something I found absurd in 8th is the suppression of templates, together with these bubble effects that result in some seemingly OP combos that can't really be punished effectively.
Most armies have combo bubbles now but that's not the problem here, the multiple layers of extra rules marines can apply for no real hindrance is proving too much. If the supplements were taken away suddenly things would look better but it's mostly primaris and it's mostly supplements doing the harm.
Canadian 5th wrote: Except that Intercessors aren't even passable in melee unless you waste points that are better spent elsewhere on giving the sergeant a melee weapon. You take them because you need troops to access that sweet CP and they're one of the few options that can do more than just camp an objective all game.
Exactly. They're a "tax" unit that can actually do more than just fill troops slots and die. Intercessors are a threat at both shooting and melee and fairly durable, things that most armies troops choices rarely provide and definitely not at the same level of effectiveness per points spent. So they don't really feel like a tax, unlike things like cultists or csm.
And as far as the new sm rules being fluffy, what's fluffy about rg trading their jump packs for "super sneaky " centurions? What's fluffy about dreadnoughts that can infiltrate better than whole armies based on guerrilla tactics? Or snipers who don't even have to see what they're shooting at to hit it? A lot of this stuff is ridiculous from a game balance perspective, as well as one based on fluff or just plain logic.
Darsath wrote: If you believe that Space Marines didn't need the new Codex, then you wouldn't be playing defence for the new stuff on past pages on this thread.
Is that so? I was unaware that my participating in a discussion automatically meant I held a certain opinion.
Here's a hint for you, I've been away from the hobby since around the end of 5th edition and didn't really have a stake in the game until around a month ago when I figured it was high time I at least looked at the state of the game. I still haven't actually put models to table, but I have been watching video bat reps and reading reports from the likes of Goonhammer to get back up to speed. So, any stake you think I have in things probably doesn't exist.
Ohhhhh, that's rich. So you, a non-player, are telling us actual players how it really is, huh? I think perhaps we can safely ignore you.
Intercessors are not generalist units, they're troop choices that happen to actually have a role as a primary source of anti chaff shooting.
Shooting vs. GEQ 10 x .666 x .666 x .83 = 3.6 wounds
Assault vs. GEQ 16 x .666 x .666 x .666 = 4.7 wounds
Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101
Canadian 5th wrote: The listed examples of Jumping Orks and Tyranid Warriors are both countered by cheap screening units eating their alpha strike and then the meat of the army blowing them off the table. You literally don't need to do anything special to counter them.
Heh. My Warriors list straight up murders chaff. Glides right through it, generally. Why? Because each model has at least 6 Attacks counting both shooting and CC. 3 at S5 AP-1 BS3+ and 3 at S4 AP0 WS 2+. After chaff, all they have to do is touch tanks and it's game over. Half the time they just shoot past the chaff and roll up the screeners in CC on their way in anyways.
And just like the infuriating Eldar apologists in 7th, we now have a dedicated group of marine fanboys shifting wildly between declaring parity with every new rules release because "GW is just changing the power level of the game you guys, you'll get your stuff for sure!" and asserting "everything is fiiiine you guys just need to git gud if marines didn't have all this stuff they'd be so terrible why do you hate fluffy rules?"
From someone returning from a long hiatus: how much is it SM in general, and how much primaris and a few key other units?
Something I found absurd in 8th is the suppression of templates, together with these bubble effects that result in some seemingly OP combos that can't really be punished effectively.
In my opinion, at least, competitively the problem is with a few key units that interact in wonky-ass ways with the various supplements (Assault Cents for example being able to just show the feth up 9" away from you in new RG, move, and immediately assault you if you didn't get first turn, or Thunderfire Cannons which can now for 2CP halve the movement, advance rolls and charge rolls of 2 of your units automatically, basically gimping several armies that rely on fast units early) and casually a lot of the complaints - fair complaints - are leveled at the whole codex.
Take a super non-competitive game where both players are playing Land Raiders, one playing Iron Hands and one playing Iron Warriors.
The Iron Hands land raider costs identically as much, and:
-Gets a 6++ invuln
-counts the number of wounds it has as double for determining the damage table (meaning it doesn't get bracketed at all until 4 wounds remaining)
-Gets an extra -1AP on all its guns
-Overwatches on a 5 and 6
-Rerolls all hits rolls of 1
All that just for being on the table. Just for showing up. Not even getting in to the possibility that the IH player takes the special relic giving the land raider -1 damage from all weapons, or that the IH player could spend 2CP to give the whole army ANOTHER -1AP on every 6+ to wound, or spend 1CP to make the land raider wound twice on a 6, or take the special IH psychic power that is the same as Prescience +1 to hit but only WC5 instead of WC7, or the other Ironhands-only psychic power for +1 to save rolls...
As an ILLUSTRATION of the problem - not an example of a scenario that would likely happen, just an ILLUSTRATION of the perceived problem using some math, let's take an IH land raider, give him the MM upgrade, and give him the first shot. And let's run him up against 2 Chaos land raiders. So this is 299 points taking on 554 points of units.
Round 1: IHLR deals 8.0 damage to the first CLR, bracketing it.
Round 1: CLR1 deals 2.6 damage, CLR2 deals 3.8 damage, 6.4 wounds total.
Round 2: IHLR destroys CLR1 with another 8.0 damage.
Round 2: CLR2 deals 3.8 damage, bringing IHLR up to 10.2 damage. Thanks to the IH chapter tactic, he's still not bracketed!
Round 3: 8.0 wounds to CLR2, now bracketed.
Round 3: CLR2 deals 2.6 damage to IHLR, bringing it to just about 13W. That would be the 2nd damage bracket, but it becomes the first.
Round 4: IHLR deals 6 wounds to CLR2, bringing it to the damage bracket.
Round 4: CLR2 deals 2.2 wounds to IHLR, taking it to the very last wound.
Round 5: CLR2 destroyed.
All those bonuses individually don't seem like much, but the sheer number of them stacked up together make it so that "the same" unit taken from another army for the same cost is nearly twice as effective. And though I haven't mathed it out, I would presume the situation would be even worse with IF, who would be dealing +1 damage on all their guns, though the IH land raider might win out thanks to the 2nd of its 5 army-wide benefits.
In my opinion, at least, competitively the problem is with a few key units that interact in wonky-ass ways with the various supplements (Assault Cents for example being able to just show the feth up 9" away from you in new RG, move, and immediately assault you if you didn't get first turn, or Thunderfire Cannons which can now for 2CP halve the movement, advance rolls and charge rolls of 2 of your units automatically, basically gimping several armies that rely on fast units early) and casually a lot of the complaints - fair complaints - are leveled at the whole codex.
Thanks for the explanation.
Having looked at the absolutely astonishing win rates that IH have, it is nice to see it broken down into its components.
I see a lot of competitive players asking GW to move towards online rules and faster edits instead of the current book release schedule.
Odds that ITC moves away from official rules and creates special tournament rules if GW does not get better?
In my opinion, at least, competitively the problem is with a few key units that interact in wonky-ass ways with the various supplements (Assault Cents for example being able to just show the feth up 9" away from you in new RG, move, and immediately assault you if you didn't get first turn, or Thunderfire Cannons which can now for 2CP halve the movement, advance rolls and charge rolls of 2 of your units automatically, basically gimping several armies that rely on fast units early) and casually a lot of the complaints - fair complaints - are leveled at the whole codex.
Thanks for the explanation.
Having looked at the absolutely astonishing win rates that IH have, it is nice to see it broken down into its components.
I see a lot of competitive players asking GW to move towards online rules and faster edits instead of the current book release schedule.
Odds that ITC moves away from official rules and creates special tournament rules if GW does not get better?
They already do, but since they enjoy notable GW backing atm if anything the opposite is more likely.
Insectum7 wrote: Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101
Shh. You'll blow their minds with this advanced combat tactic.
"Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101"
On paper, I would agree with this, but units getting close enough to use assault stats have a tendency to end up back in the carrying bag. Your own lists are designed to make this happen, so I'm not sure why you think assault is truly a consideration. Marines aren't winning with assault. They are winning with crazy shooting and invincible dreads.
Martel732 wrote: "Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101"
On paper, I would agree with this, but units getting close enough to use assault stats have a tendency to end up back in the carrying bag.
I agree. Which is why it's basically incredible to me that there's a gunline unit that puts fething fire warriors to shame, and everyone is OK with them being able to slam dunk or hold their own against units that are supposed to be dedicated assault troops.
If the pace of 40k is going to be such that a marine army can set up 30" away from an enemy army that just sits there and takes it, and you expect that enemy army to be comfortably tabled by turn 3, then assault units are going to need to be designed to hit turn 2, twice as hard as shooting units.
it just so happens I think that pace/level of lethality is, frankly, horse gak, and boring as all hell to play, but we're clearly at a plce right now where either 1 or 2 turn tablings should be possible with a half to two-thirds strength assault army.
Either that, or we need to reduce the lethality of extremely long range shooting units. Anything that can simply deploy and attack turn 1 needs to be a solid 30% less effective than it is right now in general.
They already do, but since they enjoy notable GW backing atm if anything the opposite is more likely.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that ITC rules are minimal deviations from regular matched play rules.
I was thinking about more significant changes. After all, it is quite obvious that some factions are vastly superior to others in competitive gameplay and ITC data is very meticulously collected.
This would go for primaris intercessors too, since it is quite obvious to me that they are super point efficient in many fronts for being a simple troop choice.
Martel732 wrote: "Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101"
On paper, I would agree with this, but units getting close enough to use assault stats have a tendency to end up back in the carrying bag. Your own lists are designed to make this happen, so I'm not sure why you think assault is truly a consideration.
I think it's a consideration because I use it a lot with my Nids. Quite a bit with my marines too, but not to the same extent. My Nids often "hide" in assault by tri-cornering. If I'm lucky I can sometimes smite out the last couple opposing models with Neurothropes and free my units up for shooting and assaulting again. With the Nids I can also tunnel stuff up with Raveners (Jorm) and try to get an advantage that way.
8th is truly reflecting 2nd ed with fast, fast tablings being achievable. I saw multiple one turn tablings in 2nd ed. Sometimes in the same tournament.
I think elite will be difficult to implement faithfully while restricted to a D6 system and with escalating lethality.
They already do, but since they enjoy notable GW backing atm if anything the opposite is more likely.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that ITC rules are minimal deviations from regular matched play rules.
I was thinking about more significant changes. After all, it is quite obvious that some factions are vastly superior to others in competitive gameplay and ITC data is very meticulously collected.
This would go for primaris intercessors too, since it is quite obvious to me that they are super point efficient in many fronts for being a simple troop choice.
The "ITC isnt real!!!" rhetoric is a smokescreen. nobody using it had any problem citing it before as a reason why marines were broken underpowered and needed all the buffs, or why Guard/Castellans were broken, or why Eldar were broken.
it pretty much started a little bit when people started really abusing the ITC rules with Tau drones, and when the castellan got nerfed super hard (because they nerfed it too hard because ITC!!!) but it only got super amplified in volume after a few folks figured out they could use it to invalidate the massive volume of evidence that marines are a problem.
Martel732 wrote: "Hmm, sure looks like they hit harder in Assault vs. chaff than they do with shooting. Wait a minute, they can do BOTH in the same turn! Perhaps that's even more efficient that merely shooting them!
-Generalists 101"
On paper, I would agree with this, but units getting close enough to use assault stats have a tendency to end up back in the carrying bag. Your own lists are designed to make this happen, so I'm not sure why you think assault is truly a consideration.
I think it's a consideration because I use it a lot with my Nids. Quite a bit with my marines too, but not to the same extent. My Nids often "hide" in assault by tri-cornering. If I'm lucky I can sometimes smite out the last couple opposing models with Neurothropes and free my units up for shooting and assaulting again. With the Nids I can also tunnel stuff up with Raveners (Jorm) and try to get an advantage that way.
Tri-cornering. I hate it and my opponents usually hate it. But that's where GW has put us.
Martel732 wrote: 8th is truly reflecting 2nd ed with fast, fast tablings being achievable. I saw multiple one turn tablings in 2nd ed. Sometimes in the same tournament.
I think elite will be difficult to implement faithfully while restricted to a D6 system and with escalating lethality.
I really don't know if D6s are really the root of all evil here.
You can have perfectly functional elite armies in AOS, which is D6, and the most elite units are considered unusably bad in Infinity, which is D20.
They already do, but since they enjoy notable GW backing atm if anything the opposite is more likely.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that ITC rules are minimal deviations from regular matched play rules.
I was thinking about more significant changes. After all, it is quite obvious that some factions are vastly superior to others in competitive gameplay and ITC data is very meticulously collected.
This would go for primaris intercessors too, since it is quite obvious to me that they are super point efficient in many fronts for being a simple troop choice.
The "ITC isnt real!!!" rhetoric is a smokescreen. nobody using it had any problem citing it before as a reason why marines were broken underpowered and needed all the buffs, or why Guard/Castellans were broken, or why Eldar were broken.
it pretty much started a little bit when people started really abusing the ITC rules with Tau drones, and when the castellan got nerfed super hard (because they nerfed it too hard because ITC!!!) but it only got super amplified in volume after a few folks figured out they could use it to invalidate the massive volume of evidence that marines are a problem.
I don't need ITC to tell you that marines, specifically gunline marines, are a problem.
Martel732 wrote: 8th is truly reflecting 2nd ed with fast, fast tablings being achievable. I saw multiple one turn tablings in 2nd ed. Sometimes in the same tournament.
I think elite will be difficult to implement faithfully while restricted to a D6 system and with escalating lethality.
I really don't know if D6s are really the root of all evil here.
You can have perfectly functional elite armies in AOS, which is D6, and the most elite units are considered unusably bad in Infinity, which is D20.
I've heard that about AoS. I guess there's a lot less shooting. I don't know how to fix 40K when a simple -1 AP halves the effectiveness of a 2+ save.
Martel732 wrote: Tri-cornering. I hate it and my opponents usually hate it. But that's where GW has put us.
It is what it is. Although tbh with my Warriors it's often just completely surrounding whole units with multiple units of Warriors.
"It is what it is" lets GW off the hook for writing gak mechanics. Again.
It also wins more competitive games. If you're an assaulting army, and you hate it when your enemies fall-back exposing you to fire, tri-corner or surround the mofos.
AP is also far less common in AOS. In the army I play, every ranged weapon is AP-, the glass cannon melee troops are AP-1, and the big shagnasty monsters and glass cannon cavalry are AP-2. I've also got dudes with 3+ saves who totally ignore AP, in case I need to tank up a unit with a nasty AP weapon.
There does seem to be the same mortal wound stupidity though.
The other thing, though, is that being in combat doesn't turn off your ranged attacks. There isn't this constant escalation of units with guns having to be killier and killier to avoid being turned off by a cheap chaff unit. So guns (or rather, bows I guess) can be kept as more of a skirmishing/support tool than as a real means for most armies to kill all the stuff.
Martel732 wrote: Tri-cornering. I hate it and my opponents usually hate it. But that's where GW has put us.
It is what it is. Although tbh with my Warriors it's often just completely surrounding whole units with multiple units of Warriors.
"It is what it is" lets GW off the hook for writing gak mechanics. Again.
No it is what it is because those are the rules. What do you suggest we do to not let them off the hook?
Ideally, stop using their rules. Practically, nothing.
At that point it's up to you, either stop or just accept them for what they are and move on. Hopefully they'll make falling back a little more punishing in the next rules shake up, a nice healthy d3 mortals for exposing your back to the enemy wouldn't hurt.
Martel732 wrote: 8th is truly reflecting 2nd ed with fast, fast tablings being achievable. I saw multiple one turn tablings in 2nd ed. Sometimes in the same tournament.
I think elite will be difficult to implement faithfully while restricted to a D6 system and with escalating lethality.
I really don't know if D6s are really the root of all evil here.
You can have perfectly functional elite armies in AOS, which is D6, and the most elite units are considered unusably bad in Infinity, which is D20.
I'd point at Konflikt '47 as a game that's achieved a pretty broad distribution of units just with d6s. I know someone's about to come along and tell me that comparing power-armoured WWII riflemen to Space Marines is a futile exercise and even the big six-legged super-heavy walkers are tiny by comparison to an Imperial Knight but the number of distinct tiers of unit (green troops->regular troops->veteran troops->teched veteran troops->power-armoured troops->exotic rift-tech troops->light walkers/armoured cars->tanks->superheavy tanks) is pretty good given the amount of time people spend griping about d6s not giving enough granularity.
There are a lot of problems with Marines, and like a lot of things, you never quite know how lists will work out when you start pulling on the thread. I think the codex at its base is probably okay - so you could just gut the supplements - but if they are going to be there, you need to nerf the codex.
Intercessors are a perfectly capable melee force. We saw in the LVO Semi Final when some Shining Spears charged an intercessor blob with a Power Hammer Sergeant. Shining Spears sort of fluff the shooting/assault so some survive (although IH defensive buffs possibly backed with transhuman physiology and so on makes this not that unlikely). The Intercessor Sergeant steps up - 4 hits, 4 wounds, 4 failed saves, 4 dead Shining Spears and a dead unit. A game changing moment.
Saying its "only" 16 WS3, S4, AP- attacks is a bit odd. Yes, if you have literally just 5 guys there. The point is you can bundle in with plenty more. You have a dedicated counter-assault force without having to do anything special for it. Combat in 40k is usually down to who charges - but Marines make this a gamble by stacking some of the best defensive buffs. You will fluff charges, fluff assault roles and then its not like you are engaged with some pillow-handed Tau.
And there isn't perhaps anything wrong with Marines having this "power" - the issue however is that other factions don't.
Ideally, stop using their rules. Practically, nothing.
They want to retain power over the rules for obvious reasons. ITC taking a stronger stance might help curtail some of the more abusive practices.
I looked at the recent (6 months results). Does anyone feel that this is a fun and fair competition?
If ITC starts patching, GW might be more cautious to avoid being overruled by ITC.
Maybe this is wishful thinking...
If ITC start patching, GW stops letting them playtest, advertising them, covering their events. Balance for gw games would be wildly different and points adjustments in CA would make no sense in ITC land.
Martel732 wrote: Hell yes they are. But delivery is a big issue.
Less so for classic Marines. Rhinos and Pods are great.
The Primaris Transports are either super expensive or just don't carry very many dudes.
I don't think people care as much about 1W marines getting close. They die so much faster.
A touched Leman Russ is a Lemasn Russ that can't fire next turn, it doesn't matter if it's a Dreadnought or a Termagant that touches it. And 1W Marines shoot harder than Intercessors up close. Heck, in most cases these days touched Intercessors are Intercessors that can't fire next turn. Don't be so afraid to lose Marines, if you win the game you can recover your casualties and slap bionics on them.
And just like the infuriating Eldar apologists in 7th, we now have a dedicated group of marine fanboys shifting wildly between declaring parity with every new rules release because "GW is just changing the power level of the game you guys, you'll get your stuff for sure!" and asserting "everything is fiiiine you guys just need to git gud if marines didn't have all this stuff they'd be so terrible why do you hate fluffy rules?"
From someone returning from a long hiatus: how much is it SM in general, and how much primaris and a few key other units?
Something I found absurd in 8th is the suppression of templates, together with these bubble effects that result in some seemingly OP combos that can't really be punished effectively.
Completely IMO, it's a couple of things.
Regular SM are pretty much fine with just their core rules.
Primaris are better, and even just taking their raw stats outperform a lot of their counterparts in other armies (as in the OP). Some units, like Aggressors, are really nasty, but have significant downsides to balance them out.
But when you start looking at all the ways Marines get to ignore core rules, like doctrines, super-doctrines, and chapter tactics, that's when things start to break down. Deep Strike normally comes with the significant downside of your DSers not arriving until T2, but Marines can not only DS turn 1 with Drop Pods, they can take traits to reduce the normal 9" distance restriction on DS and point-blank meltagun you right after deployment. Aggressors are a unit that can shoot twice if they stay stationary, but only having 24" range limits their lethality- but if they're played as Ultramarines they always count as stationary, so a unit of 3 gets to move and throw an average of 57 bolter shots for just 111pts (!). Or maybe they're infiltrating, so they pop up right in front of your front line and hose you down. Most units have at least AP-1 weapons and Doctrines allow anything to potentially have an extra point of AP, so even anti-chaff can pull double duty in anti-heavy-infantry/anti-light-armor as well.
They also have much easier access to significant buffs than most armies. 2CP and around a hundred points gets you characters to unlock re-roll auras on both to-hit and to-wound, significantly improving the already pretty high damage output. Plus they have more stratagems, relics, warlord traits, formations, and psychic powers than anyone else to choose from. And that's not even getting into the shenanigans Iron Hands can pull.
Basically- their base profiles overperform slightly for their cost, then they get a bunch of abilities (unit abilities + chapter tactics) to mitigate their weaknesses and ignore basic game restrictions, then they get potent chapter tactics (better than anyone else's subfaction traits) and the Doctrines system to boost them, and then they get supplement buffs that propel them to ludicrous levels, and on top of all that they also have excellent stratagems to further augment their abilities.
None of these alone would break the game, but the combination of all of them together propels Marines (and especially Primaris) to severely overperforming in both casual and competitive contexts.
If ITC start patching, GW stops letting them playtest, advertising them, covering their events. Balance for gw games would be wildly different and points adjustments in CA would make no sense in ITC land.
Do people go to ITC events because GW supports them, is the support that crucial for the current tournament scene?
I don't know, I have been away for many years.
In any case, I would argue that the harm done by poorly balanced rules is not minor either. As a returning player, I currently do not have much respect for tournament outcomes. Time and again the people at 40k stats have shown us how factions make a tremendous difference, and they shouldn't.
Ultimately, if tournaments are regarded as p2w by switching to whatever meta and buying whatever overpriced centeripiece, it might make them more harm than not appearing in the infomercials of warhammer community.
This is supposed to be a game about collecting, personalizing, and also playing armies. Not about 3d printing and rush painting armies to capitalize on whatever new rule disaster.
If the disconnect between ITC houserules and everyone else gets too strong, people might actually stop playing the ITC houserules because you'd have to memorize two entirely different rulesets for playing them vs playing normal games. Right now, ITC's houserules are just different enough to effect balance in its own way, but not so different that it's like playing a completely different game.
If ITC start patching, GW stops letting them playtest, advertising them, covering their events. Balance for gw games would be wildly different and points adjustments in CA would make no sense in ITC land.
Do people go to ITC events because GW supports them, is the support that crucial for the current tournament scene?
I don't know, I have been away for many years.
In any case, I would argue that the harm done by poorly balanced rules is not minor either. As a returning player, I currently do not have much respect for tournament outcomes. Time and again the people at 40k stats have shown us how factions make a tremendous difference, and they shouldn't.
Ultimately, if tournaments are regarded as p2w by switching to whatever meta and buying whatever overpriced centeripiece, it might make them more harm than not appearing in the infomercials of warhammer community.
This is supposed to be a game about collecting, personalizing, and also playing armies. Not about 3d printing and rush painting armies to capitalize on whatever new rule disaster.
At the start of 8th edition FLG were highlighted as being a pillar of the hobby and given the chance to playtest for GW, so they directly input on the balance changes in the game. They also work closely with them for a US international presence, so FLG benefit fairly heavily I would assume in being viewed as the unofficial US gw peeps.
People don't attend ITC events because of the GW sponsorship but they do play in certain ways and try to show things to the rules team who attend to see their game in the wild. That would go and you'd go back to 6th ed gw not talking to the players and that confidence would be lost (as it already has by some people).
People will always just change to whatever is best at the time, it's meta chasing and quite common. It was the same even when ITC did do more patching previously.
The real headscratcher is why people want the guys doing the balance testing for GW to write rules to obtain balance. Since in theory either they sucked at doing it the first time round or something is really wrong.
At the start of 8th edition FLG were highlighted as being a pillar of the hobby and given the chance to playtest for GW, so they directly input on the balance changes in the game. They also work closely with them for a US international presence, so FLG benefit fairly heavily I would assume in being viewed as the unofficial US gw peeps.
People don't attend ITC events because of the GW sponsorship but they do play in certain ways and try to show things to the rules team who attend to see their game in the wild. That would go and you'd go back to 6th ed gw not talking to the players and that confidence would be lost (as it already has by some people).
Thanks for the explanation; as I said, I have been gone for many years.
People will always just change to whatever is best at the time, it's meta chasing and quite common. It was the same even when ITC did do more patching previously.
The real headscratcher is why people want the guys doing the balance testing for GW to write rules to obtain balance. Since in theory either they sucked at doing it the first time round or something is really wrong.
I would imagine that ITC would like to make the tournament scene more relevant. If you go reddit, or even around here, tournament play is not universally liked or even respected. Lots of people rightfully point towards the massive imbalances and the consta meta chasing, which I would argue goes heavily against the core values of the hobby.
It is not clear that it is in GW's interest to have balanced rules. The whole primaris intercessors design points in that direction (gotta sell the new guys). It is less clear why ITC would have a vested interest in writing poorly balanced rules.
It is quite obvious when rules are not balanced and news travel fast. On the one hand it is bad since abuses discovered by meta tourney players spread to lower levels of play, and on the other it is good since it becomes really obvious when such things occur.
Nowadays we have internet and lots of data, anyone can quickly figure out the imbalanced lists. Tons of metrics to quantify it, no longer acceptable to give silly "l2play" answers and be done with it.
Canadian 5th wrote:They don't make anything that would be willing to charge them think twice and anything they'd be happy to charge will just be glad that literally anything else didn't charge them instead.
I mean, 16 attacks on 5 guys, with a potential round of shooting and embedded melee weapon? I can think of many units that would be at least threatened by that - see any unit without high strength, high AP, high Damage weapons, which is most of them!
It's not about clearing hordes, or piercing armour - it's presenting a threat, and being able to make a pretty decent dent before they go down.
Even against GEQ a 5-man unit of Intercessors puts out between 4 and 5 unsaved wounds. That's not a threat worth worrying about.
And that's not including their shooting before, or that, for a non-melee unit, that's pretty damn solid.
I'll give you the speeders and scouts, but I suspect that the TFC was probably better off firing termor shells at something that actually mattered, ditto for the Eliminators having better targets as well.
If there was a lot of chaff, I'd rather be clearing them, instead of wasting single shot stalkers on them. With Eliminators, it depends. Can you see enemy leaders? What's their protection like? How much of an impact are they really going to have? Are those chaff units being a nuisance?
As we can see, strategy doesn't work in a vacuum.
They literally don't generate enough wounds to threaten anything worth threatening.
Putting wounds on ANYTHING is good enough, for a versatile Troops choice. I've not said for a second they exist to take out threatening targets alone. I'm saying that, for a basic Troops choice, they can do a hell of a lot.
There are very few things they wouldn't be better off shooting.
So do both? Stay at range, but don't be afraid to charge, even if just to deny the enemy's mobility.
Why barebones? You wouldn't compare naked Tacticals, so why naked Intercessors? Also, full strength Intercessors are 10 men. I know what you meant, but use the correct terminology please.
Nobody takes Intercessors with any upgrades aside from the Stalker Bolt Rifle
Demonstrably untrue, seeing as I run mine mostly at a 2:1 ratio of bolt to stalker bolt, and have at least a power sword on each Sergeant. They do fairly well, in my experience.
Quit the hyperbole, eh?
and even fewer people than that run them as 10-man units.
I'd still expect you to use the correct terminology.
Knights have 2 wounds, they actually do less than half kill a single night on average. I made a typo a put dead where it should have been wounded, but thanks for confirming that you literally didn't do the math for yourself.
Wait, so you made faulty maths? Why should I trust any of your points?
Except that they didn't do that, they put 0.833 wounds onto a pair of Knights that they charged and I made a typo.
I'd call that pretty damn good for a barebones Troops choice.
Remember, I'm not saying they're a "good melee unit". I'm saying they're a good "versatile" unit - aka, they can do something to properly kitted melee beasts, and be a serious threat to anything else.
Try actually doing the math before gloating next time.
Try doing correct maths before making a claim.
Also, if you're adding in a Power Fist or Thunder Hammer to every unit of Intercessors you're throwing away enough points to buy and/or upgrade a unit that's good at something. Don't throw good points after bad.
That would only be the case if Intercessors were bad.
Besides, the whole "don't upgrade something unless it's good" logic doesn't really work if the upgrade would make a substantial difference. A Space Marine Captain with a chainsword is a waste (obviously, by your logic, they shouldn't get the Teeth of Terra!), as are Vanguard Veterans.
Sarcasm aside, you'd be stupid to overlook the benefits of even a power sword on an Intercessor Sergeant. It adds a slew of AP attacks, and drastically improves the squad's matchup against any MEQ. A power fist takes this to far better levels, for only a slightly higher investment.
Insectum7 wrote:Ohhhhh, that's rich. So you, a non-player, are telling us actual players how it really is, huh? I think perhaps we can safely ignore you.
Literally, their entire argument just reads as "I read this battle report and crunch numbers, never heard of practical experience". And that's fine, but maybe they should be less arrogant about it?
I like that there's this vast gulf of units that exist between "A thing that can instantly kill 5 T4 W2 3+ models in a single round of combat before they can punch back" and "a thing that can survive 16 WS3+ S4 AP- attacks plus whatever pistols and swings they make in the following turn" and all those units don't matter because they're bad.
Part of what makes marines so overpowering now is that you can't effectively tie them up. I can't tell you how many times the last few times I've played against MEQs that I haven't had the means to totally destroy a unit that I HAVE to destroy because it's going to start gaking out a billion AP-2 shots or double shooting or whatever the feth next turn and my fallback plan of tying them up has just failed because sweet primaris taekwondo moves and Overwatch demolish the squad that charged them. You charge them with 10 wyches with a net just to try and keep them occupied and don't even manage to kill one dude, then they attack back and 6 of your dedicated melee-only troops are fething gone before they even get to their turn when they get to either fall back or shoot you in the face with pistols, if you have anything left after the morale check.
If you could engage in these kinds of unit trades with disposable units and it was worth it to do so that'd be one thing, but gunline marine firepower has gotten so bonkers that by the time you've gotten there to lose in melee, half your gak has just been blown to bits by stupid aura-bubble bs.
It really is like playing against old meta Tau on steroids. At least fire warriors have the decency to die a bit before they finish tabling you.
Martel732 wrote: Tri-cornering. I hate it and my opponents usually hate it. But that's where GW has put us.
It is what it is. Although tbh with my Warriors it's often just completely surrounding whole units with multiple units of Warriors.
"It is what it is" lets GW off the hook for writing gak mechanics. Again.
No it is what it is because those are the rules. What do you suggest we do to not let them off the hook?
Ideally, stop using their rules. Practically, nothing.
No, you stop BUYING their rules. I've been saying this in 7th and apparently I need to start saying it again. Buying their product only rewards them for gakky rules writing and practices.
Insectum7 wrote: The best off-the-shelf aura bubble counter is to snipe them out with anothe marine unit. Yaaaaay.
Scouts are great. If you hate tacticals as much as Martel does, they're a no-brainer choice, and their ability to snipe important targets while sitting with a 2+ save on a backfield objective is amazing.
Insectum7 wrote: The best off-the-shelf aura bubble counter is to snipe them out with anothe marine unit. Yaaaaay.
Scouts are great. If you hate tacticals as much as Martel does, they're a no-brainer choice, and their ability to snipe important targets while sitting with a 2+ save on a backfield objective is amazing.
Scouts are crap, too. Let's not kid ourselves here. 11 pts for a 4+ save and one wound? I only hate tacticals because they disintegrate even faster per point than primaris. I need bodies alive after 2 turns.
However, I'd argue both tacticals AND scouts are better than death company or most eldar infantry.
The ignore LoS ammo kills marine characters VERY slowly. I don't have that kind of time before IH or IF blows me apart. Or any other list apart, evidently.
Templates didn't punish castles as much as it punished hordes. The latter is fine. The former? Not so much. There DOES need to be a mechanic for dealing with aura bubbles though. Something like "when this weapon deals damage to a target, it also deals X MWs to another enemy unit within 6"." Or something like that. Then Ork, Nid, and Daemon horses remain viable, and you got a way to punish the Marine Captain hunkered up inside a bunch of Tacs.
And so I don't forget, I agree with what the others have said about Generalist units and will add that being able to go into CC or shoot at range and do both decently well adds a lot of flexibility to your army. And flexibility is (generally) a good thing.
Flexibility is great until the cost puts you at a huge disadvantage vs specialists. GW has now erred on both sides of generalists and failed to find a middle ground.
I agree with the premise that overly efficient infantry are compromising the game balance but I don't think Intercessors are anything like the worst offender
I feel like there's a very narrow line between Intercessors being powerful and Intercessors being reduced to the same level of uselessness as Tactical Marines where in a meta where mediocre rifle infantry with no anti-monster/vehicle options whatsoever are pretty much deadweight, a tax, a blocker, or a more convenient and cheaper objective holder than anything else.
In my opinion Intercessors aren't the reason that I see absolutely zero reason to use my Guardsmen as anything other than blockers and minimum cost objective takers. The real reason is that Adeptus Custodes exist and in that match-up, taking an infantry focused list is basically an auto-lose situation because Custodes are so much more efficient at killing Guardsmen and absorbing their return fire than vice versa that you don't stand a chance. Taking the full monty of commanders, commissars and priests will make no difference where in previous editions a sizeable horde of Guardsmen would at the very least pose a serious threat to elite infantry by being able to kill a couple of models with some half-decent rolling because 2w elite models with 2+ saves were rare.
At the moment I'm considering whether to take a Wyvern in my next Guard list for an upcoming tournament and the only reason I'm stuck on whether to bother with it is because I know that in any matchup where I play Custodes, it's a total deadweight since it will statistically only do 1 wound to a Custodes for 113 points, and every single model in that army is always going to be at least toughness 5, 2+, 3 wounds. At least against Marines I'd be killing an Intercessor or 2 a turn with the buff setup I'm looking at, which would help wipe a backfield squad.
Custodes lose so hard to other meta armies, I'd probably just ignore their existence. I do when I build lists. Although guardsmen aren't super great vs marine gun lines. Can vanilla vet intercessors still go to rapid fire 2?
Martel732 wrote: Auras are a terrible mechanic. This is underscored by the new codex.
Rerolling 1s isn't too bad, but rerolling everything is fething ridiculous.
Can't disagree with this.
Took a pretty standard list out, and the only real difference I did with it was play Master Artisans instead of Stalwart. My Lieutenant and Captain (either off-field or contributing elsewhere) were barely needed, by god did Master Artisans make failure near impossible.
The only two times I burned CP was to reroll the size of vehicle explosion (Repulsor explosion taking out nearly all the characters and guys around it with D6MW? Awesome, but catastrophic) and a 4++ on a character who was already bound to die. Artisans took care of the rest.
I'd be more than happy to change that rule to one free reroll per phase, across the whole army, or just not play with it.
Martel732 wrote: Custodes lose so hard to other meta armies, I'd probably just ignore their existence. I do when I build lists. Although guardsmen aren't super great vs marine gun lines. Can vanilla vet intercessors still go to rapid fire 2?
Yeah any marine faction can use it. Bolter drill and doctrines finally put marines where they should be be. They should not have been losing ranged shooting battles against guardsmen. Marines should push over gaurdsmen like they weren't even there. Kind of like a knight with avenger Gatling cannon just pushes over primaries like they weren't even there.
Yeah, BA don't get that particular trick. So yes, a squad of 10 vanilla intercessors can murder a large number of guardsmen at 30". Seems like a bigger problem than the molasses Custodes who can't shoot.
Marines now feel way more elite than Custodes, because they function in every phase of the game. Custodes effectively don't shoot, and this impacts their elite status tremendously.
Xenomancers wrote: They should not have been losing ranged shooting battles against guardsmen. Marines should push over gaurdsmen like they weren't even there.
And here we have why using the fluff to inform tabletop abilities is a problem. No, your basic all-rounder generalist troops choice should not, point-for-point, get to 'push over' anyone else's basic troops choice 'like they weren't even there'.
Even without Doctrines, you have longer maximum range, better fire effectiveness beyond 12", benefit vastly more from cover, largely ignore morale, and have a huge advantage in melee ability. If you were sitting at point blank range and losing firefights to Guardsmen, that's your own fault.
I would agree that ONE Marine should outshoot and outmelee ONE Guardsmen significantly. Maybe not as if "he wasn't there" but definitly by a large margin.
But: the Marines weight in Guardsmen should not lag that much behind (in my opinion at least). And since they are quite weak in melee should at least achieve similar output in shooting.
And in m personal opinion: a troop type that is a dedicated melee unit and can not shoot (like genestealers) should, once it is in melee range, dominate a shooting unit point for point. I was quite shocked by the OPs calculation demonstrating that even without Superdoctrines yaddayadda this is not the case.
Xenomancers wrote: They should not have been losing ranged shooting battles against guardsmen. Marines should push over gaurdsmen like they weren't even there.
And here we have why using the fluff to inform tabletop abilities is a problem. No, your basic all-rounder generalist troops choice should not, point-for-point, get to 'push over' anyone else's basic troops choice 'like they weren't even there'.
Even without Doctrines, you have longer maximum range, better fire effectiveness beyond 12", benefit vastly more from cover, largely ignore morale, and have a huge advantage in melee ability. If you were sitting at point blank range and losing firefights to Guardsmen, that's your own fault.
This, so much. Primaries Marines shouldn’t win gun fights 5 to 1 to guards (or whatever insane number it is right now).
point per point efficiently should not be wildly different across basic troops. Specially not when one basic generalist troop is point efficient in all dimensions (melee toughness and firing).
Martel732 wrote: Yeah, BA don't get that particular trick. So yes, a squad of 10 vanilla intercessors can murder a large number of guardsmen at 30". Seems like a bigger problem than the molasses Custodes who can't shoot.
Marines now feel way more elite than Custodes, because they function in every phase of the game. Custodes effectively don't shoot, and this impacts their elite status tremendously.
Except they're not a bigger threat, and I mean here's why.
Those intercessors could probably split their fire between two 40 pt infantry squads. So lets say 6+ saves from Tactical doctrine + bolt rifles with the Guardsmen in cover, lets even say with re-rolls to hit by whatever buffs are being used. Statistically they're going to kill 5 Guardsmen in each squad, for a total of 40 points of dead Guardsmen.
To do that, they've had to spend 2 CP and 200 points on the Intercessors. And as a Guard player I couldn't care less because the one infantry list I have tried in the last few months has been Creed + Kell with 8-9 infantry squads. You kill 10 Guardsmen? Big deal. I'm only going to move-move-move another 30 onto the center objective in the following turn. In fact I'd be glad that you wasted 2 CP.
And then I'm going to have a field day wiping out a juicy 10 man squad that makes up almost 1/8th of your list with tanks and artillery when intercessors pose no threat to either of the latter.
If I'm playing against Custodes and a squad of 3-5 2+ save, toughness 5 multi-wound models drop on top of my gunline, I have no choice but to kill them immediately with my limited number of tanks, multi-tasking between that and killing the Shield Captain with Jetbike, 3++ and a million wounds that's practically an auto-take. If you FRFSRF 5 full squads of Guardsmen with every single model perfectly surrounding the Custodes in a 12'' bubble, a setup that costs 276 points + 1 CP minimum to be barely practical (5 IS, one Commissar, 2 Commanders, inspired tactics) statistically you're going to kill one model on average with a chance of a second. And I am reducing this to absurdity to make a point, because you are not going to surround a squad that just deepstriked with all your infantry intact getting into a perfect rapid fire bubble. It just doesn't happen.
Its the same on the offense. You're never going to dislodge a Custodes squad on an objective by counting on Guardsmen in any capacity, whereas a big enough swarm of Guardsmen could have a chance to overwhelm some Intercessors if they FRFSRF and hit first in melee. Its simpler just to forget about infantry and focus on the one thing that always works, which is heavy support.
Edit:
But bottom line, I don't disagree that Custodes aren't the most reliable meta list. Its just that knowing that they exist and that there's a realistic chance of me playing one of the few people at my LGS who take them makes it pretty pointless to use infantry as anything other than a blocking and objective utility.
Martel732 wrote: Why cant you just tarpit the cutodes all game with guardsmen?
That is exactly the strategy I then have to use. The problem is that all of the points I've invested into Priests, Creed, Kell, Commissars etc are mostly wasted. You can't lock down a rampaging squad of Custodes in melee for more than a turn or two at absolute best, maybe 3 if you really crank your neck and cripple yourself to get one of the few sources of true fearless left (Severina Raine and Ogryn Bodyguard, Valhallan relic, Lord Commissar Warlord etc) and generally its better to hope to tarpit them for a turn while you delete the Shield Captain and then wipe out the Custodes deepstrikers in the next turn.
At the next LGS tournament I'm going to test out the new Armoured Sentinel strategems to see if they make Sentinels work as more efficient tarpit blockers and my infantry are going to be mixed min-cost Scions and a few infantry squads in chimeras to avoid giving away first blood and to see if transports also work economically as blockers. But I haven't spent a single point on making my infantry any more effective than they are in their vanilla setup.
Why are you shooting with infantry squads at custodes infantry with lasguns and expecting to kill them? Just put a couple of plasma guns here and there.
Is not like Imperial Guard has any kind of problem fighting agaisnt a pure custodes list. But I have never find a Imperial Guard player that expected damage from their infantry squads. They are there to gain time for artillery/veterans/tempestus/etc... and die in droves. A single custodian guard costs nearly 20% more than one of your barebones troop choices.
What is going on in this thread? Are people so desperate to avoid the marine discussion that they've resorted to discussing Custodes Vs Guardsmen? I'm half impressed as to how this discussion even came about.
Custodes might be OP, FWIW, but we'll never know in the current meta because Marines just gak all over them. This is true of many factions, including Orks.
Marines are so powerful they are a cut above everything else and it genuinely feels as though they're playing a different game to me. My gut tells me that's wrong.
Martel732 wrote: Auras are a terrible mechanic. This is underscored by the new codex.
Rerolling 1s isn't too bad, but rerolling everything is fething ridiculous.
I think auras are a bad mechanic even when they're 'only' rerolling 1s.
Even if the aura is ideally costed, it's a completely shallow mechanic that adds basically no depth to the game, nor any meaningful tactical or strategic choices.
If auras were rare, I probably wouldn't mind (they've certainly existed in the past in some form or other). My issue is that it was basically made the default ability for the majority of HQ choices.
IMO 8th edition would have been *vastly* improved if GW had ditched both Stratagems and auras, and had instead implemented the CP and Command Ability rules from Age of Sigmar.
An Actual Englishman wrote: What is going on in this thread? Are people so desperate to avoid the marine discussion that they've resorted to discussing Custodes Vs Guardsmen? I'm half impressed as to how this discussion even came about.
Custodes might be OP, FWIW, but we'll never know in the current meta because Marines just gak all over them. This is true of many factions, including Orks.
Marines are so powerful they are a cut above everything else and it genuinely feels as though they're playing a different game to me. My gut tells me that's wrong.
Everyone has pretty much agreed and said all there's to say about marines/intercessors. Of course bar one or two people still asserting there is nothing wrong with marines/intercessors and they don't really need nerfing as if the layers and layers of buffs, abilties and rules somehow aren't a problem. They just outlier head in the sand peeps who are trying really hard to justify the current paradigm..
Martel732 wrote: Auras are a terrible mechanic. This is underscored by the new codex.
Rerolling 1s isn't too bad, but rerolling everything is fething ridiculous.
I think auras are a bad mechanic even when they're 'only' rerolling 1s.
Even if the aura is ideally costed, it's a completely shallow mechanic that adds basically no depth to the game, nor any meaningful tactical or strategic choices.
If auras were rare, I probably wouldn't mind (they've certainly existed in the past in some form or other). My issue is that it was basically made the default ability for the majority of HQ choices.
IMO 8th edition would have been *vastly* improved if GW had ditched both Stratagems and auras, and had instead implemented the CP and Command Ability rules from Age of Sigmar.
In one of the Blurbs about new SM codex/supplement GW full on said:
".. you will be bale to use new tactical options and on the battlefield****" **** By which we mean all of the re-rolls!!! lol."
If you want me to go back and trawl through their community website to get the actual quote I can, I think it was the UM supplement or codex 2.0.
So yeah. They know. And they even trolling. 8th is the best edition ever so stream lined, so quick omg omg omg!! Yeh...
An Actual Englishman wrote: What is going on in this thread? Are people so desperate to avoid the marine discussion that they've resorted to discussing Custodes Vs Guardsmen? I'm half impressed as to how this discussion even came about.
Custodes might be OP, FWIW, but we'll never know in the current meta because Marines just gak all over them. This is true of many factions, including Orks.
Marines are so powerful they are a cut above everything else and it genuinely feels as though they're playing a different game to me. My gut tells me that's wrong.
It's a funny old thing that things don't make sense when you don't read them and then openly admit you haven't read them, though it doesn't seem to have stopped you from taking opportunity to express frankly theatrical levels of sourness
I introduced the comparison to argue that overly efficient 'eliteness' is something that has influenced game balance and quality, but more so from Custodes than Marine troop choices
And if anything the cause of Marines being powerful in the current meta is nothing to do with Tactical Marines getting an extra attack and bolter discipline, and everything to do with Marines getting new strategems which have made existing support units insane (IH Leviathans) and having new primaris units which are just blunt instruments (Aggressors, Repulsors) and designed to be straight up superior to similar blunt instrument units in other armies rather than requiring tactics, as you would expect in an army that's supposed to be themed around tactical level operations.
Insectum7 wrote: The best off-the-shelf aura bubble counter is to snipe them out with anothe marine unit. Yaaaaay.
Vox scream. Until the cp runs out of course.
Ohh is that a Strat available to everyone somewhere in CA 2019 im not aware of... ?
Nope. But everyone doesn't have snipers either so.... *shrug*.
(Also it's kind of nice to finally have something to brag about. Gw doesn't give the Eighth Legion nice things very often. "Yeah we may have the second crappiest legion trait in the game, but we can turn off your fething chapter master and your little primarch too!)
Grey40k wrote:This, so much. Primaries Marines shouldn’t win gun fights 5 to 1 to guards (or whatever insane number it is right now).
point per point efficiently should not be wildly different across basic troops. Specially not when one basic generalist troop is point efficient in all dimensions (melee toughness and firing).
Eh, I'm of the opinion that Marine (of all stripes, loyalist, Chaos, Primaris and Firstborn alike) should all be about that strong when it comes to Guard.
Of course, that doesn't mean I don't think they need recosting.
Going back to the main question, "how elite should Marines feel", I say very. The tradeoff is that a Marine army should be expensive. Basically, I'd rather have Marines cost more and be stronger than cost less and be weaker.
An Actual Englishman wrote: What is going on in this thread? Are people so desperate to avoid the marine discussion that they've resorted to discussing Custodes Vs Guardsmen? I'm half impressed as to how this discussion even came about.
Custodes might be OP, FWIW, but we'll never know in the current meta because Marines just gak all over them. This is true of many factions, including Orks.
Marines are so powerful they are a cut above everything else and it genuinely feels as though they're playing a different game to me. My gut tells me that's wrong.
Everyone has pretty much agreed and said all there's to say about marines/intercessors.
Of course bar one or two people still asserting there is nothing wrong with marines/intercessors and they don't really need nerfing as if the layers and layers of buffs, abilties and rules somehow aren't a problem.
They just outlier head in the sand peeps who are trying really hard to justify the current paradigm..
Got it, as I suspected, thanks for the clarification.
It's a funny old thing that things don't make sense when you don't read them and then openly admit you haven't read them, though it doesn't seem to have stopped you from taking opportunity to express frankly theatrical levels of sourness
I introduced the comparison to argue that overly efficient 'eliteness' is something that has influenced game balance and quality, but more so from Custodes than Marine troop choices
And if anything the cause of Marines being powerful in the current meta is nothing to do with Tactical Marines getting an extra attack and bolter discipline, and everything to do with Marines getting new strategems which have made existing support units insane (IH Leviathans) and having new primaris units which are just blunt instruments (Aggressors, Repulsors) and designed to be straight up superior to similar blunt instrument units in other armies rather than requiring tactics, as you would expect in an army that's supposed to be themed around tactical level operations.
That's a lot of words to express 'the sand tastes lovely, thank you'. Very odd.
Remind me, how much do Custodes cost compared to an Intercessor?
I'm sure the cause of Marines being powerful in the current meta is absolutely to do with bolter discipline and an extra, free attack as much as new stratagems, actually. GW has repeatedly given SM free buff after free buff before allowing the meta to settle. They just kept piling them on. This is how we've ended up in such an awful position.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: Eh, I'm of the opinion that Marine (of all stripes, loyalist, Chaos, Primaris and Firstborn alike) should all be about that strong when it comes to Guard.
Of course, that doesn't mean I don't think they need recosting.
Going back to the main question, "how elite should Marines feel", I say very. The tradeoff is that a Marine army should be expensive. Basically, I'd rather have Marines cost more and be stronger than cost less and be weaker.
It just doesn't work, IMHO.
At this point, you would need to bring literal buckets of guardsmen to beat effictively intercessors in a gun fight (and forget about close combat unless you are catachan and even then). Once you factor in real world costs, and timed matches, it is a losing option.
Of course from a point efficient perspective it doesn't seem to be working at all. If my mathhammer is wrong, please correct me, but this is what I find (I didn't account for morale, stratagems, bubbles, orders since I think those favor intercessors anyway).
An intercessor with an autobolt rifle can expect to kill, without rerolls or anything else, 1 guardsman per turn (assault 3 profile for autbolt). That is, 18 points kill 4 points of guard.
4 guardsmen with lasguns can expect to deal about 1/4 of a wound per turn to an intercessor. That's 16 points killing 1/8th of an intercessor or a little over 2 points of marines.
In other guards, either you lower the cost of those guards to half and then bring 8 guards per marine (which might suit your fluffy cartoon stories, but it is unsustainable in the game) or you double the cost of the intercessor.
Please proof me wrong, because this looks absurd.
Before intercessors, marine tacs where not so point efficient, I believe, at least until bolter discipline was introduced.
A 12 points tac marine would kill 1/3 guard per round. 12 points of marines kill 1.3 points of guard.
3 guardsmen deal 0.17 wounds per turn to the marine. That is 12 points of guards killing 0.17*12=2 points of marines.
Bolter discipline doubled the damage output of the marine, meaning that a tac became about as point efficient at shooting as that guardman.
It also doesn't work because GW like money and the more Marines they sell the more money they make.
Marines aren't about to double in ppm. No way.
Then you'd have to consider how an ultra elite army such as that would function - how would they hold objectives or hope to have a semblance of board control? There are answers to these questions (allow Marine/Custodes units to hold objectives from 6" away rather than 3" for example, limit enemy Deep Striking against such armies/increase the mobility of the elite faction), but I don't think GW are interested in them
Thinking about it one could argue, that even though the nonelite/horde troops like guardsmen are seemingly weaker in shooting and no match at all in melee compared to their weight in space marines, their higher number is an advantage if you try to hold objectives. If I can shovel 4 guardsmen for every intercessor in range of an objective I can still hold it and score points - theoretically. But I'm not sure that really balances it out.
And besides from that it's still crazy that dedicated melee units (looking at the examples of genestealers and Eldar units) have that hard of a time if they reach melee with a very competent shooting unit (Intercessors)
An Actual Englishman wrote: It also doesn't work because GW like money and the more Marines they sell the more money they make.
Marines aren't about to double in ppm. No way.
Then you'd have to consider how an ultra elite army such as that would function - how would they hold objectives or hope to have a semblance of board control? There are answers to these questions (allow Marine/Custodes units to hold objectives from 6" away rather than 3" for example, limit enemy Deep Striking against such armies/increase the mobility of the elite faction), but I don't think GW are interested in them
Giving them cheaper troops for board control (scouts and similar stuff), hence the marine player having to make trade offs.
Primaris are just better at everything, including being point efficient in all the relevant dimensions (toughness, firing, melee) via their intercessors.
Even though this is a fantasy wargame, it is supposed to have some sort of internal logic to it. Right now it looks totally absurd.
A sniper rifle that doesn't need line of sight? What the heck!
Try bubbles in a battlefield with AoE weapons, see how that works.
Freaking border deployments for gunlines.
Armies of pure elites do not work in all theaters of war, for all functions. Perverting point efficiency to make them work just means you destroy balance.
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Pyroalchi wrote: Thinking about it one could argue, that even though the nonelite/horde troops like guardsmen are seemingly weaker in shooting and no match at all in melee compared to their weight in space marines, their higher number is an advantage if you try to hold objectives. If I can shovel 4 guardsmen for every intercessor in range of an objective I can still hold it and score points - theoretically. But I'm not sure that really balances it out.
I don't think it would work. Specially once you consider morale and the fact that autobolts are assault weapons (so they can shoot, then charge).
No matter how you put it, once you make some baselines so much weaker you end up in unsustainable situations.
Pyroalchi wrote: And besides from that it's still crazy that dedicated melee units (looking at the examples of genestealers and Eldar units) have that hard of a time if they reach melee with a very competent shooting unit (Intercessors)
I agree.
Being a long gone veteran, I really hope I am misreading the new rules because it is brutally discouraging.
@ Grey40k: I agree that the board control stuff is of dubious use. I have no practical experience so far, so I tried to word it as a more theoretical point.
On a whole different point, and please read this as just a thought, not a "NERF MARINES!!!" rant:
regarding the whole point that Marines should feel that elite one could argue that their units while strong should be small in numbers. And I don't just mean total unit count but also the number of models of specific units you can take. What would happen if for example Marines would have a rule of two instead of rule of three (they have enough options that they could still easily fill detachments) and a rule of three also for their troops and the unit sizes would be smaller. So maybe (!) Intercessors with 3 units base, 5 units max instead of 5/10. You would need at least two different troop choices to fill a brigade and that brigade would have 30 troop models at best. Than the fluff Image of the outnumbered elite would be brought more in front.
But I'm not familiar enough with Marines to guess if that would make matters even worse because they have to spend less on their troops. So again: its nothing more than a thought I wanted to put out here.
Considering the rule of 2 would, then spill in to other marines, including those that do not have access to primaris or majority of marine stuff, I am dead against it.
Marines would just run more FW, more mixs of primaris stuff. Little impact for a small game play change. Others on the other hand be hurt a lot.
It's a funny old thing that things don't make sense when you don't read them and then openly admit you haven't read them, though it doesn't seem to have stopped you from taking opportunity to express frankly theatrical levels of sourness
I introduced the comparison to argue that overly efficient 'eliteness' is something that has influenced game balance and quality, but more so from Custodes than Marine troop choices
And if anything the cause of Marines being powerful in the current meta is nothing to do with Tactical Marines getting an extra attack and bolter discipline, and everything to do with Marines getting new strategems which have made existing support units insane (IH Leviathans) and having new primaris units which are just blunt instruments (Aggressors, Repulsors) and designed to be straight up superior to similar blunt instrument units in other armies rather than requiring tactics, as you would expect in an army that's supposed to be themed around tactical level operations.
That's a lot of words to express 'the sand tastes lovely, thank you'. Very odd.
Remind me, how much do Custodes cost compared to an Intercessor?
I'm sure the cause of Marines being powerful in the current meta is absolutely to do with bolter discipline and an extra, free attack as much as new stratagems, actually. GW has repeatedly given SM free buff after free buff before allowing the meta to settle. They just kept piling them on. This is how we've ended up in such an awful position.
What's the point of trying to make a quip if the only meaning to it is "you're wrong?" It's about witty as throwing a brick into a washing machine.
Something of a minuscule post from me even compared to the other relatively modest posts I've made in the thread, but I'm glad you've addresed why you didn't read the argument that I made and evidently still haven't bothered to read even as I've reduced the crux down to a single sentence, as you still somehow managed to have reduced the word "efficiency" down to "cost" as if "Custodes are more expensive" is somehow profound news to me
So let's repeat what I said at the top of the page, in fewer words:
A single infantry squad and a platoon officer issuing FRFSRF statistically results in a single dead 17pt Intercessor for 60 points.
A setup wiith 5 Infantry squads, 3 Commanders and a Commissar for morale, assuming absolutely perfect and virtually impossible conditions of unity of close-rapid fire range and that no models have been lost before the engagement, only results in a single 49pt Custodes being dead on average, for 306 points. With 4-5 plasma guns, which wouldn't be particularly worth taking in any other situation, also assuming perfect conditions, will kill another Custodes, so at max you're going to kill 2 Custodes a turn on average.
A single infantry squad is a fraction of your total infantry contingent, 5 Infantry Squad and four supporting officers is either your entire contingent or most of it and then is subject to a lot of other strategic constraints because of how unwieldy 50 Guardsmen are to position perfectly.
Custodes are significantly more efficient. They're not necessarily overpowered on the competitive level, but its that eliteness and efficiency that singlehandedly rules out taking a Guard infantry list. A few MSU Intercessor Squads with maybe one maxed out squad thrown in for the strategem is not a massive concern.
Oh and I'm sure that you're sure that miscellaneous buffs to a unit that's otherwise mediocre and to another unit that's renowned for being one of the worst units in the game (Tacs) are the cause of Marines being suddenly super competitive. It would helpful if you actually explained and substantiated why.
A single infantry squad and a platoon officer issuing FRFSRF statistically results in a single dead 20pt Intercessor for 60 points.
To get this, you have assumed rapid fire range. Outside of rapid fire range, your 10 lasgun shots only deal half a wound. (I am using stats engine: https://warhammer-stats-engine.herokuapp.com/)
Even in that favorable scenario, you are getting a return of 2.22 wounds per 60 points or (60/2.22) 27 points per wound. The intercessor is getting 18/0.89=20 points per wound (an intercessor with autobolt costs 18 points as per the latest CA).
That is, intercessor points per wound beat you even in the most favorable scenario. If we actually play it out, including morale, this would probably only get worse. Specially once we account for ranges and close combat.
A few MSU Intercessor Squads with maybe one maxed out squad thrown in for the strategem is not a massive concern.
I am failing to see how you'd beat new marines in an infantry fight with guards.
KurtAngle2 wrote: Since when are Intercessor 20 points? Your comparison doesn't make sense, points cost aside
Not that long ago, as it happens. Start of 8th they were 20 pts as I recall. Amended for truth, though doesn't make a tremendous amount of difference on the strategic level to me.
In my defense, I haven't paid much attention to Marine internal balance since I figured out that the new Codex is still bland for someone who isn't interested in Primaris, and thinks the army should be focused around tactical flexibility rather than a test of how many rules you can stack onto a dreadnought to make it unkillable or how much raw firepower you can bring with Repulsors and Aggressors.
I do think that the current rules salad Marines get is silly, but mostly because it doesn't address the actual problems with a unit like the Tactical Squad, which is that it's only effective against one class of enemy unit, and then it can't specialize effectively and is extremely inflexible. So instead the rules writers just added rules to make them better blunt instruments. Its silly.
The comparison is apt enough. Every model in a Primaris army is at least T4 2W 3+, every model in a Custodes army is at least T5 3W 2+. Guardsmen can actually contribute to killing T4 2W in a meaningful capacity, they can't contribute meaningfully to killing T5 3W. AM Infantry are passable against SM infantry but deadweight other than as blockers against Custodes. That's the point.
I am failing to see how you'd beat new marines in an infantry fight with guards.
You don't. You take a sustainable number of casualties each turn to long range bolt rifle fire and then watch as Intercessor squads suffer critical existence failure one after another as your heavy support destroys them from a distance. If the enemy list is alpha-striking, then you get good mileage out of close range FRFSRF as an added bonus.
The thing about Custodes is that you have to kill them fast with units that have to multi-task against killing other immediate threats like grav tanks and jetbike captains since your infantry are useless.
You don't. You take a sustainable number of casualties each turn to long range bolt rifle fire and then watch as Intercessor squads suffer critical existence failure one after another as your heavy support destroys them from a distance. If the enemy list is alpha-striking, then you get good mileage out of close range FRFSRF as an added bonus.
The thing about Custodes is that you have to kill them fast with units that have to multi-task against killing other immediate threats like grav tanks and jetbike captains since your infantry are useless.
I think that is moving away a bit from the point of the thread, which is that intercessors are too point efficient in many roles.
I compared them against guards because those are the generalist troops of another faction. Others have compared them even against specialist units which should beat them at their role and don't; specially not from a point efficient perspective.
You said you cannot beat custodes with a guard infantry list but that intercessors didn't scare you as much. My point was to show you that even in the most favorable trade (rapid fire range and a unit with orders) your point efficiency is worse than that of an intercessor; and that's even without accounting for rerolls, weird raven cover mechanics, invulnerable saves, you failing morale saves after guards start falling, and so on.
For clarity: when your point efficiency is worse, you can always expect to lose.
By the way looking at guard: as Custodes sometimes also have inv (like custodian guard with T5, 2+, 3++), above 12'' the humble grenade launcher is as efficient at killing them than overcharged plasma while costing less (especially on Command and Veteran Squads). S6 vs. S8 doesn't matter in wounding, AP-1 is enough to trigger the inv. and D3 damage is on average the same as plasmas 2 with the added possibility to kill in one shot.
I just mention this because saying you need plasma to kill custodes might not be the most points efficient approach:
Command Squad: 68 Points (Plasma) vs. 36 Points (GL)
Veteran Squad (3 Specials): 83 (Plasma) vs. 59 (GL)
Special weapons squad: 51 (Plasma) vs. 33 (GL)
To get this, you have assumed rapid fire range. Outside of rapid fire range, your 10 lasgun shots only deal half a wound. (I am using stats engine: https://warhammer-stats-engine.herokuapp.com/)
Even in that favorable scenario, you are getting a return of 2.22 wounds per 60 points or (60/2.22) 27 points per wound. The intercessor is getting 18/0.89=20 points per wound (an intercessor with autobolt costs 18 points as per the latest CA).
That is, intercessor points per wound beat you even in the most favorable scenario. If we actually play it out, including morale, this would probably only get worse. Specially once we account for ranges and close combat.
To get this, you have assumed rapid fire range. Outside of rapid fire range, your 10 lasgun shots only deal half a wound. (I am using stats engine: https://warhammer-stats-engine.herokuapp.com/)
Even in that favorable scenario, you are getting a return of 2.22 wounds per 60 points or (60/2.22) 27 points per wound. The intercessor is getting 18/0.89=20 points per wound (an intercessor with autobolt costs 18 points as per the latest CA).
That is, intercessor points per wound beat you even in the most favorable scenario. If we actually play it out, including morale, this would probably only get worse. Specially once we account for ranges and close combat.
I'm not disputing that Intercessors are more efficient. The statistics I came up with obviously demonstrate that Intercessors are efficient at soaking up fire from Guardsmen. The difference is when you apply constraints within a practical context, its easier to gun down a decent number of Intercessors with Guardsmen than it is to put a dent in the advance of some Custodes.
Getting a single full squad of Guardsmen into rapid fire range when you're on the defensive or navigating a mid-field firefight on an LOS blocker heavy board is pretty easy, especially when you have 5-9 of them. Getting 5 squads of Guardsmen into rapid fire range for FRFSRF is extremely difficult.
It's about witty as throwing a brick into a washing machine.