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2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 00:51:15


Post by: GoldenHorde


It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 00:57:19


Post by: macluvin


it would shut my whiny chaos space marine mouth up about one thing... Make doctrines cost CP and chapter traits cost points and I’ll probably completely shut up.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 00:58:38


Post by: dewd11


It would definitely be one of the funniest things that GW could do


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 00:59:45


Post by: Lance845


Agreed


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:22:17


Post by: Daedalus81


 GoldenHorde wrote:
It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


Kaaaay. But making a model have two wounds and cost more points would make them more durable and less lethal. And giving the game a stratified set of units and weapons that work well against different units makes the game more interesting.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:26:09


Post by: the_scotsman


 GoldenHorde wrote:
It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


....No, actually, and it is weird I have to point this out, but it did not actually contribute to lethality creep to make marines all W2.

One might actually make the argument strange that it is, that adding all the extra stats to various weapons is what added to lethality creep....


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:28:39


Post by: H.B.M.C.


No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:31:14


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Gw: "Don't be afraid of two wound Marines, we'll make heavy bolters do 2 damage to compensate!"

The public: "the advent of 2 wound Marines had no impact on the game's lethality"

EDIT:
as far as my actual opinion on the topic I am largely apathetic. SM still don't feel very super-soldiery (4th edition SM to down to regular lasguns like 9th edition SMs go down to FRFSRF lasguns) and I think super-soldiery is going to be impossible in a game where heavy artillery that can take out tanks with just the concussion of the detonation exists.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:34:32


Post by: Insectum7


Marines should not have gone to 2w, I agree.

Also Primaris shouldn't be 2w. They should have been T5 or something.

actually Primaris shouldn't exist. . .


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:35:54


Post by: Jimbobbyish


Primaris fanboy: "NO, you can't just give old marines 2W, they're supposed to be squatted!" GW: "Heavy Bolters go brrrrrrrr"


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 01:38:49


Post by: H.B.M.C.


 Insectum7 wrote:
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.
I agree with W2 Marines for the same reasons I think T5 Orks are a good idea: Expediency.

Does either correctly represent their inherent superhuman traits/stubborn durability? No. But what it does is enhance them in a way that fits within existing mechanics, does not require the invention of a new mechanic/special rule, and lets you use it en masse quickly.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 02:02:30


Post by: Insectum7


 Jimbobbyish wrote:
Primaris fanboy: "NO, you can't just give old marines 2W, they're supposed to be squatted!" GW: "Heavy Bolters go brrrrrrrr"
I see your Heavy Bolters and raise you with Grav Cannons.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.
I agree with W2 Marines for the same reasons I think T5 Orks are a good idea: Expediency.

Does either correctly represent their inherent superhuman traits/stubborn durability? No. But what it does is enhance them in a way that fits within existing mechanics, does not require the invention of a new mechanic/special rule, and lets you use it en masse quickly.
Not for CSM apparently.

Imo 1w marines were just fine. Right about when the SM 2.0 book landed (w/o supplements) Marines felt pretty good.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 02:59:08


Post by: alextroy


GW spreads out the defensive profiles by using more values of Toughness and Wounds and you want to go back? No. I think I'll pass.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 03:08:34


Post by: Cheex


 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.

Wounds and Toughness are literally the base mechanics designed to represent a soldier's ability to take damage. If not Wounds, then what other mechanics should one use? FNP? Transhuman?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 03:24:37


Post by: Insectum7


 Cheex wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.

Wounds and Toughness are literally the base mechanics designed to represent a soldier's ability to take damage. If not Wounds, then what other mechanics should one use? FNP? Transhuman?
Why focus on damage? Better morale mechanics and better Grenade mechanics have done plenty for Marines in the past. Initiative has also played its part. Go even further back and you have better equipment and immunity/protection from poison and radiation effects, as well as better ability to see in the dark and through obscuring smoke. At times Leadership has been used for freedom of target selection too even.

Everything has been reduced to damage input and output. It's sad.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 03:35:49


Post by: Eldenfirefly


I think that given how much lethality has already increased for many armies, its too late to turn back the clock on 2W marines.

Tons of armies are going to evaporate with the current lethality in the game if we go back to 1W marines. Just look at CSM marines. They just evaporate under any amount of fire. Berserkers are literally a one shot use unit because they usually all die after their charge and first attack.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 03:43:33


Post by: Daedalus81


 Insectum7 wrote:
Why focus on damage? Better morale mechanics and better Grenade mechanics have done plenty for Marines in the past. Initiative has also played its part. Go even further back and you have better equipment and immunity/protection from poison and radiation effects, as well as better ability to see in the dark and through obscuring smoke. At times Leadership has been used for freedom of target selection too even.

Everything has been reduced to damage input and output. It's sad.


Those things make marines feel elite, but they don't really keep them alive. A twin assault cannon isn't going to care if 1 wound marines have good grenades. Marines rarely fail morale at present.

You could have some of those things and W2 marines and give people list building choices that aren't just "more of x".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 04:12:01


Post by: Insectum7


Hmm. . . Almost like the game could be too lethal. I think I've heard that criticism before, I dunno. . .

As for morale, Marines failing morale or not these days isnt the issue. But morale in the old days was a mechanic that would suppress/wipe out other less elite units, in turn making marines feel more elite in comparison.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 04:19:11


Post by: The Red Hobbit


Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think that given how much lethality has already increased for many armies, its too late to turn back the clock on 2W marines.

Tons of armies are going to evaporate with the current lethality in the game if we go back to 1W marines. Just look at CSM marines. They just evaporate under any amount of fire. Berserkers are literally a one shot use unit because they usually all die after their charge and first attack.


Sure is, I run World Eaters and I'm surprised if any of my Berzerker squads survive a round outside of a Rhino.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 04:46:43


Post by: Stormonu


I still say 2W marines were a mistake and it should have never been done.

Of course, if they hadn't screwed up the "to wound" chart, it wouldn't have been needed in the first place.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 04:59:04


Post by: Arachnofiend


2W Marines was a big help in diversifying the "elite troop" unit types; MEQs don't really exist anymore since the baseline numbers of (say) a Tactical and an Immortal are actually different now. There's even diversity within marines, the anti-marine heavy bolter is pretty bad against Plague Marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 05:07:44


Post by: Voss


 Stormonu wrote:
I still say 2W marines were a mistake and it should have never been done.

Of course, if they hadn't screwed up the "to wound" chart, it wouldn't have been needed in the first place.


I don't really agree with that. The changes to the wound chart only made space marine infantry harder to kill. (S 6 and 7 went from 2+ to 3+ vs T4). Going back to an AP system had much more of an effect, as did the general increase in attacks and shots.

Plus, 'space marines don't feel elite' has been a perennial complaint since Rogue Trader. Hence Toughness 3 to Toughness 4, Power armor 4+ to 3+, various leadership immunity shenanigans (loyalists only), overwatch being briefly space marine only and various tertiary buffs over the years, because GW literally thinks it isn't 'proper' if Space Marines aren't better than the opposition, and have openly said so.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 05:13:25


Post by: Wyldhunt


For context: marines are probably my tertiary army. I mainly play various flavors of eldar.

My stance on the second wound hasn't really changed since they first got it. It feels fluffy, helps them stand out compared to other factions, and removes some of the feels bad of getting wasted by lucky lasgun fire. Making marines more durable and less numerous (due to their points increase) seems appropriate for them.

What I'm not a huge fan of is all the weapons that seem to have gotten a power boost purely to keep up with marine durability (thus defeating the point). Heavy bolters, splinter cannons, and incubus klaives probably didn't need the Damage boost. But I think part of the reason those damage boosts happened was that GW didn't take away any of the buffs they gave 1W marines back when they were struggling. If you kept the second wound but backed off on things like doctrines, we'd probably be okay.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 06:23:31


Post by: Insectum7


 Arachnofiend wrote:
2W Marines was a big help in diversifying the "elite troop" unit types; MEQs don't really exist anymore since the baseline numbers of (say) a Tactical and an Immortal are actually different now. There's even diversity within marines, the anti-marine heavy bolter is pretty bad against Plague Marines.
Previous editions have already given us examples of diversifying those units without 2W. Original Immortals had T5 and resurrection abilities over the Marine T4. Plague Marines with a 5+++ and/or T5 also become their own thing. 2W isn't needed for this.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 07:45:54


Post by: Wyldhunt


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Arachnofiend wrote:
2W Marines was a big help in diversifying the "elite troop" unit types; MEQs don't really exist anymore since the baseline numbers of (say) a Tactical and an Immortal are actually different now. There's even diversity within marines, the anti-marine heavy bolter is pretty bad against Plague Marines.
Previous editions have already given us examples of diversifying those units without 2W. Original Immortals had T5 and resurrection abilities over the Marine T4. Plague Marines with a 5+++ and/or T5 also become their own thing. 2W isn't needed for this.

I started playing in 5th, and honestly? Marines always felt weirdly squishy until they got the 2nd wound. 2 W makes them appreciably harder to take down with small arms fire but leaves them vulnerable to nastier weapons. Which is what I expect. It's a simpler, less swingy mechanic than something like 5+++ plague marines. There are other ways to represent marine durability, but I really don't see why 2W is a bad approach. Wounds are HP. Marines have more HP than guardsmen and space elves.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 07:48:16


Post by: Marshal Loss


No thanks.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 08:11:51


Post by: Insectum7


Wyldhunt wrote:
There are other ways to represent marine durability, but I really don't see why 2W is a bad approach. Wounds are HP. Marines have more HP than guardsmen and space elves.
That's the toughness stat.

Are Narines supposed to have more HP than Orks and Necrons? They do now.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 08:18:30


Post by: Blackie


SM are already super soldiers. No one else has that many special rules.

I don't really care about 2W, IMHO the real mistake is to release T5 3W models for quite cheap. They're mostly the reason why SM vehicles feel kinda obsolete, and in fact 3 gravis dudes pretty much have the same profile of a tank.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 08:29:00


Post by: Da Boss


It's never gonna happen, the marine power increase train has only ever been in one direction since rogue trader. 40K background material is by and large marine power fantasy stuff, and the game tries to represent that (not that well or consistently) by increasing their durability.

Marine durability was already well represented by T4 and a 3+ save, and the idea that they should be immune to small arms fire is really silly in my view. An old Lasgun shot had 1/3x1/2/x1/3 = 1/18 chance of killing a marine. 18 lasgun shots per dead marine seems to perfectly represent a space marine. By comparison to a guardsman 1/2x1/2x2/3 = 1/6 chance, or 6 shots per dead guardsman. 3 times as durable seems fine to me, but apparently people wanted 6 times as durable, 36 shots to kill a space marine.

And of course, then GW just upped the number of shots or number of wounds caused by each individual shot.
Whatever.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 08:34:45


Post by: blood reaper


 Jimbobbyish wrote:
Primaris fanboy: "NO, you can't just give old marines 2W, they're supposed to be squatted!" GW: "Heavy Bolters go brrrrrrrr"


This post doesn't make any sense.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 09:02:47


Post by: a_typical_hero


I think 2W Marines along with diversifying other unit profiles was a good move for the game.

The actual problem are the (new) weapon profiles.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 10:20:36


Post by: Nibbler


In my opinion, the 2W Marines feel right (T'au player speaking - so... ).

But I also think, that there should be more granularity in general. throw the D6 away - get D10 into the game.

OTOH vehicles don't feel right for me atm.

There is lots of room for improvements, but making the marine boys a bit sturdier wasn't a step into the wrong direction...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 13:00:08


Post by: the_scotsman


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Gw: "Don't be afraid of two wound Marines, we'll make heavy bolters do 2 damage to compensate!"

The public: "the advent of 2 wound Marines had no impact on the game's lethality"

EDIT:
as far as my actual opinion on the topic I am largely apathetic. SM still don't feel very super-soldiery (4th edition SM to down to regular lasguns like 9th edition SMs go down to FRFSRF lasguns) and I think super-soldiery is going to be impossible in a game where heavy artillery that can take out tanks with just the concussion of the detonation exists.


Just because GW chose to do a stupid thing after they did a smart thing doesnt mean the stupid thing was caused by the smart thing.

And come on.

lets be realistic.

The reason why the standard imperial weaponry all got buffed was NOT W2 space marines...it was 100% ABSOLUTELY the fact that GW wanted to make new primaris units that used heavy bolters and melta guns and those weapon types were currently underused.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
a_typical_hero wrote:
I think 2W Marines along with diversifying other unit profiles was a good move for the game.

The actual problem are the (new) weapon profiles.


^^^^^^^^^^^

the only thing that needed to be done was moving a lot of d3d weaponry to 2d weaponry. D3+3 and D6+2 everywhere as well as the massive creep in AP coming on from stupid fething doctrines and infecting every other weapon in the game is the real issue.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 13:20:12


Post by: blood reaper


I don't really mind Heavy Bolters doing additional damage tbf. I felt it did *kind* of work to make Heavy Bolters feel well, heavy. A Heavy Bolter should imo pose a serious danger to Space Marines.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 15:24:18


Post by: Daedalus81


 Insectum7 wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
There are other ways to represent marine durability, but I really don't see why 2W is a bad approach. Wounds are HP. Marines have more HP than guardsmen and space elves.
That's the toughness stat.

Are Narines supposed to have more HP than Orks and Necrons? They do now.



There is a bullet economy. You can only kill so many models based on the shots you bring to the table. That gets up ended when your guns don't match the target well.

Add in that old cover valued quantity of wounds over quality and you'd find that weapons now feel way better than they used to. Marines died more readily than orks on a cost basis in older editions with the small consolation that boyz ran away and got overrun in combat really easily.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 15:34:32


Post by: Tyel


As I see it the problem is that for every defensive buff handed out, its been matched by about 3 offensive buffs.

"Oh boy, I've got T4, a 3+ armour save and 2 wounds. Lets see those lasguns try to kill me now."
"Lasguns? Good one. Read my S5, AP-3, 2 damage attacks and weep."

And it is GW incompetence, because Dissie Ravagers basically made Primaris unplayable in early 8th. Now similarish attack stats are thrown out like confetti.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 15:47:50


Post by: Quasistellar


 GoldenHorde wrote:
It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


This feels like a troll post, because:

A) it's stupid (and I'm using the dictionary definition of stupid here, not being rude.)

B) it's factually incorrect

C) it will immediately elicit lots of posts in response


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 15:55:54


Post by: techsoldaten


Quasistellar wrote:
 GoldenHorde wrote:
It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


This feels like a troll post, because:

A) it's stupid (and I'm using the dictionary definition of stupid here, not being rude.)

B) it's factually incorrect

C) it will immediately elicit lots of posts in response


I get accused of troll posts for taking odd / unpopular positions.

Always unpleasant, really only serves to derail the conversation. The cost of pointing the finger is a lot of 'noise' that is more disruptive than any troll could be. Not sure the point of stating it.

There's an argument for taking Marines back down to 1 wound. I'd be against it because so many other things would need to change to accommodate.

But yes, a lot of guns are now more powerful and it has an outsized impact on other factions. I almost want to say it's time to balance the game for not-Marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 16:04:12


Post by: Daedalus81


Tyel wrote:
As I see it the problem is that for every defensive buff handed out, its been matched by about 3 offensive buffs.

"Oh boy, I've got T4, a 3+ armour save and 2 wounds. Lets see those lasguns try to kill me now."
"Lasguns? Good one. Read my S5, AP-3, 2 damage attacks and weep."

And it is GW incompetence, because Dissie Ravagers basically made Primaris unplayable in early 8th. Now similarish attack stats are thrown out like confetti.


That is the period where you had Doom that could be cast and used by ravagers as well as rerolls and there was not the same fill out of other armies to their different damage profiles.

Ravagers are only 5 points more today, but are a way more difficult choice, because if you run into Death Guard, Thousand Sons, DA termies, etc they're a wet noodle. So the act of taking more than one could be foolish and the weight of other threats makes marines relatively safe from dissie ravagers at present. Squigbuggies are a similar unit, but still get spammed, because of the ability to hit non-visible targets.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 17:45:01


Post by: the_scotsman


 techsoldaten wrote:
Quasistellar wrote:
 GoldenHorde wrote:
It seriously added nothing positive to the game except power/lethality creep and was nothing but a sales ploy


This feels like a troll post, because:

A) it's stupid (and I'm using the dictionary definition of stupid here, not being rude.)

B) it's factually incorrect

C) it will immediately elicit lots of posts in response


I get accused of troll posts for taking odd / unpopular positions.

Always unpleasant, really only serves to derail the conversation. The cost of pointing the finger is a lot of 'noise' that is more disruptive than any troll could be. Not sure the point of stating it.

There's an argument for taking Marines back down to 1 wound. I'd be against it because so many other things would need to change to accommodate.

But yes, a lot of guns are now more powerful and it has an outsized impact on other factions. I almost want to say it's time to balance the game for not-Marines.


Nah, I disagree. And I am incredibly, incredibly sick of marines...as anyone on here will probably happily point out.

Moving the core marine statline from a 1W to a 2W paradigm at least IN THEORY frees up a ton more design space for other factions precisely because of GW's extreme reluctance to ever give another faction a thing that's stronger/better/whatever than a space marine. It stops the stat squish towards the "Guardsman Equivalent" with units like fire warriors, tempestus, aspect warriors, sisters, guardians, kabalites, etc by raising the ceiling and also further differentiating anti-MEQ vs anti-light infantry weapons beyond just 'has better AP'...because good AP also works on 1w light infantry just as well.

the problem currently is just that GW seems really reluctant and slow to expand into that new design space, except with Moar Damage.if they want light infantry units like guardsmen and cultists and such to lose in a straight up fight versus elite units, that's fine, but then we need to start talking about AOS-style resurrection mechanics...which honestly would be a great thing as well with the common issue of light infantry army players having to purchase 5x as many minis.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:05:04


Post by: Insectum7


 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
There are other ways to represent marine durability, but I really don't see why 2W is a bad approach. Wounds are HP. Marines have more HP than guardsmen and space elves.
That's the toughness stat.

Are Narines supposed to have more HP than Orks and Necrons? They do now.



There is a bullet economy. You can only kill so many models based on the shots you bring to the table. That gets up ended when your guns don't match the target well.

Add in that old cover valued quantity of wounds over quality and you'd find that weapons now feel way better than they used to. Marines died more readily than orks on a cost basis in older editions with the small consolation that boyz ran away and got overrun in combat really easily.
You'll have to be specific about which older editions and weapons you're referring to. For example, Flamers torched Orks and other non-MEQs plenty well in older editions. Bolters felt great when they ignored Guard armor, and still felt reasonable when GEQ had a 5++ in cover, and then started taking Ld. checks after taking 25% casualties. Whirlwinds using ammunition that ignored cover save, landed big templates on light troops, and caused Pinning checks felt very satisfying. In 3rd edition and most of 4th ed Ork Boyz cost 9ppm to a Marine 15, making ppm-killed different than you suggest.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:10:29


Post by: Daedalus81


 Insectum7 wrote:
In 3rd edition and most of 4th ed Ork Boyz cost 9ppm to a Marine 15, making ppm-killed different than you suggest.


Yea I can't recall everything, but I think 4th was the edition where fleeing Orks auto mobbed up with a mob behind them? There's a whole lot of layers for sure.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:37:23


Post by: techsoldaten


 the_scotsman wrote:
 techsoldaten wrote:
I get accused of troll posts for taking odd / unpopular positions.

Always unpleasant, really only serves to derail the conversation. The cost of pointing the finger is a lot of 'noise' that is more disruptive than any troll could be. Not sure the point of stating it.

There's an argument for taking Marines back down to 1 wound. I'd be against it because so many other things would need to change to accommodate.

But yes, a lot of guns are now more powerful and it has an outsized impact on other factions. I almost want to say it's time to balance the game for not-Marines.


Nah, I disagree. And I am incredibly, incredibly sick of marines...as anyone on here will probably happily point out.

Moving the core marine statline from a 1W to a 2W paradigm at least IN THEORY frees up a ton more design space for other factions precisely because of GW's extreme reluctance to ever give another faction a thing that's stronger/better/whatever than a space marine. It stops the stat squish towards the "Guardsman Equivalent" with units like fire warriors, tempestus, aspect warriors, sisters, guardians, kabalites, etc by raising the ceiling and also further differentiating anti-MEQ vs anti-light infantry weapons beyond just 'has better AP'...because good AP also works on 1w light infantry just as well.

the problem currently is just that GW seems really reluctant and slow to expand into that new design space, except with Moar Damage.if they want light infantry units like guardsmen and cultists and such to lose in a straight up fight versus elite units, that's fine, but then we need to start talking about AOS-style resurrection mechanics...which honestly would be a great thing as well with the common issue of light infantry army players having to purchase 5x as many minis.


Oh, I'm against taking Marines back down to 1 wound. Anything that differentiates Marines from Guard is a good choice.

That's different from saying there's an argument to take them back down to 1 wound. While I don't think it's the best decision, I acknowledge some people would like to see it that way.

You make a good point about the "rate of expansion," it does seem like tinkering with damage / ap has made it harder for infantry and low model count armies. GW doesn't seem to give this aspect a lot of consideration. I'd also say vehicles seem to take a little too much damage.











2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:47:55


Post by: Galas


 Da Boss wrote:
It's never gonna happen, the marine power increase train has only ever been in one direction since rogue trader. 40K background material is by and large marine power fantasy stuff, and the game tries to represent that (not that well or consistently) by increasing their durability.

Marine durability was already well represented by T4 and a 3+ save, and the idea that they should be immune to small arms fire is really silly in my view. An old Lasgun shot had 1/3x1/2/x1/3 = 1/18 chance of killing a marine. 18 lasgun shots per dead marine seems to perfectly represent a space marine. By comparison to a guardsman 1/2x1/2x2/3 = 1/6 chance, or 6 shots per dead guardsman. 3 times as durable seems fine to me, but apparently people wanted 6 times as durable, 36 shots to kill a space marine.

And of course, then GW just upped the number of shots or number of wounds caused by each individual shot.
Whatever.


I mean... Your math proves the opposite of your point.
Old marines were ONLY three times as durable as a guardsmen against the most basic anti light infantry gun in the game while being normally much more than thricce the price because equipement (a veteran was as durable as a táctical marine ir a devastator with a heavy weapon)
Point anything heavier than a lasgun against marines VS guardsmen and the math shows even better how squishy marines were.

And lets not Talk about 40-50 point 1W terminators...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:53:06


Post by: Da Boss


Is the two wound thing really about differentiating from guardsmen? They already had better stats for all stats except W and A, as well as better saves, better guns and special morale rules. How is that not different enough? I feel the change was to make them feel more like the novel writing that emphasises the power fantasy aspect of marines, and maybe to differentiate the new primaris from the old marines?
Galas: Only a factor of 3? That's a matter of perspective on how tough you feel a marine should be. I think 3x is really significant. Especially considering the all or nothing ap system meant bolters shredded guardsmen in return. I certainly don't think my numbers prove the opposite of my point, just that you have a very different view on how tough a marine should be.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 19:56:20


Post by: catbarf


 Daedalus81 wrote:
There is a bullet economy. You can only kill so many models based on the shots you bring to the table. That gets up ended when your guns don't match the target well.

Add in that old cover valued quantity of wounds over quality and you'd find that weapons now feel way better than they used to. Marines died more readily than orks on a cost basis in older editions with the small consolation that boyz ran away and got overrun in combat really easily.


It's unfair to talk about how vulnerable Marines were for the points compared to other factions and then gloss over their significant morale advantage, which was both a contributor to their cost and in practice made them often more tenacious than ostensibly point-for-point tougher counterparts. An army that is largely immune to a significant game mechanic cannot be expected to be point-for-point just as shooty, tough, and fast as everyone else; something's gotta offset that advantage.

Plus in 3rd/4th Ed, a single bolter hit killed 2.5pts of Marine or 3pts of Slugga Boy (2.67 of Shoota) in 5+ cover, so I find the claim that Marines ended up being point-for-point easy to kill suspect to begin with. That really wasn't the case for anything AP4 or higher, and template weapons in particular punished 'quantity of wounds over quality' heavily.

I'm not super against the current W2 paradigm, but I'm not certain that it was necessary. I agree that it had a hand in the current escalation in lethality, as more weapons now get more damage to appropriately buff them up against expanding defensive statlines. Lots of things that 'should' kill Marines become D2, and lots of things that should be better AT than those Marine-killers get higher damage to compensate. I don't think you can pick any of these things out and pretend they occur in a vacuum.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Galas wrote:
Old marines were ONLY three times as durable as a guardsmen against the most basic anti light infantry gun in the game while being normally much more than thricce the price because equipement (a veteran was as durable as a táctical marine ir a devastator with a heavy weapon)


In practice, in a game dominated by bolters and bolter-like statlines, Tac Marines were 4x as durable as Guardsmen against small arms. In 3rd Ed, a Marine cost less than double what a Guardsman did. In 4th Ed, it was 2.5x.

Marines were also considerably less vulnerable to flamers, grenade launchers, and other common template-based weapons. Reminder: flamers were S4/AP5, so they ignored Guardsman armor too and regularly killed 5-6 in a single shot. The remainder of the squad then had a good chance of fleeing, and unless an officer was nearby could not rally, so they were done. Marines with ATSKNF didn't have to worry about morale much at all, and there were generally a lot more template-based AP5 weapons floating around than there were multi-shot AP3 weapons.

Sure, Devastators were no tougher despite their heavier weapons- and Guardsmen with plasma guns were no tougher than regular Guardsmen despite being triple the cost. So what? Apples-to-apples, please.

If Marines felt vulnerable pre-8th, it was because they constituted roughly 50% of the armies in the game and a higher percentage of that among the playerbase, so any TAC list was geared up with as much AP3 as possible specifically to kill Marines. Of course they'd feel vulnerable when everyone is list-tailoring to kill them; that doesn't mean they were inherently weak for their cost.

Now, granted, many of the changes from 7th to 8th hurt Marine comparative durability. Everything that used to be AP4 could now degrade Marine armor. Guardsmen now got their 5+ save against most weapons that target them. Morale no longer was a make-or-break factor. Early 8th was a rough time for Marines, I'll absolutely grant that. But- the cover system allows you to get a 2+ save against small arms, and that's huge. You can take a save against plasma guns and lascannons now. Blast has been reintroduced. Chaff have gone up in points. Bolter discipline has magnified your firepower. Lots of balancing levers have been pulled that didn't outright require W2 Marines in order for them to be made effective. Again, as long as you are the army that people tailor to beat (even for casual play), you're going to feel vulnerable. That's not going to change as long as the gameplay demographics are what they are.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:24:34


Post by: Insectum7


 catbarf wrote:
In 3rd Ed, a Marine cost less than double what a Guardsman did. In 4th Ed, it was 2.5x.
minor correction, but I have 3rd ed Guardsmen at 50 points a squad for 10 men (in the BRB) for 5ppm, and Marines at 15 ppm. so 3x. The 3.5 codex has Guardsmen at 60 per squad. I don't think I have an early 3rd ed dex for them though.


Edit: I have Codex Catachan and those bad boys were 9ppm. . . holy cow.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:29:00


Post by: BlaxicanX


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Cheex wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.

Wounds and Toughness are literally the base mechanics designed to represent a soldier's ability to take damage. If not Wounds, then what other mechanics should one use? FNP? Transhuman?
Why focus on damage? Better morale mechanics and better Grenade mechanics have done plenty for Marines in the past. Initiative has also played its part. Go even further back and you have better equipment and immunity/protection from poison and radiation effects, as well as better ability to see in the dark and through obscuring smoke. At times Leadership has been used for freedom of target selection too even.

Everything has been reduced to damage input and output. It's sad.
I have been playing this game since 5th edition, and with the sole exception of ATSKNF existing in a world where sweeping advances were a thing, none of these mechanics ever mattered beyond being edge cases in-game.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:32:23


Post by: Galas


I have to disagree Cartbarf. Even HH a Game were everyone has a bolter IS not dominanted by bolters.

I wont Talk about 4th or previos editions but 5th and onwards your damage was always the special and heavier weapons not basic guns pf basic infantry.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:33:48


Post by: Insectum7


 BlaxicanX wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Spoiler:
 Cheex wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
No I like W2 Marines. Separates them from the chaff of other factions. Shows that they are super-soldiers.
Imo use better mechanics to make them feel like super soldiers.

Wounds and Toughness are literally the base mechanics designed to represent a soldier's ability to take damage. If not Wounds, then what other mechanics should one use? FNP? Transhuman?
Why focus on damage? Better morale mechanics and better Grenade mechanics have done plenty for Marines in the past. Initiative has also played its part. Go even further back and you have better equipment and immunity/protection from poison and radiation effects, as well as better ability to see in the dark and through obscuring smoke. At times Leadership has been used for freedom of target selection too even.

Everything has been reduced to damage input and output. It's sad.
I have been playing this game since 5th edition, and with the sole exception of ATSKNF existing in a world where sweeping advances were a thing, none of these mechanics ever mattered beyond being edge cases in-game.
Too bad for you I guess, because I used Grenades all the time. My Marines were assaulting and taking out vehicles like absolute bosses.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Galas wrote:
I have to disagree Cartbarf. Even HH a Game were everyone has a bolter IS not dominanted by bolters.

I wont Talk about 4th or previos editions but 5th and onwards your damage was always the special and heavier weapons not basic guns pf basic infantry.
Did you ever see what Flamers and Whirlwinds did to light infantry in those editions? Mass slaughter, basically.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:41:21


Post by: the_scotsman


 techsoldaten wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 techsoldaten wrote:
I get accused of troll posts for taking odd / unpopular positions.

Always unpleasant, really only serves to derail the conversation. The cost of pointing the finger is a lot of 'noise' that is more disruptive than any troll could be. Not sure the point of stating it.

There's an argument for taking Marines back down to 1 wound. I'd be against it because so many other things would need to change to accommodate.

But yes, a lot of guns are now more powerful and it has an outsized impact on other factions. I almost want to say it's time to balance the game for not-Marines.


Nah, I disagree. And I am incredibly, incredibly sick of marines...as anyone on here will probably happily point out.

Moving the core marine statline from a 1W to a 2W paradigm at least IN THEORY frees up a ton more design space for other factions precisely because of GW's extreme reluctance to ever give another faction a thing that's stronger/better/whatever than a space marine. It stops the stat squish towards the "Guardsman Equivalent" with units like fire warriors, tempestus, aspect warriors, sisters, guardians, kabalites, etc by raising the ceiling and also further differentiating anti-MEQ vs anti-light infantry weapons beyond just 'has better AP'...because good AP also works on 1w light infantry just as well.

the problem currently is just that GW seems really reluctant and slow to expand into that new design space, except with Moar Damage.if they want light infantry units like guardsmen and cultists and such to lose in a straight up fight versus elite units, that's fine, but then we need to start talking about AOS-style resurrection mechanics...which honestly would be a great thing as well with the common issue of light infantry army players having to purchase 5x as many minis.


Oh, I'm against taking Marines back down to 1 wound. Anything that differentiates Marines from Guard is a good choice.

That's different from saying there's an argument to take them back down to 1 wound. While I don't think it's the best decision, I acknowledge some people would like to see it that way.

You make a good point about the "rate of expansion," it does seem like tinkering with damage / ap has made it harder for infantry and low model count armies. GW doesn't seem to give this aspect a lot of consideration. I'd also say vehicles seem to take a little too much damage.



Basically, I think there was just a little bit of a weird shenanigan going on with weapon mountings, which could easily have been solved by other means.

Traditionally, you've got imperial weapon mounts that looked like this:

Devastator: Heavy bolter/lascannon/missile launcher/plasma cannon/multi-melta/autocannon for Havocs, limited to 3 of these for Dominions

Leman Russ: Lascannon/multi-melta/heavy bolter/plasma cannon

^All these were, essentially, one gun, swapped out for one different gun.

but then you had the dreadnought list: Twin autocannon, twin lascannon, twin heavy bolter (helbrutes), assault cannon, plasma cannon, multi-melta.

A mixture of 1 gun, and 2 gun mounts. Already, GW created the "Heavy plasma cannon" of the base D2/overcharge D3 plasma cannon to fix the 'why take the plasma' question. The weird thing for me is why they didnt just fake a "heavy multi-melta" for dreads and...I guess, if you really wanted it...Eradicators. Because lets be real, Eradicators having a multi-melta as their "special weapon" is the real reason the whole anti tank damage escalation fiasco started off with the multi-melta in the first place.

Also, the decision to shift to "d3+3" and "D6+2" as standard instead of the simple shift from "d6" to, for example, "2d3". Shifting to 2d3 achieves the desired reliability factor, but also doesnt significantly increase damage on average as opposed to D3+3, which shifts expected damage from 3.5 to 5. Melta at D6+2 I dont have much of a particular issue with tbh, only multi-meltas all across the board at 2 shots because it feths with SO many weapon mount platforms where its suddenly in competition with vastly, VASTLY inferior choices (so many single heavy bolters/single heavy flamers/single LASCANNONS etc). Laughably, the multi-melta change actually means a sisters dominion armed with a heavy bolter does identical damage to GEQ...with a multi-melta, lol.

Nobody had problems coming up with enough d2 weapons to handle an army of W2 marines back when that was just primaris. Everyone was just like 'welp, here comes the plasma/dissies/insert D2 damage weapon our faction has access to here' - Heavy Infiltrators and Eradicators singlehandedly created the across the board imperial weapons shift. The ONLY weapon that actually needed and deserved the heavy weapons shift, was flamers, which should have just been 12" range as standard. If you wanted them to not be 12" range, you had to increase the actual reward you got for the risk. A flamer being 8" range 2d6 shots, would not have been out of the question IMO, but I prefer the 12" solution as it doesnt creep lethality further.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:49:12


Post by: BlaxicanX


 Insectum7 wrote:
Too bad for you I guess, because I used Grenades all the time. My Marines were assaulting and taking out vehicles like absolute bosses.
Good for you, but no one cares about anecdotes.

Marines being too fragile to do their jobs properly has been a consistent complaint for like 15 years, and when you look at the top marine lists of those times, you see that the basic marine was almost always left in the box in favor of some specialist unit that benefitted from absolutely bonkers special rules or wargear. Purifiers, paladins, Death Company, Grey Hunters, Centurions etc. Meme gimmick rules like assault grenades or being able to ignore night fighting never allowed the core marine units like tacticals and assault marines or vanilla terminators to be competitive outside of troop tax.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 20:54:51


Post by: Insectum7


 BlaxicanX wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Too bad for you I guess, because I used Grenades all the time. My Marines were assaulting and taking out vehicles like absolute bosses.
Good for you, but no one cares about anecdotes.

Marines being too fragile to do their jobs properly has been a consistent complaint for like 15 years, and when you look at the top marine lists of those times, you see that the basic marine was almost always left in the box in favor of some specialist unit that benefitted from absolutely bonkers special rules or wargear. Purifiers, paladins, Death Company, Grey Hunters, Centurions etc. Meme gimmick rules like assault grenades or being able to ignore night fighting never allowed the core marine units like tacticals and assault marines to be competitive outside of troop tax.
A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
B: You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor. Huh, look at that.

Edit C: Calling Grenades a "meme gimmick" sorta shows me the problem you might have been having. When your un-augmented basic troops can trash a Leman Russ tank in CC, that feels pretty "elite" to me.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 21:10:05


Post by: Galas


@Insectium7 I have never said light infantry was too durable , just that marines were frágile.
Flamers were good VS orks and IG . But that was not what people spammed.

Cartbarf IS right about people optimizing VS marines but I would say allowing such optimization against such a popular statline was a mistake on itself.
I mean, by most of his history, lotr a Game of normal humanoids fighting with swords had more meaningfull variety in the defensive profiles of his infantry than 40k.

You have more defensive profiles in Gondor roster with pure humans and with save and toughness in a single stat than in 7th and previous space marine army List infantry.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 21:26:14


Post by: Insectum7


 Galas wrote:
@Insectium7 I have never said light infantry was too durable , just that marines were frágile.
Flamers were good VS orks and IG . But that was not what people spammed.
They couldn't be spammed, because bolters and other AP5 weapons could totally annihilate them. Imo it basically proves the point.

 Galas wrote:
Cartbarf IS right about people optimizing VS marines but I would say allowing such optimization against such a popular statline was a mistake on itself.
I agree with that sentiment, but that in and of itself is the "lethality is too high" argument. This is something which began to get out of control during 5th edition. All of a sudden a lot more high-AP weapons could be spammed, allowing for greater optimization against marines, etc. In 8th edition I could bring a list that had over 90 S 5/8 AP-3 2D/D3D shots to the table. I agree that THAT is a problem. The thing is, 2W Marines doesn't fix the problem of being able to spam anti-MEQ weapons. But what it really hits hard is the basic rifles of other troops. Instead of addressing the anti-MEQ spam problem, it's hurting the core units of every other faction in a big way.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 21:26:43


Post by: catbarf


Insectum7 wrote:
 catbarf wrote:
In 3rd Ed, a Marine cost less than double what a Guardsman did. In 4th Ed, it was 2.5x.
minor correction, but I have 3rd ed Guardsmen at 50 points a squad for 10 men (in the BRB) for 5ppm, and Marines at 15 ppm. so 3x. The 3.5 codex has Guardsmen at 60 per squad. I don't think I have an early 3rd ed dex for them though.


Edit: I have Codex Catachan and those bad boys were 9ppm. . . holy cow.


You are correct, but the early 3rd Ed codex had Guardsmen at 8ppm. 3.5 dropped them to 6ppm as you noted.

Galas wrote:I have to disagree Cartbarf. Even HH a Game were everyone has a bolter IS not dominanted by bolters.

I wont Talk about 4th or previos editions but 5th and onwards your damage was always the special and heavier weapons not basic guns pf basic infantry.


Well, yeah. Because T4/3+ Marines are actually pretty hard to kill with S4/AP5 or S3/AP- small arms, and most armies were Marines so you tailored around that reality. That's my point. Play against Guard, Tyranids, Orks, or Militia/Cults (in HH) and suddenly those basic small arms become pretty relevant.

And I mean, to be clear, we're not just talking about lasguns or bolters here- in 4th Ed, a single Heavy Bolter hit killed 3.33pts of Marine, 6pts of Ork, or 5pts of Guardsman. An Autocannon was more efficient against Guardsmen than against Marines. It's not that Marines were more resilient against small arms and everything heavier splatted them good; they were the toughest point-for-point against everything AP4 or worse.

This is pretty clear when you look at HH and all the popular weapons are either AP3 or mass a ton of high-S shots (or templates). If a weapon doesn't meet either criterion, there's a good chance it isn't worth taking. Rotor Cannons are junk, but massing Volkite (a basic small arm in the 30K era) is actually reasonably effective. Small arms were perceived as useless because they didn't kill Marines effectively; you can't hold that up as evidence that Marines being resilient against small arms was irrelevant to play.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/10 21:28:16


Post by: Insectum7


 catbarf wrote:

You are correct, but the early 3rd Ed codex had Guardsmen at 8ppm. 3.5 dropped them to 6ppm as you noted.
How wierd. From 5 to 8 to 6? I wonder what the justification for the 8 is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 catbarf wrote:
It's not that Marines were more resilient against small arms and everything heavier splatted them good; they were the toughest point-for-point against everything AP4 or worse.
^Yeah this! Which is why the "power armor swarm" was a thing.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 04:09:10


Post by: BlaxicanX


 Insectum7 wrote:
A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
Or, you had weak opponents.

You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor.
And had bonkers special rules and wargear options to go with it. Amazingly, as soon as they were nerfed out of those special rules they went from "overpowered" to "okay but not great", with Wulfen and TWC becoming the core of the army's meta.

Edit C: Calling Grenades a "meme gimmick" sorta shows me the problem you might have been having. When your un-augmented basic troops can trash a Leman Russ tank in CC, that feels pretty "elite" to me.
This statement shows me the problem you're having now. That you think Leman Russ weren't considered one of the worst vehicles in the game, in a edition where vehicles were already notoriously weak (6th edition onward), implies that you're probably a casual player. I'm glad tactical marines have always been strong in your fluffy beerhammer garage games, but they were seeing little play in top tables from at least 5th edition to the end of 7th. Now you could argue that damage creep is the chief for why Marine fragility has historically been so prominent, and you may even be right. However it is delusion to try to assert that the basic marine statline was functional pre-8th.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 05:05:18


Post by: Insectum7


^"filthy casual" is all you got? Mkay.

I was Krak grenading Wave Serpents in the butt during 6th, tossing them into the tailpipes of Hellturkeys, and pinning Wraithknights in CC with ATSKNF.

During 6th and 7th editions Marines didn't feel tough because they were in company sized tank engagements, facing off against ridiculous amounts of anit-elite and antitank weaponry. Which, btw, Marines should die against anti-elite and anti-tank weaponry. That's totally fine with me.

If your attempted point is that the basic Marine statline didn't hold up well against 7th ed Scatbikes, Wraithknights and Warp Spider spam, the problem areas you should be addressing in that scenario are not the Marines. Just a hint.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 06:42:43


Post by: ZebioLizard2


We've returned to the anecdotal Tactical Marines are great arguments.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 07:29:06


Post by: tneva82


 Insectum7 wrote:

A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
B: You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor. Huh, look at that..


a) or your opponents sucked. You do know the game is for 2? Everybody can appear great when given even worse as comparison. Lot more likely than you being better than 99.99999999999999% players of 40k in the world. Do you realize how arrogant it sounds claiming you are so god-level player is?
b) he said silly rules and wargear requirement. Funny that. Grey hunters had those. Until they removed those and hey presto they became meh just like tactical marines. Funny that. Remove the only thing that makes 1W power armour usable and it becomes unusable.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 07:42:03


Post by: Blackie


 BlaxicanX wrote:


Marines being too fragile to do their jobs properly has been a consistent complaint for like 15 years, and when you look at the top marine lists of those times, you see that the basic marine was almost always left in the box in favor of some specialist unit that benefitted from absolutely bonkers special rules or wargear.



Marine players complained since decades despite their armies were never actually bad, sometimes even top tiers. I remember SM players complaining in 7th, when they were as oppressive as eldar. They still complain, so forgive me if I don't give much weight to that consisten complaint.

Power armour dudes were fine in classic 40k 3rd-7th, they were also fine in 8th when they were too cheap. It's termies that were a bit too fragile the moment GW started increasing average RoF for all armies, being only 1W and typically full or mostly melee.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 BlaxicanX wrote:
I'm glad tactical marines have always been strong in your fluffy beerhammer garage games, but they were seeing little play in top tables from at least 5th edition to the end of 7th. Now you could argue that damage creep is the chief for why Marine fragility has historically been so prominent, and you may even be right. However it is delusion to try to assert that the basic marine statline was functional pre-8th.


Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions. Probably not because of the stateline of tac dudes, but they were present. And by the way what armies did rely that much on their basic infantry troops to win games?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 08:23:34


Post by: Insectum7


 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
We've returned to the anecdotal Tactical Marines are great arguments.
Didn't say they were great, only that they were functional if used well. How many people did you know that bought minimum Tacs and then sat them in the back pew-pewing with a single heavy weapon? Were they leveraging ATSKNF, their S4 or their or Grenades when they did that? They were not, and they were wasting combat potential.

tneva82 wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:

A: Most people didn't know how to use Tacs, not my fault that I could.
B: You mention Grey Hunters, which happen to be 1W troop choices in Power Armor. Huh, look at that..


a) or your opponents sucked. You do know the game is for 2? Everybody can appear great when given even worse as comparison. Lot more likely than you being better than 99.99999999999999% players of 40k in the world. Do you realize how arrogant it sounds claiming you are so god-level player is?
b) he said silly rules and wargear requirement. Funny that. Grey hunters had those. Until they removed those and hey presto they became meh just like tactical marines. Funny that. Remove the only thing that makes 1W power armour usable and it becomes unusable.

a) quote me where I said I was "god level"
b) the point is that a t4, 3+ save, 1W model could be competitive. . . the next point is that if they struggled, it had less to do with their statline and more to do with the other bat-gak crazy stuff that was going on in editions 6 and 7.

The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.

 Blackie wrote:

Marine players complained since decades despite their armies were never actually bad, sometimes even top tiers.
Also this ^^^^^


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 09:36:04


Post by: Luke_Prowler


 Insectum7 wrote:
The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.


To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 10:34:49


Post by: Spoletta


2W marines were not related to the increase in lethality of the game, they were related to the new damage/wound design.

If you disagree with marines having 2 wounds, you disagree with the current design of damage/wound, which is honestly a fine opinion to have.

In the previous system, we had infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 2, MBT at 3, very heavy vehicles at 4. Anything above 4 was a Titanic model.

In this system, marines were fine at 1 wound, since they were infantry.

In the current system, we have infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 7,MBT at 12, heavy vehicles at 16, Titanic models from 18.

In this system you have more design space to differentiate between a "lighter" light vehicle like a sentinel and an "heavier" light vehicle like an ork buggy. One is 5 wounds the other is 9.

In the same way, you no longer have only one value for the infantry, but depending on how heavy is that infantry it can range from 1 to 4.
Light infantry at 1, medium infantry at 2, heavy infantry/bikers at 3, extremely heavy infantry at 4.

Marines are not light infantry, they are medium infantry so they are correctly values at 2 wounds.

It is a simple consequence of the new damage/wound system.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 10:41:12


Post by: AngryAngel80


If they took away multi wounds for marines I could already hear the rage from vanilla chaos players, never having had the extra wound. GW, don't be so cruel at least let them have it for a month before you take it away in a balance patch.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 11:21:19


Post by: Gadzilla666


 AngryAngel80 wrote:
If they took away multi wounds for marines I could already hear the rage from vanilla chaos players, never having had the extra wound. GW, don't be so cruel at least let them have it for a month before you take it away in a balance patch.

So, the "Traitor Legions" treatment, only even shorter. Don't give gw ideas.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 11:35:29


Post by: techsoldaten


 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
We've returned to the anecdotal Tactical Marines are great arguments.


Balance changes are merely points on a circle, FAQs simply push the game back to it's origin.

TACs are never very good and always the best there is. As are all units.

The Munitorum Field Manual is a lie.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 13:03:23


Post by: Sgt. Cortez


Well, I think 2wound Marines are fine and actually feel quite robust on the table. 3 wound gravis Melter and heavy Marines seem a little much though.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 13:57:18


Post by: Da Boss


Yeah it's ultimately the case that the playerbase generally agrees that marines should be 6 times tougher than guardsmen. I think it's a bit much for a game the size of 40K to be tracking wounds like that on a normal infantry model but I've been assured it's all fine, and I believe that it is for those people.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 14:00:38


Post by: Quasistellar


In practice it's incredibly easy to track wounds on multi-wound infantry, as you can only allocate wounds to one model until it's dead.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 15:05:05


Post by: catbarf


 Luke_Prowler wrote:
To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.


As a Guard player, 5th Ed gave me as many AP3 pie plate Leman Russes as I could cram into a list, and changed hellguns (hot-shot lasguns) from AP5 lasguns into AP3 lasguns. Overnight, the amount of AP3 I could fit in a list skyrocketed. There was also nothing stopping me from spamming plasma guns in all my infantry squads- which I had done and continued to do- and the new Orders system improved their effectiveness.

Over time there was an increase in AP3 weapons, even as GW also shuffled costs around to try to discourage things like the plasma spam I just mentioned. The problem was that when all the armies I faced were power armor except for the one Ork guy, I wasn't going to be taking flamers and grenade launchers, I was going to take plasma guns, and as many as I can fit. A take-all-comers list for me was an anti-Marine hard counter list, and making plasma guns more expensive just meant I took less other stuff.

Reducing the amount of AP3 available (the only reason I can fathom for hot-shots being AP3 is to specifically allow them to kill Marines) would be a decent first step, but the fact that everyone tailored against Sv3+ defensive profiles was a more systemic issue that could only be addressed by either increasing the diversity of armor profiles within the Marine army list, decreasing the proportion of Marine armies within the game space, and/or buoying up other factions to escape the playerbase being 75+% Marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 15:35:59


Post by: DominayTrix


Honestly it feels like the bigger issue is the covid release schedule has made GW's raging obsession over marines even more painful for the armies that don't have an update. 2W marines seem fine against updated armies, but man does it feel like an uphill battle for CSM/Tau. Spending 1CP to upgrade noise marines so they can 1 shot loyalist marines is incredibly satisfying while feeling like the right amount of "extra effort" required to obliterate elite infantry.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 15:38:56


Post by: Insectum7


 Luke_Prowler wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
The actual relevant point to the thread is that marines didn't feel "soft" because of basic rifles and light infantry. They felt soft because powerful weapons were handed out like candy, which brings us to the 9th edition solution of 2W, and how it largely boosts defensive capability against small arms, but the handed-out-like-candy anti-elite and anti-tank weapons will still pulverize them.


To focus on this, how would you define "handed out like crazy?" What would be a good example? To me, it seems like the problem is that regardless of how restrictive you get for special weapons, people will still take as many as they can.
In 5th edition access to high AP weapons blossomed wildly. From my own codex (Marines) the prime examples would be things like Sternguard(formerly Veterans) and Command Squads. In 4th ed, a Veterans squad was built just like a Tactical Squad, 1 Special 1 Heavy, but with the Veteran statline. For 5th, this unit became Sternguard, with access to not only AP3 bolters for every model, but the ability to take Combi-Plasma/Melta for every model. The unit went from 2 high AP weapons to 10. Combine that with Drop Pods and you enter the phase of alpha strike "erasure" units that can just appear on the table and annihilate stuff.

In addition to the problem of being units that concentrate high AP weapons, you now have a unit that devalues other units in the codex. "Why take Tacs when you can take Sternguard?" becomes a common question. The value of Tacs drops in comparison. Internal balance gets wonky.

Prior to 5th, there were some instances of units that could concentrate high AP, but these were often CC units, a.k.a. units that required more maneuvering to get into striking distance. Or units like Fire Dragons, lightly armored (4+) and requiring placement using on-table transports (rather than instantly appearing in the case of Drop Pods). Also Fire Dragons were still only half the potential shots per-model of plasma-Sternguard.

Edit:
Also 5th ed brought TLOS, making it waaaay easier to draw LOS between units. So more high AP, and less cover to avoid being shot by it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
2W marines were not related to the increase in lethality of the game, they were related to the new damage/wound design.

If you disagree with marines having 2 wounds, you disagree with the current design of damage/wound, which is honestly a fine opinion to have.

In the previous system, we had infantry at 1 wound, light vehicles at 2, MBT at 3, very heavy vehicles at 4. Anything above 4 was a Titanic model.
How many wounds did Carnifexes have? 5 or 6? Riptides were . . . I forget. 6?

If marines intended for 2w in the new paradigm, why did it take a whole edition to do it, and why oh why are CSM still on 1?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 16:28:36


Post by: Spoletta


Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 17:10:40


Post by: Insectum7


Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).
CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 17:56:03


Post by: fraser1191


I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.

I don't think I'd play my marines as much if they went back to 1W. They'd be too similar yet inferior to my Admech in my opinion

Same BS, same wounds but with the amount of ap they'd die at the same rate anyways.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:01:10


Post by: Void__Dragon


Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:04:17


Post by: Insectum7


 fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.
Fair, but two counterpoints:

1: Marines in the "fluff", novels etc have inflated over the years. Its called "bolter porn" for a reason.

2: Go ask an Eldar player about their experience with Banshees, and if they "feel" like Banshees should feel. Or if even Shuriken Catapults "feel" how they should feel.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Void__Dragon wrote:
Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.
Sure seems like you might be putting words in my mouth. Not to mention differentiation can be achieved in numerous ways, but the game has been squashed down do "damage input" and "damage output".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:21:58


Post by: Spoletta


 Insectum7 wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).
CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".


My point was about 6th and 7th, before those editions wounds for vehicles were not even a thing, and fexes were 4w in 6th and 7th.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:23:43


Post by: Insectum7


Spoletta wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
Fexes were 4 wounds, and marines have always been 2 wounds (at least the ones not meant for squatting).
CSM are for squatting then?

Pretty sure Carnifexes could get an extra wound at some point. 3rd-4th maybe? I dont have a nid codex from 5-7.

Edit: Confirmed Carnifexes could be 5w. Riptide was 5. Great Unclean one was 6.

@spoletta, it's not a terrible theory, but the issue is how much 2w marines harm the comparative efficacy all sorts of other infantry that has traditionally been able to inflict meaningful damage on them. Things like Scorpions, Genestealers, Banshees, and basic weapons like Shuriken Catapults and Gauss Flayers. And the idea that it should take 40 Guardsmen lasgun shots to down a Marine is just plain fan-fic silly, imo. Never mind the case where Marines are in cover for a 2+ save.

Like I've said before, there's a lot riding on GW for me when it comes to the Nid and Eldar codexes. They've already blasted Necrons further down the ranks of "elite".


My point was about 6th and 7th, before those editions wounds for vehicles were not even a thing, and fexes were 4w in 6th and 7th.
I believe there is a general consensus that those editions were "flawed".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:41:04


Post by: Ventus


 BlaxicanX wrote:

Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions.


All your comments make me think you don't actually remember what marine players brought in 7th. I'll remind you- it usually involved hundreds of points of individually bad but **free** units. It also tended to involve a lot of dogs. I played comp marines in 7th, and them being a powerful army didn't stop me from complaining about how terrible their rules were at every opportunity, because being stupid and anti-fun is a far worse sin than being ineffective. Power armour marines were only 'good' in the sense that they were essentially free. They got an organic transport with obsec that was more useful than the marines that brought it, and despite being on paper more expensive you only had to shell out for the combat squad. And the squad's only job was to cap points and die in place of something useful, being unfit for basically anything else.

A space marine that's effectively the price of a guardsman is probably good on the table but it's absolutely garbage for the game in every other respect.

This is par for the course even - Space Marines tend to be at least 'okay' in most editions, but actual bolter bitches have basically always been trash for pretty much the entire run of 40k's history. See also: CSM the unit.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 18:42:06


Post by: the_scotsman


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Amazing how people here can simultaneously ask for a more granular game while also whining when GW proceeds to make steps doing so by giving Marines an extra wound to differentiate them both from less elite troop choices like guardsmen as well as from other more durable models like Orkz or Necrons.


Call me crazy, but I dont think OP actually wants a more granular game. If I had to guess, this guy is an "Old Editions Best!!!" poster who hasnt played much/any of the current eds.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 20:52:56


Post by: Galas


I mean, heck, even Fantasy had more varied statlines inside the same army than 40k. You had elite units having more strenght or tougthenss and characters normally had outright better stats than normal stuff like empire captains with S4/T4.

And weapons there were much more simplified. Armor penetration was based in your strenght!

But 40k, the game of crazy space fantasy had for 90% of its existence, and with and infinitely more varied arsenals and weapons (From lasguns to tank plasma cannons), whole armies whose infantry had literally 2-3 profiles across the faction.

How would not be easy to just tailor agaisnt whole armies?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 21:37:32


Post by: Luke_Prowler


I'm not sure if Space Marines having a second wound even makes the game more granular anyway, considering it effected what is the most common stat line used across many factions. It's largely shifting the furniture.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 22:09:22


Post by: Insectum7


 Galas wrote:
I mean, heck, even Fantasy had more varied statlines inside the same army than 40k. You had elite units having more strenght or tougthenss and characters normally had outright better stats than normal stuff like empire captains with S4/T4.

And weapons there were much more simplified. Armor penetration was based in your strenght!

But 40k, the game of crazy space fantasy had for 90% of its existence, and with and infinitely more varied arsenals and weapons (From lasguns to tank plasma cannons), whole armies whose infantry had literally 2-3 profiles across the faction.

How would not be easy to just tailor agaisnt whole armies?
So I've never played Fantasy, so I couldn't really be sure, but one theory in response to what you're saying is that the weapons regularly deployed in 40k are far more powerful than those of Fantasy. Like a S8 in 40k might be 4 times as powerful as a S8 in 40k. Covering a higher range of power with the same digits means that the range on the lower end gets squashed.

But again, theres more ways to differentiate between models than toughness, wounds, save etc. And there are previous editions have managed it pretty well, even when using vastly different philosophies.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/11 22:58:11


Post by: Galas


I'm saying that 40k was always designed to be extremely easy to just "solve", offensively speaking.

You had a ton of variety in your weapon options and profiles but not really that much variety in your defensive profiles. I'm not talking about other stuff like making armeis play different with morale etc...

But in 40k, for all editions, in general, your only relevant targets would be:
-Cheap crap to kill hordes (or templates or flamers or stuff that ignores cover but really it wasn't that neccesary to go full spec to kill cheap light infantry)
-Kill marines
-Kill vehicles (And most armies had one weapon profile that did excel at that job)

I can understand your point insectium. "As most guns are extremely deadly most infantry is the same because they nearly all die the same to them". At the end of the day when a leman russ battle cannon is shotting at you, does it really matteer if you are in power armour or IG infantry? You are gonna be blasted anyway.

But at the same time I believe thats just... too boring. But as I said, I'm more of a light walkers, infantry and bikers guy. I really don't... like vehicles that much. (Thats why I played fantasy more, more relevance for the lowly grunts. Even a dragon is not that far in power from a knight than a heavy tank from a futuristic soldier)

EDIT: I'll add that I'm talking 5th onward. I never played 1-4, but I played fantasy and MESBG much more.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 02:04:57


Post by: fraser1191


 Insectum7 wrote:
 fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.
Fair, but two counterpoints:

1: Marines in the "fluff", novels etc have inflated over the years. Its called "bolter porn" for a reason.

2: Go ask an Eldar player about their experience with Banshees, and if they "feel" like Banshees should feel. Or if even Shuriken Catapults "feel" how they should feel.


If marines have been "over exaggerated" for years wouldn't that now be the norm or general idea making them what they are now?

For what it's worth I don't think Banshees are very immersive, same with shurikens.
When I saw the new rules back when the new kit came out I wasn't too impressed. If there are newer rules I don't know them, but I also haven't been looking.

But this isn't about Banshees and my answer is that they're pretty meh in the immersion corner anyway.

So what's your point? Because Banshees a unit I assume we both agree could use some lovin is underwhelming and therefore marines should also be?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 05:07:30


Post by: Apple fox


I feel that 2w marines are fine, but that the lack of faction identity for so many other factions has made it feel off.
As well as other elites being left rather outclassed in defence and marines taking so much identity from other factions.

I don’t think it feels good now.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 07:50:22


Post by: Blackie


 Ventus wrote:
 BlaxicanX wrote:

Even in 7th power armour based SM armies were much more competitive than the vast majority of the other factions.


All your comments make me think you don't actually remember what marine players brought in 7th. I'll remind you- it usually involved hundreds of points of individually bad but **free** units. It also tended to involve a lot of dogs. I played comp marines in 7th, and them being a powerful army didn't stop me from complaining about how terrible their rules were at every opportunity, because being stupid and anti-fun is a far worse sin than being ineffective. Power armour marines were only 'good' in the sense that they were essentially free. They got an organic transport with obsec that was more useful than the marines that brought it, and despite being on paper more expensive you only had to shell out for the combat squad. And the squad's only job was to cap points and die in place of something useful, being unfit for basically anything else.

A space marine that's effectively the price of a guardsman is probably good on the table but it's absolutely garbage for the game in every other respect.

This is par for the course even - Space Marines tend to be at least 'okay' in most editions, but actual bolter bitches have basically always been trash for pretty much the entire run of 40k's history. See also: CSM the unit.


There weren't just vanilla marines with free stuff in 7th. Vanilla marines had other powerful tools: grav spam, invisibility, the skyhammer formation, meltas out of drop pods, etc...

Then we had immortal Dark Angels bikes with re-rollable invuln saves that regularly competed with the top tiers, we had Space Wolves with lots of wulfen and thunderwolves that regularly competed with the top tiers.

So no, it wasn't just marines with free vehicles in 7th.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 08:10:11


Post by: Spoletta


Marines were in 6th/7th what Eldar were in 8th.

Crappy codici with that one or two interactions or units that if spammed makes for a competitive list.

I distinctly remember CWE players complaining about being one trick Alaitoc flyer spammers.
Same for marines pre 8th. Out of multiple codexes you could count on your hands the number of units they used. And you would have many fingers to spare.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 08:39:54


Post by: Blackie


Well, most of the armies had just a handful of builds/models that were competitive in 7th. Even eldar had like 8-9 OP unit and a lot of trash stuff. 7th eldar lists all looked very similar.

Tau were also relying on the same limited array of models. Dark eldar were on the same boat, they could be ok by spamming venoms, reavers , ravagers/flyers and coven stuff while half codex was flat out unplayable.

Tyranids used to spam hive tyrants, etc...

SM had way more decent builds that the majority of the other factions. That shouldn't be surprising considering that they had a huge roster and they've always been GW's posterboys. Problem with 7th is that lack of FAQ made OP lists OP for almost the entire edition. That's why a lot of stuff that was actually good was considered bad, it couldn't compete with the cheesiest things but was enough to blast a lot of other existing stuff. SM roster had several units that fell in that category, even if they don't fit their most OP list with 300 points of free stuff. Not everyone played eldar or tau.

When I played SW, instead of the other two armies I had (orks, dark eldar) I always had the feeling that I was playing a different game. They had tons of powerful tools and combinations that worked compared to the other factions, and I didn't get access to a lot of OP stuff that vanilla marines had.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:07:55


Post by: Insectum7


 Galas wrote:
I'm saying that 40k was always designed to be extremely easy to just "solve", offensively speaking.

You had a ton of variety in your weapon options and profiles but not really that much variety in your defensive profiles. I'm not talking about other stuff like making armeis play different with morale etc...

But in 40k, for all editions, in general, your only relevant targets would be:
-Cheap crap to kill hordes (or templates or flamers or stuff that ignores cover but really it wasn't that neccesary to go full spec to kill cheap light infantry)
-Kill marines
-Kill vehicles (And most armies had one weapon profile that did excel at that job)

I can understand your point insectium. "As most guns are extremely deadly most infantry is the same because they nearly all die the same to them". At the end of the day when a leman russ battle cannon is shotting at you, does it really matteer if you are in power armour or IG infantry? You are gonna be blasted anyway.

But at the same time I believe thats just... too boring. But as I said, I'm more of a light walkers, infantry and bikers guy. I really don't... like vehicles that much. (Thats why I played fantasy more, more relevance for the lowly grunts. Even a dragon is not that far in power from a knight than a heavy tank from a futuristic soldier)

EDIT: I'll add that I'm talking 5th onward. I never played 1-4, but I played fantasy and MESBG much more.


Nice post Galas^ Let me see if I can meet it appropriately.

1: Part of the "shooting at all infantry feels the same" is a huuuge problem of the post 8th design paradigm, of it's own making. As noted, in earlier editions there were dedicated anti-horde weapons that were very effective at defeating horde-type infantry. This has to do with the earlier AP system combined with actual Template and Blast weapons. When those combined with both the Morale and the Sweeping Advance mechanics, target "defensive profiles" were more diverse. Flamers just didn't work on Marines the way they worked against GEQ, for example, and Sweeping Advance didn't work at all. BUT, notably, within the same paradigm, if a GEQ squad actually got the drop on a Marine squad and fired a solid volley of Lasguns into them, they could be rewarded with a kill or two. I think that last bit is really important, you don't want your basic guys, even as Guardsmen, to feel so totally useless.

2: In 8th, the proposed solution to killing GEQ has just been MOAR bullets. Twin linked weapons shoot double the number of shots now. The new Primaris tanks are festooned with low strength, high rate of fire weapons. Morale is just not as devastating (particularly the Sweeping Advance thing is gone). And the new AP system has hurt Marines in particular since there are a number of high-volume-of-fire weapons that in the prior editions would have left Marines with a 3+ save, where as now they get pinged to a 4+ and sometimes 5+ (especially in the case of the Intercessor AP -2 Bolt Rifle capacity). At the same time the new paradigm has left GEQ with a save against weapons that formerly punched right through their armor, and they even get a save vs. things like Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannons (crazytown, imo). Heck, a Heavy Bolter even has the same to-wound roll against a Space Marine and Guardsmen, further squishing the two together, resulting in one of the most jarring differences between pre and post 8th ed.

Pre 8th, Heavy Bolter (BS agnostic) vs.
Marine 3x .666 x .333 = .6 w
Guardsmen 3 x .83 = 2.49 w

Post 8th Heavy Bolter (BS agnostic) vs.
Marine 3x .666 x .5 = .999 w
Guardsmen 3x .666 x .83 = 1.65 w

The relationship between the two profiles has become really squashed. A Space Marine was 4X as tough vs. a Heavy Bolter in pre-8th, vs. not even twice as tough in post 8th. In addition, in the case of the Heavy Bolter, the additional Wound for SM doesn't even address this, as the HB now does 2W!

Now, there are faults with the old system, it's true. One of the related issues was that Marines in cover didn't get ANY benefit against low AP weapons, which is a pretty glaring issue. But gosh, the old system sure made the defensive profiles count for a lot more, with fewer mechanics.

But more to my main issue. 2W doesn't really help Space Marines against many of these mid-strength or high strength weapons that are aimed at them, and therefore doesn't vastly improve the feeling of defensive-stat-homogeny that you mention in relationship to high powered weapons. Yes, a D3D Battlecannon will roll a 1 sometimes for Damage, but 2/3 of the time the Space Marine dies anywyas. Autocannons did 2D already, and the Guardsman still gets a save against it. But what 2W REALLY punishes is the basic rifles and CC attacks of every other infantry out there, Space Marines included. And you know how people (even in this thread) complain/ed about "bolters being useless"? Well, 2W Space Marines also make Bolters feel more useless, once again, while also taking a dump on everyone else's infantry at the same time.


Related, but one step abstracted:
When you say that there's an issue of "too boring" in relation to engaging defensive profiles with high power ranged weapons. I would say that that's also an issue with the current design paridigm, as mechanically the "proper" way to deal with both targets is often "moar bullets". But in contrast, the previous system using Flamers and Sweeping Advances to get a GEQ infantry, was (personal opinion), fething fun! Being forced to close with the enemy, laying templates down and seeing them pop out of existence with little rolling (no to-hit, no saves), and Sweeping Advancing multiple squads at once was gloriously rewarding from a gameplay experience perspective. In a paradigm like that, instead of just shooting MOAR bullets, the reward was in closing with the opponent and really giving it to them in CQB. Different targets, and using not just different weapons but more meaningfully different tactics.





2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:11:54


Post by: Platuan4th


 Insectum7 wrote:
So I've never played Fantasy, so I couldn't really be sure, but one theory in response to what you're saying is that the weapons regularly deployed in 40k are far more powerful than those of Fantasy. Like a S8 in 40k might be 4 times as powerful as a S8 in 40k. Covering a higher range of power with the same digits means that the range on the lower end gets squashed.



That theory is kind of torpedoed out of the water by the fact that GW has suggested in earlier editions to field Fantasy armies as Feral World armies, up to and including the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex having an Appendix army that is literally just a Warhammer Fantasy army.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:17:24


Post by: Insectum7


 fraser1191 wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 fraser1191 wrote:
I dunno man, I've been playing against my friends with marines for years and it wasn't till they had 2W that they themselves said they "feel" like marines now. So it's not only about my immersion but for my opponents as well.
Fair, but two counterpoints:

1: Marines in the "fluff", novels etc have inflated over the years. Its called "bolter porn" for a reason.

2: Go ask an Eldar player about their experience with Banshees, and if they "feel" like Banshees should feel. Or if even Shuriken Catapults "feel" how they should feel.

If marines have been "over exaggerated" for years wouldn't that now be the norm or general idea making them what they are now?

Well what if you were a fan of a different faction? A faction whose elite infantry, in earlier times, could go toe to toe with Marines in a meaningful way? Just "sucks to be you?" Like, even in the novels (I haven't read many) I wonder how many Guardsman it takes to take down a Marine with Lasguns. What's your take? Atm Guardsman average a single Marine kill with no fewer than 40(!) shots. That seems ludicrous to me. Game-table wise, is that a rewarding experience for the Guardsman player?

 fraser1191 wrote:
For what it's worth I don't think Banshees are very immersive, same with shurikens.
When I saw the new rules back when the new kit came out I wasn't too impressed. If there are newer rules I don't know them, but I also haven't been looking.

But this isn't about Banshees and my answer is that they're pretty meh in the immersion corner anyway.

So what's your point? Because Banshees a unit I assume we both agree could use some lovin is underwhelming and therefore marines should also be?
Every core infantry unit is hit hard with 2w Marines. Even Marines, since their Bolters only do 1w. Remember all that complaining about "bolters feel useless"? Well it's that, except across the board for basic infantry of all factions.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:18:22


Post by: Nurglitch


Given how many people have worked on both over the years, I'm sure the answer is comfortably both 'yes,' and 'no,' and 'whatever floats your boat.'


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:18:40


Post by: Insectum7


 Platuan4th wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
So I've never played Fantasy, so I couldn't really be sure, but one theory in response to what you're saying is that the weapons regularly deployed in 40k are far more powerful than those of Fantasy. Like a S8 in 40k might be 4 times as powerful as a S8 in 40k. Covering a higher range of power with the same digits means that the range on the lower end gets squashed.



That theory is kind of torpedoed out of the water by the fact that GW has suggested in earlier editions to field Fantasy armies as Feral World armies, up to and including the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex having an Appendix army that is literally just a Warhammer Fantasy army.
Are they still cross-playable like that? My understanding is that AoS and 40K are rather diverged mechanically these days.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:45:20


Post by: Platuan4th


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Platuan4th wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
So I've never played Fantasy, so I couldn't really be sure, but one theory in response to what you're saying is that the weapons regularly deployed in 40k are far more powerful than those of Fantasy. Like a S8 in 40k might be 4 times as powerful as a S8 in 40k. Covering a higher range of power with the same digits means that the range on the lower end gets squashed.



That theory is kind of torpedoed out of the water by the fact that GW has suggested in earlier editions to field Fantasy armies as Feral World armies, up to and including the 2nd Ed Chaos Codex having an Appendix army that is literally just a Warhammer Fantasy army.
Are they still cross-playable like that? My understanding is that AoS and 40K are rather diverged mechanically these days.


Not as diverged as you'd believe. There's some minutiae differences, but for actually playing the game overall, the major difference mechanically is the actual wounding mechanics(chart in 40K vs flat result in AoS). The layout may look different, but you could very easily convert most of the stats from one into the style of the other. They're much closer rules-wise now than they were during the 40K 3-7 and the Fantasy 6-8 years despite still having the same statline, hence the claims that AOS is used as a test bed for upcoming 40K rules(many changes in AOS preceded the same or similar rules showing up in 40K).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 19:53:08


Post by: Insectum7


^A difference in wounding mechanic seems particularly salient. What's the difference?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 20:20:05


Post by: Spoletta


There are no S and T stats in AoS.

Instead weapons have a flat wounding mechanic, similar to BS.

Phoenix guards for example wound on 3+. Period.

Other differences are that there is no WS and BS. Instead the roll needed to hit is a stat of the weapon. Same for the attacks in melee. I honestly prefer them like this.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 20:21:41


Post by: Insectum7


Spoletta wrote:
Marines were in 6th/7th what Eldar were in 8th.

Crappy codici with that one or two interactions or units that if spammed makes for a competitive list.

I distinctly remember CWE players complaining about being one trick Alaitoc flyer spammers.
Same for marines pre 8th. Out of multiple codexes you could count on your hands the number of units they used. And you would have many fingers to spare.
Given that the Gladius formation required no fewer than 5 units to start taking the three potential free transports that were available, and that's only one of the competitive builds from one of the books, I'm gonna say that's not really accurate. Also, is a SM army that demands Tactical, Assault and Devastator squads really "spammy" when that's literally 80% of the chapter makeup? I sorta think it was one of the more "appropriate" builds for SM, even if the formation (edition, really) was crazy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
There are no S and T stats in AoS.

Instead weapons have a flat wounding mechanic, similar to BS.

Phoenix guards for example wound on 3+. Period.

Other differences are that there is no WS and BS. Instead the roll needed to hit is a stat of the weapon. Same for the attacks in melee. I honestly prefer them like this.
That's divergent enough for me to say that the systems aren't really comparable.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/12 23:46:51


Post by: Platuan4th


 Insectum7 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
There are no S and T stats in AoS.

Instead weapons have a flat wounding mechanic, similar to BS.

Phoenix guards for example wound on 3+. Period.

Other differences are that there is no WS and BS. Instead the roll needed to hit is a stat of the weapon. Same for the attacks in melee. I honestly prefer them like this.
That's divergent enough for me to say that the systems aren't really comparable.


Having a static To Hit built into the weapon's stat is literally the same has having static WS/BS, it's just on a different part of the unit entry. Again, the only real salient difference is how wounding works and that's an easy enough "fix" if you're really looking to play the systems together.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 00:03:33


Post by: Insectum7


 Platuan4th wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
There are no S and T stats in AoS.

Instead weapons have a flat wounding mechanic, similar to BS.

Phoenix guards for example wound on 3+. Period.

Other differences are that there is no WS and BS. Instead the roll needed to hit is a stat of the weapon. Same for the attacks in melee. I honestly prefer them like this.
That's divergent enough for me to say that the systems aren't really comparable.


Having a static To Hit built into the weapon's stat is literally the same has having static WS/BS, it's just on a different part of the unit entry. Again, the only real salient difference is how wounding works and that's an easy enough "fix" if you're really looking to play the systems together.
The lack of S and T and the wound mechanics is the big deal. The original conjecture is that the two systems might be using a different wounding "scale".

Much less relevant is the to-hit thing, although does any unit use the same weapons as a different unit? In 40K you have a Marine with Bolt Pistol hitting on 3+, a Captain hitting with same on 2+ and a Guardsman hitting on 4+, possibly even a cultist hitting on 5+?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 00:11:02


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Yeah but the fixed To Wound is not a good idea.

There should be a difference between a Gretchin and a Great Unclean One. One of them should be harder to damage than the other.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 10:32:23


Post by: Dysartes


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah but the fixed To Wound is not a good idea.

There should be a difference between a Gretchin and a Great Unclean One. One of them should be harder to damage than the other.

I tend to argue the same is true on the to-hit side of things - definitely in melee, and ideally at range, too.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 11:13:15


Post by: Platuan4th


 Insectum7 wrote:
The original conjecture is that the two systems might be using a different wounding "scale".


No, the original conjecture was that Strength X in one system was different than that same Strength X in another and the evidence we have shows GW doesn't think it is.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 11:45:01


Post by: Blackie


 Dysartes wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah but the fixed To Wound is not a good idea.

There should be a difference between a Gretchin and a Great Unclean One. One of them should be harder to damage than the other.

I tend to argue the same is true on the to-hit side of things - definitely in melee, and ideally at range, too.


Agree. BS/WS vs an Evasion stat, similarly to how S and T work together, could be a great idea if properly developed. Hitting a land raider or a gretchin shouldn't be equally possible.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 13:00:47


Post by: Spoletta


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Platuan4th wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
There are no S and T stats in AoS.

Instead weapons have a flat wounding mechanic, similar to BS.

Phoenix guards for example wound on 3+. Period.

Other differences are that there is no WS and BS. Instead the roll needed to hit is a stat of the weapon. Same for the attacks in melee. I honestly prefer them like this.
That's divergent enough for me to say that the systems aren't really comparable.


Having a static To Hit built into the weapon's stat is literally the same has having static WS/BS, it's just on a different part of the unit entry. Again, the only real salient difference is how wounding works and that's an easy enough "fix" if you're really looking to play the systems together.
The lack of S and T and the wound mechanics is the big deal. The original conjecture is that the two systems might be using a different wounding "scale".

Much less relevant is the to-hit thing, although does any unit use the same weapons as a different unit? In 40K you have a Marine with Bolt Pistol hitting on 3+, a Captain hitting with same on 2+ and a Guardsman hitting on 4+, possibly even a cultist hitting on 5+?


All weapons in AoS are bespoken.
The concept of "Standard" weapons used by multiple models doesn't exist.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 13:19:38


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Well there are "swords" and the like.

A Sword on a Steam Tank Commander hits on a 5+. A Sword on a Freeguild Guard hits on a 4+, for example (from the same army list).

Conversely the strength and toughness thing doesn't matter that much, really.

40k is already most of the way there (everything can wound everything and it is just a matter of a few pips on the dice). Saves and Wound Count are equally capable of representing a unit's durability. In some ways I respect AoS for this, because it models durability pretty well without the extra step of 40k. I mean heck, every time I mention the Baneblade being less durable than the Russ people are like "it has more wounds so it's not". Ergo, wound count *alone* can be a measure of durability.

But it is a bit jarring for normal 40kers.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 13:23:42


Post by: Kanluwen


 Blackie wrote:
 Dysartes wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah but the fixed To Wound is not a good idea.

There should be a difference between a Gretchin and a Great Unclean One. One of them should be harder to damage than the other.

I tend to argue the same is true on the to-hit side of things - definitely in melee, and ideally at range, too.


Agree. BS/WS vs an Evasion stat, similarly to how S and T work together, could be a great idea if properly developed. Hitting a land raider or a gretchin shouldn't be equally possible.

I'm not a fan of an "Evasion" stat, but something I've been workshopping lately is adding a caveat to the native rolls of 2+ or 6+ bits for hitting and wounding.

For example: A unit that is hitting on 2+, before any modifiers, should get some kind of bonus. It's an extremely accurate unit, right? Whether that be an "ignore the first negative modifier" to their hit rolls or being able to ignore Look Out Sir or whatnot, it could be an interesting addition.

The Wounding bit...that one feels the easiest to make it more interesting.
Wounding on a 6+ before modifiers? Subtract 1 from the damage dealt, to a minimum of 0 damage being dealt. This does not however block out effects that trigger on that 6+ like Mortal Wounds that are specific v a certain enemy type or the like.
Wounding on a 2+ before modifiers? Add 1 to the damage being dealt. This does not apply to Mortal Wounds inflicted as part of the roll. Doubling out someone's Toughness should have some kind of perk but it doesn't need to be flat MWs or just rolling better.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 15:09:29


Post by: Dudeface


 Kanluwen wrote:
 Blackie wrote:
 Dysartes wrote:
 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Yeah but the fixed To Wound is not a good idea.

There should be a difference between a Gretchin and a Great Unclean One. One of them should be harder to damage than the other.

I tend to argue the same is true on the to-hit side of things - definitely in melee, and ideally at range, too.


Agree. BS/WS vs an Evasion stat, similarly to how S and T work together, could be a great idea if properly developed. Hitting a land raider or a gretchin shouldn't be equally possible.

I'm not a fan of an "Evasion" stat, but something I've been workshopping lately is adding a caveat to the native rolls of 2+ or 6+ bits for hitting and wounding.

For example: A unit that is hitting on 2+, before any modifiers, should get some kind of bonus. It's an extremely accurate unit, right? Whether that be an "ignore the first negative modifier" to their hit rolls or being able to ignore Look Out Sir or whatnot, it could be an interesting addition.

The Wounding bit...that one feels the easiest to make it more interesting.
Wounding on a 6+ before modifiers? Subtract 1 from the damage dealt, to a minimum of 0 damage being dealt. This does not however block out effects that trigger on that 6+ like Mortal Wounds that are specific v a certain enemy type or the like.
Wounding on a 2+ before modifiers? Add 1 to the damage being dealt. This does not apply to Mortal Wounds inflicted as part of the roll. Doubling out someone's Toughness should have some kind of perk but it doesn't need to be flat MWs or just rolling better.


My initial thoughts here are what is possibly wounding on a natural 6 that isn't D1? the only time it ever comes into relevance is small arms into vehicles etc. which doesn't happen that often anyway in my experience and wounding on a natural 6 is enough of a punishment. I'm not against your suggestions in concept but I just feel these scenarios are either paid for already in the profile in terms of hitting on 2's or are already enough of a rare reward/punishment in terms of the wound rolls. If you want to dissuade people shooting bolters at knights I think you'll need a more robust change.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/13 15:25:53


Post by: Insectum7


 Platuan4th wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
The original conjecture is that the two systems might be using a different wounding "scale".


No, the original conjecture was that Strength X in one system was different than that same Strength X in another and the evidence we have shows GW doesn't think it is.
They appear to use totally different systems, so I'm inclined to say there's enough room for a divergence of scale. It's a tangential topic though, so I'm not really concerned about it's relation to 2w SM.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/14 08:10:39


Post by: Blackie


 Kanluwen wrote:

I'm not a fan of an "Evasion" stat, but something I've been workshopping lately is adding a caveat to the native rolls of 2+ or 6+ bits for hitting and wounding.


The point of an Evasion stat is that things aren't equally easy/hard to hit, due to their speed, dimensions and reflexes. Just like things aren't equally easy/hard to wound.

A tiny gretchins should be harder to hit than a massive land raider, and yet both BS and WS hit on the same value against those opposite kinds of targets. GW just decided to compensate that with different mechanics, like -1 to hit or invulns, instead of introducing a mechanic that was similar to the S vs T system. Which is fine, except very few units have rules that grant those benefits and for the vast majority of targets there's a flat to hit value, regardless of the units' dimensions, speed and reflexes.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/14 09:27:52


Post by: ccs


 Insectum7 wrote:
Every core infantry unit is hit hard with 2w Marines. Even Marines, since their Bolters only do 1w. Remember all that complaining about "bolters feel useless"? Well it's that, except across the board for basic infantry of all factions.


I can't say that I've noticed this much with my Necrons.
Within my core infantry my space-robot skelies have plenty of shots with enough AP &/or plenty of melee attacks with plenty+ of AP to get the job done.
I carve through 2w SMs just fine.
And with this recent Balance update? Now I have more core.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/14 23:40:20


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:

When you say that there's an issue of "too boring" in relation to engaging defensive profiles with high power ranged weapons. I would say that that's also an issue with the current design paridigm, as mechanically the "proper" way to deal with both targets is often "moar bullets". But in contrast, the previous system using Flamers and Sweeping Advances to get a GEQ infantry, was (personal opinion), fething fun! B



in theory: fine.

In practice: it was INCREDIBLY easy to scythe down MEQ infantry with both weight of attacks (e.g. ork boyz) and spammed good AP weaponry like plasma and pie plates, while the inevitable "everyone has an easy way to negate LD in the strategy layer" like a blobbed up platoon with a...whatever 30pt priest? made the whole 'use sweeping advances to clear out light infantry' just nonsense.

In actuality, people just used "moar bullets" (e.g. paskisher) to deal with GEQ and "moar bullets/spammed low AP" (lasplas spam, kan wall, etc) to destroy MEQs.

There's a reason everything just kind of glorbed into endless parking lot lists in 5e and monster spam/deathstar lists in 7e when vehicles got hull point'd out of existence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just so we're clear on the "scot take" here:

I agree older editions were more fun if you have 2 people uninterested in breaking the game/playing for advantage. Like if you just used dice to randomly determine each unit in each list then either 4th or 5th would be great fun.

9th and 8th do a vastly better job of curbing the hideously imbalanced gak games TFGs could subject people to in older editions.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 01:42:38


Post by: Unit1126PLL


I have seen you explain the op gak from 5-7, but can you share your memories of what you had problems with in 4th?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 02:18:56


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:

When you say that there's an issue of "too boring" in relation to engaging defensive profiles with high power ranged weapons. I would say that that's also an issue with the current design paridigm, as mechanically the "proper" way to deal with both targets is often "moar bullets". But in contrast, the previous system using Flamers and Sweeping Advances to get a GEQ infantry, was (personal opinion), fething fun! B



in theory: fine.

In practice: it was INCREDIBLY easy to scythe down MEQ infantry with both weight of attacks (e.g. ork boyz) and spammed good AP weaponry like plasma and pie plates, while the inevitable "everyone has an easy way to negate LD in the strategy layer" like a blobbed up platoon with a...whatever 30pt priest? made the whole 'use sweeping advances to clear out light infantry' just nonsense.

In actuality, people just used "moar bullets" (e.g. paskisher) to deal with GEQ and "moar bullets/spammed low AP" (lasplas spam, kan wall, etc) to destroy MEQs.

There's a reason everything just kind of glorbed into endless parking lot lists in 5e and monster spam/deathstar lists in 7e when vehicles got hull point'd out of existence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just so we're clear on the "scot take" here:

I agree older editions were more fun if you have 2 people uninterested in breaking the game/playing for advantage. Like if you just used dice to randomly determine each unit in each list then either 4th or 5th would be great fun.

9th and 8th do a vastly better job of curbing the hideously imbalanced gak games TFGs could subject people to in older editions.
I do believe you're thinking about 5th onward, which were primo moar-bullets inflation AND more LOS at the same time. "paskisher" gives it away, I think.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 02:23:35


Post by: the_scotsman


lol. I straight up forgot you guys' particular Grog of Choice is 4th edition, which I played maybe 3 games of before 5e dropped.

Sure, whatever, it's probably the best one ever, perfect in every way and the unwashed idiot masses just cant recognize its genius.

Who cares. Honestly, I'm a bit sick of this gak, i'm gonna just put the Old Ed Best Ed crew on block for a few weeks.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 02:35:43


Post by: Unit1126PLL


As far as answering a genuine question goes, I am disappointed.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 02:37:29


Post by: Nevelon


I only played a handful of games of 4th (no FLGS), but wasn’t invulnerable skimmer spam the cheese of the day?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 02:48:20


Post by: Insectum7


ccs wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Every core infantry unit is hit hard with 2w Marines. Even Marines, since their Bolters only do 1w. Remember all that complaining about "bolters feel useless"? Well it's that, except across the board for basic infantry of all factions.


I can't say that I've noticed this much with my Necrons.
Within my core infantry my space-robot skelies have plenty of shots with enough AP &/or plenty of melee attacks with plenty+ of AP to get the job done.
I carve through 2w SMs just fine.
And with this recent Balance update? Now I have more core.
When talking about the Necron Warrior I'd say that comes down primarily to two things. The first is that Warriors have dropped in value in comparison to SM over the years, so you can field more in comparisson. The second is that you have higher AP guns now. Your core unit has increased in num-shots (because ^num-bodies) and AP in relation to Marines. Individually though, they've still lost ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 the_scotsman wrote:
lol. I straight up forgot you guys' particular Grog of Choice is 4th edition, which I played maybe 3 games of before 5e dropped.

Sure, whatever, it's probably the best one ever, perfect in every way and the unwashed idiot masses just cant recognize its genius.

Who cares. Honestly, I'm a bit sick of this gak, i'm gonna just put the Old Ed Best Ed crew on block for a few weeks.
Well that's a shame.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 03:29:21


Post by: ZebioLizard2


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I have seen you explain the op gak from 5-7, but can you share your memories of what you had problems with in 4th?
A lot of core rules made for some strange interactions.. Nearly all of them involve skimmers in some form. You had the classic Tau Fish of Fury which allowed for Tau to use their transports to block for their ranged units but then fire back with impunity on their turn. 4th edition Eldar Skimmers were a nightmare at the time with some combination of wargear that made them nearly unkillable compared to any other armor ingame.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 03:37:50


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 04:15:14


Post by: ccs


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal


It's been many years since my last game of 4th. Refresh my memory as to what this supposedly unkillable skimmer was.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 04:53:40


Post by: Insectum7


ccs wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, I have mentioned before the 'unkillable skimmers' problem, but that has very little to do with the price of tea in China when people are talking about 40k lethality.

"Lethality has always been high!"
"What about 4th?"
"Well in 4th you couldn't kill certain skimmers!"

...

If the problem is "a class of unit is overpoweringly durable" then it probably wasn't too lethal


It's been many years since my last game of 4th. Refresh my memory as to what this supposedly unkillable skimmer was.
Off the top of my head it was something like Penetrating hits got reduced to Glances, and then a wargear upgrade forced the attacking player to roll 2D6 for the damage effect, but only the lowest die roll took effect, (which likely meant Shaken or Stunned), and then Eldar also had a bit of wargear (Spirit Stones?) which allowed them to ignore the effects on Shaken/Stumned on a 4+. I'm sure that's not entirely accurate, but it was something like that.

There were some other interesting skimmer rules, like they didn't block LOS, and you could only hit them on a 6 in CC, those weren't really problem areas though. The Eldar Super-serpent or whatever was a bit of a pain, but very specific.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 08:08:01


Post by: Da Boss


Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.

It wasn't super fun. Every edition has had it's problems, but I certainly agree that 4e's problem wasn't lethality. Just the usual codex merry go round that left some armies in the cold and others powered up beyond belief. But that's 40K, isn't it? Never been any different as long as I've been involved.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 12:29:18


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Basically correct.

Any skimmer that moved more than 6" from it's starting location could only be glanced. The glancing hits table was fairly generous (vehicles only destroyed on a 6). Some Eldar skimmers could get Holofields, which forced the attacker to roll 2d6 and pick the lowest for damage.

Spirit Stones turned Stunned (can't move or shoot) into Shaken (can't shoot) which meant you couldn't stop the skimmer from moving without rolling a 5 (immobilized) as your lowest dice.

Now, immobilizing a moving skimmer destroyed it, and some weapons (mostly Forge World AA mounts) ignored the *Skimmers Moving Fast* rule, so it wasn't AS nightmarish, but not everyone had access to those weapons and if you relied entirely on melee, good luck catching the skimmer.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 12:40:53


Post by: Da Boss


As I remember, it was luckily not that common to face those but I tended to run into at least one per tournament, and it was always the toughest fight.

But as I say, I see that more as an Eldar codex issue, not a core rules issue. The problems in 40K are always and have always primarily been codex issues, with the possible exception of 6/7e where the game started to collapse under the weight of it's own core rules bloat.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 12:45:00


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Right, and I admit that the Holofields wargear was a problem in 4th.

But in general, the overall lethality of the edition was quite low, and you didn't get this "Marines melt like plastic under a blowtorch" effect, even though they had one wound.

So to wrap it back around to the point of the thread, it is possible to have 1w Marines feel like Marines, but there were two problems with that:

1) their prevalence in the meta (even in 4th) meant that people erred on taking Marine-splatting weaponry where available. (It just wasn't that available compared to later. But plasma guns trumped Flamers, and Multi-Lasers trumped Heavy bolters since wounding Marines on 2s was better than penetrating 4+ armor or worse)

2) the escalating lethality of subsequent editions meant that Marine-splatting weaponry was EVERYWHERE and they increasingly began to get scooped off the table in droves.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 14:49:14


Post by: Jidmah


 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.


Hilariously, when searching for 4th edition problems on google, I found a post by you, here on dakka, saying essentially the same during 4th edition.

The other obvious problem besides skimmers in that editions seems to have been rolling consolidates.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 15:01:17


Post by: Nevelon


I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 15:11:45


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.


In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 15:19:03


Post by: Nevelon


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.


In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.


So still stuck in, but not instant death. I recall some provision for the unit that was consolidated into being able to fire, but might be misremembering.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 15:29:08


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 Nevelon wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 Nevelon wrote:
I couldn’t remember when they fixed that, but do recall the days where once melee hit your lines, it would just devour your army, jumping from one to the next. And when if one model moved, the squad counted as moving, falling back to avoid it would hose all your heavy weapons.


In 3rd was the "armies roll each other up in combat"

In 4th you could consolidate into combat, but you didn't fight that combat until the next round.


So still stuck in, but not instant death. I recall some provision for the unit that was consolidated into being able to fire, but might be misremembering.

That was also 3rd, in 4th both sides were locked in combat, but the side that consolidated didn't count as charging (so the other side could reinforce their side in the combat on the next player turn and actually make that consolidation-into-combat a costly mistake).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 15:37:02


Post by: Da Boss


 Jidmah wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Yeah, I have "fond" memories of playing footslogging orks and having to slog around on foot trying to "catch" eldar skimmers that were faster than me, could fly over me, and were basically impossible to kill with shooting. You had to hope to immobilise and then kill them in CC unless you were running lists specifically designed with max rokkits and the like.


Hilariously, when searching for 4th edition problems on google, I found a post by you, here on dakka, saying essentially the same during 4th edition.

The other obvious problem besides skimmers in that editions seems to have been rolling consolidates.


Hahaha, that got an actual laugh out loud from me. Jeez. Must have been right around when I started posting on Dakka.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 16:58:46


Post by: Insectum7


I want to also give a special shout out to 4th for being arguably the last editon before GW started giving Space Marines absolutely everything. The SM rosters really began to balloon in 5th when the non-vanilla Marine books got their own full codexes.

Also stuff like, xenos factions could have nice things on pretty regular models. Tau Broadsides could have S10 Railguns, for example. Necrons had a number of teleportation abilities and Destroyers could be wicked fast.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 19:37:31


Post by: Gnarlly


4th edition has a lot to offer with a few quick house rules. Ex. banning holofields; maybe changing Rending to wound rolls instead of hit rolls like in 5th. 4th had improved melee consolidation rules over 3rd edition, more realistic terrain rules versus "true line of sight" (no shooting at exposed gun barrels, antennae, models' feet, etc.), and vehicles actually needed to play smart and seek cover if possible to avoid penetrating hits (vs. 5th edition's "parking lot" table setups where vehicles had little to fear).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 20:37:27


Post by: The Revenant


TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 20:52:54


Post by: Da Boss


Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 21:05:51


Post by: Thadin


Don't see why not. I really think the game needs to go in one of two ways. Simplify down all the rules.

Or just multiply all the points values by 10. 20000pt games.

2w space marines cost their 150 or so points each. Ork Boyz can coat something else with their 2w's, and be appropriately balanced against the rest of the game with a higher granularity of points costs. Basically so a model can exist between other models.

(Not real numbers just an example)
Guardsmen cost 5 points. Grots cost 4. Where does a cultist go?
Guardsmen cost 50, grots cost 40. More space to balance a cultists or something between those values.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 22:32:28


Post by: H.B.M.C.


 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?
Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect method, but the quickest way to represent their durability.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 22:37:28


Post by: SemperMortis


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?
Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect, but the quickest way to represent their durability.


Well that and the fact that with all the D2+ weapons floating around it would be functionally useless since you know GW would make it a 6+ FNP save. Hey I killed 10 of your orkz with these heavy bolters, now go roll 20 dice in sets of 2 and hope for a double 6.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 22:50:19


Post by: Insectum7


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?
Yes and no.

T5 is not a good representation of Ork durability, but it is an expedient one. Their durability would be far better represented via a FNP style save, but that would add tons of dice rolling to the game as Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. W2 would also do it, but then that's something else to keep track on with every unit. T5 is an imperfect, but the quickest way to represent their durability.
Ok, so just to poke the bear, why not Marines at T5 then? Instead of 2w.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/15 23:40:18


Post by: H.B.M.C.


I already said why: It's expedient for Orks because Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. With Marines, there aren't as many of them. It's not as big a chore to keep track of W2 (or FNP, for that matter) when you have a lower model count army.

This is why Death Guard should have kept their FNP.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 01:04:03


Post by: Insectum7


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I already said why: It's expedient for Orks because Ork armies tend to have larger model counts. With Marines, there aren't as many of them. It's not as big a chore to keep track of W2 (or FNP, for that matter) when you have a lower model count army.

This is why Death Guard should have kept their FNP.
Well from what I've heard there are more Marines in Marine armies than there are Orks in Ork armies these days.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 01:08:18


Post by: H.B.M.C.


And you can make Guard armies with no infantry and Chaos Marine armies with no Chaos Marines. Doesn't make that the norm.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 01:24:13


Post by: SemperMortis


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And you can make Guard armies with no infantry and Chaos Marine armies with no Chaos Marines. Doesn't make that the norm.


I think my lists are probably the heaviest in terms of model count for ork boyz right now, and I run 30 trukk boyz in 3 separate detachments and the only reason I run them at all is because I want 3 warbosses and I can take them as a Speshulist mob. If I had to take them as regular boyz I wouldn't take them at all and I would just take the CP hit.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 05:31:42


Post by: Hecaton


The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.


Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 05:44:33


Post by: Wyldhunt


Hecaton wrote:
The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.


Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.

Eh. Respectfully, I feel like you might not be factoring in the thematics of those units.

Necron warriors these days make up the "endless skeletal horde" side of the necron aesthetic. They're the mob of bodies that encircle our protagonists and keep the necrons from feeling like a finite threat. You can knock them down relatively easily (for necrons), but they knit back together and just keep coming (represented by warriors having better RP than other 'crons). (Now giving immortals some tougher stats is a conversation we could have.)

And conversely, being an "army of heroes" is kind of baked into the theme of marines. We joke about plot armor, but having action movie protagonist levels of durability is part of marines' "thing." Having 2W goes a long way towards capturing that theme. Every army in 40k is some sort of power fantasy. Durability happens to be part of that fantasy for marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 06:19:48


Post by: Insectum7


Wyldhunt wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
The Revenant wrote:
TBH i always thought marines should have 2 wounds. I mean just reading thru the lore on all the implants and surgeries they have to go thru to become a marine means they should have enough scar tissue to constitute a second wound all by itself.

Seriously, second heart, better blood, "larraman cells", etc al makes them being one wound seem wrong.


Ok sure, if Necron warriors had 2 wounds and regained their 2+ save.

The issue is that GW is giving Astartes 2W to encourage the power fantasy and sell models, not to faithfully represent the background.

Eh. Respectfully, I feel like you might not be factoring in the thematics of those units.

Necron warriors these days make up the "endless skeletal horde" side of the necron aesthetic. They're the mob of bodies that encircle our protagonists and keep the necrons from feeling like a finite threat. You can knock them down relatively easily (for necrons), but they knit back together and just keep coming (represented by warriors having better RP than other 'crons). (Now giving immortals some tougher stats is a conversation we could have.)

And conversely, being an "army of heroes" is kind of baked into the theme of marines. We joke about plot armor, but having action movie protagonist levels of durability is part of marines' "thing." Having 2W goes a long way towards capturing that theme. Every army in 40k is some sort of power fantasy. Durability happens to be part of that fantasy for marines.
Yeah that's more or less what Hecaton said. The game has eroded to pander to the Space Marine power fantasy. The background apparently has to. It's lame.

There's a reason why I dropped Necrons from my armies of interest, and don't play them anymore. I liked them when the basic Warrior was valued higher than a Marine, even as an automaton.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 07:00:27


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I was thinking marines should be 2W since... 5th edition? I pretty much always felt that should happen. I can understand SOME disparity between fluff and gameplay but it was pretty absurd.

Now if they could just nerf basic human stats to S2/T2...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 07:33:05


Post by: Da Boss


In my view it's the background that got out of hand but it's been a long time that way so I've accepted it now.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 07:45:19


Post by: Lance845


The background isn't out of hand when you read everyones background. It's all propaganda. EVERYONE has the most lethal weapons and the best troops. Everyone.

The SM are not tougher or more deadly then everyone else. They just have the same propaganda.

The disconnect is when the rules actually made them better.

SM need all their enhancements just to fight on an even playing field with all the crazy threats of the superior to human threats in the galaxy. Nids are bigger than human bio weapons designed with redundant organs and purpose built to kill. Orks are a species literally bred for toughness and killing. Deamons. Nuff said. Necrons are self repairing mechanical monstrosities that are responsible not just for winning the war in heaven, a conflict that makes the Horus Heresy look like a couple children fighting over candy, but they actually killed, not broke, but killed, a C'tan and whos basic guns destroy the atomic bonds in all mater. The Eldar have tech, reflexes, and training that exceeds what the SM are capable of.

It's really only Imperial Guard and Tau that on a model to model basis shouldn't be on a near even footing with the SM.

Any fluff disconnect anyone has is because they haven't been reading enough fluff.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 07:59:31


Post by: Jidmah


Really the same as every single thing in the lore never fearing anything because they were made that way/have no emotions/are fear incarnate/are expendable appendages an ancient entity beyond fear/are zealots/fight and die for fun/have a gun pointed at their head/have already seen it comming. However, in a galaxy full of bad-ass action heroes, we somehow still get a mechanism for models or units running away every single edition


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 08:06:55


Post by: Void__Dragon


Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.

Space Marine basic troops are superior to every faction in the galaxy's with the exception of the Custodes, Chaos Marines, and both flavors of Knights. Maybe also the Harlequins.

A Necron tomb world can have billions of Necron warriors. Over a thousand times the amount of marines in the entire galaxy. If each warrior was superior to a marine the Necrons would be unbeatable in a firefight for the Imperium, which is bluntly and obviously not the case.

Which isn't to say that these armies can't have troops that can be on par with or superior to a basic marine, like Necron immortals, Ork Nobz, or Tyranid Warriors. I'm sympathetic to the idea that there should be more parity wit Marines, particularly concerning Necron immortals who I actually agree should be 2W and be just straight up tougher than a Tacmarine or Intercessor.

But you can't have your silver tide who fight as an overwhelming horde also be individually highly elite fighters who can take out marines one on one reliably. It doesn't work narratively without doing something idiotic like gutting the rest of the Necron army.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 08:20:58


Post by: SergentSilver


I think we're all forgetting the bigger picture that their current stat and d6 system is inherently limited, thus making attempts to make things "lore accurate" absolutely useless in the grand scheme. There just isn't enough variance in the game to accommodate the wide range of differences between every faction.

I mean, at what point did it ever make sense that a random human joe in the IG has the same physical stats as an Eldar? At what point in the wider lore does it make sense that an Eldar Shuriken Catapult has half the range of a Boltgun, but otherwaise hits just as hard?

2W marines makes some sense lore wise, giving them a leg up in survivability over regular humans, but then what about Orks? Members of their race are known to survive having their head chopped off! Have chunks of their brains blown out and keep fighting! Either of those would instantly kill a Marine. In that case, lore wise suggests that they are not only hardier (+1W at least) but also tougher to kill (+1T).

Then there's Tyranids. It has been stated time and again that their impossibly razor sharp claws can slice right through power armor. Should all Tyranid melee get AP-4?

Why can't a Necron Destroyer overkill a Landraider in one shot as seen in lore in their 4E codex? I'm sure everyone would love to see all Gauss weapons either cause permanent armor damage or ignore it entirely as they strip it away at the atomic level. They should also get +1W, +1T, and 2+ reanimation protocol as their ability to soak and ignore damage then stand up again even after being destroyed is a common aspect of their lore. The new Castus model even has a couple Necrons missing the lower half of their bodies and continuing to crawl to their enemy. I don't recall hearing about any nameless marines getting cut in half and continuing to fight - though it wouldn't actually surprise me if the Ultramarines had an example or two in random lore - much less happening many many times in their stories.

All inconsistencies aside, the most important part of any game is keeping it fun for all players. If you make a game unbalanced, someone will be upset. Sure, if things don't seem to match the lore, some lore fans will also be upset, but it is in the best interest of the game to ignore that in the favor of making things fun.

Try imagining how fun most FPS games would be if they made things as realistic as possible? Imagine a Battlefield or Call of Duty where there is no way to heal and there are no revives or checkpoints, a single bullet is enough to kill you if it hits right, surviving a hit can still take you out of the fight, you can bleed out if you don't tend to wounds, enemies can see just as good as you, sights are true to scale tiny and not necessarily sighted to you, you can't just scavenge ammo, weapons jam, etc. Sure, there's a niche crowd who would eat that up, but WH40k is no longer a niche crowd and GW very much intends for it not to be if their marketing actions for the last decade or so is any indication. That means they can't just make everything lore accurate and expect it to work. Not without a major overhaul of the entire game system. It's one of the reasons that fan made versions exist.

And for those of you who want to complain about lore accuracy anyway, I'd love to hear why your special army just happens to field all the rarest and most valuable relics, wargear, and artefacts that are usually closely guarded and kept only for use in times of great need. (I am staring very pointedly at the Relic Contemptor with Twin Volkite Culverins and other models in their army meta right now that are lore rarities like Russ Plasma Executioner.)

On that side note, I eagerly await Russ variants with macro plasma incinerators and heavy onslaught gatling cannons. They've already got weaker versions, might as well mount the new ones in their place. Russ are nothing if not dependably adaptable to new tech if the appearance of new variants in 5E is anything to go by.

That concludes my late night/early morning sleepy rant about 40k problems. Thanks for reading and taking this trip down memory lane with me!


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 08:52:37


Post by: Hecaton


Wyldhunt wrote:

Eh. Respectfully, I feel like you might not be factoring in the thematics of those units.


Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Void__Dragon wrote:
Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.

Space Marine basic troops are superior to every faction in the galaxy's with the exception of the Custodes, Chaos Marines, and both flavors of Knights. Maybe also the Harlequins.

A Necron tomb world can have billions of Necron warriors. Over a thousand times the amount of marines in the entire galaxy. If each warrior was superior to a marine the Necrons would be unbeatable in a firefight for the Imperium, which is bluntly and obviously not the case.

Which isn't to say that these armies can't have troops that can be on par with or superior to a basic marine, like Necron immortals, Ork Nobz, or Tyranid Warriors. I'm sympathetic to the idea that there should be more parity wit Marines, particularly concerning Necron immortals who I actually agree should be 2W and be just straight up tougher than a Tacmarine or Intercessor.

But you can't have your silver tide who fight as an overwhelming horde also be individually highly elite fighters who can take out marines one on one reliably. It doesn't work narratively without doing something idiotic like gutting the rest of the Necron army.


Nah, that's a big part of what makes Necrons scary. Moreover, I don't know if the numbers of Necrons are ever outright stated the way you imply they are.

Tyranid warriors are more than a match for an Astartes, the fact that the Tyranids can field billions of them doesn't break the setting. The reason why it doesn't is because they can be killed by things like a battle cannon - just like Necrons.

Fundamentally the reason Immortals don't have 2 wounds is that GW sees it as better for selling the Astartes power fantasy if all of the Necrons technology looks like gak compared to the Astartes' gear. Even the Deathwatch's stolen Necron gear has at various times been portrayed as better than the stuff the Necrons have themselves. There's no coherent thought behind it other than designating the Necrons as an NPC faction.

When an individual Necron warrior was a match for an individual Astartes the setting was in a better place and the armies had better thematics.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 09:05:03


Post by: Void__Dragon


Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).


Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 09:13:44


Post by: Apple fox


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).


Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?


I think it may be extreme to think of necrons like that, but they are slower and more ponderous in automation.
With not every engagement being pitched in equality, and that allmost every battle for the imperium should be with at least some combination of different military groups.
It shouldn’t really be needed to make marines just so much better and awesome, with a big theme that they are brilliant military strategists as well.
The current theming of them actually tends to hinder there own themes.
Space marines sorta stopped being really crazy high tech special forces, and kinda slid into the just more badass super heroes.
And everyone else had to fall in line to make that work.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 09:19:59


Post by: Void__Dragon


Hecaton wrote:

Nah, that's a big part of what makes Necrons scary. Moreover, I don't know if the numbers of Necrons are ever outright stated the way you imply they are.


The entire civilian population of the Necrontyr, a galaxy-spanning civilization, were converted to Necron warriors. We also know that Necron superweapons like the World Engine housed tens of thousands.

Necron warriors aren't as numerous as Ork boyz or Tyranid gaunts, but they would outnumber Marines in any given battlefield 1,000/1 or more.

Tyranid warriors are more than a match for an Astartes, the fact that the Tyranids can field billions of them doesn't break the setting. The reason why it doesn't is because they can be killed by things like a battle cannon - just like Necrons.


Can you show me where the Tyranids field "billions" of Tyranid Warriors?

And do the Tyranids not have their own heavy munitions or anti-tank to counteract the battle cannons? Because if they were fielding billions of Tyranid warriors in battles one would imagine all they'd have to do is neuter the enemy's artillery to effortlessly win every battle. Yet strangely I can't recall any fluff where billions of Tyranid warriors just 1v1 every space marine they come across. Strange, right?

Fundamentally the reason Immortals don't have 2 wounds is that GW sees it as better for selling the Astartes power fantasy if all of the Necrons technology looks like gak compared to the Astartes' gear. Even the Deathwatch's stolen Necron gear has at various times been portrayed as better than the stuff the Necrons have themselves. There's no coherent thought behind it other than designating the Necrons as an NPC faction.


Buddy I don't give a single gak about your thoughts on why GW does anything, nor does anybody else. Try to rein in your marine envy and stay on topic.

When an individual Necron warrior was a match for an individual Astartes the setting was in a better place and the armies had better thematics.


No, it's idiotic. If you believe it would be better for a horde of barely sentient robotic chaff to be the equal of the Imperium's best soldiers south of the Custodes despite the fact that said robotic chaff outnumbers the Astartes by many orders of magnitude you are simply wrong.Or, more accurately, you just really hate the Imperium in general and the Astartes in particular which, given your posting history, is very blatantly the case. But your own personal biases do not take precedence over what makes far better sense in the fluff, I'm sorry.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Apple fox wrote:

I think it may be extreme to think of necrons like that, but they are slower and more ponderous in automation.


Yes, which is part of what makes them inferior to marines.

With not every engagement being pitched in equality, and that allmost every battle for the imperium should be with at least some combination of different military groups.


I deliberately brought up the World Engine because there were no other Imperial armies within it.

And so what? If Necron warriors were truly the equals of Space Marines they would have the best of both worlds, being able to crush their equal Marines with sheer weight of numbers while being able to easily mulch through hordes of guardsmen or whoever by virtue of being able to field troop deployments of at times comparable size while also consisting of at the baseline troops that rivaled the very best the Imperium could muster.

It shouldn’t really be needed to make marines just so much better and awesome, with a big theme that they are brilliant military strategists as well.


So you'd prefer the other factions just be dumber than marines?

The current theming of them actually tends to hinder there own themes.
Space marines sorta stopped being really crazy high tech special forces, and kinda slid into the just more badass super heroes.
And everyone else had to fall in line to make that work.


It would be more accurate to compare them to greek heroes, ala Achilles from the Iliad.

And it is perfectly possible to portray other factions as competent and even having them defeat marines militarily without having their basic troop choices which outnumber them significantly being their betters.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 09:34:19


Post by: Pyroalchi


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).


Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?



I think (!) on a planetary scale it often comes down to the navy (which raises of course other questions regarding the Necron Navy, but lets ignore that for a while). Apart from that SM winning against any other faction can be attributed to "how much of that factions elite warriors can really be present?". I don't see a distinct problem in Tyranid Warriors being more or less on par with SM AND outnumbering them by far, if the SM usually fight more or less on their terms against comparable numbers of Warriors etc. If they face a superior number it should usually come down to the navy reducing them from orbit first or SM/Guard/AdMech Artillery wrecking havoc.
ANd fighting through the world engine etc. can always be attributted to SMs fighting a limited number of warriors at a time. I'm willing to believe 1000 Marines beating 100.000 warriors that are on par with them if it comes down to a series of battles all fought in numerical superiority (like against 100 Warriors) or for example with the help of tanks facing Warriors without heavy support.


EDIT: I might be confused: are Necron Warriors the really basic dudes or already the elites?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 10:10:52


Post by: Insectum7


 Void__Dragon wrote:

Can you show me where the Tyranids field "billions" of Tyranid Warriors?

And do the Tyranids not have their own heavy munitions or anti-tank to counteract the battle cannons? Because if they were fielding billions of Tyranid warriors in battles one would imagine all they'd have to do is neuter the enemy's artillery to effortlessly win every battle. Yet strangely I can't recall any fluff where billions of Tyranid warriors just 1v1 every space marine they come across. Strange, right?
This is like the craziest post I've seen. What is even going on here?

Yes Tyranid Warriors will kill Space Marines, and yes they number in the billions. But wars aren't won by a series of duels.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 11:59:49


Post by: Lance845


feth warrior versus tac marines. The Anphelion project has a single regular genestealer use it's rending claws to slice through terminator armor as though it wasn't there.

A Carnifex with Scything Talons does the same to a Dread. It peels him open like a can of tuna.

Now granted, the rest of the marines shooting at him and the dread fighting it kill the Carnifex in the process. But it doesn't change what the One Carnifex does to the armor plating on a Dread with the most basic weapon the nids have.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 12:49:57


Post by: TheBestBucketHead


The idea that Marines can't be killed by lower tier weapons is a weird one, though I'm not saying anyone here believes that, when I'm pretty sure there's lore of Lasguns taking out Chaos Marines, and i know for a fact that there's lore of human wielded Chainswords taking out Chaos Marines. Necrons fielded in the millions? Field Guard in the millions to billions. High tier Necrons there? Release the Scions/Space Marines/Ogryns/Tanks/Artillery. You shouldn't be able to fight on a Tomb World and have the advantage, in any scenerio. It's like saying Marines could go into the Warp and beat Daemons at their own game. You need to destroy the Tomb World, cut it off from its power, or just hope the rest don't wake up while you fight something more pressing.

The reason Necrons aren't unbeatable normally is because, when they're properly destroyed, it takes time to come back, and they're teleported to their home planet or fleet. Once they're gone, you can press your advantage.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 15:19:11


Post by: antia


I'm not too up on the 'new' Necron lore, but isn't the *point* of them that they're an undefeatable threat that will inevitably eradicate all other races in the galaxy? Much like the Tyranids and Daemons, and to a lesser extent the Orks.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:08:02


Post by: the_scotsman


 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:12:16


Post by: Lance845


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.


Right up to the point where one army uses all of them.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:18:40


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:22:02


Post by: SemperMortis


Wyldhunt wrote:


Necron warriors these days make up the "endless skeletal horde" side of the necron aesthetic. They're the mob of bodies that encircle our protagonists and keep the necrons from feeling like a finite threat. You can knock them down relatively easily (for necrons), but they knit back together and just keep coming (represented by warriors having better RP than other 'crons). (Now giving immortals some tougher stats is a conversation we could have.)


This is what I hate about the setting right now. Necron warriors were never meant to be "Mob of bodies" or "Endless skeletal Horde". That is garbage and not even true in the fluff. The war in heaven is where Necrons became their current metal selves. They were fighting a war against the "old ones" and the old ones biggest army was....KRORKZ! Want to talk about endless horde, imagine current day orkz, except the weediest git is the size of Ghazkuul. Imagine an Army of Power armored Ghazkuuls running around the galaxy, and here is the kicker....THEY LOST. That's right, a galaxy of Ghazkuulz lost to the Necrons. And it wasn't because of an "endless Skeletal Horde" it was because the average Necron warrior was that ridiculously OP! So this nonsense where a Space Marine is 1v10ing a bunch of necrons is just stupid.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:22:03


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


It’s a symptom of the principle in 40k where the more your faction is written for, the cooler it gets cause of the little Superman “power of the week” thing that goes on.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:30:56


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.


if only boltguns were fired by models with higher ballistic skill or better access to passive auras they'd still be better, or if they had some kind of bonus rules that gave them some additional stats like AP - but alas.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Lance845 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.


Right up to the point where one army uses all of them.


There's room for a 'good at everything, downside = very elite' but not a ton of room. Which is why Custodes should stay a very, very limited model range, because they just arent that interesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and to be clear - marines are not that. Their toughness stat is barely above average, and their wounds stat of '2' is not particularly high either. Marines have good save, low toughness, and low model count in general.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:53:57


Post by: SemperMortis


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Hecaton wrote:

Nah, I am. Necrons are an endless horde of T-800's, not an endless horde of skeletal chaff. Their technology was supposed to be confoundingly arcane and terrifying in operation. I don't agree with the idea that a basic Astartes should be superior to them; they should be about on the same level (with the Necron having the advantage in durability and the Astartes having mobility and adaptability).


Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop? How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?


Because GW and Black Library is filled with Space Marine fan boys who write bolter porn on a regular basis and the idea of Humanity's saviors losing is as close to heresy as you can get Plus if you want to take a look at how terrible they are in mindset, look no further than Armageddon.

According to all the fluff, there were 50k Marines present and 1.5 Million Guardsmen who took on the greatest Ork army ever seen since the Beast. To put that into perspective, the US Military alone has about 1.4 Million Active duty Soldiers/sailors/airmen and Marines. They also have another 800k or so reserves. So one of the biggest wars ever in the 41st millenia was fought by fewer troops than just the current day US.

So if you are going to use 40k/black library fluff writers to accurately describe/use numbers and logistics you will ALWAYS be let down.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 16:57:42


Post by: vipoid


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Anyone who thinks that a troop which can be consistently fielded in a single world in numbers greater than there are Space Marines in the entire galaxy has ever been or even should be portrayed as overall superior one on one is either incredibly biased or frankly delusional.


If your argument is that anything scare must always be better than something that isn't scarce, then I guess the Valiant must be the best tank in the entire world (as one one was ever manufactured).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 17:48:23


Post by: Lance845


Marines having 2 wounds is literally double everyone else's. They also come with T4 and 5 being easy enough to get, a 3+ save, with 2+ not being difficult to get, and invul saves available.

SM 100% are the guys doing all of them. Compare them to ANY xenos army and you will see how everyone else gets 1 or 2 of the toughness stats and SM regularly get 3 and sometimes 4.

Just because custodes do it all better doesn't mean SM isn't doing it.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 17:53:46


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


Also going to point out here how despite orks being t5, their invuln save went from a 5++ to a 6 ++.
Because of the wounding system lasguns shred orks better despite them going up in points .


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 17:56:17


Post by: fraser1191


Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:04:55


Post by: Lance845


 fraser1191 wrote:
Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.


Yes. With 4+ save and no invul coming with a higher price tag.

SM again, lower price. Same T, 2w, 3+ save. Thats just tacs.

1 in 3 wounds that get through SM T will make it through their save. 1 in 2 will make it through the warriors.

One of these has more of the survivability toys than the other and pays less to do it.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:05:30


Post by: Da Boss


fraser:It might seem like that, but as this thread demonstrates, the majority of posters prefer 2W marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:06:36


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


The majority of players also play space marines, and probably don’t want their toys brought back in line


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:07:45


Post by: macluvin


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.


if only boltguns were fired by models with higher ballistic skill or better access to passive auras they'd still be better, or if they had some kind of bonus rules that gave them some additional stats like AP - but alas.


Wait do loyalist space marine bolters actually work?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:08:11


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Da Boss wrote:
Shouldn't Orks also have two wounds then?


Some do. Some have 3.

Toughness, save, wounds, and special mechanics are all used to model durability in 40k. Having a diverse range of different armies using different stats to represent their durability to make different weapons effective or less effective is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I'd say that requiring 20 lasgun shots to kill a marine out of cover is a bad thing. 40 for a marine in cover - even worse. We'll see how the Eldar and Nid books pan out, but Genestealers and Banshees aren't nearly as marine-killy as they should be.

I'd also say that boltguns having no benefit over lasguns when firing at Orks is a bad thing. That actually reduced a difference between troops.


if only boltguns were fired by models with higher ballistic skill or better access to passive auras they'd still be better, or if they had some kind of bonus rules that gave them some additional stats like AP - but alas.
That's a pretty weak argument, imo.
Plus Guardsman sergeants and Officers can get Bolt Pitols and Bolt Guns.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:10:11


Post by: Da Boss


 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
The majority of players also play space marines, and probably don’t want their toys brought back in line


I dunno, I see a few non marine players here who are happy with it. I think the game has just moved on, I guess I understand how people who whinged about the RT to 2e power boost marines got feel now. But not really any point in worrying about it, things have to change some time.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:16:18


Post by: Insectum7


 fraser1191 wrote:
Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.
Tyranid Warriors are great, but they've also been bigger, multiwound models since as far back as I remember (2nd ed.) The issue is that other races have been eroded in relation to Marines.

Oh, and now we have this nonsense.

Tyranid Warrior: T4, 3W, 4+ save
Heavy Intercessor: T5, 3W, 3+ save

"MARINES UBER ALLES!!"

*sigh


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 18:56:08


Post by: Spoletta


Tyranid warriors are depicted as being terminator equivalents in the fluff, and they definitely number in the billions.

Why in the fluff they didn't already slaughter everything?

Well... there havn't been many battles were marines won against nids. They usually tend to kill the swarmlord and call it a day.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:08:24


Post by: Thadin


As far as I remember, Marines aren't fighting the whole damn war on their own. At least not all the time. The games we play on the table, at least to me, are the decisive turning points in the war, where the space marine captain and his gaggle of superhuman goons attempt to deliver their surgical strike to the Swarmlord, while the other Imperial elements are holding back the rest of the endless horde.

But more to the point, yes there are nasties that should be stronger than Marines, like the Warriors, the Immortals, the etcs and etcs. Let the Warriors be equivalent to the Terminators, Aggressors and Heavy Intercessors, or even stronger than them.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:13:15


Post by: Lance845


At least as far as nids go, you just can't depict the whole battle on the table top.

If the nids are engaged in a ground battle its a whole world simultaneous assault. There are not enough SM in the imperium to fight that battle on a decently sized world.

The entire legion of BA and their successors with SoB and guard support lost world after world after world in the Baal system.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:20:58


Post by: the_scotsman


 Lance845 wrote:
Marines having 2 wounds is literally double everyone else's. They also come with T4 and 5 being easy enough to get, a 3+ save, with 2+ not being difficult to get, and invul saves available.

SM 100% are the guys doing all of them. Compare them to ANY xenos army and you will see how everyone else gets 1 or 2 of the toughness stats and SM regularly get 3 and sometimes 4.

Just because custodes do it all better doesn't mean SM isn't doing it.


I'm not really sure what to say to this except "no, they aren't"?

Let's take a look at some of the basic units of the various factions for a sec.

1 - sisters. Theyre T3 W1, same statline defensively of a guardsman until you get to that save stat - 3+, 2+ in cover. that means if you shoot them with basic weaponry, they save quite a bit, and if you shoot them with dedicated anti-elite weaponry, you bottom out against their tough and wounds.

2 - orks. T5 W1 Sv6+, which makes a lot of traditional anti-horde weapons wound them on 5s and 4s.

3 - daemons/harlequins. T3 W1 sv5++/4++. Easy to cut down with anti-horde weapons, but all AP is wasted against them. no value at all.

4 - necrons. T4 W1 Sv4+/3+ with a 5+ get back up. Similar durability per points as marines but multidamage weaponry spikes vs marines while doing absolutely diddly against necrons

At W1, the weapons you want to bring against marines are the exact same weapons you want to bring against necrons, against sisters, against scions, against aspect warriors...etc.

At W2, my elite infantry actually has space to gain a defensive advantage over a marine by being W1. If you bring a disintegrator cannon against me or a heavy bolter against me, the marine loses 20pts to an unsaved wound while I lose - lets use sisters here - 9. But a sister still gets to feel much tougher - about twice as tough - vs lasguns, boltguns, other AP- weaponry as a guardsman.

I again this cannot be stated enough HATE space marines. I'm sick to fething death of them. but they have, for better or for worse, literally 1/2 of the design space that exists in warhammer 40,000. When my units as an "Almost literally anything but space marines" player have to share the exact same design space while not ever ever ever ever being allowed to be better than space marines or armies of screeching babies batters down GW's doors until they finally give up and nerf the thing that's making them cry, then I want space marines to be as elite in game as humanly possible. I want them to be properly costed for that, and I think 20ppm is basically a good spot for an individual space marine to be at, but that gives me and my units a 19-point budget to play with to get to be cool instead of all getting crammed down into a race to the bottom.

Marines finally getting to have a second attack in melee is why I'm allowed to have dark eldar units that are better at melee than their craftworld counterparts, or why my ork nobz are allowed to be T5 W2 Sv4+ base finally (though that T5 didnt go by without a lot of wailing because that specific number was bigger than a specific number on the space mawine datasheet booo hooo hooo). its why, I hope maybe someday to be allowed a T4 Sv4+ 5++ basic statline on my genestealers, or a W1 Sv4+ 5++ statline on my howling banshees.

If will smith painted blue appeared to me and gave me magic wishes, would I wish for the current state of the game? Hell no, I'd wish for the marine statline to not be a hard ceiling nobody else's gak was allowed to exceed and I'd wish for them to be a reasonable fraction of the releases in whats supposed to be a faction based game. JUST twice what everyone else gets would be an UNIMAGINABLE luxury to me.

but is this better than when everyone was crammed underneath the ceiling of a gakky W1 T4 Sv3+ A1 LD8 hard ceiling? Yep. A million Times Yep.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:34:00


Post by: Thadin


I want to see the point values increased, and the max point values of games also increased, to open up more design space for models. And a shift from d6 to d10 or whatever, again, to open up more space for all the wild and unique things in Warhammer to exist in an appropriately point-costed manner. Less squabbling over if a Guardsman should cost the same as an Eldar Guardian or the same as a Cultist. Slot them in between both, with bigger numbers to work with. Last line just being a theoretical situation, not based on actual numbers. Just the idea that some models should be between the strength of some other models, but the single-digit point values for light infantry don't allow a lot of space. Model A is 6 points, Model B is 7 points. Model C shouldn't be as strong as B, nor weak as A, where does it go? Etc.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:41:42


Post by: vipoid


Spoletta wrote:
Tyranid warriors are depicted as being terminator equivalents in the fluff, and they definitely number in the billions.

Why in the fluff they didn't already slaughter everything?


I thought most of the big battles won against Tyranids were won against the Hive Fleets (using specially-developed viruses and such), rather than on individual worlds?

Tyranids might have a billion warriors (or the capacity to make a billion warriors, as I believe most tyranid organisms are only made when needed?), but it doesn't matter how individually strong they are if the Hive Fleet can't bring them to bear.


Spoletta wrote:
They usually tend to kill the swarmlord and call it a day.


Aside, I really hate the Swarmlord.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:53:22


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
. . .
but is this better than when everyone was crammed underneath the ceiling of a gakky W1 T4 Sv3+ A1 LD8 hard ceiling? Yep. A million Times Yep.

Ahh see. . . here's my beef. Back in the day the other factions weren't crammed underneath the Marine stats/power level. Necron Warriors being individually more powerful than a Marine was a real thing. Genestealers would individually happily wipe the floor with a Marine if they got into contact, at WS 7!!! (that's a 0+ in todays terms). Daemons like Bloodletters the same. The Shuriken Catapult was far better than a Bolter, and Bolt Rifles weren't making a mockery of the once powerful-feeling Pulse rifle.

Gee, if other factions were allowed to have some better gak, they'd have a wider gammut to explore. What happening right now is Marines are getting a big boost, and other factions are getting "aren't you happy with this 50% boost while Marines get the 100%?".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 19:57:36


Post by: Da Boss


I'm really on the same page as you Insectum, but 40K has changed. It's not the same as it was, it is now a space marine power fantasy game explicitly. The overblown fiction in the novels has been translated into the game.

And that's what people expect, and really, can you blame them? That's what most of the fiction of the game is about, as well as the various video games that tie in to the tabletop game. It's pretty reasonable for players to expect the game to match that fiction. The decisions to set the game on this path were made a pretty long time ago really, and we're to the point now where wanting it to be otherwise really makes us the odd ones out.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 20:02:06


Post by: Insectum7


 vipoid wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
Tyranid warriors are depicted as being terminator equivalents in the fluff, and they definitely number in the billions.

Why in the fluff they didn't already slaughter everything?


I thought most of the big battles won against Tyranids were won against the Hive Fleets (using specially-developed viruses and such), rather than on individual worlds?

Tyranids might have a billion warriors (or the capacity to make a billion warriors, as I believe most tyranid organisms are only made when needed?), but it doesn't matter how individually strong they are if the Hive Fleet can't bring them to bear.
I think war with Tyranids is absolute and total in a way that it isn't always with other factions. I think a lot of battles with chaos and Orks are like "preserve the manufactorum" and "ensure planetary tithes can be met" or "chase away the raiding party". But because a Tyranid fleet is so big, and the consequences of defeat are the total loss of a world, the way war with Tyranids works is more like "nuke everything that enters the atmosphere or touches ground". Huge wave attacks and a different scale of weaponry are probably deployed, as such nids take huge casualties.

Marines don't make wave-of-body attacks in the millions.

 vipoid wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
They usually tend to kill the swarmlord and call it a day.

Aside, I really hate the Swarmlord.
Same


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Da Boss wrote:
I'm really on the same page as you Insectum, but 40K has changed. It's not the same as it was, it is now a space marine power fantasy game explicitly. The overblown fiction in the novels has been translated into the game.

And that's what people expect, and really, can you blame them? That's what most of the fiction of the game is about, as well as the various video games that tie in to the tabletop game. It's pretty reasonable for players to expect the game to match that fiction. The decisions to set the game on this path were made a pretty long time ago really, and we're to the point now where wanting it to be otherwise really makes us the odd ones out.
It's gross. It's soooo gross.


I actually blame this a lot on the Guardsman thing from early 8th ed. The amount of GEQ vs. MEQ math hammering, and the prevalence of IS in the competitive realm really sent people into fits about how Marines compare with them.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 20:34:14


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
. . .
but is this better than when everyone was crammed underneath the ceiling of a gakky W1 T4 Sv3+ A1 LD8 hard ceiling? Yep. A million Times Yep.

Ahh see. . . here's my beef. Back in the day the other factions weren't crammed underneath the Marine stats/power level. Necron Warriors being individually more powerful than a Marine was a real thing. Genestealers would individually happily wipe the floor with a Marine if they got into contact, at WS 7!!! (that's a 0+ in todays terms). Daemons like Bloodletters the same. The Shuriken Catapult was far better than a Bolter, and Bolt Rifles weren't making a mockery of the once powerful-feeling Pulse rifle.

Gee, if other factions were allowed to have some better gak, they'd have a wider gammut to explore. What happening right now is Marines are getting a big boost, and other factions are getting "aren't you happy with this 50% boost while Marines get the 100%?".


sure, except that all those examples you just listed (except for Necron Warriors, admittedly) were better than marines in one very specific area, and worse than them in basically every other area.

Pulse Rifles were 6" of max range and 1pt of strength better than a boltgun...and on a BS4+ platform so the point of strength didnt really matter.

lots of stuff happily mulched marines in melee, because marines were just gak in melee for a really really really long time. Ork boyz mulched marines in melee super fething easily, I remember, I did it all throughout 5e, I would more than happily charge your 10 tactical marines with my 10 ork boyz - armed with shootas no less and the one all-important klaw nob obviously - and just chew through them over the course of 3 turns.

a bloodletter or a genestealer model for model are still solidly better at melee damage output than a tactical marine. And recall - neither of these units have actually received their post-marines-2.0 update yet. Most of the game has, as yet, not received their post marines 2.0 update. a bloodletter is what, 2A S5 AP-2 D1, D2 on a 6 to wound? Am I remembering that right?

Wyches are now base A3 S3 Ap-1 d1, AP-2 on a 6 to wound, and +1 to a stat of their choice, pre-subfactions. that rules. That's exactly where they should be at statwise compared to marines - way more damage in melee model-by-model, and even more point-for-point.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 20:51:52


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
. . .
but is this better than when everyone was crammed underneath the ceiling of a gakky W1 T4 Sv3+ A1 LD8 hard ceiling? Yep. A million Times Yep.

Ahh see. . . here's my beef. Back in the day the other factions weren't crammed underneath the Marine stats/power level. Necron Warriors being individually more powerful than a Marine was a real thing. Genestealers would individually happily wipe the floor with a Marine if they got into contact, at WS 7!!! (that's a 0+ in todays terms). Daemons like Bloodletters the same. The Shuriken Catapult was far better than a Bolter, and Bolt Rifles weren't making a mockery of the once powerful-feeling Pulse rifle.

Gee, if other factions were allowed to have some better gak, they'd have a wider gammut to explore. What happening right now is Marines are getting a big boost, and other factions are getting "aren't you happy with this 50% boost while Marines get the 100%?".


sure, except that all those examples you just listed (except for Necron Warriors, admittedly) were better than marines in one very specific area, and worse than them in basically every other area.
The question to ask is "How much better" and "How much worse" in comparison. Because that's been sliding.
Spoiler:


 the_scotsman wrote:

Pulse Rifles were 6" of max range and 1pt of strength better than a boltgun...and on a BS4+ platform so the point of strength didnt really matter.
S5 wounded GEQ on a 2+ and could Glance AV11. It could Pen Truckks and Raiders. It could actually wound T8. "didn't really matter" sells it far short.

 the_scotsman wrote:

lots of stuff happily mulched marines in melee, because marines were just gak in melee for a really really really long time. Ork boyz mulched marines in melee super fething easily, I remember, I did it all throughout 5e, I would more than happily charge your 10 tactical marines with my 10 ork boyz - armed with shootas no less and the one all-important klaw nob obviously - and just chew through them over the course of 3 turns.
Missing the point. My guess is that it took more Boyz to do the same amount of damage to Marines in 5th ed than in 3rd ed. They dropped in points value for some reason, no? And how do those compare to todays boyz?

 the_scotsman wrote:

a bloodletter or a genestealer model for model are still solidly better at melee damage output than a tactical marine. And recall - neither of these units have actually received their post-marines-2.0 update yet. Most of the game has, as yet, not received their post marines 2.0 update. a bloodletter is what, 2A S5 AP-2 D1, D2 on a 6 to wound? Am I remembering that right?
In 4th edition a Bloodletter also had S5, but ignored armor and had 3 attacks on the charge. They were also T4 instead of todays T3. They cost 26 points to a Marines 15.

In 2nd Ed, if ten Genestealers charged 10 Marines, that would be 10 dead Marines in one round of fighting. Heck, if five Genestealers charged 10 Marines, that could have easily been 10 dead Marines. Same thing with Banshees.

 the_scotsman wrote:

Wyches are now base A3 S3 Ap-1 d1, AP-2 on a 6 to wound, and +1 to a stat of their choice, pre-subfactions. that rules. That's exactly where they should be at statwise compared to marines - way more damage in melee model-by-model, and even more point-for-point.
How do they compare vs. Marines in their earlier incarnations I wonder? It's not a question of "Is a Wych better than a Marine in CC?" It's a "If 10 Wyches and 10 Marines had a brawl in a dark alley, who wins and how long does it take?" Then compare that to earlier editions.

THEN recall that Primaris are a thing now and put up even better numbers in the vs. department.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 22:20:05


Post by: vipoid


 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Wyches are now base A3 S3 Ap-1 d1, AP-2 on a 6 to wound, and +1 to a stat of their choice, pre-subfactions. that rules. That's exactly where they should be at statwise compared to marines - way more damage in melee model-by-model, and even more point-for-point.
How do they compare vs. Marines in their earlier incarnations I wonder?


In fairness, Wyches now are probably stronger than they were in the past.

However, it's a little difficult to make direct comparisons as many game mechanics have changed since then. For example, many units in the past didn't want to kill units on the first turn of combat as leaving enemies alive meant they couldn't be shot during the enemy turn.

Perhaps more crucially, though, they didn't need to kill every enemy model directly. They could win by causing more casualties than the enemy, potentially causing the enemy to flee (at which point they would have a good chance of killing the remainder outright).

I bring this up because this was actually one of the things that made Marines more durable than their stats alone would indicate - ATSKNF meant they couldn't be cut down. If they failed their morale check and fled, then either they got away or the enemy caught them and they just carried on fighting as if nothing had happened.

Speaking as someone whose Necron Warrior squads frequently suffered 50+% casualties as a result of fleeing combat and being cut down, this was a huge advantage to have.

Alas, it's also an advantage that the current rules simply don't allow for.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 22:28:22


Post by: Insectum7


^ATSKNF was very powerful, yes. But the "role identity" of being able to effectively kill marine squads despite ATSKNF is something to be regarded highly, especially if you're talking about the basic tabletop experience or the "feel" of a unit.

5th ed Morale rules hit Necrons hard. Switching from "amount outnumbered" to "casualties removed" for Leadership modification hurt bad, especially since you couldn't resurrect models after a sweeping advance.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 22:54:44


Post by: Hecaton


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Then how have the Imperium managed to resist and even defeat the Necrons in battle when they can easily field an army of what is essentially thousands of space marines, more than there are marines in the galaxy, as their basic troop?


Because the Imperium can field a fuckton of Leman Russ tanks that the Necrons, while slightly better at anti-tank than an Astartes with a bolt weapon, fold to because the kinetic energy transfer of a battle cannon is just too intense.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
How did the Astral Knights fight through many times their number of Necron warriors inside the World Engine before crippling it?


Heroism, tenacity, and probably plasma and melta weaponry. There've been examples in real life of humans fighting through many times their number of enemies of about the same capabilities. It should be a heroic feat, not expectedly routine.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 22:55:09


Post by: H.B.M.C.


I'd be very happy to see Tyranid Warriors rise to be the durable and powerful units they always should have been.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 23:05:22


Post by: vipoid


 Insectum7 wrote:
^ATSKNF was very powerful, yes. But the "role identity" of being able to effectively kill marine squads despite ATSKNF is something to be regarded highly, especially if you're talking about the basic tabletop experience or the "feel" of a unit.


Oh absolutely. I just meant that combat units in the past could be more effective than a direct comparison of stats might imply, given that they often only needed to win combat - not kill their opponents outright.

But yes, there were definitely models that didn't need to rely on sweeping advances to kill MEQ units. I think a relatively small percentage of those units can still claim to be effective against modern Marines.


 Insectum7 wrote:

5th ed Morale rules hit Necrons hard. Switching from "amount outnumbered" to "casualties removed" for Leadership modification hurt bad, especially since you couldn't resurrect models after a sweeping advance.


It's funny, despite the modifiers I actually remember combat being far more vicious for Necrons in 3rd/4th. Though that might have been more because of being able to kill one unit and charge straight into another unit.

The 5th edition rules might have been harsher in theory but (at least in my experience) I also had a lot more tools to defend with. For example, a lot of my losses in 4th were down to characters like SM HQs or Daemon Princes that could basically win combat single-handed. However, 5th gave us Mind-Shackle Scarabs, which had (at worst) a 50% chance of neutralising any enemy character. Plus being able to take small units of Immortals as troops, rather than being stuck with blobs of Warriors as the only option.

Getting off topic, I know, but I think it's an interesting conversation.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/16 23:18:05


Post by: Hecaton


 Void__Dragon wrote:
Hecaton wrote:

Nah, that's a big part of what makes Necrons scary. Moreover, I don't know if the numbers of Necrons are ever outright stated the way you imply they are.


The entire civilian population of the Necrontyr, a galaxy-spanning civilization, were converted to Necron warriors. We also know that Necron superweapons like the World Engine housed tens of thousands.

Necron warriors aren't as numerous as Ork boyz or Tyranid gaunts, but they would outnumber Marines in any given battlefield 1,000/1 or more.


Aight. The Necrontyr were always portrayed as having problems with... staying alive, so who knows how numerous they actually were? With their tech they didn't need a massive population to fight wars.

Luckily the Astartes are just one component of the Imperium's war machine.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Can you show me where the Tyranids field "billions" of Tyranid Warriors?


It's a pretty easy logical jump to make considering what we've seen in the Milky Way galaxy is a fraction of their true power and the amount of biomass they have access to.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
And do the Tyranids not have their own heavy munitions or anti-tank to counteract the battle cannons? Because if they were fielding billions of Tyranid warriors in battles one would imagine all they'd have to do is neuter the enemy's artillery to effortlessly win every battle. Yet strangely I can't recall any fluff where billions of Tyranid warriors just 1v1 every space marine they come across. Strange, right?


I mean, the #1 reason that doesn't happen is GW doesn't like to write stories of Astartes losing.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Buddy I don't give a single gak about your thoughts on why GW does anything, nor does anybody else. Try to rein in your marine envy and stay on topic.


And I find your idea that Astartes stans should enjoy "favored customer status" with GW to be repulsive, and a lot of people here agree with me.

When an individual Necron warrior was a match for an individual Astartes the setting was in a better place and the armies had better thematics.


 Void__Dragon wrote:
No, it's idiotic. If you believe it would be better for a horde of barely sentient robotic chaff to be the equal of the Imperium's best soldiers south of the Custodes despite the fact that said robotic chaff outnumbers the Astartes by many orders of magnitude you are simply wrong.Or, more accurately, you just really hate the Imperium in general and the Astartes in particular which, given your posting history, is very blatantly the case. But your own personal biases do not take precedence over what makes far better sense in the fluff, I'm sorry.


It worked in 2-4th edition, so you're fething wrong. And of course I despise the Imperium, it's a murderous, genocidal theofascist regime without redeeming qualities. But the question is whether its depiction makes for good storytelling, and the current Gary Stu Astartes and positively portrayed Imperium don't do it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 fraser1191 wrote:
Don't Tyranid warriors have T4 and W3?

I think that's a bit nuts, and for 21 ppm? Absurd! Takes two overcharged plasma shots!

All kidding aside I'm a big fan of Tyranid warriors being how they are. It's different and unique. But seems like everyone harps on marines being W2 but warriors being W3 is just fine.


They used to be WS 6 BS 6 S5 T5 W2 , actually. Way back in the day.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 00:07:53


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Hecaton wrote:
And of course I despise the Imperium, it's a murderous, genocidal theofascist regime without redeeming qualities.
Someone's injecting a little too much real life into their fiction stories...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 00:09:44


Post by: Galas


I have to say, morale mechanics are probably the most inmersion breaking thing that I have found in 40k.

I know good morale mechanics are very good. But in 40k they just don't work.

They are only fluff appropriate for human-tier units, Tau and orks. And having a whole mechanic to basically punish 3 armies doesn't feel right.

Demons, Eldar, Necrons, Marines... have you seen those armies actually running away from a battle in ANY form of warhammer media outside the tabletop? I mean, you could probably find some examples but just the idea breaks my inmersion. (Retreating as a force from a losing battle is not the same than some banshees running screaming because some orks krumped them good)



Also, the necron warrior and inmortals nerfs weren't made because marines but because GW wanted to expand the army and add stuff like Lychguard and Praetorians etc...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 00:13:59


Post by: H.B.M.C.


9th Ed doesn't have morale mechanics. It has a 'lose more' phase where you get to lose more models because you lost models, only in this special 'lose more' phase, all the normal ways you prevent losses (toughness values, wounds, various saves) are completely ignored.



2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 00:16:53


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Wyches are now base A3 S3 Ap-1 d1, AP-2 on a 6 to wound, and +1 to a stat of their choice, pre-subfactions. that rules. That's exactly where they should be at statwise compared to marines - way more damage in melee model-by-model, and even more point-for-point.
How do they compare vs. Marines in their earlier incarnations I wonder? It's not a question of "Is a Wych better than a Marine in CC?" It's a "If 10 Wyches and 10 Marines had a brawl in a dark alley, who wins and how long does it take?" Then compare that to earlier editions.

THEN recall that Primaris are a thing now and put up even better numbers in the vs. department.



I consider primaris to be 'what marines stats are now' regardless of crying and whining from either firstborn or primaris fanboys.

3e marines vs 3e wyches: if the wyches charge and the marines arent in terrain, its a deadlock. In terrain or if marines charge, it's a slaughter and the marines most likely wipe the squad. Wyches are 10pt models, with no AP, no special rules, no 4+ invuln, basic CCW.

9E marines vs 9E wyches: if the wyches charge, the marines most likely lose 6-ish models and are at risk of losing a couple more from morale. If the marines charge, they kill 7/10 wyches and take 1-2 casualties in return.

So, similar matchup, except that the wyches charging means they get to actually win now, instead of a deadlock for 1 turn then losing the second turn.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 01:24:39


Post by: Insectum7


 Galas wrote:
Also, the necron warrior and inmortals nerfs weren't made because marines but because GW wanted to expand the army and add stuff like Lychguard and Praetorians etc...
1: Have Marines ever been nerfed in order to add more powerful stuff? Or did GW just add more powerful stuff?

2: Necrons already had a unit in the high-elite tier. They had Pariahs. GW essentially removed Pariahs, dropped Immortals to Warrior levels, and dropped Warriors (and Flayed ones) to some new lower tier. Praetorians/Lychguard were sorta slotted in at former Immortal level, iirc. Basically everything just got shifted downward for no reason.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Spoiler:
 Insectum7 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

Wyches are now base A3 S3 Ap-1 d1, AP-2 on a 6 to wound, and +1 to a stat of their choice, pre-subfactions. that rules. That's exactly where they should be at statwise compared to marines - way more damage in melee model-by-model, and even more point-for-point.
How do they compare vs. Marines in their earlier incarnations I wonder? It's not a question of "Is a Wych better than a Marine in CC?" It's a "If 10 Wyches and 10 Marines had a brawl in a dark alley, who wins and how long does it take?" Then compare that to earlier editions.

THEN recall that Primaris are a thing now and put up even better numbers in the vs. department.



I consider primaris to be 'what marines stats are now' regardless of crying and whining from either firstborn or primaris fanboys.

3e marines vs 3e wyches: if the wyches charge and the marines arent in terrain, its a deadlock. In terrain or if marines charge, it's a slaughter and the marines most likely wipe the squad. Wyches are 10pt models, with no AP, no special rules, no 4+ invuln, basic CCW.

9E marines vs 9E wyches: if the wyches charge, the marines most likely lose 6-ish models and are at risk of losing a couple more from morale. If the marines charge, they kill 7/10 wyches and take 1-2 casualties in return.

So, similar matchup, except that the wyches charging means they get to actually win now, instead of a deadlock for 1 turn then losing the second turn.
If that's so, Wyches might be one of the few exceptions to the general "xenos decline".


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 02:19:08


Post by: Hecaton


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Hecaton wrote:
And of course I despise the Imperium, it's a murderous, genocidal theofascist regime without redeeming qualities.
Someone's injecting a little too much real life into their fiction stories...


Given that I immediately followed it with a comment about the narrative, you should interpret that as a sarcastic comment about the in-universe society's virtues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Insectum7 wrote:
2: Necrons already had a unit in the high-elite tier. They had Pariahs. GW essentially removed Pariahs, dropped Immortals to Warrior levels, and dropped Warriors (and Flayed ones) to some new lower tier. Praetorians/Lychguard were sorta slotted in at former Immortal level, iirc. Basically everything just got shifted downward for no reason.


Someone at GW must have really hated Pariahs for them to not be around anymore. I thought they were a cool idea.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 10:09:04


Post by: Dysartes


Pariahs vanishing is definitely a weird one - and you'd think by now GW might've noticed that there are quite a few people who'd like to see them return.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 10:28:40


Post by: Da Boss


I think that was part of the big change from Necrons being sort of T800 robots that were also cybermen but also kind of a lovecraftian ancient evil with egyptian overtones and undead themes (just typing that out shows how much gets layered into GW factions!) to more Tomb Kings in Space with lots of different agendas. I know that sounds flippant and negative, but I can really see why they made the change - it allows much more for players to make "their" necrons, a "your dudes" approach that allows for lots of different paint schemes and motivations for the leaders, and also stuff like necron vs necron civil wars, and it makes the individual necron lords the important movers and shakers rather than the C'taan special characters, also differentiating necrons from Tyranids.

But Pariah's were always more part of the creepy cybermen side of that, and didn't have as much to do with the space egyptian side of things, so they got cut.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 10:44:11


Post by: Esmer


Pariahs make little sense, thematically, in the context of the Silent King fluff. If they ever come back, they will need a re-worked background.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 12:49:34


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:


So, similar matchup, except that the wyches charging means they get to actually win now, instead of a deadlock for 1 turn then losing the second turn.
If that's so, Wyches might be one of the few exceptions to the general "xenos decline".


Yeah, weird, its like since the marines got their universal 2nd wound and imperial weapon update we've had all of 2 xenos factions released or something.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 15:33:27


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:


So, similar matchup, except that the wyches charging means they get to actually win now, instead of a deadlock for 1 turn then losing the second turn.
If that's so, Wyches might be one of the few exceptions to the general "xenos decline".


Yeah, weird, its like since the marines got their universal 2nd wound and imperial weapon update we've had all of 2 xenos factions released or something.
Was that a "wait and see" scotsman?

Lets see, Necrons, Orks, and DE. . . So three. Two of those factions used to have the same basic toughness as Marines, aaaand, both of them have had their resilience drop in comparison to Marines, rather dramatically.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Da Boss wrote:
I think that was part of the big change from Necrons being sort of T800 robots that were also cybermen but also kind of a lovecraftian ancient evil with egyptian overtones and undead themes (just typing that out shows how much gets layered into GW factions!) to more Tomb Kings in Space with lots of different agendas. I know that sounds flippant and negative, but I can really see why they made the change - it allows much more for players to make "their" necrons, a "your dudes" approach that allows for lots of different paint schemes and motivations for the leaders, and also stuff like necron vs necron civil wars, and it makes the individual necron lords the important movers and shakers rather than the C'taan special characters, also differentiating necrons from Tyranids.

But Pariah's were always more part of the creepy cybermen side of that, and didn't have as much to do with the space egyptian side of things, so they got cut.
I understand why they made the change, but A: I hate it and B: They could have left more space in there for 3rd ed style Crons. But sadly no.

Then they had the gall to release an expansion called "Pariah" and not re-introduce Pariahs. Talk about salt in the wound!


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 16:07:01


Post by: vipoid


There's another aspect as well, which is that Marines haven't just improved in terms of toughness. Instead, it seems they've been eating into everyone else's design space.

If Marines had got a second wound and nothing else, then it would suck for Necrons but at least it would move Marines in just one direction and establish them as the poster-boys for being the 'durable' faction.

Instead, we have a "generalist" unit that seems to outperform specialist units (not just model-for-model but quite often point-for-point as well) in their chosen roles. It's one thing for Marines to outshoot Orks and Banshees but it's another thing altogether for them to outfight those units. Same goes for outshooting Fire Warriors.

I'm sure that there will be Marine players who'll say that this is exactly how things should be but to me it just seems excessive, not to mention bad for faction identity.


Honestly, though, I'd be less concerned about this sort of thing if GW would maybe deign to put even 20% of the effort and resources they put into Marines into other, non-Marine factions.

You've got factions like Eldar, whose models haven't been updated since 2nd edition. You've got armies like Dark Eldar, where every codex has consisted of GW taking the previous codex and ripping out a bunch of unit and wargear pages (and what they're left with is anaemic and half-arsed at best). You've got armies like Corsairs and R&H, which have basically ceased to exist. So what does GW release? More. Bloody Marines. Aside from that fact that the faction that already had new, plastic models got a brand new range of new, plastic models, GW seemed to finish making Primaris and then just kept going anyway, churning out unit after unit that did little but replace other Primaris units. Is it really unreasonable that some of those units could have been withheld in favour of giving much needed support to some other armies? Could, perhaps, some Primaris Lieutenants have been shelved in favour of giving DE some HQ choices, to replace the myriad that have been removed? Could not some of those Primaris sculpts have been used instead to bring some Eldar models into the current century?

Even in terms of rules, at the start of 9th GW released rules for all the SM factions so that they could all benefit from the new rules during the miniscule timeframe before all of them got their own supplements anyway. Meanwhile, CSM still appear to be waiting for any sort of update to put them in line with 2-wound Marines. Hell, Corsairs are still waiting (having already waited throughout the entirety of 8th) for rules that might restore them to being an actual, playable army. To say nothing of how much extra support Marines subfactions get, compared to those of other armies.

The point I'm trying to make is that a lot of people are probably just fed up of seeing Marines getting an entire banquet, whilst other factions are left to starve. And when those factions ask if they could maybe have a tiny bit more to eat, GW responds by bringing out a massive chocolate cake . . . for the Marines. They already spent most of 9th buffing Marines (including a whole new codex halfway through the edition) with extra rules and supplements and then extra rules on top of the extra rules. But fine. They got Marines into a good place. So now they'll finally move on to other armies, right? 'We'll of course we need to start 9th with even more new Marine releases and new rules to help Marines live up to the power fantasy even more than the already were.' Sigh.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 16:19:57


Post by: Galas


The Necron fluff change brought us Trazyn the Infinite and just for that it was worth it.

And in the Necron Codex you have literally examples of Tomb Worlds that have been enslaved by their C'than Shards that are literally old-crons to justify to have that as the fluff of your dudes it thats what you want.


And I have to say that yeah, Marines get a ton of releases. But in the past 5 years we have received:
-Sisters of Battle becoming a proper army again
-A very big Necron rework
-A giant wave of ork units between speedfreaks and feral orkz
-A second wave of genestealer cult units rounding up the army
-A bunch of generic chaos marines stuff + Death Guard as a proper army

And if the basically confirmed leaks are correct theres the second wave of chaos marines coming, a good rework of many Craftworld Eldar Kits, fething Squats, a good bunch of new imperial guard infantry and some vehicles,etc...

And between all of that, we are gonna receive 2-3 more primaris waves. Thats a given. But GW needs to keep those stock levels pumping up.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 16:24:25


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 16:26:15


Post by: Galas


Also Tomb Kings are extremely cool and the Silent King has a ton to lear from Settra King of Kings the Unperishable the Breaker of the Giant the...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 16:41:12


Post by: Insectum7


 Galas wrote:
The Necron fluff change brought us Trazyn the Infinite and just for that it was worth it.
Well we'll just have to agree to REALLY disagree on that one.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 vipoid wrote:

Instead, we have a "generalist" unit that seems to outperform specialist units (not just model-for-model but quite often point-for-point as well) in their chosen roles. It's one thing for Marines to outshoot Orks and Banshees but it's another thing altogether for them to outfight those units. Same goes for outshooting Fire Warriors.
^This, big time.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:02:21


Post by: vipoid


 Galas wrote:
The Necron fluff change brought us Trazyn the Infinite and just for that it was worth it.


I like Trazyn the Infinite but I fail to see why he necessitated Necrons becoming Tomb Kings . . . IN SPACE!!!

I'm fine with Necrons getting a little more personality but I feel the transition threw away far too much of the old lore and just replaced it with a boring, Egyptian theme and some of the worst model names I've ever heard.

If GW really needs to rip off some of their own fantasy lore, I think a far more interesting route would have been that of the Flesh Eater Courts.

Imagine if the army of deathless machines still believed that they were living beings, fighting a noble battle against the Old Ones, seemingly with no awareness of what they'd become. It would still allow for many esoteric personalities (either because certain Necrons are trying to maintain the grudges, ambitions or obsessions they had in life or because their minds have further degraded over the eons), but would also allow them to retain many of the horror elements they had previously.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:06:42


Post by: Esmer


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


To be fair though, the way 3rd Edition suddenly made the Necrons and the C'tan - 2 factions that were virtually completely unknown before - be responsible for literally everything in the 40k universe, including but not limited to, the creation of Chaos, the Eldar and the Orks, being the true face of the Mechanicus creed, the true terrible mysteries described in the Black Library, the Pariah gene, the idea of death as the Grim Reaper and even the extinction of the bloody dinosaurs, was received with a backlash of epic proportions among 2nd Edition veterans, which was probably one of the reasons why they ret-conned it so decisively 2 editions later.
Basically they tried to make a newcomer faction into the original and final BBEG of the setting when that position had already firmly been taken for over 10 years.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:10:14


Post by: a_typical_hero


 Galas wrote:
The Necron fluff change brought us Trazyn the Infinite and just for that it was worth it.

And in the Necron Codex you have literally examples of Tomb Worlds that have been enslaved by their C'than Shards that are literally old-crons to justify to have that as the fluff of your dudes it thats what you want.


And I have to say that yeah, Marines get a ton of releases. But in the past 5 years we have received:
-Sisters of Battle becoming a proper army again
-A very big Necron rework
-A giant wave of ork units between speedfreaks and feral orkz
-A second wave of genestealer cult units rounding up the army
-A bunch of generic chaos marines stuff + Death Guard as a proper army

And if the basically confirmed leaks are correct theres the second wave of chaos marines coming, a good rework of many Craftworld Eldar Kits, fething Squats, a good bunch of new imperial guard infantry and some vehicles,etc...

And between all of that, we are gonna receive 2-3 more primaris waves. Thats a given. But GW needs to keep those stock levels pumping up.

Don't forget AdMech's second wave.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:15:23


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:


So, similar matchup, except that the wyches charging means they get to actually win now, instead of a deadlock for 1 turn then losing the second turn.
If that's so, Wyches might be one of the few exceptions to the general "xenos decline".


Yeah, weird, its like since the marines got their universal 2nd wound and imperial weapon update we've had all of 2 xenos factions released or something.
Was that a "wait and see" scotsman?

Lets see, Necrons, Orks, and DE. . . So three. Two of those factions used to have the same basic toughness as Marines, aaaand, both of them have had their resilience drop in comparison to Marines, rather dramatically.
!


pre-8E boltgun into ork: .66 dead orks.
9E boltgun into ork: .36 dead orks.

pre-8E boltgun into marines: .22 dead marines
9E boltgun into marines: .11 dead marines

pre-8E heavy bolter into orks: 1.33 dead orks
9E heavy bolter into orks: 1 dead ork

Pre-8E heavy bolter into marines: .44 dead marines
9E heavy bolter into marines: .66 dead marines

i dont have to love the way GW parcels out updates 1 faction at a time...but it is how they do it if your pants dont clank for the emperor. Only the special treatment boys get instant updates.And save for Necrons, which were very obviously made less elite with their post-5e fluff update when GW wanted to sell more models to necron players. Necron warriors becoming less elite has way more to do with GW wanting to introduce deathmarks, and praetorians, and lychguard, and overlords, and phaerons, and szarekth the silent king of the known universe on a giant floating throne made of blackstone pylons that coalesce the chakra energy of the known universe into the infinite tsukuyomi than in their comparison with marines.

...Also i love that now that I've pointed out that actually, wyches and drukhari in general's stats have actually gone up vs marines in the damage department since their inception, zoop - the goalposts are over here now, now only durability vs marines matters!

You know what? Marines can be drastically more durable than my dark eldar. I, the famous marine-hating xenos-loving filthy heretical pope of the aliens decree: It is OK for the giant truck man wearing fifty foot space armor to have better durability than my spandex wearing BDSM elves.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:18:40


Post by: Insectum7


 Esmer wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


To be fair though, the way 3rd Edition suddenly made the Necrons and the C'tan - 2 factions that were virtually completely unknown before - be responsible for literally everything in the 40k universe, including but not limited to, the creation of Chaos, the Eldar and the Orks, being the true face of the Mechanicus creed, the true terrible mysteries described in the Black Library, the Pariah gene, the idea of death as the Grim Reaper and even the extinction of the bloody dinosaurs, was received with a backlash of epic proportions among 2nd Edition veterans, which was probably one of the reasons why they ret-conned it so decisively 2 editions later.
Basically they tried to make a newcomer faction into the original and final BBEG of the setting when that position had already firmly been taken for over 10 years.
Well I'm a little rusty on some of the older lore, but what single faction was the original BBEG then? Eldar? Because I know a lot of Eldar fans really hated the Crons.

Otherwise I think you're sorta overtating things. Necrons didn't create Orks, for example, the Old Ones did. And how did Necrons create chaos? Extinction of the Dinosaurs?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:36:21


Post by: ZebioLizard2


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Esmer wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


To be fair though, the way 3rd Edition suddenly made the Necrons and the C'tan - 2 factions that were virtually completely unknown before - be responsible for literally everything in the 40k universe, including but not limited to, the creation of Chaos, the Eldar and the Orks, being the true face of the Mechanicus creed, the true terrible mysteries described in the Black Library, the Pariah gene, the idea of death as the Grim Reaper and even the extinction of the bloody dinosaurs, was received with a backlash of epic proportions among 2nd Edition veterans, which was probably one of the reasons why they ret-conned it so decisively 2 editions later.
Basically they tried to make a newcomer faction into the original and final BBEG of the setting when that position had already firmly been taken for over 10 years.
Well I'm a little rusty on some of the older lore, but what single faction was the original BBEG then? Eldar? Because I know a lot of Eldar fans really hated the Crons.

Otherwise I think you're sorta overtating things. Necrons didn't create Orks, for example, the Old Ones did. And how did Necrons create chaos? Extinction of the Dinosaurs?
The War in the Heavens between the Necrontyr and the Old Ones caused the Warp to become as dangerous as it did that would eventually spawn the Chaos Deities. Also The Deceiver had led and helped Abbadon to receive his blade from what I remember too.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 17:51:08


Post by: Esmer


 Insectum7 wrote:
 Esmer wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


To be fair though, the way 3rd Edition suddenly made the Necrons and the C'tan - 2 factions that were virtually completely unknown before - be responsible for literally everything in the 40k universe, including but not limited to, the creation of Chaos, the Eldar and the Orks, being the true face of the Mechanicus creed, the true terrible mysteries described in the Black Library, the Pariah gene, the idea of death as the Grim Reaper and even the extinction of the bloody dinosaurs, was received with a backlash of epic proportions among 2nd Edition veterans, which was probably one of the reasons why they ret-conned it so decisively 2 editions later.
Basically they tried to make a newcomer faction into the original and final BBEG of the setting when that position had already firmly been taken for over 10 years.
Well I'm a little rusty on some of the older lore, but what single faction was the original BBEG then? Eldar? Because I know a lot of Eldar fans really hated the Crons.

Otherwise I think you're sorta overtating things. Necrons didn't create Orks, for example, the Old Ones did. And how did Necrons create chaos? Extinction of the Dinosaurs?


Chaos was the original BBEG, duh.

They were responsible in that the Eldar and the (Kr)orks where explicitedly stated to have been designed as anti-Necron weapons, and that Chaos came about by all the mass killing caused by the War in Heavens, which stopped roughly 65 million years before the present, a time period that is popularly associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs. I do believe that putting the beginning of the great Necron slumber at exactly that specific number, rather than say, 20 million or 1 million, or 100,000 years before our time was meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the dinosaur extinction event.

And yeah, I also remember Eldar fans being salty about bits like the Eldar having known about the Necrons for those 65 million years and not doing much to avert their inevitable return - not even when they controlled the entire galaxy - and the Eldar pantheon myth being dumbed down to Khaine, not the Avatar, the real deal, fighting an equally matched duel against the Nightbringer, despite one of them being completely warp-based and the other completely non-warp-based.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 18:13:10


Post by: Voss


 Esmer wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 Esmer wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah, and there's even cooler (imo ofc) Necrons that are literally Terminator-expy units taken over by Artificial Intelligence (Empire of the Severed).

The downside is you lost the "lovecraftian" element. An army enslaved by a C'tan Shard that is fairly easy to bayonet off the table is not really as frightening as the Oldcron lore. I mean look at that Eldar Prophecy from the beginning of the Oldcron 3rd Edition codex. It's chilling, and it's utterly inapplicable to Newcrons.

but what we got really isn't that bad. Just not as spooky in a way I personally enjoy.


To be fair though, the way 3rd Edition suddenly made the Necrons and the C'tan - 2 factions that were virtually completely unknown before - be responsible for literally everything in the 40k universe, including but not limited to, the creation of Chaos, the Eldar and the Orks, being the true face of the Mechanicus creed, the true terrible mysteries described in the Black Library, the Pariah gene, the idea of death as the Grim Reaper and even the extinction of the bloody dinosaurs, was received with a backlash of epic proportions among 2nd Edition veterans, which was probably one of the reasons why they ret-conned it so decisively 2 editions later.
Basically they tried to make a newcomer faction into the original and final BBEG of the setting when that position had already firmly been taken for over 10 years.
Well I'm a little rusty on some of the older lore, but what single faction was the original BBEG then? Eldar? Because I know a lot of Eldar fans really hated the Crons.

Otherwise I think you're sorta overtating things. Necrons didn't create Orks, for example, the Old Ones did. And how did Necrons create chaos? Extinction of the Dinosaurs?


Chaos was the original BBEG, duh.

Not at all. Chaos had essentially no presence in Rogue Trader until the Realm of Chaos Books. Warp Entities get mentioned, but its more Enslavers, Astral Spectres, Psychneuein and Vampires. 'Warp Entities' have a generic random profile and there's no mention of the chaos gods. Mutants are from biological, chemical or nuclear waste, not chaos.

40k started out as a pretty generic kitchen sink setting. There was no BBEG, just a ruleset of Fantasy Races in Space, with a loose playground of a setting. The implicit 'default setting' in RT was in the Eye of Terror, which was just a region of space with warpstorms that cut worlds off from the Imperium for years at a time, so factions would have a reason to have conflict, but no overwhelming force could be applied.

It took years for 40k to develop into the setting-specific canon monster it is now. Even in the RoC books (Slaves to Darkness), the first version of the Heresy has Horus as simply a general, not a Primarch (that concept isn't even introduced until later Space Marine (the boxed set with first 'Epic' rules and models) and Roc: Lost and the Damned)


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 18:30:07


Post by: Unit1126PLL


The cosmogeny of the 41st millenium wasn't really explored until the Old Ones / Necrontyr lore.

Adding in a cosmogeny didn't ruin anything; the Krorks being created by the Old Ones as a weapon is a much neater story than "orks exist in the galaxy because.... we thought porting over fantasy races was funny haha"


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 18:37:25


Post by: Insectum7


 Esmer wrote:

Chaos was the original BBEG, duh.
Heh. Fair.

I guess I never interpreted Chaos as quite the same endgame, as Chaos is still dependent on mortal consciousness to exist. But also, why can't there be multiple potential big bad end games? Chaos for the victory of warp entities over mortal realms. C'tan/Necrontyr for the separation of warp from realspace, causing mortals to be soulless, and exist as cattle to be slaughtered endlessly by the C'tan, and Tyranids, scouring all life from the galaxy.

And I guess Orks, whose endgame is a pan-galactic mosh pit.

Personally I liked the C'tan existing as realspace counterparts to the warp-based Chaos gods.

 Esmer wrote:

They were responsible in that the Eldar and the (Kr)orks where explicitedly stated to have been designed as anti-Necron weapons, and that Chaos came about by all the mass killing caused by the War in Heavens, which stopped roughly 65 million years before the present, a time period that is popularly associated with the extinction of the dinosaurs. I do believe that putting the beginning of the great Necron slumber at exactly that specific number, rather than say, 20 million or 1 million, or 100,000 years before our time was meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the dinosaur extinction event.


Right. . . but as the Necrons aren't one one's actually doing the creating of the "Young Races", I don't make so direct a connection. The Old Ones are the creators of the other races out of response to the C'tan/Necrons, so there definitely is a connection, sure. But the Necrons are indirectly responsible, rather than directly. These "Young Races" in turn also fostered the spawning of Chaos through their greater connection to the Warp, which again, was authored by the Old Ones.

I know it's all very related, and all written out in that 3rd ed Necron book, but the primary agent is still the Old Ones. In my eyes the C'tan Necrontyr book does a good job of "what happened to the Old Ones"?

As for the dinosaurs thing, it's not explicit. Being not-explicit is critically important, imo.

 Esmer wrote:

And yeah, I also remember Eldar fans being salty about bits like the Eldar having known about the Necrons for those 65 million years and not doing much to avert their inevitable return - not even when they controlled the entire galaxy - and the Eldar pantheon myth being dumbed down to Khaine, not the Avatar, the real deal, fighting an equally matched duel against the Nightbringer, despite one of them being completely warp-based and the other completely non-warp-based.
To be fair I'm not too familiar with this area of it, but isn't Slaanesh the entity that broke Khaine into a thousand shards, etc?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 21:11:43


Post by: SemperMortis


 the_scotsman wrote:

pre-8E boltgun into ork: .66 dead orks.
9E boltgun into ork: .36 dead orks.

pre-8E boltgun into marines: .22 dead marines
9E boltgun into marines: .11 dead marines

pre-8E heavy bolter into orks: 1.33 dead orks
9E heavy bolter into orks: 1 dead ork

Pre-8E heavy bolter into marines: .44 dead marines
9E heavy bolter into marines: .66 dead marines

***Cant remember if Marines in 7th were 15ppm or not, but all math is based on that assumption***

This is a bit...misleading to say the least. For starters, that dead Ork was 6pts in 7th edition, in 9th he is 9pts. Next, depending on the turn that Marine could be -1AP and it takes 1/6th less to kill 1 Ork. And Finally, all of this ignores other factors like Morale and the difference in price between the two units.

To kill 10 orkz in 7th edition took 30 Marines or 15 if they were at half range, 30 shots, 20 hits, 10 wounds for 10 dead Orkz. Thats 225-450pts of Marines to kill 60pts of Ork.

To kill 10 orkz in 9th edition it takes 27 Marines double tapping at any range (Or 22.5 on Tac Turns) , 54 shots, 36 hits, 12 wounds and 10 dead Orkz.That is now 486pts of Marines to kill 90pts of Ork.

And of course as mentioned, that ignores Morale. But the main point here is that those Marines are now MORE efficient at killing Orkz on a point for point basis than they were in 7th edition. They are also now twice as durable to small arms fire, twice as deadly in CC and most importantly, all of that ignores the fact that nobody takes Tacs anymore and even their newer/better counter-part (Intercessors) are rarely taken.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/17 21:52:11


Post by: the_scotsman


Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
At the end of the day I just don't see moving to w2 and 20ppm as actually doubling marines "eliteness." It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry, and more vulnerable vs anti meq weaponry, which my armies bottom out with their defensive profiles. If people are taking plasma and battle cannons and disintegrators that's good for me as a not-MEQ player. If spamming assault cannons and punishers and lasguns is efficient to destroy marines, that's more stuff that's going to be spammed in my opponents lists to kill my stuff.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 00:22:11


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.
More durable against certain weapons. They are in fact no more durable against Lasguns.

Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.


At the end of the day I just don't see moving to w2 and 20ppm as actually doubling marines "eliteness." It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry,

Aka twice as durable against all other infantry, it seems.


If spamming assault cannons and punishers and lasguns is efficient to destroy marines, that's more stuff that's going to be spammed in my opponents lists to kill my stuff.
It just changes the optimal weapons. Assault Cannons kill Marines just as good as Heavy Bolters, and Orks got no tougher against Assault Cannons, while Marines doubled their resilience.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 00:32:46


Post by: H.B.M.C.


 Insectum7 wrote:
Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.
I still don't see this as a bad thing.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 01:00:05


Post by: Insectum7


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.
I still don't see this as a bad thing.
In isolation it might not be if it didn't mean that core units of other factions weren't left in a comparatively much worse spot.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 01:10:47


Post by: SemperMortis


 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.


225pts at HALF range, or another way to look at that is 450pts to kill 60pts most of the time. Kind of an important detail to not leave out. And Yes, Orkz became more deadly in later rounds of combat with the buff to S4 base and AP-1. Marines likewise doubled their ROF at max range, gained a bunch of buffs like doctrines, super doctrines, chapter tactics, etc while we gained...waaaagh. Its not really a contest at this point. A Tac Marine gained a lot more for a lot less points increase than an Ork boy did, there is no way to deny that. We went up 50% and gained Base T5, S4 and AP-1 on our choppas, our morale went to crap, our ere we go got nerfed, our unit bonus of +1 attack got taken away. Marines went up 20% and doubled their wounds, doubled their # of attacks, doubled their ROF at max range. Both units are hot garbage right now so its not really a contest like I said. But lets not pretend like Boyz gained more since 7th.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 12:06:56


Post by: vipoid


 H.B.M.C. wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.
I still don't see this as a bad thing.


I mean, I think there is a problem with basic weapons becoming less and less effective even against basic infantry.

We're increasingly getting to the stage where weapons like Bolters, Lasguns and the like simply have no function and are little more than a lightshow.

I'm sure that's fine for armies whose troops and such can instead have Gatling Mega-Bolters as their basic weapons, but far less so for armies where 80-90% of squads are stuck with basic weapons.

I'm not desperate to step on the toes of those desperate to live out Marine power-fantasies, but I'd also like my guardsmen to be more than just bubble-wrap for vehicles.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 12:33:09


Post by: Unit1126PLL


The problem with that too is there is always a chance the lasgun will do SOMETHING so you don't want to just skip it, but rolling well over a hundred shooting dice for like 150pts of models to such little effect is just silly and a waste of time.

When I said I wanted a lethality reduction, I meant "I want to roll fewer attack dice" not "I enjoy rolling 1e13 dice, but I don't actually want them to do anything."


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 12:44:10


Post by: vipoid


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem with that too is there is always a chance the lasgun will do SOMETHING so you don't want to just skip it, but rolling well over a hundred shooting dice for like 150pts of models to such little effect is just silly and a waste of time.


Yeah, it's why I always hated Overwatch.

Most of the time it would do nothing at all, but there was always that chance so you ended up with a ton of dice rolling that just exists to waste everyone's time.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 12:47:58


Post by: Pyroalchi


 the_scotsman wrote:

[...] It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry, and more vulnerable vs anti meq weaponry, which my armies bottom out with their defensive profiles.[...]


I read that repeatedly and wonder if I misunderstand something. In which sense did Marines become "more vulnerable" against anti MEQ weaponry? How can anything become more vulnerable by doubling it's wounds? Or is this meant in the sense that with Heavy Bolters going to D2, the W2 Marines are still exactly as vulnerably as W1 Marines were to D1 Heavy Bolters, but because they became much more resilient against D1 weaponry it "feels" as if they became more vulnerable?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 13:04:52


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.
More durable against certain weapons. They are in fact no more durable against Lasguns.

Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.


At the end of the day I just don't see moving to w2 and 20ppm as actually doubling marines "eliteness." It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry,

Aka twice as durable against all other infantry, it seems.


If spamming assault cannons and punishers and lasguns is efficient to destroy marines, that's more stuff that's going to be spammed in my opponents lists to kill my stuff.
It just changes the optimal weapons. Assault Cannons kill Marines just as good as Heavy Bolters, and Orks got no tougher against Assault Cannons, while Marines doubled their resilience.


its really strange after two full editions and the entirety of the launch of primaris that the fact that D2 weapons kill W2 marines extremely efficiently is somehow escaping you.

Remember? the 80% of the edition when primaris were absolute gak?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Pyroalchi wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:

[...] It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry, and more vulnerable vs anti meq weaponry, which my armies bottom out with their defensive profiles.[...]


I read that repeatedly and wonder if I misunderstand something. In which sense did Marines become "more vulnerable" against anti MEQ weaponry? How can anything become more vulnerable by doubling it's wounds? Or is this meant in the sense that with Heavy Bolters going to D2, the W2 Marines are still exactly as vulnerably as W1 Marines were to D1 Heavy Bolters, but because they became much more resilient against D1 weaponry it "feels" as if they became more vulnerable?


because when I shot a plasma gun at a marine before it used to kill 15pts of model and now it kills 18? Or 20, if we're talking primaris marines, or more if we're talking about the common units like vanguard veterans?

Also an absolute gak ton of weapons non-coincidentally moved from D1 or Dd3 to D2 with the universal shift of marines to a W2 heavy infantry profile?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 13:34:45


Post by: Pyroalchi


I was not aware that the Marine price increased. Now I understand what I was missing. Thanks for clearing that up, Scotsman


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:14:48


Post by: the_scotsman


SemperMortis wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.


225pts at HALF range, or another way to look at that is 450pts to kill 60pts most of the time. Kind of an important detail to not leave out. And Yes, Orkz became more deadly in later rounds of combat with the buff to S4 base and AP-1. Marines likewise doubled their ROF at max range, gained a bunch of buffs like doctrines, super doctrines, chapter tactics, etc while we gained...waaaagh. Its not really a contest at this point. A Tac Marine gained a lot more for a lot less points increase than an Ork boy did, there is no way to deny that. We went up 50% and gained Base T5, S4 and AP-1 on our choppas, our morale went to crap, our ere we go got nerfed, our unit bonus of +1 attack got taken away. Marines went up 20% and doubled their wounds, doubled their # of attacks, doubled their ROF at max range. Both units are hot garbage right now so its not really a contest like I said. But lets not pretend like Boyz gained more since 7th.


i guess it depends on the context of how you're using ork boyz. I've always used them as trukk boyz, as my orks have always been a speed freeks army. to me, morale went from something that on a bad 2d6 roll basically removed my unit from the game to a D6 roll that if im unlucky removes 2 models, and where I'm standing it seems like marines KEPT chapter tactics, you know, like they had in 7E and we GAINED them. At least, I dont think that my orks used to go up to 2+ to hit in melee after I'd killed the first thing in the assault phase.

And I do think that the +1A for having 20+ models wasnt something that we had in 7e either. Or an army-wide reroll to charges, that's new since 7e.

Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:21:55


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 the_scotsman wrote:
Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"


Just a quick question: do you think the number of attacks defines how "fine" a soldier is? Is it possible to have infantry that are good but also only have 1 attack per model?

It's a genuine question, as I think there's some element of the game designers themselves forgetting what their abstractions mean. The "number of attacks" a model makes has very little to do with whether or not it is a good soldier; conversely, some of the worst troopers in the game had plenty of attacks back in the day (mutants/mutant brutes).

I think there's a general trend in modern 40k that "elite" armies aren't elite because they're well trained and equipped, but rather because they have excellent statlines and biggo numbers. It's an interesting shift, and I think largely provoked by how gakky 40k's 8th edition rules were at handling things other than "kill the enemy and be killed." If all that matters is how well you kill people, it's hard to feel elite without biggo numbers. And to an extent, 40k has always had this problem, but it's a good bit worse now than it used to be, imho. At least back in the day, it was things like leadership and unique ways of commanding your troops on the board that made Marines feel unique and elite by comparison to other factions.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:27:46


Post by: Rihgu


Elite armies are armies where the units cost big points per model, so there are less models on the field than armies which cost small points per model.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:30:07


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
Elite armies are armies where the units cost big points per model, so there are less models on the field than armies which cost small points per model.


That's backwards

Points per model should be determined after the "eliteness" of the model, not before. You shouldn't be like "I think Marines are 20 pt models" and then make sure you stuff them full of rules and statlines until they burst.

It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:33:52


Post by: SemperMortis


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem with that too is there is always a chance the lasgun will do SOMETHING so you don't want to just skip it, but rolling well over a hundred shooting dice for like 150pts of models to such little effect is just silly and a waste of time.

When I said I wanted a lethality reduction, I meant "I want to roll fewer attack dice" not "I enjoy rolling 1e13 dice, but I don't actually want them to do anything."


To kill 1 Marine requires 36 las shots. 36/2 is 18, 18/3 is 6, 6/3 = 2. TO get 36 las gun shots requires 18 Guardsmen in double tap range or 36 at max range (without FRFSRF). A guardsmen is currently 5.5pts So at a minimum its 99pts to kill 1 18pt Marine or at max range its 198pts to kill 1 18pt Marine. Of course that math ignores sgts who have pistols but this was done purely for academic purposes.

So you need 2 full guard squads to kill 1 Marine at half range. When Marines were 15ppm and had 1 wound it took half that to kill them, so 9-18 to kill 1 Marine. So 49.5-99pts to kill 1 Marine at 15pts.

My personal rule of thumb has always been a shooting unit should be able to make its points back in 3 turns to be considered effective. Why? Because after 3 turns, few things are alive.
The old guard squad was killing 15pts of Marine every turn so it was earning back 45pts over 3 turns, and I believe they used to be flat 5ppm or even lower but I can't remember. so they were right about where they needed to be.

Now? A 55pt Guard squad takes 4 turns to kill 1 Marine at max distance. So they are nowhere near where they need to be in regards to the 1/3rd rule. 4 turns kills 1 18pt Marine, which means they would need another 8 turns to come close to earning their points back. Ironically though, if you buff them too much to make them better at killing the old standard to be judged against, they become too effective at killing other things like DE or Orkz.

The Math for Guardsmen killing Orkz hasn't really changed, if anything its gotten better thanks to the points increases for Orkz. To kill 1 Ork took 7.2 shots. 7.2/2 is 3.6, 3.6/3 is 1.2. 1.2 wounds after a 6+ save is...1 Dead Ork. So that was 7.2 guardsmen or 3.6 at half range killing 1 ork. Well guess what? 7.2 Guardsmen still kill 1 Ork, so the math is now 39.6pts of Guardsmen killing 9pts of Ork each and every turn. After 3 full turns its 27pts, so not at the 1/3rd line but still a hell of a lot closer than the Marine currently is, not to mention, as the orkz get closer the guardsmen double their efficiency and since orkz want to get closer its more likely to happen. And when this does happen its 3.6 to kill 1 Ork so a guard squad is killing almost 27pts of Ork in 1 turn. So if you buff the guardsmen in anyway to meet the 1/3rd rule for Marines you are creating a unit that is absolutely destroying other factions troops.

This is the biggest reason why I was against Marines going to 2W base. You can't buff other factions troops to be better at killing those Marines to make up for the increase in their durability without likewise destroying everyone elses troops. The only solution I can think of is reducing the price of special weapons for those Guard squads to make them efficient at taking D2+ weapons in order to deal with Marines, but even then you are opening pandoras box, introducing a system where a unit is capable of dealing with elite units for relatively cheap.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:33:54


Post by: Rihgu


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Rihgu wrote:
Elite armies are armies where the units cost big points per model, so there are less models on the field than armies which cost small points per model.


That's backwards

Points per model should be determined after the "eliteness" of the model, not before. You shouldn't be like "I think Marines are 20 pt models" and then make sure you stuff them full of rules and statlines until they burst.

It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).


I'm not in the GW Design Studio so I can't say for certain whether they do it one way or the other. But across every game system I've played, and every person I've met, elite has meant more points. This applies to Infinity where the developers make the statline/rules and have the algorithm suggest the points costs as well as systems which perhaps work the opposite way.

If I had to guess how GW does it, I'd say they make the statline + the rules and make a wild guess about how much they feel that's worth. "Oh, S4, T4, 2W, 3+ save? yea sure, 20 points. S4 T4 1W 3+ save? make it like 14, yea"

It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).

I rarely if ever hear people discussing the eliteness of things in this context outside of the fluff forums.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:48:38


Post by: SemperMortis


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Rihgu wrote:
Elite armies are armies where the units cost big points per model, so there are less models on the field than armies which cost small points per model.


That's backwards

Points per model should be determined after the "eliteness" of the model, not before. You shouldn't be like "I think Marines are 20 pt models" and then make sure you stuff them full of rules and statlines until they burst.

It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).


This 100%

Marines got buffed to high heaven in 8th. Doubled their ROF, doubled their # of CC attacks, Doubled their Wounds, got access to Doctrines etc. And they went from 15ppm to 18ppm.

But unfortunately the problem is that Marines still aren't good because their basic weapon is terrible....mostly due to their own fault of doubling their # of wounds. A Bolters efficiency has gone down dramatically since 8th. To kill 1 Marine used to take 9 shots. It now takes 18. Marines killing Marines is also the most common matchup. And nobody wants to sit there and plink 18 shots from 162pts of Models to kill 1 18pt model.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 14:59:41


Post by: Amishprn86


Hot Take, we need Movie Marines back. I want a 11 model army of marines. Screw your 1w marines give me 13w marines at Str/T6 2 dice to roll for saves instead of 1 (add together) with 5x the shots and melee attacks. Where the Sargent is basically a super captain with teeth of terror.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 15:19:42


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).

I rarely if ever hear people discussing the eliteness of things in this context outside of the fluff forums.


How many other games do you play?

There's a good bit of this in other games, where the eliteness of something comes organically out of an interaction within the rules rather than raw statline or damage.

An example is Chain of Command (because of course it is with me).

Armored Cars don't have a good statline. They just don't. They're thinly armored, have tiny guns with bad firepower, and don't go very fast offroad. On the road, they're quite fast, but not every map has roads (and some of the ones that do don't have useful/convenient roads for your purpose). Linear obstacles (hedges/snowdrifts/entrenchments) stop Armored Cars in their... wheels (whilst tanks can typically cross them), and terrain that would slow a tank down with little other effect can often outright immobilize an armored car.

So, it's got super low lethality, super low durability, and at best moderate mobility on most battlefields. Yet I bring an armored car every single time that I am attacking, whether I am using an Armored Platoon, SPG platoon, Infantry Platoon, etc. to do so.

And the reason for this is that there's other things for units to do other than simply "kill the enemy." Scouting has value. Being tall enough to see over obstacles has value (even if you can't cross those obstacles out right).

The limited number of activations available (core rules) to the enemy means it takes actual resources and time to kill the armored car. Units being able to do useful things outside of "kill the enemy" (core rules) makes a low-lethality armored car worthwhile (indeed, invaluable on the attack).

Armored Cars, I would consider, are elite models. You don't want to bring a horde of them because what they do is work as a part of a larger team, and if you don't have the firepower or maneuverable power to follow up their scouting, it's a waste. On the other hand, you want at least one because what they do is completely indispensable and is a role only very few other units can fill with the same capability. It takes some skill to milk an armored car for all its worth and get real value out of it, but when you do your opponent is entirely flabbergasted at just how much it mattered.

Anecdotally, I've had games where the hero of the match was my little armored car, even though it never received fire nor delivered it. And my opponent agreed that such a little, low-statline model that seemed almost helpless turned out to be a vital lynchpin.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 15:35:56


Post by: Rihgu


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Rihgu wrote:
It's possible to have an army of "elite things" that has a large number of models, if their eliteness comes out of ways that points cost doesn't handle well (e.g. require lots of skill on the player's part to execute).

I rarely if ever hear people discussing the eliteness of things in this context outside of the fluff forums.


How many other games do you play?

There's a good bit of this in other games, where the eliteness of something comes organically out of an interaction within the rules rather than raw statline or damage.

An example is Chain of Command (because of course it is with me).

Armored Cars don't have a good statline. They just don't. They're thinly armored, have tiny guns with bad firepower, and don't go very fast offroad. On the road, they're quite fast, but not every map has roads (and some of the ones that do don't have useful/convenient roads for your purpose). Linear obstacles (hedges/snowdrifts/entrenchments) stop Armored Cars in their... wheels (whilst tanks can typically cross them), and terrain that would slow a tank down with little other effect can often outright immobilize an armored car.

So, it's got super low lethality, super low durability, and at best moderate mobility on most battlefields. Yet I bring an armored car every single time that I am attacking, whether I am using an Armored Platoon, SPG platoon, Infantry Platoon, etc. to do so.

And the reason for this is that there's other things for units to do other than simply "kill the enemy." Scouting has value. Being tall enough to see over obstacles has value (even if you can't cross those obstacles out right).

The limited number of activations available (core rules) to the enemy means it takes actual resources and time to kill the armored car. Units being able to do useful things outside of "kill the enemy" (core rules) makes a low-lethality armored car worthwhile (indeed, invaluable on the attack).

Armored Cars, I would consider, are elite models. You don't want to bring a horde of them because what they do is work as a part of a larger team, and if you don't have the firepower or maneuverable power to follow up their scouting, it's a waste. On the other hand, you want at least one because what they do is completely indispensable and is a role only very few other units can fill with the same capability. It takes some skill to milk an armored car for all its worth and get real value out of it, but when you do your opponent is entirely flabbergasted at just how much it mattered.

Anecdotally, I've had games where the hero of the match was my little armored car, even though it never received fire nor delivered it. And my opponent agreed that such a little, low-statline model that seemed almost helpless turned out to be a vital lynchpin.


Spoiler:
There's this guy in my local game group that used to serve in the military. If you use any term that could be applied to his military sense of the term, he will, for whatever reason, interpret what you're saying in that context. Even if the other 20 people in the room, including the guys who actively serve understand the wargaming vernacular, this guy flexes his real life military knowledge of terminology in the world's worst game of Trivial Pursuit (he always wins, but he's always the only one ever playing). This isn't to suggest that you're that type of person and there are many explanations as to why there is a disconnect in vernacular here that do not involve you "flexing" knowledge of terminology. I perhaps react more sourly than I have right to when I come across things like this because of this person, and would like to apologize if my posts are coming across as extra sour.


In the parlance I'm familiar with and how I'd see this put in pretty much every community I've ever been a part of, what you're describing is a support unit.

How many other games do you play?

40k, AoS, Warcry, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, Necromunda, Grimdark Future, Age of Fantasy, WHFB 8th edition, Conquest: LAoK, Warhammer Underworlds, 30k/Horus Heresy (Age of Darkness)
as far as games I've been involved in communities of but no longer actively play
Kings of War, Frostgrave, Infinity, Hail Caesar, Sword & Spear, Battletech
I feel like I'm missing a few but if they don't come to mind I probably didn't play them enough to really consider myself an active player at any point


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 15:41:16


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
In the parlance I'm familiar with and how I'd see this put in pretty much every community I've ever been a part of, what you're describing is a support unit.

How many other games do you play?

40k, AoS, Warcry, Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperialis, Necromunda, Grimdark Future, Age of Fantasy, WHFB 8th edition, Conquest: LAoK, Warhammer Underworlds, 30k/Horus Heresy (Age of Darkness)
as far as games I've been involved in communities of but no longer actively play
Kings of War, Frostgrave, Infinity, Hail Caesar, Sword & Spear, Battletech
I feel like I'm missing a few but if they don't come to mind I probably didn't play them enough to really consider myself an active player at any point


I feel like we're talking past each other if you missed my point so clearly.

Do you think it's possible for a unit to be useful/important/significant/critical to an army without having a huge statline or huge special rules/damages? (Outside 40k mostly, since 40k is all about the damages or resilience to the damages).

Is it also possible for that unit to be fairly cheap because it takes some skill to use and lacks a biggo statline or biggo damages?

Is it also possible for that unit to be considered elite?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 16:17:29


Post by: Rihgu


Do you think it's possible for a unit to be useful/important/significant/critical to an army without having a huge statline or huge special rules/damages? (Outside 40k mostly, since 40k is all about the damages or resilience to the damages).

Yes.

Is it also possible for that unit to be fairly cheap because it takes some skill to use and lacks a biggo statline or biggo damages?

Not really? If it provides a key effect that so strongly amplifies the overall force why would it be cheap? Points don't account just for statline or damage potential
Is it also possible for that unit to be considered elite?

Not if it is cheap.

Let me give you an example. In Conquest, I play W'adrhun. They have a mechanic where each unit that activates adds a token of 1 of 4 types to a stack. When you get 3 tokens, you chant a warcry and gain a buff depending on how many tokens of the same type you discard. So you have to carefulyl manage your activation order to maximize buffs.
There is a unit that lets you have infinite of these tokens and doesn't force you to chant the warcry when you get up to 3, so you get a TON more flexibility with activation order. There's no point (but redundancy) to having multiple of these, and they completely change the playstyle of the army.
It's a support unit. Not an elite unit. It is absolutely integral to the army, in my opinion, because without it you can be out-activated by a canny opponent and lose most of your bonuses from the warcry due to ineffective use. It also doesn't have big stats or big damage.
An elite unit is veterans, who automatically chant the battlecry at the lowest level without discarding any tokens from the sequence. They cost a lot of points but can do many different things because of this warcry flexibility. They also have good raw stats but not super good damage unless you specifically use a damage-boosting warcry. If you take an army of nothing but Veterans, you're going to have an elite army that has less models than somebody who took nothing but Blooded (the core, trained unit of the army).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 16:23:43


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
Do you think it's possible for a unit to be useful/important/significant/critical to an army without having a huge statline or huge special rules/damages? (Outside 40k mostly, since 40k is all about the damages or resilience to the damages).

Yes.

Is it also possible for that unit to be fairly cheap because it takes some skill to use and lacks a biggo statline or biggo damages?

Not really? If it provides a key effect that so strongly amplifies the overall force why would it be cheap? Points don't account just for statline or damage potential
Is it also possible for that unit to be considered elite?

Not if it is cheap.


If that is how you answer those questions a priori then we will never agree, I'm afraid.

If a unit being cheap means it's impossible to be elite, then the only way to make a unit elite is to remove player skill from the equation (since the unit just has to be "good" instead of "good when used correctly or bad otherwise"). Either that or they price the unit assuming a fantasticbulous player is using it, and then it just appears to be absolute crap and super dramatically overpriced to everyone else (and therefore not elite by my definition).

As for your answer to the second question, there's conceptual space for a unit that:
- Is crap when used normally (and is priced accordingly)
- Is godly when used by a skilled player / in a skilled way / in certain tactical situations that can be contrived on the tabletop.

For me, the number of models on the tabletop in a platoon or company scale game (like 40k) has nothing to do with eliteness, as historically at the company scale it hasn't mattered. It's not like crack elite trooper companies were automatically categorically smaller than regular line companies.

Elites are rare on an army scale, but if a company of Army Rangers shows up to a battle, the enemy company doesn't just double in size (or whatever) because "they gotta be bigger than the Army Rangers, since the Rangers are elite and all!"

That's why I said it's backwards.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 16:31:14


Post by: Rihgu


 Unit1126PLL wrote:

As for your answer to the second question, there's conceptual space for a unit that:
- Is crap when used normally (and is priced accordingly)
- Is godly when used by a skilled player / in a skilled way / in certain tactical situations that can be contrived on the tabletop.


This would be bad design, in my opinion. Why would you price units according to their conceptual mid-point? To keep to 40k, should we price Fire Dragons according to how much damage they do to a space marine? What is "used normally"? Wouldn't using a unit to do what it's good at be using it normally?

For your scout car example, is "using it normally" having it drive forward and shooting at an enemy unit? Or is it to use it to scout? Is it really more skillful to use a scout car to scout than to shoot?

Elites are rare on an army scale, but if a company of Army Rangers shows up to a battle, the enemy company doesn't just double in size (or whatever) because "they gotta be bigger than the Army Rangers, since the Rangers are elite and all!"

This is because in real life military generals do not play 2000 point Matched Play games.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 16:55:39


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:

As for your answer to the second question, there's conceptual space for a unit that:
- Is crap when used normally (and is priced accordingly)
- Is godly when used by a skilled player / in a skilled way / in certain tactical situations that can be contrived on the tabletop.


This would be bad design, in my opinion. Why would you price units according to their conceptual mid-point? To keep to 40k, should we price Fire Dragons according to how much damage they do to a space marine? What is "used normally"? Wouldn't using a unit to do what it's good at be using it normally?

An example would be Space Marines from 5th edition, to get to the heart of the thread.

They could choose to fail a morale check instead of rolling it whenever they wanted. "Well, that's a dumb rule." A player might say. "Why would I want to fail a morale check?"

Well, there were very specific tactical situations when choosing to fail that morale check was the best choice to achieve the objectives of the mission. But if someone just categorically dismissed that ability and used tactical marines normally (i.e. rolled leadership checks like any other unit, instead of stopping to consider if they should choose to fail or not), then they'd think marines were a "meh" unit with no defining features of eliteness.

In fact, this gets to Scotsman's point rather well. The Marines have a low Attacks stat, womp womp. However, when confronted with a stronger Melee foe, that actually helps their eliteness, because:
1) they're more likely to lose the combat by not killing the enemy
2) They can choose to fail the ensuing morale check, falling back (something a normal army wouldn't be able to do)
3) They were resistant to being swept because of another obscure rule that makes them more elite without adding a whole bunch of outright killy capability ("cannot be swept" is not a lethality boost, nor is it a straight durability boost. Yet it makes the unit feel unique and elite.)
4) So now the enemy unit is open to the rest of the army's shooting, when in another army that Infantry squad would have kept fighting for its life, heedless of the battle around them, and preventing the army from addressing the incoming combat threat through means other than simply piling into the CC and hoping for the best.

Assaulting Marines (in the hands of a skilled player!) required more thought than assaulting, say, an identical unit without that obscure special rule because it was actually very very dangerous, even though the Marines themselves "only have eleven attacks, hurr durr imperium's finest"

Rihgu wrote:
For your scout car example, is "using it normally" having it drive forward and shooting at an enemy unit? Or is it to use it to scout? Is it really more skillful to use a scout car to scout than to shoot?

That depends on how the player views scouting in general. If they don't consider scouting important, then the scout car is a literal waste of time because its statline doesn't justify bringing it. They may get this impression because, since they don't value scouting, they don't bother to perform it correctly (or perform it at all), and so to them an armored car is a trash unit.

Again, player skill determines the use of a unit.

This is because in real life military generals do not play 2000 point Matched Play games.


Warhammer 40k should be trying to emulate battles set in the milieu of the 41st millennium first, and worry about specific play modes and points limits second.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 17:22:48


Post by: Rihgu


You call it "using it normally" but to me that's "using them badly", which based on your mention of player skills you also seem to agree with.

Units shouldn't be pointed based on people using them poorly.

Nor should they be pointed based on the fluff.


In fact, this gets to Scotsman's point rather well. The Marines have a low Attacks stat, womp womp. However, when confronted with a stronger Melee foe, that actually helps their eliteness, because:
1) they're more likely to lose the combat by not killing the enemy
2) They can choose to fail the ensuing morale check, falling back (something a normal army wouldn't be able to do)
3) They were resistant to being swept because of another obscure rule that makes them more elite without adding a whole bunch of outright killy capability ("cannot be swept" is not a lethality boost, nor is it a straight durability boost. Yet it makes the unit feel unique and elite.)
4) So now the enemy unit is open to the rest of the army's shooting, when in another army that Infantry squad would have kept fighting for its life, heedless of the battle around them, and preventing the army from addressing the incoming combat threat through means other than simply piling into the CC and hoping for the best.

Yes, and in 5th edition they cost more than units without this ability because they were more elite in this way.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 17:26:17


Post by: Daedalus81


Spoiler:
SemperMortis wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem with that too is there is always a chance the lasgun will do SOMETHING so you don't want to just skip it, but rolling well over a hundred shooting dice for like 150pts of models to such little effect is just silly and a waste of time.

When I said I wanted a lethality reduction, I meant "I want to roll fewer attack dice" not "I enjoy rolling 1e13 dice, but I don't actually want them to do anything."


To kill 1 Marine requires 36 las shots. 36/2 is 18, 18/3 is 6, 6/3 = 2. TO get 36 las gun shots requires 18 Guardsmen in double tap range or 36 at max range (without FRFSRF). A guardsmen is currently 5.5pts So at a minimum its 99pts to kill 1 18pt Marine or at max range its 198pts to kill 1 18pt Marine. Of course that math ignores sgts who have pistols but this was done purely for academic purposes.

So you need 2 full guard squads to kill 1 Marine at half range. When Marines were 15ppm and had 1 wound it took half that to kill them, so 9-18 to kill 1 Marine. So 49.5-99pts to kill 1 Marine at 15pts.

My personal rule of thumb has always been a shooting unit should be able to make its points back in 3 turns to be considered effective. Why? Because after 3 turns, few things are alive.
The old guard squad was killing 15pts of Marine every turn so it was earning back 45pts over 3 turns, and I believe they used to be flat 5ppm or even lower but I can't remember. so they were right about where they needed to be.

Now? A 55pt Guard squad takes 4 turns to kill 1 Marine at max distance. So they are nowhere near where they need to be in regards to the 1/3rd rule. 4 turns kills 1 18pt Marine, which means they would need another 8 turns to come close to earning their points back. Ironically though, if you buff them too much to make them better at killing the old standard to be judged against, they become too effective at killing other things like DE or Orkz.

The Math for Guardsmen killing Orkz hasn't really changed, if anything its gotten better thanks to the points increases for Orkz. To kill 1 Ork took 7.2 shots. 7.2/2 is 3.6, 3.6/3 is 1.2. 1.2 wounds after a 6+ save is...1 Dead Ork. So that was 7.2 guardsmen or 3.6 at half range killing 1 ork. Well guess what? 7.2 Guardsmen still kill 1 Ork, so the math is now 39.6pts of Guardsmen killing 9pts of Ork each and every turn. After 3 full turns its 27pts, so not at the 1/3rd line but still a hell of a lot closer than the Marine currently is, not to mention, as the orkz get closer the guardsmen double their efficiency and since orkz want to get closer its more likely to happen. And when this does happen its 3.6 to kill 1 Ork so a guard squad is killing almost 27pts of Ork in 1 turn. So if you buff the guardsmen in anyway to meet the 1/3rd rule for Marines you are creating a unit that is absolutely destroying other factions troops.

This is the biggest reason why I was against Marines going to 2W base. You can't buff other factions troops to be better at killing those Marines to make up for the increase in their durability without likewise destroying everyone elses troops. The only solution I can think of is reducing the price of special weapons for those Guard squads to make them efficient at taking D2+ weapons in order to deal with Marines, but even then you are opening pandoras box, introducing a system where a unit is capable of dealing with elite units for relatively cheap.


I think this highlights why I think W2 marines are a good change. Instead of brute forcing lasguns for every target you need to consider other targets.

Look at how much less diverse the choices are when you compare the current versus the old:




2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:06:34


Post by: vipoid


 Daedalus81 wrote:
Spoiler:
SemperMortis wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The problem with that too is there is always a chance the lasgun will do SOMETHING so you don't want to just skip it, but rolling well over a hundred shooting dice for like 150pts of models to such little effect is just silly and a waste of time.

When I said I wanted a lethality reduction, I meant "I want to roll fewer attack dice" not "I enjoy rolling 1e13 dice, but I don't actually want them to do anything."


To kill 1 Marine requires 36 las shots. 36/2 is 18, 18/3 is 6, 6/3 = 2. TO get 36 las gun shots requires 18 Guardsmen in double tap range or 36 at max range (without FRFSRF). A guardsmen is currently 5.5pts So at a minimum its 99pts to kill 1 18pt Marine or at max range its 198pts to kill 1 18pt Marine. Of course that math ignores sgts who have pistols but this was done purely for academic purposes.

So you need 2 full guard squads to kill 1 Marine at half range. When Marines were 15ppm and had 1 wound it took half that to kill them, so 9-18 to kill 1 Marine. So 49.5-99pts to kill 1 Marine at 15pts.

My personal rule of thumb has always been a shooting unit should be able to make its points back in 3 turns to be considered effective. Why? Because after 3 turns, few things are alive.
The old guard squad was killing 15pts of Marine every turn so it was earning back 45pts over 3 turns, and I believe they used to be flat 5ppm or even lower but I can't remember. so they were right about where they needed to be.

Now? A 55pt Guard squad takes 4 turns to kill 1 Marine at max distance. So they are nowhere near where they need to be in regards to the 1/3rd rule. 4 turns kills 1 18pt Marine, which means they would need another 8 turns to come close to earning their points back. Ironically though, if you buff them too much to make them better at killing the old standard to be judged against, they become too effective at killing other things like DE or Orkz.

The Math for Guardsmen killing Orkz hasn't really changed, if anything its gotten better thanks to the points increases for Orkz. To kill 1 Ork took 7.2 shots. 7.2/2 is 3.6, 3.6/3 is 1.2. 1.2 wounds after a 6+ save is...1 Dead Ork. So that was 7.2 guardsmen or 3.6 at half range killing 1 ork. Well guess what? 7.2 Guardsmen still kill 1 Ork, so the math is now 39.6pts of Guardsmen killing 9pts of Ork each and every turn. After 3 full turns its 27pts, so not at the 1/3rd line but still a hell of a lot closer than the Marine currently is, not to mention, as the orkz get closer the guardsmen double their efficiency and since orkz want to get closer its more likely to happen. And when this does happen its 3.6 to kill 1 Ork so a guard squad is killing almost 27pts of Ork in 1 turn. So if you buff the guardsmen in anyway to meet the 1/3rd rule for Marines you are creating a unit that is absolutely destroying other factions troops.

This is the biggest reason why I was against Marines going to 2W base. You can't buff other factions troops to be better at killing those Marines to make up for the increase in their durability without likewise destroying everyone elses troops. The only solution I can think of is reducing the price of special weapons for those Guard squads to make them efficient at taking D2+ weapons in order to deal with Marines, but even then you are opening pandoras box, introducing a system where a unit is capable of dealing with elite units for relatively cheap.


I think this highlights why I think W2 marines are a good change. Instead of brute forcing lasguns for every target you need to consider other targets.


"Brute force" is an . . . interesting way of describing lasguns.

That aside, the issue is that Marines typically represent the *weakest* units in Marine armies. So the only way you can find something more vulnerable to massed lasgun fire is to abandon the game and find a different opponent altogether.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:11:27


Post by: Spoletta


Or maybe don't go into a game armed only with lasguns?

If you run into a parking lot and you didn't bring any AT, do you blame the rules?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:16:22


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Yeah, and I do seem to recall orks being S3. S4 on the charge, and no AP with 3 attacks in previous editions ..also I2 so anything you got into got to swing at you first... and if you're factoring in doctrines we can also talk about waaagh.


But I kind of don't have to, because 225pts to kill 60pts is more efficient than 486pts (or 411pts which is intercessor numbers) to kill 90pts.

Something is actually MORE durable in 9th than 7th and earlier, which is kind of unusual.
More durable against certain weapons. They are in fact no more durable against Lasguns.

Marines on the other hand became twice as durable against both bolters AND lasguns.


At the end of the day I just don't see moving to w2 and 20ppm as actually doubling marines "eliteness." It made them twice as good vs anti geq weaponry,

Aka twice as durable against all other infantry, it seems.


If spamming assault cannons and punishers and lasguns is efficient to destroy marines, that's more stuff that's going to be spammed in my opponents lists to kill my stuff.
It just changes the optimal weapons. Assault Cannons kill Marines just as good as Heavy Bolters, and Orks got no tougher against Assault Cannons, while Marines doubled their resilience.


its really strange after two full editions and the entirety of the launch of primaris that the fact that D2 weapons kill W2 marines extremely efficiently is somehow escaping you.

Remember? the 80% of the edition when primaris were absolute gak?
I'm aware that 2D weapons kill 2W marines. I spammed the gak out of them during 8th. But I have no idea what point you're trying to make. Plasma Guns will kill Orks just fine too.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:17:13


Post by: Voss


 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Warhammer 40k should be trying to emulate battles set in the milieu of the 41st millennium first, and worry about specific play modes and points limits second.


Hard disagree. It should be a coherent and consistent game first, and the fluff written to match what the game is capable of.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:20:19


Post by: Insectum7


 Unit1126PLL wrote:

An example would be Space Marines from 5th edition, to get to the heart of the thread.

They could choose to fail a morale check instead of rolling it whenever they wanted. "Well, that's a dumb rule." A player might say. "Why would I want to fail a morale check?"

Well, there were very specific tactical situations when choosing to fail that morale check was the best choice to achieve the objectives of the mission. But if someone just categorically dismissed that ability and used tactical marines normally (i.e. rolled leadership checks like any other unit, instead of stopping to consider if they should choose to fail or not), then they'd think marines were a "meh" unit with no defining features of eliteness.

In fact, this gets to Scotsman's point rather well. The Marines have a low Attacks stat, womp womp. However, when confronted with a stronger Melee foe, that actually helps their eliteness, because:
1) they're more likely to lose the combat by not killing the enemy
2) They can choose to fail the ensuing morale check, falling back (something a normal army wouldn't be able to do)
3) They were resistant to being swept because of another obscure rule that makes them more elite without adding a whole bunch of outright killy capability ("cannot be swept" is not a lethality boost, nor is it a straight durability boost. Yet it makes the unit feel unique and elite.)
4) So now the enemy unit is open to the rest of the army's shooting, when in another army that Infantry squad would have kept fighting for its life, heedless of the battle around them, and preventing the army from addressing the incoming combat threat through means other than simply piling into the CC and hoping for the best.

Assaulting Marines (in the hands of a skilled player!) required more thought than assaulting, say, an identical unit without that obscure special rule because it was actually very very dangerous, even though the Marines themselves "only have eleven attacks, hurr durr imperium's finest"
It was a phenomenal ability.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Warhammer 40k should be trying to emulate battles set in the milieu of the 41st millennium first, and worry about specific play modes and points limits second.


Hard disagree. It should be a coherent and consistent game first, and the fluff written to match what the game is capable of.
I'm on Units side of this one.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:51:31


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and in 5th edition they cost more than units without this ability because they were more elite in this way.


Some units, but not others. You could easily put 100 Marines in a 2000 point list and have room for a couple predators or the like.

They certainly were "elite" but they didn't cost more than, say, Necron Warriors until the 5th ed Cron book towards the very end of the edition (which is also the one that nerfed them hard).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 19:57:46


Post by: Insectum7


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Rihgu wrote:
Yes, and in 5th edition they cost more than units without this ability because they were more elite in this way.


Some units, but not others. You could easily put 100 Marines in a 2000 point list and have room for a couple predators or the like.

They certainly were "elite" but they didn't cost more than, say, Necron Warriors until the 5th ed Cron book towards the very end of the edition (which is also the one that nerfed them hard).
It cost a little less than a point, roughly speaking. CSM were (afairc) 14 ppm to a Marine's 15. CSM had 1 point of Ld more, but Loyalists had ATSKNF and Combat Squads.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:03:48


Post by: the_scotsman


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"


Just a quick question: do you think the number of attacks defines how "fine" a soldier is? Is it possible to have infantry that are good but also only have 1 attack per model?

It's a genuine question, as I think there's some element of the game designers themselves forgetting what their abstractions mean. The "number of attacks" a model makes has very little to do with whether or not it is a good soldier; conversely, some of the worst troopers in the game had plenty of attacks back in the day (mutants/mutant brutes).

I think there's a general trend in modern 40k that "elite" armies aren't elite because they're well trained and equipped, but rather because they have excellent statlines and biggo numbers. It's an interesting shift, and I think largely provoked by how gakky 40k's 8th edition rules were at handling things other than "kill the enemy and be killed." If all that matters is how well you kill people, it's hard to feel elite without biggo numbers. And to an extent, 40k has always had this problem, but it's a good bit worse now than it used to be, imho. At least back in the day, it was things like leadership and unique ways of commanding your troops on the board that made Marines feel unique and elite by comparison to other factions.


...Are we now making the claim that "dangerous in close combat, really difficult to kill, and powerful in ranged combat" are not core identifiers of what is a space marine?

The space marine statline got around having 1 attack in previous editions because previous editions had a blanket +1 attack on the charge bonus that you got for charging. This allowed space marines to still feel reasonably like "Shock troops" and it is also how units like Howling Banshees felt less noodle-fisted than they do right now even though their core attack stat was as it is now just 2.

Howling Banshees actually ended up getting FOUR attacks per model in previous editions because previous editions also did a "if you have 2 close combat weapons you get an extra attack"

Surprisingly, or if you're me, not surprisingly, the way to get that feeling of elite shock troops back on basic marines was to give them a bonus attack on the charge.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:08:01


Post by: Voss


 Insectum7 wrote:
Voss wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Warhammer 40k should be trying to emulate battles set in the milieu of the 41st millennium first, and worry about specific play modes and points limits second.


Hard disagree. It should be a coherent and consistent game first, and the fluff written to match what the game is capable of.
I'm on Units side of this one.


Well, for me its problematic, since GW has used that kind of logic to push marine buffs out so they're explicitly better than other armies. If you remember the old WH40k Compilation (yellow cover, around the start of 2nd edition, the proper Craftworlds list is in the same book), they push out a bunch of buffs for power armor, marine morale and the all-important T4 upgrade. (And overwatch).
The intro to the article was the justification: with new models and rules for enemies, 'space marines were looking a little less heroic.' And then the zinger: "Of course this is hardly appropriate!" (actual quote).

The 9th edition shift to 2 Wounds is very similar in intent. Marines don't feel elite enough. Their weapons aren't good enough, so they vomit forth a 5 and a half page list of weapons.

An emphasis on setting emulation over game design is part of what keeps this game kind of gakky, rules-wise. Its a driver for intentional imbalance and favored factions.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:12:18


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:

Howling Banshees actually ended up getting FOUR attacks per model in previous editions because previous editions also did a "if you have 2 close combat weapons you get an extra attack"
1+1+1 = 3. Banshees had only one attack in their base profile. They had as many attacks on the charge as an Assault Marine armed with a Chainsword and Bolt Pistol.

 the_scotsman wrote:

Surprisingly, or if you're me, not surprisingly, the way to get that feeling of elite shock troops back on basic marines was to give them a bonus attack on the charge.
I think the bonus attack on the Marine first round of combat was a good move, personally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Voss wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Warhammer 40k should be trying to emulate battles set in the milieu of the 41st millennium first, and worry about specific play modes and points limits second.


Hard disagree. It should be a coherent and consistent game first, and the fluff written to match what the game is capable of.
I'm on Units side of this one.


Well, for me its problematic, since GW has used that kind of logic to push marine buffs out so they're explicitly better than other armies. If you remember the old WH40k Compilation (yellow cover, around the start of 2nd edition, the proper Craftworlds list is in the same book), they push out a bunch of buffs for power armor, marine morale and the all-important T4 upgrade. (And overwatch).
The intro to the article was the justification: with new models and rules for enemies, 'space marines were looking a little less heroic.' And then the zinger: "Of course this is hardly appropriate!" (actual quote).
Ummm. . . ok. But the new-at-the-time Aspect Warriors, introduced in the same book, could happily butcher Marines at their given specialties. They boosted Marines at the very same time they boosted another major faction. Arguably the Aspect Warriors were quite a bit MORE killy than the Marines, despite the Marine upgrades, really. Oh the good old days!

Also Overwatch was introduced as a rule for everybody, not just Marines.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:22:45


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"


Just a quick question: do you think the number of attacks defines how "fine" a soldier is? Is it possible to have infantry that are good but also only have 1 attack per model?

It's a genuine question, as I think there's some element of the game designers themselves forgetting what their abstractions mean. The "number of attacks" a model makes has very little to do with whether or not it is a good soldier; conversely, some of the worst troopers in the game had plenty of attacks back in the day (mutants/mutant brutes).

I think there's a general trend in modern 40k that "elite" armies aren't elite because they're well trained and equipped, but rather because they have excellent statlines and biggo numbers. It's an interesting shift, and I think largely provoked by how gakky 40k's 8th edition rules were at handling things other than "kill the enemy and be killed." If all that matters is how well you kill people, it's hard to feel elite without biggo numbers. And to an extent, 40k has always had this problem, but it's a good bit worse now than it used to be, imho. At least back in the day, it was things like leadership and unique ways of commanding your troops on the board that made Marines feel unique and elite by comparison to other factions.


...Are we now making the claim that "dangerous in close combat, really difficult to kill, and powerful in ranged combat" are not core identifiers of what is a space marine?


They are, but it becomes a question of "dangerous to what".

To a mortal human? Even a 1 attack space marine is an angel of death. The only stat they shared with Guardsmen was "Attacks". WS? Marine. Strength? Marine. Toughness? Marine. Armor save? Marine.

The difference was something like a Daemonette had a pretty fair chance against a Marine, which aligns pretty well with how dangerous a Daemonette should be against a Marine.
In 5th, a Daemonette had something like a 25% chance to kill a marine outright (3 rending attacks).
In 9th, a Daemonette has... well zero %, given that it's one rending attack and Marines have 2 wounds.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:27:39


Post by: JNAProductions


Daemonettes are two attacks base, actually. And AP-1 (-4 on 6s).

Which means that, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 5+, 4+ save half the time and no save the other half, they have a 1/6 chance of doing a wound per attack. So a 1/36 or about 3% chance of killing a MEQ in one round.

A Tactical Marine who gets charged, meanwhile, has two attacks, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 3+, and killing on a failed 5+ save. For a slightly under 30% chance of killing per hit. Just over a 50% chance of killing a Daemonette in one combat phase.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:34:17


Post by: Unit1126PLL


 JNAProductions wrote:
Daemonettes are two attacks base, actually. And AP-1 (-4 on 6s).

Which means that, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 5+, 4+ save half the time and no save the other half, they have a 1/6 chance of doing a wound per attack. So a 1/36 or about 3% chance of killing a MEQ in one round.

A Tactical Marine who gets charged, meanwhile, has two attacks, hitting on a 3+, wounding on a 3+, and killing on a failed 5+ save. For a slightly under 30% chance of killing per hit. Just over a 50% chance of killing a Daemonette in one combat phase.


Right I forgot they were two base, sorry. Still, it's a good bit lower than it used to be in relative power, predominantly because the Marine got an extra wound.

Back in the day, the Marine would only hit on 4s with one attack (though everything else was the same). It's also worth noting that offense is its own defense in some ways in the older editions (at least at high initiative values) so a Daemonette was much more likely to survive fighting a marine Back in the Day than it is now.

Should Marines be as dangerous to Daemonettes as they are to Guardsmen? Should Daemonettes be less dangerous to Marines than they are to Necrons?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:34:39


Post by: Insectum7


Voss wrote:

An emphasis on setting emulation over game design is part of what keeps this game kind of gakky, rules-wise. Its a driver for intentional imbalance and favored factions.
It's a problem only when they're favoring factions, which is my whole beef at the moment. But that's not an intrinsic fault of "designing to the universe", it's a fault of the degradation of that universe over time, the "bolter porn" paradigm. GW needs to either make the game match their universe more, or fix their universe and reverse the gradual slide into "marines uber alles!"


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:39:36


Post by: Unit1126PLL


Right. Aligning the game to the universe assumes the universe is itself consistent.

IMHO part of the importance of adhering rules to the background is it can be easy to see when the background is sliding completely out of proportion when the RULES are out of proportion.

In theory, if you've adhered to the background 100% perfectly and one faction is super dominant in the game, then you've not written background that is engaging for the armies getting shat on (and they probably shouldn't be playable or you should fix your background so they're actually a threat).


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 20:57:07


Post by: vipoid


Spoletta wrote:
Or maybe don't go into a game armed only with lasguns?


Let me know when you've finished torching that strawman and we can get back to actually having a discussion.


Spoletta wrote:
If you run into a parking lot and you didn't bring any AT, do you blame the rules?


This argument makes no sense.

Neither I no anyone else here was complaining that my anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks.

The complaint is that my anti-infantry weapons are hopelessly ineffective even against the most basic infantry units in Marine armies.

I think when I bring anti-infantry weapons, but those weapons are useless against infantry because said infantry has been stupidly over-buffed to live up to Marine bolter-porn, then it is not unreasonable of me to blame the rules for that.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 21:11:02


Post by: Insectum7


To further iterate on the background-to-game design thing, particularly in light of the thread topic, the thing that is MOST IMPORTANT TO BALANCE to me is how the tabletop scenario unfolds if two units go up against each other in various scenarios.

If 10 Genestealers get the drop and ambush 10 Marines, how does that unfold?

If 10 Dire Avengers are in a ranged firefight with 10 Marines, how does that unfold?

If 10 Guardsmen run into 10 Marines in a dark alley, how does that unfold?

Imo those are the sorts of things the game would ideally be balanced around.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 21:51:41


Post by: Voss


Since the only one the game models is the second one (which varies wildly from earlier editions to later editions), they seem like bad examples. That #1 and #3 are also auto-wins doesn't help.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Voss wrote:

An emphasis on setting emulation over game design is part of what keeps this game kind of gakky, rules-wise. Its a driver for intentional imbalance and favored factions.
It's a problem only when they're favoring factions, which is my whole beef at the moment. But that's not an intrinsic fault of "designing to the universe", it's a fault of the degradation of that universe over time, the "bolter porn" paradigm. GW needs to either make the game match their universe more, or fix their universe and reverse the gradual slide into "marines uber alles!"


Except that hasn't been a gradual slide, which is why I provided the intro and the exact quote. Its literally a design principle of the game, and has been for 30+ years. Marines are, according to the setting, simply better. That's extremely consistent, to the point that GW tries (though with a high degree of failure) to 'fix it' when the rules don't actually work out that way. It really is a fault of designing to this particular universe, because this theoretically 'all comers' wargame is actually intended to be unfair to people who don't play the right faction.

And that's crap for game design.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 21:58:20


Post by: Spoletta


 vipoid wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
Or maybe don't go into a game armed only with lasguns?


Let me know when you've finished torching that strawman and we can get back to actually having a discussion.


Spoletta wrote:
If you run into a parking lot and you didn't bring any AT, do you blame the rules?


This argument makes no sense.

Neither I no anyone else here was complaining that my anti-infantry weapons couldn't hurt tanks.

The complaint is that my anti-infantry weapons are hopelessly ineffective even against the most basic infantry units in Marine armies.

I think when I bring anti-infantry weapons, but those weapons are useless against infantry because said infantry has been stupidly over-buffed to live up to Marine bolter-porn, then it is not unreasonable of me to blame the rules for that.


No strawman there, you were the one rising that point.
You are not going to get a 1/3 return on marines for the same reason that your lasguns will not get a 1/3 return on a Rhino.
They are not the right weapon for that job.

Lasguns are anti light infantry. Marines are mid-heavy infantry. Don't expect them to work efficienty (i.e. 1/3 return).
Lasguns are good into other guards, gaunts, guardians, wytches, kabalites, boyz, skiitari and sisters.
They are not the weapon to be used on heavier infantry. You got plasma, heavy bolters and similar weapons for that job.
Complaining that your lasguns can't kill marines efficiently is like complaining that your lasguns are not efficient AT.
The fact that in previous editions MEQ and even TEQ folded to a spam of low level attacks, was a flaw of those editions. The d6 system could not handle that kind of defensive profile. There was no way to make things feel more durable without increasing the wound stat.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 21:59:37


Post by: JNAProductions


So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 22:55:52


Post by: Insectum7


Voss wrote:
Since the only one the game models is the second one (which varies wildly from earlier editions to later editions), they seem like bad examples. That #1 and #3 are also auto-wins doesn't help.
If they're auto-wins, "auto-win by how much" is the relevant question. In 2nd, Genestealers would win in one round and take no casualties. In 9th. . . maybe stealers win? They certainly lose a lot more than they used to. Which version reflects the background?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Voss wrote:

Except that hasn't been a gradual slide, which is why I provided the intro and the exact quote. Its literally a design principle of the game, and has been for 30+ years. Marines are, according to the setting, simply better. That's extremely consistent, to the point that GW tries (though with a high degree of failure) to 'fix it' when the rules don't actually work out that way. It really is a fault of designing to this particular universe, because this theoretically 'all comers' wargame is actually intended to be unfair to people who don't play the right faction.
Marines have not been "consistently better" until very late in the game, imo. As I've pointed out numerous times, Necron Warriors were valued higher than Marines up until about very late 4th edition. The example you gave, the Compilation, was releasing Banshees that utterly murdered Marines. Murdered Terminators, even. The slow degradation is VERY clear when you look at things like Shuriken Catapults.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:22:10


Post by: the_scotsman


 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
 Unit1126PLL wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Marines being A1 was always a joke. Like, I almost always made fun of space marine players when I got into combat with their stuff in 7e and they got to swing before me, like "cmon, finest soldiers of the imperium, do your stuff! Oooooh, only 11 attacks huh?"


Just a quick question: do you think the number of attacks defines how "fine" a soldier is? Is it possible to have infantry that are good but also only have 1 attack per model?

It's a genuine question, as I think there's some element of the game designers themselves forgetting what their abstractions mean. The "number of attacks" a model makes has very little to do with whether or not it is a good soldier; conversely, some of the worst troopers in the game had plenty of attacks back in the day (mutants/mutant brutes).

I think there's a general trend in modern 40k that "elite" armies aren't elite because they're well trained and equipped, but rather because they have excellent statlines and biggo numbers. It's an interesting shift, and I think largely provoked by how gakky 40k's 8th edition rules were at handling things other than "kill the enemy and be killed." If all that matters is how well you kill people, it's hard to feel elite without biggo numbers. And to an extent, 40k has always had this problem, but it's a good bit worse now than it used to be, imho. At least back in the day, it was things like leadership and unique ways of commanding your troops on the board that made Marines feel unique and elite by comparison to other factions.


...Are we now making the claim that "dangerous in close combat, really difficult to kill, and powerful in ranged combat" are not core identifiers of what is a space marine?


They are, but it becomes a question of "dangerous to what".

To a mortal human? Even a 1 attack space marine is an angel of death.


3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:27:05


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:31:07


Post by: JNAProductions


 the_scotsman wrote:
3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
It takes just over three attacks to kill a GEQ from ordinary Marine attacks (S4, no AP, hitting on a 3+).

So a squad of 5 Tacticals on the charge kill 2.37 (from the four regular guys) plus 1.11 (Chainsword Sarge) for about three and a half dead GEQ on the charge. Bear in mind, these are not joe-schmoe ordinary person. These are highly trained and well-equipped soldiers-not nearly as good as Marines, but still soldiers.

If those Marines charged a squad of 10 Guardsmen, the Guard get 8-9 attacks back. (5-6 ordinary survivors, one Sarge with Chainsword.) It takes them 36 attacks to kill one Marine, or 18 to at least wound one. We'll assume that the Guard don't take Morale... For whatever reason.

Due to how fighting works, Marines will fight first every turn, unless Counter Offensive or something is done. Those MEQ do lose 5 attacks in later turns, meaning they kill 1.19+.74=1.93 or about two more Guard next turn. The Guard get 6-7 more attacks, or not enough to even have wounded a Marine yet.

Running the math fully, you can expect to suffer about one wound on average. Or, to put another way, this 5-man Tactical squad can mulch through at least two Guard squads before suffering any casualties. Once a casualty is suffered, it'll snowball a bit, but still.

That's not necessarily a good POINTS exchange, since it takes a while to wipe the squad of Guard. But the point is, Marines are fully effective against Guardsmen in close combat.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:34:52


Post by: the_scotsman


 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.


Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

You can, of course, put them near a ministorum priest, and order them to fix bayonets, or you can equip the sergeant with a powerfist which has a roughly 50% chance of bringing a marine down in melee unbuffed, or make them catachans for +1s... and guardsmen have always had special and heavy weaponry designed to hurt marines.

It is NOT too difficult to table a marine army currently. it's as trivial as tabling any other army. I dont know, you can say 'ZOMG it takes THIS many of Model X ignoring all strats all bonuses all armywide rules all auras etc etc etc to kill a W2 marine' but all you have to do is watch one online batrep to watch an army full of those W2 marines getting hosed off the table to see how silly of a statement that is. Especially when you consider stratagems. "oh man genestealers used to rip through marines" dude, they still do, ridiculously easily. I can shovel 20 MEQ models off the table with 20 genestealers if I want to, because every genestealer can just have 8 attacks at will.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:47:15


Post by: JNAProductions


I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:47:38


Post by: Insectum7


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:

3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.


Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

You can, of course, put them near a ministorum priest, and order them to fix bayonets, or you can equip the sergeant with a powerfist which has a roughly 50% chance of bringing a marine down in melee unbuffed, or make them catachans for +1s... and guardsmen have always had special and heavy weaponry designed to hurt marines.

It is NOT too difficult to table a marine army currently. it's as trivial as tabling any other army. I dont know, you can say 'ZOMG it takes THIS many of Model X ignoring all strats all bonuses all armywide rules all auras etc etc etc to kill a W2 marine' but all you have to do is watch one online batrep to watch an army full of those W2 marines getting hosed off the table to see how silly of a statement that is. Especially when you consider stratagems. "oh man genestealers used to rip through marines" dude, they still do, ridiculously easily. I can shovel 20 MEQ models off the table with 20 genestealers if I want to, because every genestealer can just have 8 attacks at will.
Strats is gonna be your go-to? M'okay.

Tell me how these 20 Genestealers "shovel off" 20 Marines.

And you're still missing the greater point. I don't care that your army is able to shovel off marines. If Marines are showing up in a company sized tank engagement, I expect there to be weapons capable of removing even power armored super soldiers in rapid fashion. What I care about more is how the basic infantry interacts, because that's where a lot of the "drama" and "verisimilitude" is. My evidence is how much Marine players complained about the relationship of Marines to Guardsman in early 8th edition. Yes there were Manticores that dropped artillery on them, but the GEQ vs. MEQ is a fixture for a reason.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/18 23:54:19


Post by: JNAProductions


Not to mention...20 Genestealers. With 8 attacks apiece. Hitting on a 2+. All in combat with 20 Marines, with no wasted attacks (since few Marines can even take 20-men squads).

It's got good odds of wiping the Marines-just over 80%. Or, put another way, if you have Genestealers, buffed by a Broodlord and with twice their number of attacks, perfectly allocating their swings against MEQ... They'll still fail about 1/5 times to kill equal numbers.

Edit: I did not account for potentially dealing 2 damage with Toxin Sacs, though. That will increase your odds, but also the points cost.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:00:56


Post by: Insectum7


 JNAProductions wrote:
Not to mention...20 Genestealers. With 8 attacks apiece. Hitting on a 2+. All in combat with 20 Marines, with no wasted attacks (since few Marines can even take 20-men squads).

It's got good odds of wiping the Marines-just over 80%. Or, put another way, if you have Genestealers, buffed by a Broodlord and with twice their number of attacks, perfectly allocating their swings against MEQ... They'll still fail about 1/5 times to kill equal numbers.

Edit: I did not account for potentially dealing 2 damage with Toxin Sacs, though. That will increase your odds, but also the points cost.
Ok so buffed Genestealers with a "fight twice" Strat is capable of doing maybe half of what Genestealers would just natively do in 2nd edition. If 5 Genestealers managed to contact 10 Marines during 2nd, those ten Marines were dead. I forget the numbers in 4th edition, but iirc Genestealers would do pretty solidly, since Rending was on 6s to hit.


2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:02:16


Post by: alextroy


 JNAProductions wrote:
So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

What should their role be?
They serve as a meat-shield for the Special Weapon and Heavy Weapon Team in the Infantry Squad. At 24" the damage average for IS models against Marines (T4 Sv 3+) is:
  • Lasgun: 0.055 (18 models per wound)
  • Grenade Launcher (Krak): 0.333 (3 models per wound)
  • Plasma gun: 0.277 (3.6 models per wound)
  • Plasma gun (Supercharge): 0.694 (1.44 models per wound)
  • Heavy Bolter: 1 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]
  • Autocannon: 0.667 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

  • So if you want to kill Marine, you shouldn't take barebones Infantry Squads and instead include weapons that actually kill Marines.

    For reference, a nice fluffy Infantry Squad of a Sergeant with Laspistol and Chainsword, 6 Lasguns Guardsmen, 1 Grenade Launcher Guardsman, and a Heavy Bolter Weapons Team does an average 1.72 wound to Marines at 24" and 2.16 Wounds at 12". Not breaking the bank, but a lot more than what you get from a barebones squad (0.5 W at 24" and 1.05 Wounds at 12").


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:03:32


    Post by: macluvin


    Mayhaps we could approach this from another angle... what should the most common or desirable army of marines and army of guardsman look like? For comparisons sake. How many MEQ models should we see on the table, and how many GEQ should we see on the table? Toss each side a vehicle or two as well, or a few slots with bikes or dreadnoughts or whatever.
    It is worth considering a point I heard before; that the models are better thought of as tokens rather than perfect representations of individuals because of the wonky scale of the models. The tanks are out of scale and the range of the weapons even more so. Does this have any bearing on the number you imagine being on the table?
    How should the fight unfold on the tabletop?


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:05:47


    Post by: JNAProductions


     alextroy wrote:
     JNAProductions wrote:
    So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

    What should their role be?
    They serve as a meat-shield for the Special Weapon and Heavy Weapon Team in the Infantry Squad. At 24" the damage average for IS models against Marines (T4 Sv 3+) is:
  • Lasgun: 0.055 (18 models per wound)
  • Grenade Launcher (Krak): 0.333 (3 models per wound)
  • Plasma gun: 0.277 (3.6 models per wound)
  • Plasma gun (Supercharge): 0.694 (1.44 models per wound)
  • Heavy Bolter: 1 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]
  • Autocannon: 0.667 (1 model per wound) [Plus a bonus Lasgun]

  • So if you want to kill Marine, you shouldn't take barebones Infantry Squads and instead include weapons that actually kill Marines.

    For reference, a nice fluffy Infantry Squad of a Sergeant with Laspistol and Chainsword, 6 Lasguns Guardsmen, 1 Grenade Launcher Guardsman, and a Heavy Bolter Weapons Team does an average 1.72 wound to Marines at 24" and 2.16 Wounds at 12". Not breaking the bank, but a lot more than what you get from a barebones squad (0.5 W at 24" and 1.05 Wounds at 12").
    So 60% (70% if you count the Sergeant, since all he does is a Leadership buff) of my basic troop models should be basically worthless as anything other than meatshields?


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:13:48


    Post by: alextroy


    Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:16:22


    Post by: Insectum7


     JNAProductions wrote:
    So 60% (70% if you count the Sergeant, since all he does is a Leadership buff) of my basic troop models should be basically worthless as anything other than meatshields?
    Haha, no obviously, since a Bolter is somehow no better at killing an Ork than a Lasgun is, you bring Lasguns to shoot Orks

    Or shoot them at vehicles, since that's totally a thing in post-8th.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 00:25:26


    Post by: Luke_Prowler


     alextroy wrote:
    Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.

    I feel like that just leads into the Rock Paper Scissors problem Space Marine armies have always dealt with: anything that isn't Anti-MEQ isn't really worth taking, everyone takes Anti-MEQ, MEQ loses out in the efficiency game against anything that isn't MEQ because everyone's taking Anti-MEQ than they're taking anything else.

    I feel like this epiphany been realized in this thread seven or eight times in this thread alone.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 01:34:19


    Post by: catbarf


    the_scotsman wrote:Dudes with bayonets fighting a super-soldier in power armor?

    I guess all I can say is...great? Glad theyre not good at bringing down marines in melee?

     alextroy wrote:
    Against a Space Marine? Yes! Occasionally they get lucky and manage to get a wound in, but mostly they just flashlight away. There is a reason they are so cheap in comparison.


    Am I supposed to min-max a Guard army to bring as few Guardsmen as possible and as many plasma guns and heavy-weapon-toting vehicles as I can, or am I supposed to enjoy spending $200+ to build and paint 60+ models that do feth-all against roughly 80% of the armies I go up against? Doesn't sound fun for anybody involved. '''Lore-accurate''' or not, it's bad design.

    I want to point out that even when Marines were W1, lasguns were not cost-effective against them and basic Tacticals wiped the floor with Guardsmen. But when a squad of ten models with a special and a heavy weapon don't even average killing a single model, that's bordering on ridiculous.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 02:16:08


    Post by: H.B.M.C.


     JNAProductions wrote:
    I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?
    Did they ever do much of anything before W2 Marines?

    I've been playing Guard for a long time - since before they even had a Codex - and I know that I've gone multiple consecutive games without ever firing a lasgun shot.



    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 02:47:52


    Post by: Insectum7


     H.B.M.C. wrote:
     JNAProductions wrote:
    I'll ask again-what should a Lasgun-armed model do on the tabletop, if you're facing Marines?
    Did they ever do much of anything before W2 Marines?

    I've been playing Guard for a long time - since before they even had a Codex - and I know that I've gone multiple consecutive games without ever firing a lasgun shot.
    Just go back to look at threads around the first half of 8th edition. You'll find a lot of discussion about the comparative value of GEQ vs MEQ, and the efficiencies of GEQ lasgun fire.

    But another way to look at it is: If lasguns weren't that effective against Marines before, is 2W SM really the answer? It's a stat increase which hits basic weapons harder than anything else.

    And to bring it around to a different unit. Dire Avengers used to trade firepower with Space Marines pretty evenly. The Shuriken Catapult has dropped in relative effectiveness over time, and 2W Marines are going to blast that former parity completely out of the water. What's the solution for that? 2D Shuriken Catapults at 24" range? Do you think that'll happen? How much will DA fall behind in the next Eldar book?


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 04:22:19


    Post by: Void__Dragon


     Insectum7 wrote:
     the_scotsman wrote:

    3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
    Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

    It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.


    lol

    The absolute state of people whining about 2W marines.

    Thank God it takes forty guardsmen to kill a 2W marine in melee.

    Should be like one hundred tbh.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 05:39:29


    Post by: Spoletta


     JNAProductions wrote:
    So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

    What should their role be?


    Taking objectives, stalling the enemy, protecting the ones with the right weapons.

    Or pull marines into close range where they can actually hurt them quite well (2 squads in FRFSRF have a 54% return on intercessors. Yes, I'm considering the cost of the orders).

    Also, if you are bothered by that, can I ask you:

    What is the role of lasguns against a knight army?
    What is the role of lasguns against a Custodes army?
    What is the role of lasguns against a parking lot of any kind?
    What is the role of lasguns against a monster mash?

    Also:

    What is the role of high power shots against harlequins?
    What is the role of high AP weapons against demons or DE?
    And so on...

    You design an army with multiple offensive capabilities, because each opponent will be resistant to some of those and vulnerable to something else.
    You always try to find yourself with the right tools in a decent quantity no matter the opponent.

    Complaining that against opponent X weapon Y isn't effective is a completely moot point.
    That weapon is effective against a different opponent.
    Good thing that you also brought some weapon Z which is very good against opponent X, so you can now use the ones with weapon Y to support the ones with weapon Z.

    Sorry that the 7th edition era of "This weapon profile is good against everything, just spam it" has ended.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 07:20:46


    Post by: TheBestBucketHead


    Isn't there lore of Marines dying to lasguns and chainswords? We don't know how many lasgun shots are actually shot per turn. I highly doubt they only shoot twice every few minutes or so. If the rounds last one minute, an ak-47 fires at 600 rpm, and if lasguns have a similar rate of fire, 20 guardsmen firing, 12,000 rounds per minute.

    Also, why are Marines so much better than Necron Warriors? The issue is that the base infantry of Marines takes so much fire to take down from Guardsmen that they just become unfun to play.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 07:32:26


    Post by: Da Boss


     Void__Dragon wrote:
     Insectum7 wrote:
     the_scotsman wrote:

    3 single attack marines can kill 1 mortal human in close combat...
    Seems slow, I agree. The extra attack is nice.

    It takes 40 1A Guardsman to kill a 2W Marine.


    lol

    The absolute state of people whining about 2W marines.

    Thank God it takes forty guardsmen to kill a 2W marine in melee.

    Should be like one hundred tbh.


    It's clear we have pretty fundamental disagreements over the design of the game, but there's no need to be rude, is there?


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 08:20:08


    Post by: Blackie


     JNAProductions wrote:
    So what should Lasgun models do when facing a Marine force?

    What should their role be?


    Firing at scouts?

    The point is SM are an elite army, lasguns and any other S3-4 AP- weapons are for cheap chaff, which SM will likely not have. That's why people should bring TAC lists for an healthy game, instead of spamming stuff. Lasguns would be crap against marines but the army should have plenty of weapons to efficiently deal with marines. Against another opponent those lasguns would be better, and maybe the anti elite weapons wouldn't have a real appropriate target.

    That's the entire point of TAC lists, they shouldn't be optimized against anyone but also useless against anyone. It should be perfectly fine to have a limited portion of the army that is simply ineffective against most or even all the opponents' units. What is not healthy is having the entire army that is efficient against anything the opponent has.

    Besides, are we complaining that lethality should be higher?


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 09:30:12


    Post by: Unit1126PLL


    Durability of one army being lower relative to the field is not the same as lethality being higher board wide.

    Similarly, reducing lethality across the game doesn't mean buffing a single faction to dramatically above where it had been before relative to others.

    plus:

    --Fundamentally, it has ALWAYS been the case that anti-Marine meant TAC, because Marines or different-Marines were 80% of opponents.

    --Back when some weapons were anti-horde and useless against Marines, they were 9/10ths of the time passed over for anti-Marine weapons due to this.

    --Nowadays, Marines became so salty about being the default against which all armies were forced to tailor that now we are saying "it is okay if ENTIRE ARMIES are crap against Marines. Silly Guardsman/Chaos Daemon/Necron Warrior should've thought about THAT before picking up puny humans/immortal unlife from beneath reality/immortal machine overlords from beyond the grave, huh??"

    -- This of course will not reduce the Marine tears, as they still won't podium (any army that CAN kill Marines will spam the thing that kills Marines and leave the flamers at home). All it does is ruin the fun of the armies that have been designated as "unable to kill Marines".

    --This also causes immersion-breaking incongruities with the background, where Marine or different-Marine units are shot with lasguns or even strangled to death by Guardsmen.


    2W marines should get rolled back to 1W @ 2021/11/19 13:02:56


    Post by: the_scotsman


     TheBestBucketHead wrote:
    Isn't there lore of Marines dying to lasguns and chainswords? We don't know how many lasgun shots are actually shot per turn. I highly doubt they only shoot twice every few minutes or so. If the rounds last one minute, an ak-47 fires at 600 rpm, and if lasguns have a similar rate of fire, 20 guardsmen firing, 12,000 rounds per minute.

    Also, why are Marines so much better than Necron Warriors? The issue is that the base infantry of Marines takes so much fire to take down from Guardsmen that they just become unfun to play.


    The point of the special and heavy weapons in a guard squad is supposed to be the ability to engage different targets. Guardsmen equipped with nothing but lasguns have the advantage of "cheap" and the disadvantage of "Cant fight anything but light infantry effectively." I play and have played multiple GEQ armies, and I understand this. If I take my GSC stock, theyre cheap so I can use them to hide on objectives, perform actions, and move block, but the whole squad unbuffed is only going to do one wound to one marine. I can quadruple that damage by giving them a couple of seismic cannons, and I can protect that investment by putting that squad into a transport vehicle. That setup needs some buffs because GSC are quite underpowered at the moment,

    The only issue the marine wounds change really caused is the units that were supposed to be able to kill marines that suddenly were not able to kill marines anymore. Howling Banshees? Absolutely a problem. Genestealers? Also a problem especially purestrains.

    Necron warriors are less elite than marines because they made necron warriors a less elite unit way back when they changed necrons to include several layers of more elite troops. Necron warriors got changed from "The best of the best the most terrifying warriors evar" back then for the same reason gw makes any change - to make more money. With many more unit options, GW wanted to make sure it took more units to fill out a necron army to a full 2000pts. I had a 2000pt necron army at the time, and wound up with something like a 1500pt necron army which quickly popped back up to 2000pts as the new stuff was really fething cool.


    Automatically Appended Next Post:
     Unit1126PLL wrote:
    Durability of one army being lower relative to the field is not the same as lethality being higher board wide.

    Similarly, reducing lethality across the game doesn't mean buffing a single faction to dramatically above where it had been before relative to others.

    plus:

    --Fundamentally, it has ALWAYS been the case that anti-Marine meant TAC, because Marines or different-Marines were 80% of opponents.

    --Back when some weapons were anti-horde and useless against Marines, they were 9/10ths of the time passed over for anti-Marine weapons due to this.

    --Nowadays, Marines became so salty about being the default against which all armies were forced to tailor that now we are saying "it is okay if ENTIRE ARMIES are crap against Marines. Silly Guardsman/Chaos Daemon/Necron Warrior should've thought about THAT before picking up puny humans/immortal unlife from beneath reality/immortal machine overlords from beyond the grave, huh??"

    -- This of course will not reduce the Marine tears, as they still won't podium (any army that CAN kill Marines will spam the thing that kills Marines and leave the flamers at home). All it does is ruin the fun of the armies that have been designated as "unable to kill Marines".

    --This also causes immersion-breaking incongruities with the background, where Marine or different-Marine units are shot with lasguns or even strangled to death by Guardsmen.


    Holy gak every time I leave this thread it gets sillier. Whole ARMIES unable to kill marines? Oh those poor necron warriors, how will they possibly down the big stwong space marines with their only...strength 5 AP-2 gun? What weapon could they POSSIBLY TAKE?? O woe betide the blootletter, so weak and pathetic in comparison to the unstoppable space marine, why 240pts of them barely manages to muster the strength to kill...284pts of primaris marines in one round of melee combat? What are they to doooo?