Switch Theme:

Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit  [RSS] 

Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 16:55:29


Post by: bat702


serious question, I could totally see either in 10th edition or maybe for basic bolters in Chaos Space Marines Codex, that bolters will get significant upgrades to keep up with how killy 40k is getting


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 17:04:34


Post by: Andilus Greatsword


IMHO, bolters are fine as is, it's the other standard infantry weapons which are getting out of line. Everything getting AP-1 just makes any armour save effectively worse.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 17:07:07


Post by: Polonius


It's hard to justify basic bolters not getting AP1 on base rate. At this point, bolters are outclassed by roughly half the small arms in the game. chaos would be a good place to kick that off, although I wouldn't be surprised if they're renamed to "hellforged bolters" or some nonsense.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 17:22:23


Post by: ccs


It'd be funny to give Chaos bolters a -1ap but not the Imperial ones.
Make the Imperial players wait 2.5 years+ for something that could appear at any moment via FAQ etc - but doesn't "for reasons".


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 17:29:19


Post by: deviantduck


SoB already have ministorum flamers and artificer crafted storm bolters to make them improved. Hellforged Bolters sounds right to me.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 18:56:41


Post by: catbarf


 Andilus Greatsword wrote:
Everything getting AP-1 just makes any armour save effectively worse.


Yeah, I like modifying armor saves as a mechanic, but GW has gone way overboard with handing out AP, and it seriously devalues armor.

I'd say it started with Marines 2.0, but now it's propagated to every new faction.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/10 19:15:54


Post by: pelicaniforce


I think small arms in general need to do something more useful like they would IRL

for example if your unit is five models with lascannons, it’s easier to suppress

But if it has one lascannon and four models with bolt guns or las guns, then it’s harder to suppress and it can get a boost from being well defended by the small arms

And ap-1 is absolutely out of the question because it would be everywhere and saves would be fairly pointless. This was the case in second edition when almost every infantry model had a -1 ap weapon and marines barely got to use their full 3+. D2 I could see and it’d be funny because it’d be a relatively neutral effect on marines’ overall power.

The other source of buffs to bolt guns should be the model’s skill. Imo a model with higher Ld and A on its profile should be more lethal than a model with lower stats even using the exact same gun. Like a chapter master with a basic bolt gun should 360 no scope people easily and an inq henchman should do less

It also bothers me to use the term bolter and not bolt gun, even though bolter is used everywhere


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/11 20:25:36


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I think 40k has an identity crisis in a way, and there needs to be a serious assessment of how they want certain units to weigh against others, how selections are supposed to perform in game, and how much those things should line up with the narrative. Obviously it was never perfect and never will be, as some degree of compromise must be made for the sake of gameplay, but this is the worst I have seen things since I started playing in 5th.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/11 20:30:36


Post by: Voss


bat702 wrote:
serious question, I could totally see either in 10th edition or maybe for basic bolters in Chaos Space Marines Codex, that bolters will get significant upgrades to keep up with how killy 40k is getting


Need? No.
But its inevitable now, unless 10th starts over. Given fleshborer's new statline, there's zero chance that when loyalist marines come around again, bolters won't be even more better.
The one upside is that its a chance to do the sensible thing and collapse the 40+ variants of bolter into (hopefully) a single profile (but probably 2 to 5).

I legitimately think that chaos will be stuck with the current bolter and like wounds, may or may not get the upgrade for a year+.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/11 20:33:25


Post by: kirotheavenger


GW's trend has absolutely been to make more unique profiles rather than less.

I would be less surprised if they added a "Relic Marine" datasheet with unique profiles for "Umbra Bolters" than I would be for them to condense Primaris' Bolters into fewer profiles.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/11 21:27:52


Post by: Voss


Going by upcoming things (accursed weapons, some tyranid weapons- like genestealers), I'm not sure that holds true.

Mid-edition Paradigm shift! Woo...


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 15:21:22


Post by: bat702


I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 17:05:22


Post by: Amishprn86


Bolters are going to be Str 5, -1, 1D I bet in Marines 2.0.....


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 17:39:05


Post by: bat702


Strength 5 would be too little by itself imo, but -1 ap by itself might be enough


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 17:41:28


Post by: ClockworkZion


I don't think Marines need to have bolters buffed (unless mayne they get buffed to 2D to be an anti-Marine weapon), but I do think most small arms need to lose a pip of AP (to a min of 0, no AP numbers that buff armour saves please).


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 18:09:45


Post by: Insectum7


The balance of small arms in 40k has gotten really funky in the past 2 years or so.

Just learned that the Fleshborer was going to S5 AP-1 too. That's . . . Wierd.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 18:48:53


Post by: Voss


bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 19:56:51


Post by: ClockworkZion


Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 22:27:01


Post by: Insectum7


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.
That IS pretty odd though. It's a little like saying "Heaven forbid guardsmen be better than Space Marines." You have this relationship that's been stable for . . . 30 years? And then suddenly up-end it.

S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I woukdn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there. Plus you still have this situation where a Bolter is no better at killing an Ork than a Lasgun.

Hard not to start wondering if they're slow rolling the rebalancing in to prime players for another SM 2.0 book.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 22:51:50


Post by: Kaied


 Insectum7 wrote:
S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I woukdn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there.
A little Mathhammer and S4 AP0 D1 is exactly half the damage as S5 AP-1 D1 against T4 3+ save and assuming the same BS. So yeah, Fleshborer doesn't have the option to Rapid Fire... but it effectively always is compared to a Boltgun. Looks like it's an Assault Weapon too, so the shorter range is mitigated by 'can be fired while advancing'.

Anyway, I think the better comparison is the Astartes Shotgun, it's just that Boltgun is more iconic. S4 AP0 D1 Assault 2 18" vs S5 AP-1 D1 Assault 1 18". Fleshborer will do more damage against harder than Marine targets (T4 3+) and Shotgun will do more against weaker than Marine.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 23:27:16


Post by: Voss


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.


Uh, yes. For a 5 point base model, yeah? 18" S5 Ap -1 D1 is very out of line. Making a gaunt cost more to compensate is also out of line.

Not sure what either has to do with doubling the firepower of marines all the time because guardsmen are stuck with FRSRF as an order.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 23:36:38


Post by: ClockworkZion


Voss wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.


Uh, yes. For a 5 point base model, yeah? 18" S5 Ap -1 D1 is very out of line. Making a gaunt cost more to compensate is also out of line.

Not sure what either has to do with doubling the firepower of marines all the time because guardsmen are stuck with FRSRF as an order.

I was being sarcastic. Point is that Marines don't automatically have to be buffed because someone else has a gun that used to be similar but now has different stats.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/12 23:55:04


Post by: Gadzilla666


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Spoiler:
Voss wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.


Uh, yes. For a 5 point base model, yeah? 18" S5 Ap -1 D1 is very out of line. Making a gaunt cost more to compensate is also out of line.

Not sure what either has to do with doubling the firepower of marines all the time because guardsmen are stuck with FRSRF as an order.

I was being sarcastic. Point is that Marines don't automatically have to be buffed because someone else has a gun that used to be similar but now has different stats.

Yeah, but I doubt that's how gw will see it, at least when it comes to loyalist marines. For the record, I think we need less AP in the game, not more. But that means fleshborers need to be AP0 as well. And pulse rifles, and shurican catapults, and.......


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 00:36:19


Post by: SemperMortis


 Insectum7 wrote:

S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I wouldn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there. Plus you still have this situation where a Bolter is no better at killing an Ork than a Lasgun.

I'll be honest, I'm a bit sick of this argument because it boils down to this "Oh, this is nonsense that my super elite soldiers primary weapon is only as good as a lasgun vs this one specific army! How dare they!" Honestly, one of the worst things GW did was give orkz T5 because they are so incompetent when it comes to rolling out any buffs for orkz that they hammered us with more nerfs than you would have imagined to "balance" it out. Bolters sucking more against orkz is a bad argument, we are 1 faction, what about the other 90% of the game which is T4 and T3? Does that not matter because 1 specific example?

 catbarf wrote:

Yeah, I like modifying armor saves as a mechanic, but GW has gone way overboard with handing out AP, and it seriously devalues armor.
I'd say it started with Marines 2.0, but now it's propagated to every new faction.


I'm still waiting for Orkz to receive their 8th edition version of buffs to small arms that Marines got let alone their 9th edition one which is apparently even more bonkers than 8th. Marines got functionally twice as many shots and situational -1AP on their bolters. Ork shoota's....they lost DDD but gained a 3rd shot if they somehow get within 9' of their opponent. I mean...they didn't even have the decency to hand us 6 more inches of range to at least make it feasible that occasionally you might get a shoota into dakka range. and lets not even talk about losing assault.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 00:45:32


Post by: Hecaton


SemperMortis wrote:

I'm still waiting for Orkz to receive their 8th edition version of buffs to small arms that Marines got let alone their 9th edition one which is apparently even more bonkers than 8th. Marines got functionally twice as many shots and situational -1AP on their bolters. Ork shoota's....they lost DDD but gained a 3rd shot if they somehow get within 9' of their opponent. I mean...they didn't even have the decency to hand us 6 more inches of range to at least make it feasible that occasionally you might get a shoota into dakka range. and lets not even talk about losing assault.



But if Orks were good it might compromise the Astartes power fantasy, and we can't have that.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 00:51:21


Post by: Insectum7


SemperMortis wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:

S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I wouldn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there. Plus you still have this situation where a Bolter is no better at killing an Ork than a Lasgun.

I'll be honest, I'm a bit sick of this argument because it boils down to this "Oh, this is nonsense that my super elite soldiers primary weapon is only as good as a lasgun vs this one specific army! How dare they!" Honestly, one of the worst things GW did was give orkz T5 because they are so incompetent when it comes to rolling out any buffs for orkz that they hammered us with more nerfs than you would have imagined to "balance" it out. Bolters sucking more against orkz is a bad argument, we are 1 faction, what about the other 90% of the game which is T4 and T3? Does that not matter because 1 specific example?

Haha, no. Marines should have stayed at 1W and Orks should have stayed at T4, but the offensive power of Boyz should've been beefed to be more innate rather than relying on whatever weird combos people have been relying on to make them at all effective in recent editions.

The Lasgun-boltgun thing is just one of the oddities brought along by the current, seemingly "throw it all at the wall and see if it sticks" design paradigm. That said, the Lasgun-boltgun thing stands out more than other things because GEQ, MEQ and Orks comprise some of the most fundamental balance relationships in the game.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 01:27:15


Post by: Mr Raptor


I definitely think Bolters should be made S5. Not only to match the ork's new toughness. It becomes pretty laughable especially when gaunt weapons are about to go S5 AP-1. Something which is literally supposed to be the most basic and cheap infantry of the setting baring gretchins and guards.

And that's coming from a Tyranid and ork player.

Now, although i feel it would be perfectly thematic, I don't think it would be a good idea for the game itself. Ork boyz are already bad as it is, and really don't need that in their life when they are 9ppm.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 01:59:51


Post by: Voss


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
bat702 wrote:
I could totally see even all primaris bolters getting slight upgrades, one idea for basic bolters might be to turn them into rapid fire 2, this makes some sense if you think of the guards men las gun getting first rank second rank fire, turning their str 3 las guns into rapid fire 2

No. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why should primaris get an all-the-time better buff to their better gun while guard still have to rely on an order for their flashlight?
That's exactly the kind of upgrade that is making the game worse.

Because heaven forbid the Fleshborer stop being a worse bolter.


Uh, yes. For a 5 point base model, yeah? 18" S5 Ap -1 D1 is very out of line. Making a gaunt cost more to compensate is also out of line.

Not sure what either has to do with doubling the firepower of marines all the time because guardsmen are stuck with FRSRF as an order.

I was being sarcastic. Point is that Marines don't automatically have to be buffed because someone else has a gun that used to be similar but now has different stats.


Ok, then... your 'sarcasm' made it seem like you were agreeing with bat702.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 06:52:08


Post by: Wyldhunt


I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 07:15:14


Post by: Spoletta


Making bolters Str 5 would imho be a good thing.
It would put them around equal with Admech and Necron guns, worse than pulse rifles and better than fleshborers.

I know that Necron and Admech guns used to be better versions of bolters, but it is also an evergreen meme than GW has never portrayed the bolter correctly.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 07:20:10


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.

I mean we just had confirmation that Fleshborers went to S5 AP-1. There's clearly no toning down at this point.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 07:30:09


Post by: AnomanderRake


The fact that GW isn't interested in backing off on the power creep doesn't mean that the answer to "should X get power creeped?" shouldn't be "no".

(Alternate phrasing with fewer double negatives: It doesn't become a good idea just because GW's doing it.)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 08:02:44


Post by: Spectral Ceramite


Arn't bolt rounds pretty much a solid fuel rocket propelled at an enemy? The difference between a Boltgun and Bolt rifle is just longer barrel etc? Because they are both rocket propelled the extra barrel length should do nothing for penetrating power. Maybe accuracy, but lets say range...

The only difference between a Boltgun and a Bolt rifle should be one 24" and the other 30" (both -1AP).

Because some are going up, nah I think they stay the same (though I think boltgun should be: 24" -1Ap and Bolt rifle: 30" -1Ap, so increase boltgun). If they release a new Marine codex, I think other things will change to make them "keep up".


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 08:37:17


Post by: Eldarsif


Spoletta wrote:
Making bolters Str 5 would imho be a good thing.


Bad thing for Death Guard. Death Guard is a trash tier army as it is. Str 5 bolters and more AP would just cement the fact that Death Guard needs to be squatted at this point.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 08:55:16


Post by: ClockworkZion


Bolters do not need a strength buff. Nor do they need an AP buff. As I mentioned the only thing that would be a change worth putting on them is bumping them to D2 (and maybe only against non-vehicle models) to make them proper anti-MEQ weapons since Marines but honestly that could be pushing it when you consoder that Sisters of both flavors also get them and can be run in higher numbers than Astartes.

I stand by the only change we need to see isn't one where the bolter is buffed buy where all small arms are taken down a pip of AP to balance the game's leathality curve better.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 10:19:46


Post by: Tyel


They don't need one but will get it.
Also half expect "boltgun" to cease being a thing. So you don't have to balance across multiple factions.

Because if say CSM are to be 18~ points, they can't easily have a gun Kroot get at 6 or Sisters get at 11. Or you have to buff their toughness so all these cheap 8-9 point shooting units don't just gun them down.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 10:25:14


Post by: bat702


Honestly I feel that if CSM are ever going to as popular as they once were, the humble bolter is going to need a buff, since they dont have a primaris option, but knowing GW they will likely buff some primaris bolter guns as well


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 10:48:40


Post by: Dysartes


Hecaton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

I'm still waiting for Orkz to receive their 8th edition version of buffs to small arms that Marines got let alone their 9th edition one which is apparently even more bonkers than 8th. Marines got functionally twice as many shots and situational -1AP on their bolters. Ork shoota's....they lost DDD but gained a 3rd shot if they somehow get within 9' of their opponent. I mean...they didn't even have the decency to hand us 6 more inches of range to at least make it feasible that occasionally you might get a shoota into dakka range. and lets not even talk about losing assault.



But if Orks were good it might compromise the Astartes power fantasy, and we can't have that.

No, Hecaton, you're missing something obvious here - if Orks were good, then Semper would have nothing to whinge about over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and therefore their head would explode.

By keeping Orks bad, they're keeping Semper alive!


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 11:00:21


Post by: vipoid


I'm sure I'll get jumped on for saying this, but 90% of the current mess with regard to power creep can be tied directly to Marines getting an extra wound. That one act completely changed the dynamics of ostensibly anti-infantry weapons and led to drastic increases in the number of D2 weapons and also in AP, rate of fire etc., even for basic weapons.

It was an unparalleled mistake and one GW is unlikely to rectify even in 10th.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 13:12:25


Post by: Spectral Ceramite


 vipoid wrote:
I'm sure I'll get jumped on for saying this, but 90% of the current mess with regard to power creep can be tied directly to Marines getting an extra wound. That one act completely changed the dynamics of ostensibly anti-infantry weapons and led to drastic increases in the number of D2 weapons and also in AP, rate of fire etc., even for basic weapons.

It was an unparalleled mistake and one GW is unlikely to rectify even in 10th.


I agree, I think it was that the designers wanted SM more survivable but not to give so much, so they gave all Marines 1 extra wound, but thought we should give some weapons damage 2 now to compensate, and were not aware of the ramifications so it escalated (more damage weapons, reduce damage abilities, now ignore invulnerables etc is a rolling ball of what next).

I think all boltguns should go to -1Ap. Have to change some SM strats and give SM Hq's more attacks and wounds (is what is gunna happen with SM version 2.0)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 15:50:10


Post by: Voss


 vipoid wrote:
I'm sure I'll get jumped on for saying this, but 90% of the current mess with regard to power creep can be tied directly to Marines getting an extra wound. That one act completely changed the dynamics of ostensibly anti-infantry weapons and led to drastic increases in the number of D2 weapons and also in AP, rate of fire etc., even for basic weapons.

It was an unparalleled mistake and one GW is unlikely to rectify even in 10th.


It was the lack of pre-planning and not having a design document. They made the change without consideration for the unintended consequences and had to ramp everything else up to compensate and didn't have any consideration for how those changes would butterfly propagate when not facing marines (or even when facing marines in a lot of ways)

You're absolutely right, and you can see it in stages, where dark eldar got heavy splinter bolters and dark lance improvements, but got nothing for splinter rifles, and by the time the changes hit craftworlds and tyranids, shuriken catapults got some semblance over their former (1e/2e) glory back and basic fleshborers are now the assault bolters (from the primaris jump guys) spread out across 3 models.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 16:42:18


Post by: Insectum7


 vipoid wrote:
I'm sure I'll get jumped on for saying this, but 90% of the current mess with regard to power creep can be tied directly to Marines getting an extra wound. That one act completely changed the dynamics of ostensibly anti-infantry weapons and led to drastic increases in the number of D2 weapons and also in AP, rate of fire etc., even for basic weapons.

It was an unparalleled mistake and one GW is unlikely to rectify even in 10th.
Yup.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 16:47:34


Post by: ClockworkZion


I feel like the extra wound on Marines *feels* right but the team not sitting down and thinking of the knock on effects when they made the change seems like it's par for the course. It feels like they're designing books in a vacuum with no thoughts (beyond any feedback from the playtesters they decide to listen to) on how the game will affect the rest of the game.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 16:53:31


Post by: Dudeface


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like the extra wound on Marines *feels* right but the team not sitting down and thinking of the knock on effects when they made the change seems like it's par for the course. It feels like they're designing books in a vacuum with no thoughts (beyond any feedback from the playtesters they decide to listen to) on how the game will affect the rest of the game.


Even then the answer wasn't hand damage out like candy, just point adjust the marines if they become too tough.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 17:30:07


Post by: Spoletta


They didn't go far enough.

They had to make them 2W and 2+. with termies 1+. Then this new level of weapons would be good, because honestly it is better than the previous ones, where everything was compressed in the same profiles.

Problem is that the rest of the field would be utterly useless against them until a few dexes were out.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 17:31:06


Post by: JNAProductions


Spoletta wrote:
They didn't go far enough.

They had to make them 2W and 2+. with termies 1+. Then this new level of weapons would be good, because honestly it is better than the previous ones, where everything was compressed in the same profiles.

Problem is that the rest of the field would be utterly useless against them until a few dexes were out.

1+, or 2+ with a +1?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 17:33:38


Post by: Spoletta


2+ and decrease incoming AP by 1 I guess.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 18:11:41


Post by: blaktoof


Necron guns should be better than bolters, but that is a different topic.

There are a lot of bolt weapons at this point, and the bolter is good when it is in the relevant doctrine. Increasing the bolter statline further could become OP, and honestly will hurt marine players as power armor will become less viable.

There is obviously weapon stat creep at this point, and GW will address it for Marines because of the forthcoming second marine dex that everyone knows will happen, and if bolters are improved marine players will actually dislike it because their number one enemy will likely be other armies with bolters.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 19:35:44


Post by: EviscerationPlague


blaktoof wrote:
Necron guns should be better than bolters, but that is a different topic.

There are a lot of bolt weapons at this point, and the bolter is good when it is in the relevant doctrine. Increasing the bolter statline further could become OP, and honestly will hurt marine players as power armor will become less viable.

There is obviously weapon stat creep at this point, and GW will address it for Marines because of the forthcoming second marine dex that everyone knows will happen, and if bolters are improved marine players will actually dislike it because their number one enemy will likely be other armies with bolters.


I mean the Gauss Flayer is definitely better than the standard Bolter, but as someone that likes Immortals more, I'm fine with that being the standard gun to compare with.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 19:41:10


Post by: kirotheavenger


I actively like when basic datums, like small arms, are roughly comparable across armies.
It makes it a lot easier to understand.
40k has, what, a dozen distinct factions at this point before you account for niche stuff?
If every little thing is wildly different between every one of those it's too much to understand.
It's good if I can look at a Necron Warrior and know what their capabilities are because it's similar to my stuff.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 19:58:59


Post by: catbarf


 kirotheavenger wrote:
I actively like when basic datums, like small arms, are roughly comparable across armies.
It makes it a lot easier to understand.
40k has, what, a dozen distinct factions at this point before you account for niche stuff?
If every little thing is wildly different between every one of those it's too much to understand.
It's good if I can look at a Necron Warrior and know what their capabilities are because it's similar to my stuff.


When the capabilities of a unit are so heavily tied to subfactions, stratagems, and other factors not on the datasheet, knowing the statline doesn't get you very far. We're way too deep into the weeds for whether basic small arms align to matter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 22:55:30


Post by: Kaied


 kirotheavenger wrote:
I actively like when basic datums, like small arms, are roughly comparable across armies.
It makes it a lot easier to understand.
40k has, what, a dozen distinct factions at this point before you account for niche stuff?
If every little thing is wildly different between every one of those it's too much to understand.
It's good if I can look at a Necron Warrior and know what their capabilities are because it's similar to my stuff.
And then get confused when the Necron player has 50% more Warriors compared to Intercessors.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 23:04:32


Post by: SemperMortis


 Dysartes wrote:

No, Hecaton, you're missing something obvious here - if Orks were good, then Semper would have nothing to whinge about over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and therefore their head would explode.

By keeping Orks bad, they're keeping Semper alive!


Let me know when another faction, which isn't running away with it on the tournament scene, forces GW to release an emergency FAQ/Nerf so that top players don't have to worry about having to face counter meta lists



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/13 23:27:58


Post by: argonak


After a few games I think I'd rather have everything get the crud nerfed out of it. 9th edition is just so crazy deadly already.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 00:29:43


Post by: morganfreeman


Kaied wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I woukdn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there.
A little Mathhammer and S4 AP0 D1 is exactly half the damage as S5 AP-1 D1 against T4 3+ save and assuming the same BS. So yeah, Fleshborer doesn't have the option to Rapid Fire... but it effectively always is compared to a Boltgun. Looks like it's an Assault Weapon too, so the shorter range is mitigated by 'can be fired while advancing'.

Anyway, I think the better comparison is the Astartes Shotgun, it's just that Boltgun is more iconic. S4 AP0 D1 Assault 2 18" vs S5 AP-1 D1 Assault 1 18". Fleshborer will do more damage against harder than Marine targets (T4 3+) and Shotgun will do more against weaker than Marine.


Comparison to the bolter is proper.

While your bit about Rapid Fire is correct, it's not quite... accurate. Bolter Discipline means that marines will be doubling-up their shots far more often than not, to the point where having double the range is an extremely important factor. This also doesn't account for bolters having bonus AP from Doctrines, and you bizarrely choose to throw in a bit about "assuming the same BS" when Termagants have always had lower BS than marines...

So while your comparison is technically correct, it's incredibly dishonest. And that's before you even really get into the weeds on platform durability, in which Bolters suddenly fair significantly better (respectively) when firing at Termagants than when firing at Marines. So the conclusions reached via this mathhammer are deeply flawed, and should be ignored by anyone not looking to push an inaccurate agenda.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 00:32:17


Post by: Manchild 1984


Spoletta wrote:
Making bolters Str 5 would imho be a good thing.
It would put them around equal with Admech and Necron guns, worse than pulse rifles and better than fleshborers.

I know that Necron and Admech guns used to be better versions of bolters, but it is also an evergreen meme than GW has never portrayed the bolter correctly.

The Necron Gauss Flayer is just S4... the S5 comes at loss of range


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 00:35:15


Post by: ClockworkZion


Surprised no one has claimed the Bolter should also magically gain a number of shots because the Devourer is going to Assault 5.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 00:54:21


Post by: H.B.M.C.


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.
I mean we just had confirmation that Fleshborers went to S5 AP-1. There's clearly no toning down at this point.
Wyldhunt is still right through: A creep war has no winners (unless you're Zerg), and the game would be better served if everything was brought down, rather than constant one-upping and readjusting.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 00:58:19


Post by: Wyldhunt


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.

I mean we just had confirmation that Fleshborers went to S5 AP-1. There's clearly no toning down at this point.


AnomanderRake wrote:The fact that GW isn't interested in backing off on the power creep doesn't mean that the answer to "should X get power creeped?" shouldn't be "no".

(Alternate phrasing with fewer double negatives: It doesn't become a good idea just because GW's doing it.)


Obviously the books that are being printed are already a done deal, but that doesn't mean I can't hope for a lethality reduction in the future. Maybe that means waiting for an edition change or whatever, but trying to fix power creep with more power creep just leads to 7th edition hyper lethality where every unit on the table is deleting entire units units every time they shoot. Been there. Done that. Didn't care for it.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 03:32:52


Post by: Breton


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like the extra wound on Marines *feels* right but the team not sitting down and thinking of the knock on effects when they made the change seems like it's par for the course. It feels like they're designing books in a vacuum with no thoughts (beyond any feedback from the playtesters they decide to listen to) on how the game will affect the rest of the game.


Well, we've only had an edition and a half or so since they did it. GW is like a very large very tight rubber band when it comes to changes. They snap back and forth over the "good" fix several times before they settle on the good one.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 04:31:32


Post by: Hecaton


Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.


This is the truth right here.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 04:35:55


Post by: Kaied


 morganfreeman wrote:
Kaied wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I woukdn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there.
A little Mathhammer and S4 AP0 D1 is exactly half the damage as S5 AP-1 D1 against T4 3+ save and assuming the same BS. So yeah, Fleshborer doesn't have the option to Rapid Fire... but it effectively always is compared to a Boltgun. Looks like it's an Assault Weapon too, so the shorter range is mitigated by 'can be fired while advancing'.

Anyway, I think the better comparison is the Astartes Shotgun, it's just that Boltgun is more iconic. S4 AP0 D1 Assault 2 18" vs S5 AP-1 D1 Assault 1 18". Fleshborer will do more damage against harder than Marine targets (T4 3+) and Shotgun will do more against weaker than Marine.


Comparison to the bolter is proper.

While your bit about Rapid Fire is correct, it's not quite... accurate. Bolter Discipline means that marines will be doubling-up their shots far more often than not, to the point where having double the range is an extremely important factor. This also doesn't account for bolters having bonus AP from Doctrines, and you bizarrely choose to throw in a bit about "assuming the same BS" when Termagants have always had lower BS than marines...

So while your comparison is technically correct, it's incredibly dishonest. And that's before you even really get into the weeds on platform durability, in which Bolters suddenly fair significantly better (respectively) when firing at Termagants than when firing at Marines. So the conclusions reached via this mathhammer are deeply flawed, and should be ignored by anyone not looking to push an inaccurate agenda.
Maybe because I was comparing the Weapon and not the Platform, and not attempting to confuse the issue with a dozen other factors that pertain to the Platform. If you reread my sentence about Mathhammer, I don't mention weapon names at all until the next sentence, just base stats. Fleshborer isn't half the range of Boltgun, or did you miss where it is going to 18"?

About the same BS comment, last edition I played significantly was 3rd as Space Wolves, and both Blood Claws and Termagants had the same BS, 3 (which is worse than 4 in that system). Granted, the normal Marine stat line did have 4 BS. Blood Claws were 14 points, Grey Hunters 17(18 with bolter), Tactical 15(Assault without JP were also 15) and Termagants were 7. Fleshborer and Bolt Pistol were exactly the same, Range/Strength/#Shots except Bolt Pistol had better AP. Termagants could also get +1 BS for +2 points. So no, at least 1 edition (the last one I played), Termagants were exactly the same accuracy as Marines.

This edition, if the boltgun gets rapid fire 50% of the time and you take BS 4 for the Termagants, the mathhammer breaks even. For, you know, somewhere around 25% of the points. Sure, we'll chalk up 75% of the points difference as platform differences and +6" weapon range... except the BS since we already took that into account. Durability? Well, assuming the Termagants stay at 3 Power for 10 Termagants, and Tactical Marines are 5 power for 5, so roughly 16.6W at T3 6+ for the Termagants vs 10W T4 3+ for the Marines. Doing some mathhammer, Marines are 60% more durable against boltguns, but only 20% more durable against Fleshborers than Termagants. D2 weapons and weapons that are higher than AP-1 obviously favor Termagants. Grav-gun for example S5 AP-3 D1(or 2) will only take 9 hits to kill the Tactical Marines, where it takes 25 hits to kill the Termagants. So on the top side, the Marines are 20-60% more durable, and Termagants do 66% more damage for the same power.

To put it a different way, if you control for Power, 16.6 Termagants with Fleshborers will kill 5 marines in 3.6 rounds of shooting (16.6 shots at 50% accuracy, 66% chance to wound, 50% chance to save=2.76W per round 10W/2.7=3.6 rounds). 5 Marines with Boltguns that Rapid Fire 100% of the time will kill 16.6 Termagants in 4.5 rounds of shooting(10 shots at 66% hit, 66% wound, 83% failed save=3.7W per round, 16.6W/3.7=4.5 rounds). Power Level 4 for the 'new' Termagants and it reverses, of course (3.4 rounds vs 4.8), unless Rapid Fire% is reduced (at 50% it takes 4.5 rounds to kill the 12.5 Termagants).

Sure, Doctrines and Chapter Tactics, ie -1 AP and remains stationary(Ultramarines) for 1-2 rounds out of 5. Counter with Hive Fleet Adaptations and Synapse Abilities, ie reroll 1s to hit(Kronos) and reroll 1-2s to wound (Tervigon). Chaplain Litany for +1 to wound vs Kronos exploding 6s psychic power. Captains, Chapter Masters, Lieutenants, and I am sure Tyranids have other buff units, but now we're talking codex vs codex not weapon vs weapon.

So perhaps dismissing my comparison as dishonest needs to look in the mirror.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 05:07:44


Post by: bat702


in the future, even bolters will fire live hampsters

rule 34?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 06:48:18


Post by: gunchar


I would be a bigger fan of GW toning most weapons down but i'm well aware of how unrealistic that hope is, so i guess yeah they need buffs..

 ClockworkZion wrote:
As I mentioned the only thing that would be a change worth putting on them is bumping them to D2 (and maybe only against non-vehicle models) to make them proper anti-MEQ weapons since Marines but honestly that could be pushing it when you consoder that Sisters of both flavors also get them and can be run in higher numbers than Astartes.

Current Sisters of Battle with D2 Bolters would be still not remotely a threat to the current Top Tier, not even if they finally get Bolter Discipline(at that point they would be a quite strong army again though). And i doubt D2 Bolters Sisters of Silence would've any impact at all.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 06:56:25


Post by: bat702


gunchar gets its, basic human patterns, gw will continue to buff weapons


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 07:58:45


Post by: Spoletta


The fleshborers are actually the only gun which feel a bit weird.

All the other small caliber weapons do indeed look like they were decided at the start of the edition and the designers stuck to it with dexes.

Fleshborers that strong are very weird. In general it looks like GW is pushing for better shooting on nids, since fleshborers got better only to be comparable with other choices.
I see no one discussing the fact that they also get a pistol 2 (old) heavy bolter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 08:31:23


Post by: Not Online!!!


Hecaton wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
I'd much rather see other things get toned down rather than buffing bolters further. Nobody wins the power creep war.


This is the truth right here.


Depends entirely upon how you percieve win. Temporary an army may well win the power creep war, decidedly so even. Permanently yes you are accurate.
Longterm gamehealth wise, all of us lose.

I don't think a gaunt should have such a weapon, but then again i don't think marines should've gotten 2 w and the firerate of weapons through the roof, subfactions and stratagems were imo a mistake aswell alas.
It's part of the course for GW to shift design paradigms once again in the mid of an edition, instead of finishing all codices at once and releasing them at once.

Alas, spread releases spread the numbers over the quartals, better look for the shareholders.
However i feel we enter a 7th edition spiral again and with far more expensive models to boot, anecdotally i have never seen such a low New-player retention since then locally.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 08:40:59


Post by: H.B.M.C.


Wrong thread. Sorry.




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 09:08:03


Post by: Jarms48


Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I think all boltguns should go to -1Ap. Have to change some SM strats and give SM Hq's more attacks and wounds (is what is gunna happen with SM version 2.0)


Honestly, I see all bolt guns, storm bolters, hurricane bolters, bolt pistols, etc getting AP-1. Which would be a nice buff to every first-born unit, though I wonder if that would flow onto the other Imperium factions like Custodes, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Guard who also have access to these weapons.

For Primaris I could see all their AP0 bolt weapons becoming AP-1 as well. Infiltrators could be fun with AP-1 carbines. Intercessors could drop to 19 points with the bolt rifle or stalker bolt rifle, and pay +1 point for an AP-1 auto bolt rifle. Kinda like how BT Primaris Initiates work.

I also see GW removing Shock Assault and just giving Marines an extra attack, just like Grey Knights. Which would be a nice buff in general as there's many abilities that don't stack with Shock Assault, presumably because GW probably thought it was OP.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 09:24:08


Post by: bat702


Would be funny tho to see space-marines with hardcore machine-guns with like rapid fire 4 and not even by a stormbolter


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 10:14:16


Post by: Jarms48


Tyel wrote:
Also half expect "boltgun" to cease being a thing. So you don't have to balance across multiple factions.


Honestly, I could see it being renamed Astarte boltgun, Astarte boltpistol, etc. Just like the Astarte chainsword. Even if Battle Sisters with AP-1 bolters might actually make them okay. Same for Custode bikers, instead of always just now swapping the Hurricane Bolters with the Salvo Launcher cause it's clearly superior, giving up an AP-1 hurricane might be a harder choice to make.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 10:54:07


Post by: shortymcnostrill


Kaied wrote:
 morganfreeman wrote:
Kaied wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
S5 AP-1 fleshborers still don't have the range and ability to fire twice that the bolters do, so I woukdn't say they're "better" necessarily, but there's an unprecedented encroachment there.
A little Mathhammer and S4 AP0 D1 is exactly half the damage as S5 AP-1 D1 against T4 3+ save and assuming the same BS. So yeah, Fleshborer doesn't have the option to Rapid Fire... but it effectively always is compared to a Boltgun. Looks like it's an Assault Weapon too, so the shorter range is mitigated by 'can be fired while advancing'.

Anyway, I think the better comparison is the Astartes Shotgun, it's just that Boltgun is more iconic. S4 AP0 D1 Assault 2 18" vs S5 AP-1 D1 Assault 1 18". Fleshborer will do more damage against harder than Marine targets (T4 3+) and Shotgun will do more against weaker than Marine.


Comparison to the bolter is proper.

While your bit about Rapid Fire is correct, it's not quite... accurate. Bolter Discipline means that marines will be doubling-up their shots far more often than not, to the point where having double the range is an extremely important factor. This also doesn't account for bolters having bonus AP from Doctrines, and you bizarrely choose to throw in a bit about "assuming the same BS" when Termagants have always had lower BS than marines...

So while your comparison is technically correct, it's incredibly dishonest. And that's before you even really get into the weeds on platform durability, in which Bolters suddenly fair significantly better (respectively) when firing at Termagants than when firing at Marines. So the conclusions reached via this mathhammer are deeply flawed, and should be ignored by anyone not looking to push an inaccurate agenda.
Maybe because I was comparing the Weapon and not the Platform, and not attempting to confuse the issue with a dozen other factors that pertain to the Platform. If you reread my sentence about Mathhammer, I don't mention weapon names at all until the next sentence, just base stats. Fleshborer isn't half the range of Boltgun, or did you miss where it is going to 18"?

About the same BS comment, last edition I played significantly was 3rd as Space Wolves, and both Blood Claws and Termagants had the same BS, 3 (which is worse than 4 in that system). Granted, the normal Marine stat line did have 4 BS. Blood Claws were 14 points, Grey Hunters 17(18 with bolter), Tactical 15(Assault without JP were also 15) and Termagants were 7. Fleshborer and Bolt Pistol were exactly the same, Range/Strength/#Shots except Bolt Pistol had better AP. Termagants could also get +1 BS for +2 points. So no, at least 1 edition (the last one I played), Termagants were exactly the same accuracy as Marines.

This edition, if the boltgun gets rapid fire 50% of the time and you take BS 4 for the Termagants, the mathhammer breaks even. For, you know, somewhere around 25% of the points. Sure, we'll chalk up 75% of the points difference as platform differences and +6" weapon range... except the BS since we already took that into account. Durability? Well, assuming the Termagants stay at 3 Power for 10 Termagants, and Tactical Marines are 5 power for 5, so roughly 16.6W at T3 6+ for the Termagants vs 10W T4 3+ for the Marines. Doing some mathhammer, Marines are 60% more durable against boltguns, but only 20% more durable against Fleshborers than Termagants. D2 weapons and weapons that are higher than AP-1 obviously favor Termagants. Grav-gun for example S5 AP-3 D1(or 2) will only take 9 hits to kill the Tactical Marines, where it takes 25 hits to kill the Termagants. So on the top side, the Marines are 20-60% more durable, and Termagants do 66% more damage for the same power.

To put it a different way, if you control for Power, 16.6 Termagants with Fleshborers will kill 5 marines in 3.6 rounds of shooting (16.6 shots at 50% accuracy, 66% chance to wound, 50% chance to save=2.76W per round 10W/2.7=3.6 rounds). 5 Marines with Boltguns that Rapid Fire 100% of the time will kill 16.6 Termagants in 4.5 rounds of shooting(10 shots at 66% hit, 66% wound, 83% failed save=3.7W per round, 16.6W/3.7=4.5 rounds). Power Level 4 for the 'new' Termagants and it reverses, of course (3.4 rounds vs 4.8), unless Rapid Fire% is reduced (at 50% it takes 4.5 rounds to kill the 12.5 Termagants).

Sure, Doctrines and Chapter Tactics, ie -1 AP and remains stationary(Ultramarines) for 1-2 rounds out of 5. Counter with Hive Fleet Adaptations and Synapse Abilities, ie reroll 1s to hit(Kronos) and reroll 1-2s to wound (Tervigon). Chaplain Litany for +1 to wound vs Kronos exploding 6s psychic power. Captains, Chapter Masters, Lieutenants, and I am sure Tyranids have other buff units, but now we're talking codex vs codex not weapon vs weapon.

So perhaps dismissing my comparison as dishonest needs to look in the mirror.


Comparing termagants to blood claws, the only marines that hit on a 4+, does feel a bit disingenuous. You're also misremembering termagants having an option for bs 4 (3+ to hit) for 2 pts. That hasn't ever been a thing. This also discredits your further calculations, their bs isn't equal and tyranids have far fewer buffs available.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 11:26:46


Post by: Breton


Jarms48 wrote:
Spectral Ceramite wrote:
I think all boltguns should go to -1Ap. Have to change some SM strats and give SM Hq's more attacks and wounds (is what is gunna happen with SM version 2.0)


Honestly, I see all bolt guns, storm bolters, hurricane bolters, bolt pistols, etc getting AP-1. Which would be a nice buff to every first-born unit, though I wonder if that would flow onto the other Imperium factions like Custodes, Sisters, Grey Knights, and Guard who also have access to these weapons.

For Primaris I could see all their AP0 bolt weapons becoming AP-1 as well. Infiltrators could be fun with AP-1 carbines. Intercessors could drop to 19 points with the bolt rifle or stalker bolt rifle, and pay +1 point for an AP-1 auto bolt rifle. Kinda like how BT Primaris Initiates work.
I kind of snicker every time I see someone talking about AP-1 being an upgrade for bolters even though that's what they've been for a long long time. I think they only went to 0 when Primaris got an AP-1 Bolt Rifle. It's not an upgrade, it's a reversion.

I also see GW removing Shock Assault and just giving Marines an extra attack, just like Grey Knights. Which would be a nice buff in general as there's many abilities that don't stack with Shock Assault, presumably because GW probably thought it was OP.

1) Which abilities don't stack? I thought it was Doctrines that didn't stack unless specifically allowed?
2) Shock Assault (and Hateful Assault) may change to a straight +1A on the stat line given the rest of the power creep, but I think it stays 1st round only.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 11:40:02


Post by: kirotheavenger


Bolters haven't been AP-1 since 8th dropped, and 5th-7th didn't have modifier APs. Maybe they were AP-1 in 2nd or something?
They used to be AP5, although against most units with saves 4+ or better it might as well have been AP-.
For armies with saves 5+ or worse, well everything was AP5 so everyone just considered them as not having armour saves anyway.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 13:43:22


Post by: Breton


 kirotheavenger wrote:
Bolters haven't been AP-1 since 8th dropped,
When Primaris and bolt rifles were introduced?

and 5th-7th didn't have modifier APs. Maybe they were AP-1 in 2nd or something?
Technically it was called a save modifier not AP - Normally I wouldn't be so precise, but if we're dickering about AP-1 vs AP5?

They used to be AP5, although against most units with saves 4+ or better it might as well have been AP-.
For armies with saves 5+ or worse, well everything was AP5 so everyone just considered them as not having armour saves anyway.
That was how the system worked then just like AP4 was the same as AP- vs a 3+ - also not everything was AP5- Frag was AP6 Sniper rifles, Some other stuff. Most stuff was AP5.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 13:59:46


Post by: kirotheavenger


-1 save modifier and AP-1 are exactly the same, same functionality just a different name.

AP5 and AP-1 are not the same, they have different functionality despite having the same name.

I'm not interested in bickering about exactly how relevant AP5 was in old editions, the point is what it means going forwards.

It means that AP now is much more common than it used to be. Before almost no smallarms had any impact on 4+ saves or better, nowadays small arms with AP-1 or -2 are actually pretty common.

It also means that bolters having as much AP as other small arms is justified, as AP5 was about the best small arms got.

Do I like that AP-1 and -2 is common for small arms now? Not at all. But it is and that's clearly not changing anytime soon. Ergo bolters getting AP1 would help the weapon still feel relevant and powerful as it should do.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 14:33:47


Post by: Spoletta


It should be noted that while AP is definitely more common than how it was at the start of 8th, a lot of armor saves were actually increased too.

Stormshields provide +1. Kabalites and guardians have 4+. Leman russes have 2+. Tyranid beasts have 2+, and so on.

The only problem in all this is that the power armored marines have been left behind, especially their vehicles.
IMO in the new dex they should lose shock assault while gaining a +1 A (to reduce the number of rules), then add "Black Carapace: Increase the armor save of units with this rule by 1 against attacks of S7 or lower".
Now they are fine, and you justified why marines have 2+ and sisters don't. (Obviously apply to all marine variants, yes stinky and spiky ones too. Maybe not dusty).


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 14:45:18


Post by: Breton


 kirotheavenger wrote:


It means that AP now is much more common than it used to be. Before almost no smallarms had any impact on 4+ saves or better, nowadays small arms with AP-1 or -2 are actually pretty common.

It also means that bolters having as much AP as other small arms is justified, as AP5 was about the best small arms got.

Do I like that AP-1 and -2 is common for small arms now? Not at all. But it is and that's clearly not changing anytime soon. Ergo bolters getting AP1 would help the weapon still feel relevant and powerful as it should do.


We're on what 9th Edition? 1st Edition doesn't really count - it was wildly different - so we've got 8 editions of "life" in the game. A bolter was -1 longer than it wasn't. It probably will be again. Especially if they squat the firstborns and only non-marines have one. Whats the difference between 5 Tacs with a flamer and 5 Intercessors with an auxiliary grenade launcher? pretty much AP-1, 5 attacks you never want to need, and 10-20 points. Look at the current codex and the weapons that are AP0 (with no special like the Thunderfire Canon or the Eliminator Hyperfrag rounds) - how many of them CAN'T go on a firstborn? The Assault Bolter variants (Mastercrafted/Heavy/Hellstorm Auto Bolt Rifles and Dakka Aggressors that might as well be a special with 10ish shots per model? Maybe I'm wrong and this isn't to make Primaris more attractive. They do occasionally like to mess with things. I can remember when Plasma was -2, then AP2, now to -3 and -4.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
It should be noted that while AP is definitely more common than how it was at the start of 8th, a lot of armor saves were actually increased too.

Stormshields provide +1. Kabalites and guardians have 4+. Leman russes have 2+. Tyranid beasts have 2+, and so on.

The only problem in all this is that the power armored marines have been left behind, especially their vehicles.
IMO in the new dex they should lose shock assault while gaining a +1 A (to reduce the number of rules), then add "Black Carapace: Increase the armor save of units with this rule by 1 against attacks of S7 or lower".
Now they are fine, and you justified why marines have 2+ and sisters don't. (Obviously apply to all marine variants, yes stinky and spiky ones too. Maybe not dusty).


S7 and lower may be a bit much. I get it, you're probably picking the Instant Death threshold - but I think I'd go less than 6 - so S6+ blows through carapace so now you're leaving behind most Plasma, Autocanons, assault cannons, and so on while tagging Grav, Heavy Bolters, and the like. Marines shouldn't be getting a bonus vs plasma (except maybe the S6 assault Plasma).

Also I'd have to question the premise why should Marines get a bonus to their armor save that Sisters dont? I get it you're saying Power Armor needs a boost for balance reasons that's easily fluffed, but I'm not clear on why Sisters need to be excluded.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 15:44:50


Post by: Spoletta


Because sisters currently cover the niche of t3 3+ targets and they are needed for the game economy. Basic sisters could then use a 10 ppm cost, but that's another topic.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 16:01:14


Post by: Dudeface


In the current game, yes bog standard bolters absolutely need to do more. The fleshborer has historically had parity as a half range assault 1 bolter (back before bolter discipline). Bolters are arguably less effective than they were back then due to the AP change, but fire twice at max range if stationary *by a marine*. Fleshborer got +1s, AP-1 and 6" increases. Tau pulse rifles got some increases as well after historically being kept constant. Shuriken catapults got ap and range increases. The humble bolter is now hilariously outgunned by it's peers.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 16:09:50


Post by: Quasistellar


Bolters are fine.

They need to address SM vehicles being absolutely horrendous trash heaps and things like hellblasters / reivers / assault marines / etc etc.

SM got a (deserved) bad rap in 8th 2.0 / early 9th due to the supplements, but in reality there were a few straight broken units/rules (partially due to being the first 9th codex), and a bunch of hot flaming garbage.

They also need to address other armies being just too good. Some of the tyranid leaks look pretty scary, and crusher stampede is already top tier. They did to the Tau what I was afraid they'd do: double down on the shooting power for a full leaf-blower army. Custodes got an idiotic price decrease immediately after their incredibly strong codex dropped.

The playtesting and rules writing communication is clearly failing somewhere with how swingy these codexes are.

If only there was a way to have all the rules available at once and modify them easily as needed. . . .


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 16:22:47


Post by: Siegfriedfr


I don't think bolters need buffs.

I think the game needs a sweeping overhaul and toning down of lethality.

My guess is, 10th Edition won't be it. Maybe 11th.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 17:05:55


Post by: VladimirHerzog


Quasistellar wrote:
Bolters are fine.

They need to address SM vehicles being absolutely horrendous trash heaps and things like hellblasters / reivers / assault marines / etc etc.


This. But i'd expand it to every Non-core/Non-dreadnought vehicle in the game almost. So many cool models that don't get played because GW decided to remove nerf these models for no reason with Core not applying to them


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 18:05:46


Post by: bat702


Quasistellar wrote:
Bolters are fine.

They need to address SM vehicles being absolutely horrendous trash heaps and things like hellblasters / reivers / assault marines / etc etc.

SM got a (deserved) bad rap in 8th 2.0 / early 9th due to the supplements, but in reality there were a few straight broken units/rules (partially due to being the first 9th codex), and a bunch of hot flaming garbage.

They also need to address other armies being just too good. Some of the tyranid leaks look pretty scary, and crusher stampede is already top tier. They did to the Tau what I was afraid they'd do: double down on the shooting power for a full leaf-blower army. Custodes got an idiotic price decrease immediately after their incredibly strong codex dropped.

The playtesting and rules writing communication is clearly failing somewhere with how swingy these codexes are.

If only there was a way to have all the rules available at once and modify them easily as needed. . . .


it is a little weird where if you want to run assault marines they can either be red or black and only come in blood angels. or gold I guess if you want to get wild


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/14 20:11:08


Post by: ccs


bat702 wrote:

it is a little weird where if you want to run assault marines they can either be red or black and only come in blood angels. or gold I guess if you want to get wild


Hmm. Must've missed that memo. Or, thankfully, I'm not part of this gestalt hive-mind thing the rest of you seem to belong to.
I've got:
Grey assault marines (SW)
dark Green assault marines (DA)
brighter Green & White assault marines (Mentor Legion)
and finally Sliver with Red trim assault marines (Doom Eagles)
Not one of these have ever been run using Blood Angel rules.




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 00:01:17


Post by: Kaied


shortymcnostrill wrote:
Comparing termagants to blood claws, the only marines that hit on a 4+, does feel a bit disingenuous. You're also misremembering termagants having an option for bs 4 (3+ to hit) for 2 pts. That hasn't ever been a thing. This also discredits your further calculations, their bs isn't equal and tyranids have far fewer buffs available.
Tyranids Codex 3rd edition, Page 39, Gaunt Biomorph Table, Enhanced Senses. You can easily look it up online if you don't have a copy.
"Disingenuous" mentioning Blood Claws at 3+ and then I immediately mention that most other marines are 4+... to quote Princess Bride “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” By the way, "Disingenuous" means acting not serious by typically playing dumb. It feels like you meant to use a different synonym in the deceitful thesaurus.
If you bothered to read down to the section talking about 9th edition, you'd have noticed that I take BS 4+ into account in all of those calculations. I mentioned buffs by name. But for the most part, besides army wide buffs, why are you buffing basic infantry weapons instead of the big guns?
So try again?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 00:40:30


Post by: stonehorse


Upping Fleshborers to strength 5, while Bolters remain at strength 4 just highlights how the game is in a very unhealthy condition.

Said it years ago on this forum, and I'll say it again: the game needs to adopt a firepower system for small arms like that used in Epic 40,000/Epic Armageddon. Until then this is the sort of mess we will continue to see.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 02:50:30


Post by: Arson Fire


Perhaps worth noting that fleshborers did have the option to be S5 back in the 3rd and 4th edition codexes. Although the AP is new and unexpected.

In any case, rumor has it that termagants with fleshborers are going to be 7 points per model in the upcoming codex. So they will be paying a bit more for the improvement.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 03:16:22


Post by: Breton


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Quasistellar wrote:
Bolters are fine.

They need to address SM vehicles being absolutely horrendous trash heaps and things like hellblasters / reivers / assault marines / etc etc.


This. But i'd expand it to every Non-core/Non-dreadnought vehicle in the game almost. So many cool models that don't get played because GW decided to remove nerf these models for no reason with Core not applying to them


They had a reason - they didn't want the reroll etc bubbles to hit them. The Guilliman Parking Lot List. In some cases this may have been an overreaction, which is totally in keeping with GW history.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 08:14:28


Post by: Dudeface


So as a wonderful exercise, a 9th ed tervigon behind 30 gaunts, 10 chaos marines with bolters rapidfiring. The marines kill 6-7 gaunts, tervigon (who can't be targeted due to the gaunts) regens 2d6 gaunts a turn. Maths says the bolter isn't even capable of killing supported gaunts any more.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 08:43:56


Post by: Breton


Dudeface wrote:
So as a wonderful exercise, a 9th ed tervigon behind 30 gaunts, 10 chaos marines with bolters rapidfiring. The marines kill 6-7 gaunts, tervigon (who can't be targeted due to the gaunts) regens 2d6 gaunts a turn. Maths says the bolter isn't even capable of killing supported gaunts any more.


Well that's 340ish points of Nids, vs 120ish Points of CSM. Very little looks good up against a 3:1 ratio and character support.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 08:56:23


Post by: Spoletta


30 tgants and a Tervigon are 425 points.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 09:07:54


Post by: Breton


Spoletta wrote:
30 tgants and a Tervigon are 425 points.
If you say so, Battlescribe puts it at 340, but I'm waiting for the next codex to buy. 425 makes the points imbalance even further out.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 09:10:16


Post by: Arson Fire


About 90% of the tyranid codex leaked a few hours ago. So we've got the new point costs. 425 is indeed what that costs in the new book.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 09:14:34


Post by: kirotheavenger


 stonehorse wrote:
Upping Fleshborers to strength 5, while Bolters remain at strength 4 just highlights how the game is in a very unhealthy condition.

Said it years ago on this forum, and I'll say it again: the game needs to adopt a firepower system for small arms like that used in Epic 40,000/Epic Armageddon. Until then this is the sort of mess we will continue to see.

Oh god yes, I would love that.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 10:30:57


Post by: Dudeface


Breton wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
30 tgants and a Tervigon are 425 points.
If you say so, Battlescribe puts it at 340, but I'm waiting for the next codex to buy. 425 makes the points imbalance even further out.


Whilst true, my point was bolters aren't putting big enough dents in chaff. They're 120 points now but come the new codex they'll likely be what, 180? If you're stacking buffs ontop of the marine, that isn't the bolter being good, that's the thing carrying it. Bolters suck ass and a tactical marine needs 2 buff hq's, a chapter tactic and doctrines to make it semi-relevant.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 10:31:23


Post by: Nazrak


 kirotheavenger wrote:
 stonehorse wrote:
Upping Fleshborers to strength 5, while Bolters remain at strength 4 just highlights how the game is in a very unhealthy condition.

Said it years ago on this forum, and I'll say it again: the game needs to adopt a firepower system for small arms like that used in Epic 40,000/Epic Armageddon. Until then this is the sort of mess we will continue to see.

Oh god yes, I would love that.

For those that missed out on it in Epic, could someone explain pls?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 10:53:52


Post by: kirotheavenger


In Epic Armageddon, weapons have two firepower values, one for anti-personnel (AP) and one for anti-tank (AT), expressed in a target value.

EG...
Heavy Bolter is AP5+
Twin Heavy Bolter is AP4+
Lascannon is AT5+
Missile Launcher is AP5+/AT6+

It massively simplifies stats and rolling. Rolling dice is wasting time, I want to know what I've done and get back to playing the game.
This system is very common in historicals as well - where it works very well because there is a sharp difference between 'tank' and 'unarmoured human' and pretty much nothing that blurs that line.
It works fine for 40k as well, although you get edge cases like Monstrous Creatures (clearly a fleshy monster, but big enough to be a tank) and Terminators (just a small foot slogger, but described as being better armoured than many tanks).

As such, for 40k, I think DUST1947's system might work a little better.

It's a similar thing, although rather than just having two values for AP/AT, it essentially has a small table.
In lieu of explaining the charge, a picture can be worth a thousand words.
Spoiler:

You see this Pz.IV K is a tank (top right) with armour 4 (also top right) and 6 health (bottom left).
If it were to shoot at itself, the laserkanone would roll 9 dice dealing 1 damage each and none of the machine guns would do anything.

You can see machine guys get a lot of dice against light armour, but they drop off quickly.
AT guns typically get very few dice, but high damage, and maintain that right across the armour spectrum.
Weird weapons like that laser gun are kinda in the middle.

PS. In Dust all dice hit on a 4+ and then you get 4+ armour saves, special rules might push those to 3/5+ sometimes.

The core principle I like about it is adds a very organic shift from light infantry to heavy infantry, to light vehicles to heavy vehicles.

The Epic AP/AT system has a very hard 'jump' between 'infantry' and 'vehicles' which is difficult in 40k as there's a lot of stuff in the 'middle ground'. The 7th ed vehicle system had this same problem - que debates on Walker vs Monstrous Creature.

Yet, unlike current 40k, vehicles don't feel 'spongey' or like 'fat infantry' at all.

You can tweak the exact implementation of it. Instead of telling you number of dice/damage, the chart could perhaps tell you dice target/damage, or number/target/damage, or any combination therefore.

Only problem is it's a chart which is a bit impractical to memorise across all your army. I personally don't think that's much of a problem though.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 11:49:48


Post by: SemperMortis


Dudeface wrote:
In the current game, yes bog standard bolters absolutely need to do more. The fleshborer has historically had parity as a half range assault 1 bolter (back before bolter discipline). Bolters are arguably less effective than they were back then due to the AP change, but fire twice at max range if stationary *by a marine*. Fleshborer got +1s, AP-1 and 6" increases. Tau pulse rifles got some increases as well after historically being kept constant. Shuriken catapults got ap and range increases. The humble bolter is now hilariously outgunned by it's peers.


Again, for starters, Orkz already had their new standard weapon upgraded for 9th. We went from Assault 2 18' range to Dakka 3(2). Which means our guns got noticeably worse at long range and marginally better at half range...but since our half range is 9'....its rare that they ever get used this way.

Next. What happened to orkz which I have a sinking feeling is going to happen to nids? GW crushed hordes. If GW does this again to Nids it just means they are trying to remove a play style out of the game because too many people were complaining that there top tier meta lists were being beaten on a regular basis by a skew horde list and therefore instead of adjusting their lists to be more TAC they want them removed from the game. Why does that matter? Because I think GW might have learned from how much they screwed over Ork infantry/troops and are now buffing Nid troops to take the blow better by buffing their primary mission of fire support so that smaller units aren't as useless as say a unit of 30 Shoota boyz would be.

And if you really feel like your bolters aren't good enough, maybe you should address the fact that your basic infantry doubled their standard durability by 100% for almost no points increase.

Breton wrote:

We're on what 9th Edition? 1st Edition doesn't really count - it was wildly different - so we've got 8 editions of "life" in the game. A bolter was -1 longer than it wasn't. It probably will be again. Especially if they squat the firstborns and only non-marines have one. Whats the difference between 5 Tacs with a flamer and 5 Intercessors with an auxiliary grenade launcher? pretty much AP-1, 5 attacks you never want to need, and 10-20 points. Look at the current codex and the weapons that are AP0 (with no special like the Thunderfire Canon or the Eliminator Hyperfrag rounds) - how many of them CAN'T go on a firstborn? The Assault Bolter variants (Mastercrafted/Heavy/Hellstorm Auto Bolt Rifles and Dakka Aggressors that might as well be a special with 10ish shots per model? Maybe I'm wrong and this isn't to make Primaris more attractive. They do occasionally like to mess with things. I can remember when Plasma was -2, then AP2, now to -3 and -4.


9th Edition, Bolters are AP-1 only in tac doctrine. 8th edition, same thing. 4th-7th bolters were AP5 And no, AP5 is nowhere near similar to AP-1. Talk about a dumb mechanic they put into the game! My Orkz never got an armor save in their games unless they were in CC, it was literally just pickup your models when they were wounded. And in those editions cover worked way better for lesser armored targets. Put a unit of 30 boyz into a barricade, suddenly they gained 4+ armor saves where as the Marines doing exactly the same thing would still be using their 3+ armor save unless targeted by a AP3 weapon in which case they would use the cover save.

Spoletta wrote:
It should be noted that while AP is definitely more common than how it was at the start of 8th, a lot of armor saves were actually increased too.
Stormshields provide +1. Kabalites and guardians have 4+. Leman russes have 2+. Tyranid beasts have 2+, and so on.

The only problem in all this is that the power armored marines have been left behind, especially their vehicles.
IMO in the new dex they should lose shock assault while gaining a +1 A (to reduce the number of rules), then add "Black Carapace: Increase the armor save of units with this rule by 1 against attacks of S7 or lower".
Now they are fine, and you justified why marines have 2+ and sisters don't. (Obviously apply to all marine variants, yes stinky and spiky ones too. Maybe not dusty).


A lot of armor hasn't been increased at all. PA Marines have not been left behind in the slightest. This all goes back to the problem of Marines being the most prevalent defensive statline in the game. Marines of all flavors, Grey Knights and a few other units are all T4 3+ armor 2 wounds. You also have similar profiles from Custodes and Sisters of Battle. Chaos Marines are the exact same (except for the 2nd wound ) as are all the other flavors of Chaos. So what you end up with is a very popular/prolific defensive profile which the game then molds around as far as list building. Marines have literally never been as durable as they are right now, it just doesn't feel like it because the game has gone berserk in damage output and specifically in weapons/profiles that directly feth up Marines.

Case and Point. In 4th edition it took 9 Bolter shots to kill 1 Marine. in 9th it now takes 18. Marines went up 3ppm or 20% and gained 100% durability vs Small arms. Orkz in the same time frame went from 3 shots to kill 1 Ork to 5.4 shots to kill 1 Ork, but went from 6ppm to 9ppm or 50% increase in price for a less than 100% durability increase. So the problem isn't durability overall its that nobody is using those weapons anymore to kill Marines. Why take a humble bolter when I can instead take a Plasma Talon or any of the other hundreds of weapons that are almost purpose built to feth up Space Marine armor? And of course, the added bonus is that those same anti-Marine weapons can in a pinch function as anti light to medium vehicle weapons. The durability suggestion you made for black carapace is just ridiculous. That would mean that Terminators effectively have a 1+ armor save and Marines 2+ against most weapons in the game.

Breton wrote:
I kind of snicker every time I see someone talking about AP-1 being an upgrade for bolters even though that's what they've been for a long long time. I think they only went to 0 when Primaris got an AP-1 Bolt Rifle. It's not an upgrade, it's a reversion.

1) Which abilities don't stack? I thought it was Doctrines that didn't stack unless specifically allowed?
2) Shock Assault (and Hateful Assault) may change to a straight +1A on the stat line given the rest of the power creep, but I think it stays 1st round only.


except as shown above...they weren't AP-1 and AP5 was nothing like AP-1.

Also, gonna piss off more Marine players. 4th - 7th edition (longer actually but I can't find my older codex) Marines were 1 attack each. 2 if they took a bolt pistol and Chainsword and 3 attacks if they charged that turn. Ork Boyz were 2 attacks base, 3 if they were choppa boyz, 4 if they charged.

Now, Marines are functionally 2 attacks base in combat thanks to shock assault which gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat. Ork boyz are now 2 attacks base and 3 for choppa. To get them to 4 where they used to be you have to use a once per game buff and only if you take the right character. OR you can take a weirdboy and give him a sub-optimal power which has a significantly less chance of working than in previous editions.

So why should Marines go to Base 2 attacks while my CC oriented infantry have fewer attacks than they used to?

I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks. You guys have already gained twice as many wounds, twice as many ranged shots and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats lol.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 12:13:16


Post by: Spoletta


The new nid dex is fairly friendly to hordes, but not as a whole theme of the army. One or two big units of critters work well among their bigger pals.

It is maybe possible to do a termagant spam list with 3 tervigons.

In any case all the cost of small bugs was increased.

Termagants are 7 points and hormagaunts are 8. This is before wargear, which can take an hormagaunt to 11 (but is actually decent now).


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 12:35:36


Post by: Dudeface


SemperMortis wrote:
Spoiler:
Dudeface wrote:
In the current game, yes bog standard bolters absolutely need to do more. The fleshborer has historically had parity as a half range assault 1 bolter (back before bolter discipline). Bolters are arguably less effective than they were back then due to the AP change, but fire twice at max range if stationary *by a marine*. Fleshborer got +1s, AP-1 and 6" increases. Tau pulse rifles got some increases as well after historically being kept constant. Shuriken catapults got ap and range increases. The humble bolter is now hilariously outgunned by it's peers.


Again, for starters, Orkz already had their new standard weapon upgraded for 9th. We went from Assault 2 18' range to Dakka 3(2). Which means our guns got noticeably worse at long range and marginally better at half range...but since our half range is 9'....its rare that they ever get used this way.

Next. What happened to orkz which I have a sinking feeling is going to happen to nids? GW crushed hordes. If GW does this again to Nids it just means they are trying to remove a play style out of the game because too many people were complaining that there top tier meta lists were being beaten on a regular basis by a skew horde list and therefore instead of adjusting their lists to be more TAC they want them removed from the game. Why does that matter? Because I think GW might have learned from how much they screwed over Ork infantry/troops and are now buffing Nid troops to take the blow better by buffing their primary mission of fire support so that smaller units aren't as useless as say a unit of 30 Shoota boyz would be.

And if you really feel like your bolters aren't good enough, maybe you should address the fact that your basic infantry doubled their standard durability by 100% for almost no points increase.

Breton wrote:

We're on what 9th Edition? 1st Edition doesn't really count - it was wildly different - so we've got 8 editions of "life" in the game. A bolter was -1 longer than it wasn't. It probably will be again. Especially if they squat the firstborns and only non-marines have one. Whats the difference between 5 Tacs with a flamer and 5 Intercessors with an auxiliary grenade launcher? pretty much AP-1, 5 attacks you never want to need, and 10-20 points. Look at the current codex and the weapons that are AP0 (with no special like the Thunderfire Canon or the Eliminator Hyperfrag rounds) - how many of them CAN'T go on a firstborn? The Assault Bolter variants (Mastercrafted/Heavy/Hellstorm Auto Bolt Rifles and Dakka Aggressors that might as well be a special with 10ish shots per model? Maybe I'm wrong and this isn't to make Primaris more attractive. They do occasionally like to mess with things. I can remember when Plasma was -2, then AP2, now to -3 and -4.


9th Edition, Bolters are AP-1 only in tac doctrine. 8th edition, same thing. 4th-7th bolters were AP5 And no, AP5 is nowhere near similar to AP-1. Talk about a dumb mechanic they put into the game! My Orkz never got an armor save in their games unless they were in CC, it was literally just pickup your models when they were wounded. And in those editions cover worked way better for lesser armored targets. Put a unit of 30 boyz into a barricade, suddenly they gained 4+ armor saves where as the Marines doing exactly the same thing would still be using their 3+ armor save unless targeted by a AP3 weapon in which case they would use the cover save.

Spoletta wrote:
It should be noted that while AP is definitely more common than how it was at the start of 8th, a lot of armor saves were actually increased too.
Stormshields provide +1. Kabalites and guardians have 4+. Leman russes have 2+. Tyranid beasts have 2+, and so on.

The only problem in all this is that the power armored marines have been left behind, especially their vehicles.
IMO in the new dex they should lose shock assault while gaining a +1 A (to reduce the number of rules), then add "Black Carapace: Increase the armor save of units with this rule by 1 against attacks of S7 or lower".
Now they are fine, and you justified why marines have 2+ and sisters don't. (Obviously apply to all marine variants, yes stinky and spiky ones too. Maybe not dusty).


A lot of armor hasn't been increased at all. PA Marines have not been left behind in the slightest. This all goes back to the problem of Marines being the most prevalent defensive statline in the game. Marines of all flavors, Grey Knights and a few other units are all T4 3+ armor 2 wounds. You also have similar profiles from Custodes and Sisters of Battle. Chaos Marines are the exact same (except for the 2nd wound ) as are all the other flavors of Chaos. So what you end up with is a very popular/prolific defensive profile which the game then molds around as far as list building. Marines have literally never been as durable as they are right now, it just doesn't feel like it because the game has gone berserk in damage output and specifically in weapons/profiles that directly feth up Marines.

Case and Point. In 4th edition it took 9 Bolter shots to kill 1 Marine. in 9th it now takes 18. Marines went up 3ppm or 20% and gained 100% durability vs Small arms. Orkz in the same time frame went from 3 shots to kill 1 Ork to 5.4 shots to kill 1 Ork, but went from 6ppm to 9ppm or 50% increase in price for a less than 100% durability increase. So the problem isn't durability overall its that nobody is using those weapons anymore to kill Marines. Why take a humble bolter when I can instead take a Plasma Talon or any of the other hundreds of weapons that are almost purpose built to feth up Space Marine armor? And of course, the added bonus is that those same anti-Marine weapons can in a pinch function as anti light to medium vehicle weapons. The durability suggestion you made for black carapace is just ridiculous. That would mean that Terminators effectively have a 1+ armor save and Marines 2+ against most weapons in the game.

Breton wrote:
I kind of snicker every time I see someone talking about AP-1 being an upgrade for bolters even though that's what they've been for a long long time. I think they only went to 0 when Primaris got an AP-1 Bolt Rifle. It's not an upgrade, it's a reversion.

1) Which abilities don't stack? I thought it was Doctrines that didn't stack unless specifically allowed?
2) Shock Assault (and Hateful Assault) may change to a straight +1A on the stat line given the rest of the power creep, but I think it stays 1st round only.


except as shown above...they weren't AP-1 and AP5 was nothing like AP-1.

Also, gonna piss off more Marine players. 4th - 7th edition (longer actually but I can't find my older codex) Marines were 1 attack each. 2 if they took a bolt pistol and Chainsword and 3 attacks if they charged that turn. Ork Boyz were 2 attacks base, 3 if they were choppa boyz, 4 if they charged.

Now, Marines are functionally 2 attacks base in combat thanks to shock assault which gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat. Ork boyz are now 2 attacks base and 3 for choppa. To get them to 4 where they used to be you have to use a once per game buff and only if you take the right character. OR you can take a weirdboy and give him a sub-optimal power which has a significantly less chance of working than in previous editions.

So why should Marines go to Base 2 attacks while my CC oriented infantry have fewer attacks than they used to?

I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks. You guys have already gained twice as many wounds, twice as many ranged shots and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats lol.



I play spiky Marines so don't have the 2nd wound yet, but otherwise I don't really disagree. Would be happy for shootas to be assault again, would be happy for boyz to get an extra attack base (although I'm happy for 2A base Marines with no shock assault).

What I'd address (again) is you make comments about people wanting to buff a marine. A marine isn't a bolter. Bolters are also in guard and sisters, who don't have shock assault, doctrines, t4, 2w etc. Again, make the bolter worthwhile so Marines don't need layers upon layers of gak heaped on them to appear offensively threatening. I do agree that their increased durability is OK if they hadn't cranked damage output to 11 almost across the board.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 12:46:40


Post by: kirotheavenger


I like Shootas not being Assault.
Orks were never the army to be charging around blasting, they were the guys firing loads and loads of bullets.
Shootas being Assault weapons is a hold-over from when Assault let you shoot and charge, but now that's standard.
Let Eldar have Assault basic weapons.

What the game needs is a "Basic" weapon type, with no special abilities.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 13:00:29


Post by: wuestenfux


Bolters should have some kind of rending such as wounding on 6 triggers AP-3 or hitting on 6 gives 1 additional hit.
After all - holy bolter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 13:16:52


Post by: Breton


SemperMortis wrote:


Breton wrote:
I kind of snicker every time I see someone talking about AP-1 being an upgrade for bolters even though that's what they've been for a long long time. I think they only went to 0 when Primaris got an AP-1 Bolt Rifle. It's not an upgrade, it's a reversion.

1) Which abilities don't stack? I thought it was Doctrines that didn't stack unless specifically allowed?
2) Shock Assault (and Hateful Assault) may change to a straight +1A on the stat line given the rest of the power creep, but I think it stays 1st round only.


except as shown above...they weren't AP-1 and AP5 was nothing like AP-1.
Yes, the bottom tier AP for basic weapons that had AP is AP-1, except for a couple editions when it was AP5. Not alike whatsoever. Even though that was the AP they put on the basic guns they wanted to have AP and worked their way up/down from opposite ends of the spectrum.

Also, gonna piss off more Marine players. 4th - 7th edition (longer actually but I can't find my older codex) Marines were 1 attack each. 2 if they took a bolt pistol and Chainsword and 3 attacks if they charged that turn. Ork Boyz were 2 attacks base, 3 if they were choppa boyz, 4 if they charged.
I doubt it. When one telegraphs more interest in trolling other factions instead of balance like this its more saddening than maddening.

Now, Marines are functionally 2 attacks base in combat thanks to shock assault which gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat. Ork boyz are now 2 attacks base and 3 for choppa. To get them to 4 where they used to be you have to use a once per game buff and only if you take the right character. OR you can take a weirdboy and give him a sub-optimal power which has a significantly less chance of working than in previous editions.

So why should Marines go to Base 2 attacks while my CC oriented infantry have fewer attacks than they used to?
Functionally 2 Attacks base (quietly so nobody can hear: In the first round only if certain admittedly easy conditions are met, 1 attack base otherwise but nobody pay attention to that.). Let's also gloss over Shock/Hateful Assault was a band aid when GW figured out they totally hosed Close Combat in 8th by getting rid of almost all the bonus attack options - two CCW, charging, etc. This is also why Chainswords, and Choppas got +1A with this weapon. (and kinda sorta Scything Talons) - well the simple answer to your question - why should Marines go to two attacks base? Because they're twice as much as your Boys and thus have to have SOMEWHAT double the output per point. You get an average of what 80? More? Less? Bodies to launch your offense from. Marines will get 30-50. This is why Terminators have Storm bolters and Bikes have Twin Linked Bolters too. They're twice as much so need double the opportunity output. See Also: Outriders and Devastating Charge.

I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks.
Yes, lets lump all those disparate suggestions into one long list to make it look like everyone is calling for all of that at once.


You guys
Yes. You guys. As you quote the part where I said seeing Shock/Hateful Assault go to base was unlikely.
have already gained twice as many wounds, twice as many ranged shots
Say what? Bolters are RapidFire 2 now?

and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats lol.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 14:21:37


Post by: Gene St. Ealer


I get why the Fleshborer changes have some folks up in arms, but there's a lot of wild and wacky mathhammer out there making the situation look more dire than it is (sorry Dudeface and kaied). Yes, it's a bit of a paradigm shift in Gants (i.e. higher points and higher quality shooting), and I get why that chafes some folks, but that happens with every new book. If Marines weren't going to get a new codex later this year (probably before some other hapless army), I'd be more concerned about the Fleshborer creep, but as it is, I don't think it's a huge deal.

That said, I wholeheartedly agree with the general sentiment that all this power creep (in particular in the form of AP) is really fething up this edition hard. I love Nids, I'm so happy that they have a bunch of strong datasheets in this book. But I think with strats and army-wide rules, they are going to be far too good.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 14:25:12


Post by: G00fySmiley


honestly i think bolters with current doctrines are fine, you can't make them ap-1 as then its a few turns of ap-2 bolters. I think ultimately a lot of the increase in small arms buffs are a response to the marine doctrines to make other armies catch up.

a Gaunt with a str 5 ap-1 D1 gun is still hitting at worse BS than a space marine from a T3 platform with a tshirt save. to get in range of most armies they are putting themselves in a reasonable charge range which is also a place they do not want to be.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 14:35:59


Post by: SemperMortis


Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

except as shown above...they weren't AP-1 and AP5 was nothing like AP-1.
Yes, the bottom tier AP for basic weapons that had AP is AP-1, except for a couple editions when it was AP5. Not alike whatsoever. Even though that was the AP they put on the basic guns they wanted to have AP and worked their way up/down from opposite ends of the spectrum.


"Couple Editions". Yeah I found an old 3rd edition Codex. Space Marine bolter was AP5. So 3rd-7th it was AP5. GW released Rogue Trader in 1987. They released 3rd edition in 1998 and 8th edition in 2017. So the Game has been around for 35ish years, and really 1st and 2nd were nothing at all like anything todays game is played. AP was things like APD6+D4+4 so realistically the game as we know it started in 3rd but lets just give you Rogue Trader and 2nd Edition. That means that for 19 of the years the game has existed bolters were AP5 not AP-1. If you are fair about it, bolters have only been AP-1 since 8th which means for 5ish years and going even further than that, they were only AP-1 in 8th and 9th when in tactical doctrine.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
Also, gonna piss off more Marine players. 4th - 7th edition (longer actually but I can't find my older codex) Marines were 1 attack each. 2 if they took a bolt pistol and Chainsword and 3 attacks if they charged that turn. Ork Boyz were 2 attacks base, 3 if they were choppa boyz, 4 if they charged.
I doubt it. When one telegraphs more interest in trolling other factions instead of balance like this its more saddening than maddening

I'm telegraphing interest in trolling by pointing out how the recommendations being made here are silly and adamantly wishing for more buffs to be added to a faction or unit which has received massive buffs over the space of the last 5-6 years is a bit ridiculous and won't help the game because yet again, Marines are the army that all else is judged off of.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

Now, Marines are functionally 2 attacks base in combat thanks to shock assault which gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat. Ork boyz are now 2 attacks base and 3 for choppa. To get them to 4 where they used to be you have to use a once per game buff and only if you take the right character. OR you can take a weirdboy and give him a sub-optimal power which has a significantly less chance of working than in previous editions.
So why should Marines go to Base 2 attacks while my CC oriented infantry have fewer attacks than they used to?

Functionally 2 Attacks base (quietly so nobody can hear: In the first round only if certain admittedly easy conditions are met, 1 attack base otherwise but nobody pay attention to that.).
umm.... what? I said and I quote "gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat" Literally word for word what I just said, and your response is a snarky comment like this? There are no "only if certain admittedly easy conditions are met" its 1st round of combat if they charge, are charged or heroically intervene. That is like 95% of all combats, or are you just upset that if I pile into a Marine unit they only get 1 free attack each as opposed to 2?

Breton wrote:
Let's also gloss over Shock/Hateful Assault was a band aid when GW figured out they totally hosed Close Combat in 8th by getting rid of almost all the bonus attack options - two CCW, charging, etc. This is also why Chainswords, and Choppas got +1A with this weapon. (and kinda sorta Scything Talons) -
And so was +1 to attack for Ork mobz if they were over 20. Something they got rid of in this new edition which means you got to keep your band aid while ours was removed entirely granted ours was worse across the board anyway. Maybe this would be a good argument for why Orkz need to be Base 3 attacks and your Marines can be Base 2

Breton wrote:
well the simple answer to your question - why should Marines go to two attacks base? Because they're twice as much as your Boys and thus have to have SOMEWHAT double the output per point. You get an average of what 80? More? Less? Bodies to launch your offense from. Marines will get 30-50. This is why Terminators have Storm bolters and Bikes have Twin Linked Bolters too. They're twice as much so need double the opportunity output. See Also: Outriders and Devastating Charge.

This was a bad argument 2 editions ago, and its a bad argument now. A Marine is 3+ armor compared to Ork 6+. A Marine has 2 wounds to an orkz 1. So opportunity cost seems to ignore Durability.

against an opponent with WS4, S4 AP-1. To kill 10 Marines it takes 160 attacks. To kill 20 boyz with those same attacks takes 120 attacks. Against ranged Firepower, to kill a Marine with bolters it takes 18 shots, to kill 2 Orkz it takes 10.8. Standard Marine is armed with a bolter, a fair comparison would be against a shoota boy. in CC 10 Marines with 2 attacks each do 20 attacks, 13.3 hits, 4.4 wounds and 3.7 dead Ork boyz. 20 Ork shoota boyz do 40 attacks, 26.6 hits, 13.3 wounds and 4.4 wounds for 2.2 dead Marines. So Marines lose 40pts of Marines Orkz lose 33.3pts Orkz win. But what about at Range? Say 24 inches? Marines get 20 shots, 13.3 hits, 4.4 wounds for 3.7 dead Boyz, Orkz get....0 Marines win. What about at 18? Marines get 3.7 dead Orkz get 40 shots, 13.3 hits, 6.6 wounds and 2.3dmg for 1 Dead Marine. Orkz lose 33pts, Marines lose 20 Marines win. I can keep going. The point is that your bad math doesn't factor in durability at all, which Marines with 3+ armor saves and 2 wounds have in spades over orkz nor does it factor in the ranged component that this entire thread is asking for. Those Marines are doing significantly more dmg from range than almost all other CC troop units, so why should they be just as good at CC?

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks.
Yes, lets lump all those disparate suggestions into one long list to make it look like everyone is calling for all of that at once.
I did, right there, you quoted me. Except I didn't make it into one long list and make it look like everyone was calling for all of that at once. That is you trying to infer something that isn't there.

Breton wrote:
Say what? Bolters are RapidFire 2 now?
7th edition rapid fire was 1 shot at 24 or 2 shots at 12. Now its 2 shots at 24 if you stand still. Hence twice as many shots...except on vehicles which get twice as many shots regardsless
Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats
lol.
So you didn't get bolter discipline, shock assault, Chapter tactics, Doctrines, super doctrines and a bunch of other stuff i'm likely forgetting? Oh, more core units than any other faction in the game?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:08:37


Post by: Breton


SemperMortis wrote:
umm.... what? I said and I quote "gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat" Literally word for word what I just said, and your response is a snarky comment like this?

There are no "only if certain admittedly easy conditions are met" its 1st round of combat if they charge, are charged or heroically intervene. That is like 95% of all combats, or are you just upset that if I pile into a Marine unit they only get 1 free attack each as opposed to 2?
"There are no easily met conditions." Proceeds to list the easily met conditions.


Breton wrote:
well the simple answer to your question - why should Marines go to two attacks base? Because they're twice as much as your Boys and thus have to have SOMEWHAT double the output per point. You get an average of what 80? More? Less? Bodies to launch your offense from. Marines will get 30-50. This is why Terminators have Storm bolters and Bikes have Twin Linked Bolters too. They're twice as much so need double the opportunity output. See Also: Outriders and Devastating Charge.

This was a bad argument 2 editions ago, and its a bad argument now. A Marine is 3+ armor compared to Ork 6+. A Marine has 2 wounds to an orkz 1. So opportunity cost seems to ignore Durability.
Arguments you can't deal with are bad arguments? A LandSpeeder Tornado has 6 wounds and 9 shots while for 50% more the Hailstrike has two more wounds and significantly more shots. I'm certainly not dishonest enough to claim all those extra points are tied up in 2 wounds, but also in the shots. Ergo Part of the points cost is durability, and part of it is offense. But sure, call it a "bad argument" to point out double the price should have roughly double the offense and double the durability.


SemperMortis wrote:
I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks.
Yes, lets lump all those disparate suggestions into one long list to make it look like everyone is calling for all of that at once.
I did, right there, you quoted me. Except I didn't make it into one long list and make it look like everyone was calling for all of that at once. That is you trying to infer something that isn't there.

The list right there says otherwise.
Breton wrote:
Say what? Bolters are RapidFire 2 now?
7th edition rapid fire was 1 shot at 24 or 2 shots at 12. Now its 2 shots at 24 if you stand still. Hence twice as many shots...except on vehicles which get twice as many shots regardsless

Interesting. Two doubled is... two. This New Math is really getting out of hand.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats
lol.
So you didn't get bolter discipline, shock assault, Chapter tactics, Doctrines, super doctrines and a bunch of other stuff i'm likely forgetting? Oh, more core units than any other faction in the game?
So you're saying Shock Assault - as already established was a bandaid to replace +1A while charging or 2 Weapons etc AND that quiet part ONLY on the first round - is immensely enhanced compared to getting +1A all the time? Marines already had Doctrines. 2 doubled is 2. LOL


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:11:34


Post by: JNAProductions


2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:12:42


Post by: Dudeface


 JNAProductions wrote:
2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)


Which sisters are firing their bolters twice at 24"?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:16:36


Post by: Breton


 G00fySmiley wrote:
honestly i think bolters with current doctrines are fine, you can't make them ap-1 as then its a few turns of ap-2 bolters. I think ultimately a lot of the increase in small arms buffs are a response to the marine doctrines to make other armies catch up.

a Gaunt with a str 5 ap-1 D1 gun is still hitting at worse BS than a space marine from a T3 platform with a tshirt save. to get in range of most armies they are putting themselves in a reasonable charge range which is also a place they do not want to be.


I think bolters go back to AP-1 the minute Marines can't take them. They may go there sooner. I think they went to 0 to push people out of Firstborn, if they're chucking that idea they'll go back sooner. And we already have a couple turns of -2 "bolters" on the Primaris. Putting them on Tacs isn't going to matter much. Balance wise. Of course if they do that and/or the +1A baseline to Firstborn:

If they do OR the other one won't be far behind - it'll be too hard to try and shave the 1 point balance between a Tac and an Intercessor.

then Tacs and Intercessors will be the same price and it comes down to a few Strats, which transport (which would also go away in a hurry), and a special/heavy vs Auxiliary Grenade Launcher.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:16:56


Post by: JNAProductions


Those who have Storm Bolters.

But I’m talking about Marines. Who get two shots at 24” just for standing still.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:18:39


Post by: Breton


 JNAProductions wrote:
2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)



2 shots at 12" is not twice as many as 2 shots at 24".

And

Because GW is bad at this? I mean they had to bandaid the thing twice. And its still not right.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:33:47


Post by: VladimirHerzog


Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)


Which sisters are firing their bolters twice at 24"?


when people refer to bolters, they obiously refer to the most popular faction to wield them (marines and CSM)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:37:17


Post by: Dudeface


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)


Which sisters are firing their bolters twice at 24"?


when people refer to bolters, they obiously refer to the most popular faction to wield them (marines and CSM)


The topic is "Do bolters need buffs across most platforms?" - yes. I don't care what is carrying it the bolter is crap in the current game/state. Imagine if marine didn't need bolter discipline, doctrines and chapter traits all stacking to make it worth firing their default weapon.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:48:41


Post by: brainpsyk


So some mathhammer on the new bugs:




Yes, regular bolters need help, and Regular Intercessors need a bit of a boost as well.

There's a few options that get us close:



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:50:01


Post by: JNAProductions


So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 5+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:55:56


Post by: Dudeface


 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 15:58:22


Post by: JNAProductions


Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:04:11


Post by: Dudeface


 JNAProductions wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.


No but they're 1/3 of the price near enough.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:04:25


Post by: Breton


 JNAProductions wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.


Wait what? What does the Gants durability have to do with how much damage Gants, Intercessors and Firstborn do to Intercessors? Did I read the chart wrong?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:06:41


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 JNAProductions wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.

3 T3 5+ shouldn't be as durable as 2 T4 3+, but D2 is passed around like candy.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:09:57


Post by: JNAProductions


Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.


No but they're 1/3 of the price near enough.
Half the wounds at a worse Toughness and Save.

I'm not going to say they're 100% balanced, absolutely perfect, no adjustments needed... But I will say that simply pointing out that Intercessors do less damage isn't exactly an indictment of their balance. It's something to be considered, not proof that Gants are OP or Intercessors UP.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Breton wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:
So you're saying a unit with 3+ Armor and T4, with 30" of range, does less damage than a unit with 6+ Armor and T3 with only 18"?
Clearly something must be broken.


Not too relevant but they're 5+ save now.
Ah, okay.
Edited the former post.

But yeah, Gants aren't nearly as durable as Intercessors.


Wait what? What does the Gants durability have to do with how much damage Gants, Intercessors and Firstborn do to Intercessors? Did I read the chart wrong?
The math isn't wrong.

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:16:02


Post by: Breton


 JNAProductions wrote:

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


No the conclusion I got was wondering what the durability of Gants mattered in a discussion of bolters, with mathhammering them being shot at Intercessors not Gants, nor why even that would matter if they were all shooting at Gants.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:21:35


Post by: JNAProductions


Breton wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


No the conclusion I got was wondering what the durability of Gants mattered in a discussion of bolters, with mathhammering them being shot at Intercessors not Gants, nor why even that would matter if they were all shooting at Gants.
Because a unit is more than just shooting.

What conclusion do you think should be drawn from the data presented?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 16:43:07


Post by: Dudeface


 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


No the conclusion I got was wondering what the durability of Gants mattered in a discussion of bolters, with mathhammering them being shot at Intercessors not Gants, nor why even that would matter if they were all shooting at Gants.
Because a unit is more than just shooting.

What conclusion do you think should be drawn from the data presented?


That as a standard infantry weapon the stock bolter sucks. Units aside ofc.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 17:06:17


Post by: Hairesy


I am glad to see some things never change.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 18:27:47


Post by: SemperMortis


Spoiler:
Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
umm.... what? I said and I quote "gives them +1 attack in the 1st round of combat" Literally word for word what I just said, and your response is a snarky comment like this?

There are no "only if certain admittedly easy conditions are met" its 1st round of combat if they charge, are charged or heroically intervene. That is like 95% of all combats, or are you just upset that if I pile into a Marine unit they only get 1 free attack each as opposed to 2?
"There are no easily met conditions." Proceeds to list the easily met conditions.


Breton wrote:
well the simple answer to your question - why should Marines go to two attacks base? Because they're twice as much as your Boys and thus have to have SOMEWHAT double the output per point. You get an average of what 80? More? Less? Bodies to launch your offense from. Marines will get 30-50. This is why Terminators have Storm bolters and Bikes have Twin Linked Bolters too. They're twice as much so need double the opportunity output. See Also: Outriders and Devastating Charge.

This was a bad argument 2 editions ago, and its a bad argument now. A Marine is 3+ armor compared to Ork 6+. A Marine has 2 wounds to an orkz 1. So opportunity cost seems to ignore Durability.
Arguments you can't deal with are bad arguments? A LandSpeeder Tornado has 6 wounds and 9 shots while for 50% more the Hailstrike has two more wounds and significantly more shots. I'm certainly not dishonest enough to claim all those extra points are tied up in 2 wounds, but also in the shots. Ergo Part of the points cost is durability, and part of it is offense. But sure, call it a "bad argument" to point out double the price should have roughly double the offense and double the durability.


SemperMortis wrote:
I mean christ, in just this thread you have people calling for Marines to have 2+ armor, AP-1 bolters and now twice as many base attacks.
Yes, lets lump all those disparate suggestions into one long list to make it look like everyone is calling for all of that at once.
I did, right there, you quoted me. Except I didn't make it into one long list and make it look like everyone was calling for all of that at once. That is you trying to infer something that isn't there.

The list right there says otherwise.
Breton wrote:
Say what? Bolters are RapidFire 2 now?
7th edition rapid fire was 1 shot at 24 or 2 shots at 12. Now its 2 shots at 24 if you stand still. Hence twice as many shots...except on vehicles which get twice as many shots regardsless

Interesting. Two doubled is... two. This New Math is really getting out of hand.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
and a plethora of special rules which enhance Marine power immensely compared to what it was in previous editions and you still want to massively increase their stats
lol.
So you didn't get bolter discipline, shock assault, Chapter tactics, Doctrines, super doctrines and a bunch of other stuff i'm likely forgetting? Oh, more core units than any other faction in the game?
So you're saying Shock Assault - as already established was a bandaid to replace +1A while charging or 2 Weapons etc AND that quiet part ONLY on the first round - is immensely enhanced compared to getting +1A all the time? Marines already had Doctrines. 2 doubled is 2. LOL


In case its too long for those of you to bother reading, the summary is Breton arguing semantics in order to ignore arguing the point.

Breton wrote:

I think bolters go back to AP-1 the minute Marines can't take them. They may go there sooner. I think they went to 0 to push people out of Firstborn, if they're chucking that idea they'll go back sooner. And we already have a couple turns of -2 "bolters" on the Primaris. Putting them on Tacs isn't going to matter much. Balance wise. Of course if they do that and/or the +1A baseline to Firstborn:

If they do OR the other one won't be far behind - it'll be too hard to try and shave the 1 point balance between a Tac and an Intercessor.

then Tacs and Intercessors will be the same price and it comes down to a few Strats, which transport (which would also go away in a hurry), and a special/heavy vs Auxiliary Grenade Launcher.


Again, Marine Bolters weren't AP -1 in 3rd through 9th, so when exactly was this mystical time when a stock standard bolter was AP-1?

Breton wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


No the conclusion I got was wondering what the durability of Gants mattered in a discussion of bolters, with mathhammering them being shot at Intercessors not Gants, nor why even that would matter if they were all shooting at Gants.


As JNAP pointed out, because a unit is more than shooting. Or if you want to play this ridiculous game. My Choppa/slugga boyz only get 1 shot at 12' at S4 no AP per 9pts, therefore my sluggas need to be buffed to achieve parity with Bolters and Gants new weapons. I think S5 4shots each at -1AP would be good. Probably want to buff their range out to 18 to 24 as well. I mean, all we care about is shooting right? No other stat matters like durability, speed or CC right?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 18:53:10


Post by: JNAProductions


My Plaguebearers get no shooting at all!
Give them all Lascannons.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 19:05:40


Post by: waefre_1


Oooh, if we're playing this game, how about Lasguns go to Assault 6 and if you don't move every shot after the first goes at +1 to hit/-.5 AP to represent the laser getting walked onto the target (I mean its a frickin' laser beam, even a Conscript should be able to figure out "move the bright spot over the badguy")?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 19:13:10


Post by: Insectum7


SemperMortis wrote:

Again, Marine Bolters weren't AP -1 in 3rd through 9th, so when exactly was this mystical time when a stock standard bolter was AP-1?
2nd ed. But Lasguns were also AP-1 back then too.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 20:06:20


Post by: brainpsyk


It was missing some contextual data.

@100 points (10 intercessors, 14 termagants, 10.5 firstborn Tac marines)

So Intercessors/bolters firing at termagants and vice versa appear to be balanced as-is, in terms of base stats, output reduction in capability after 2 rounds.

However, this does not say that marines are OK, because 9th is still a trading game, and trading is based on units, not models. At 200 points, termagants have ~3 units to trade vs. the marines 2, so marines are still trading down unit-for-unit. This is also best-case, where the marines are in RF range. At 12.1", Termagants have the advantage, which marines don't get back until 18.1", but termagants can play cagey to stay in that 12.1-18" range because they have the units to trade.

However, once the AV goes to 4 (like on the Skitarii rangers), the 11 bolter shots have a 17% reduction in output vs 10% in AV5.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/15 20:33:43


Post by: Hecaton


 kirotheavenger wrote:
I like Shootas not being Assault.
Orks were never the army to be charging around blasting, they were the guys firing loads and loads of bullets.


These two things aren't mutually exclusive, and given that the Evil Sunz subfaction ability wasn't changed it was a bonehead move.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 JNAProductions wrote:
2 shots at 24" is twice as many as 1 shot at 24".

And yes, Shock Assault is there to replace the +1 attack for charging-but why should Marines and Marines alone get that? (Okay, Ogryns and a few other units also get it. But Marines are the only ones to get it Faction-wide.)


Because they're the protagonist faction.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 02:27:35


Post by: ClockworkZion


A good story makes the protagonist work for their victory over, not hands them free power-ups just to keep the power fantasy going. So by that logic, clearly we need to nerf the bolter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 02:40:37


Post by: Kaied


 ClockworkZion wrote:
A good story makes the protagonist work for their victory over, not hands them free power-ups just to keep the power fantasy going. So by that logic, clearly we need to nerf the bolter.
So at the start of the game, everyone has BS/WS 6, and it goes down by 1 every round.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 03:00:08


Post by: ClockworkZion


Kaied wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
A good story makes the protagonist work for their victory over, not hands them free power-ups just to keep the power fantasy going. So by that logic, clearly we need to nerf the bolter.
So at the start of the game, everyone has BS/WS 6, and it goes down by 1 every round.

Also all non-named characters die to a stiff breeze to make the protagonist of the army look even more badass since they survived such a deadly conflict.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 03:08:35


Post by: Kaied


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Kaied wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
A good story makes the protagonist work for their victory over, not hands them free power-ups just to keep the power fantasy going. So by that logic, clearly we need to nerf the bolter.
So at the start of the game, everyone has BS/WS 6, and it goes down by 1 every round.

Also all non-named characters die to a stiff breeze to make the protagonist of the army look even more badass since they survived such a deadly conflict.
Named characters can choose to 'turn their back' and rotate their model to face away from any explosive weapon to take no damage.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 08:31:57


Post by: Jarms48


Spoletta wrote:
Especially their vehicles.


This I can agree with. Most marine vehicles are incredibly over-costed. For example:
- Rhino: 75 points.
- Razorback: 90 points. Twin assault cannon; or twin lascannon versions +10 points.
- Baal Predator: 90 points. Twin assault cannon +10 points. Heavy bolter sponsons +20 points; heavy flamer sponsons +20 points; or lascannon sponsons +30 points.
- Hunter: 95 points.
- Predator Annihilator: 100 points. Heavy bolter sponsons +20 points; or lascannon sponsons +30 points.
- Predator Destructor: 100 points. Heavy bolter sponsons +20 points; or lascannon sponsons +30 points.
- Whirlwind: 100 points. Whirlwind vengeance launcher +10 points.
- Stalker: 105 points.
- Vindicator: 120 points. Vindicator siege shield +10 points, in addition to current ability siege shield should move through Breachable terrain without impediment.

This is assuming we don't change any of their rules. This is roughly what all Rhino based vehicles should cost.

Spoletta wrote:
Add "Black Carapace: Increase the armor save of units with this rule by 1 against attacks of S7 or lower".
Now they are fine, and you justified why marines have 2+ and sisters don't. (Obviously apply to all marine variants, yes stinky and spiky ones too. Maybe not dusty).


Why? They already have +1T and +1W over Sisters.

Breton wrote:
I can remember when Plasma was -2, then AP2, now to -3 and -4.


AP2 is now AP-3, just how AP1 is AP-4.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Spoletta wrote:
Basic sisters could then use a 10 ppm cost, but that's another topic.


I don't see why they should go down if they also get AP-1 bolters.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 09:10:19


Post by: Blackie


Dudeface wrote:


The topic is "Do bolters need buffs across most platforms?" - yes. I don't care what is carrying it the bolter is crap in the current game/state. Imagine if marine didn't need bolter discipline, doctrines and chapter traits all stacking to make it worth firing their default weapon.


True. Regular bolters are dull but primaris ones are not, and SM can make bolters quite good for free thanks to their thousand abilities.

So better bolters could be acceptable only if SM lose their thousand abilties. Basically everyone gets primaris bolters and no (effective) tools to improve them. That would be acceptable. Anything better definitely not. At the moment marine bolters are pretty good: primaris fire with AP-2 for a couple of turns and AP-1 for the rest of the game, also with a nice range. Basic marines already fire AP-1 for the couple of turns in which they could be in range, in practise they basically already have native AP-1.

The point of upgrading bolters is to buff chaos and sisters, not marines.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 15:25:08


Post by: brainpsyk


 Blackie wrote:

True. Regular bolters are dull but primaris ones are not, and SM can make bolters quite good for free thanks to their thousand abilities.

So better bolters could be acceptable only if SM lose their thousand abilties. Basically everyone gets primaris bolters and no (effective) tools to improve them. That would be acceptable. Anything better definitely not. At the moment marine bolters are pretty good: primaris fire with AP-2 for a couple of turns and AP-1 for the rest of the game, also with a nice range. Basic marines already fire AP-1 for the couple of turns in which they could be in range, in practise they basically already have native AP-1.

The point of upgrading bolters is to buff chaos and sisters, not marines.


That's a bit disingenuous. Most marines don't have AP-1 for "a couple turns", they're in Dev doctrine 1 turn, then usually in assault doctrine for 3 turns because they're in melee turn 3, leaving just 1 turn for bolters. With the additional attack and -1AP from chainswords, it's why we really don't see tac marines or regular intercessors, we mostly see Assault Intercessors. The biggest problem with giving regular bolters -1AP is that it encroaches on Intercessors, so there would be no reason to buy the shiny new Intercessors over firstborn.

Chaos just need their new codex, just like my Guard.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 15:37:57


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Blackie wrote:
Dudeface wrote:


The topic is "Do bolters need buffs across most platforms?" - yes. I don't care what is carrying it the bolter is crap in the current game/state. Imagine if marine didn't need bolter discipline, doctrines and chapter traits all stacking to make it worth firing their default weapon.


True. Regular bolters are dull but primaris ones are not, and SM can make bolters quite good for free thanks to their thousand abilities.

So better bolters could be acceptable only if SM lose their thousand abilties. Basically everyone gets primaris bolters and no (effective) tools to improve them. That would be acceptable. Anything better definitely not. At the moment marine bolters are pretty good: primaris fire with AP-2 for a couple of turns and AP-1 for the rest of the game, also with a nice range. Basic marines already fire AP-1 for the couple of turns in which they could be in range, in practise they basically already have native AP-1.

The point of upgrading bolters is to buff chaos and sisters, not marines.

I'm for getting rid of Doctrines and compiling most unit profiles.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 18:33:50


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 18:35:57


Post by: Dudeface


 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 21:10:52


Post by: GFdoubles


Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


Just going to rant for a moment on this because you happened to bring up Sisters and Chaos. Any buff to the standard Bolter/Boltgun/Godwyn Deaz pattern rocket propelled firing weapon (whatever they end up calling it next) needs to be a buff that goes to Sisters, Chaos, and the limited Guardsmen that can use them as well. I honestly don't care if it ends up being S5, AP -1, auto-wounds on hit rolls of 6 or extra AP on hit rolls of 6, or whatever else GW decides to do, but it needs to go to everyone who uses that weapon, jus like the Heavy Bolter, Flamer, Power Sword, and Multi-Melta changes were rolled out to each of the factions that used those weapons at the start of 9th. Again, sorry about chaos not getting their second wound, it is a crim but that's GW for ya.

I will accept Bolter Discipline and all that being only for Marines, and I will accept that Xenos weapons that are functionally the same but called different things technically do not have to get the same upgrades, but it is a fact that Sisters, Guardsmen, and Chaos are all using Bolters and Boltguns, so if you buff the weapon you buff it for everyone. No "Astartes Boltgun" or any other weirdly specific name that excludes the other factiosn that use the same weapon from receiving a buff. If you do it for one, do it for the others.

I am fine if my Sisters never get bolter discipline, a black carapace rule, or anything of the sort since yes, it just would not make sense. But they all use the holy bolter, so if it is getting a buff, I expect 11 point Battle Sisters to be getting that buff. If they don't because of the BS GW tries to pull, then that is just more reason for them to go down to 10 points.

Rant over.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 21:25:49


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


No, but they can be whatever holy order just really likes shooting crap. Gw has full ability to make subfaction traits good and encourage specific builds but they just don’t. What I meant here was that factions tend to have buffs. Plus don’t sisters have special bolter boost strats?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 22:06:50


Post by: SemperMortis


4th edition. Assuming 24' range. Took 3 shots from Bolters to kill an Ork. Thats 45pts to kill 6pts. 0.13pt efficiency

9th edition: It takes 5.4 bolter shots to kill an ork. That is 48.6pts to kill 9pts. 0.18pt efficiency.

Add in Tac doctrine and it goes to 4.5 to kill an Ork or 0.22pt efficiency.

So edition to edition Space Marines bolters are now MORE efficient at killing Orkz than ever before.

To kill a Marine with shootas in 4th edition took 9 Shoota boyz, that was 81pts of Ork boyz to kill 15pts of Marine. 0.18pt efficiency

To kill a Marine with Shootas in 9th edition it takes 18 Shoota boys. That's 162pts to kill 18pts of Marine. 0.11pt efficiency.

Ork shootas are now worse than ever before against Marines.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/16 23:06:39


Post by: Insectum7


SemperMortis wrote:
4th edition. Assuming 24' range. Took 3 shots from Bolters to kill an Ork. Thats 45pts to kill 6pts. 0.13pt efficiency

9th edition: It takes 5.4 bolter shots to kill an ork. That is 48.6pts to kill 9pts. 0.18pt efficiency.

Add in Tac doctrine and it goes to 4.5 to kill an Ork or 0.22pt efficiency.

So edition to edition Space Marines bolters are now MORE efficient at killing Orkz than ever before.
Mmmm. . . The only reason you're getting more efficiency is the double tap at 24". In 4th, the double tap within 12" gives 0.26 efficiency.

But in 3rd and most (90%) of 4th, Slugga boys cost 9 pts, and Shoota Boyz 8, not 6. Bolters were way more efficient at killing Orks than they are now.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 06:35:05


Post by: Dudeface


 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


No, but they can be whatever holy order just really likes shooting crap. Gw has full ability to make subfaction traits good and encourage specific builds but they just don’t. What I meant here was that factions tend to have buffs. Plus don’t sisters have special bolter boost strats?


No idea, but it shouldn't tale a faction specific limited resource to make a bolter worth it. That is the point, you're advocating laying rules salad onto of the models to make the bolter half decent, rather than making the bolter good and stripping layers off the models.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 09:32:45


Post by: Blackie


brainpsyk wrote:
 Blackie wrote:

True. Regular bolters are dull but primaris ones are not, and SM can make bolters quite good for free thanks to their thousand abilities.

So better bolters could be acceptable only if SM lose their thousand abilties. Basically everyone gets primaris bolters and no (effective) tools to improve them. That would be acceptable. Anything better definitely not. At the moment marine bolters are pretty good: primaris fire with AP-2 for a couple of turns and AP-1 for the rest of the game, also with a nice range. Basic marines already fire AP-1 for the couple of turns in which they could be in range, in practise they basically already have native AP-1.

The point of upgrading bolters is to buff chaos and sisters, not marines.


That's a bit disingenuous. Most marines don't have AP-1 for "a couple turns", they're in Dev doctrine 1 turn, then usually in assault doctrine for 3 turns because they're in melee turn 3, leaving just 1 turn for bolters. With the additional attack and -1AP from chainswords, it's why we really don't see tac marines or regular intercessors, we mostly see Assault Intercessors. The biggest problem with giving regular bolters -1AP is that it encroaches on Intercessors, so there would be no reason to buy the shiny new Intercessors over firstborn.

Chaos just need their new codex, just like my Guard.



Bolters mostly (only?) matter in turns 2 and 3. In turn 1 they might be out of range, or at least out of rapid fire range. After turn 3 the appropriate targets might be locked in combat or dead. Most marine armies are shooty oriented and the few melee units have access to get the assault doctrine bonus even when the bolter doctrine is still in play. Space Wolves have a stratagem to do that for example. Others might strike with high enough AP to not need the bonus.

I think bolters should be AP0 with no doctrines, while primaris should be AP-1. I'd accept all bolters AP-1 assuming their platforms get a price hike and intercessors don't get flat AP-2 but still keep some kind of niche compared to regular bolter dudes to be justified.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 12:57:56


Post by: Gene St. Ealer


Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


No, but they can be whatever holy order just really likes shooting crap. Gw has full ability to make subfaction traits good and encourage specific builds but they just don’t. What I meant here was that factions tend to have buffs. Plus don’t sisters have special bolter boost strats?


No idea, but it shouldn't tale a faction specific limited resource to make a bolter worth it. That is the point, you're advocating laying rules salad onto of the models to make the bolter half decent, rather than making the bolter good and stripping layers off the models.


No, I think you've got it backwards. Why should the most ubiquitous, easily spammable, baseline gun in the game be "good"? It should be "average". I get it, the game is FUBAR right now, but we don't solve this FUBAR situation by going back to the 8e Marines 2.0 meta.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 13:32:03


Post by: Dudeface


 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
To buff bolters can’t you just go crimson fists, +1 to hit against vehicles and non tiny squads, plus exploding sixes on bolt weapons.


Except sisters and chaos can't be Crimson Fists.


No, but they can be whatever holy order just really likes shooting crap. Gw has full ability to make subfaction traits good and encourage specific builds but they just don’t. What I meant here was that factions tend to have buffs. Plus don’t sisters have special bolter boost strats?


No idea, but it shouldn't tale a faction specific limited resource to make a bolter worth it. That is the point, you're advocating laying rules salad onto of the models to make the bolter half decent, rather than making the bolter good and stripping layers off the models.


No, I think you've got it backwards. Why should the most ubiquitous, easily spammable, baseline gun in the game be "good"? It should be "average". I get it, the game is FUBAR right now, but we don't solve this FUBAR situation by going back to the 8e Marines 2.0 meta.


I agree it should be average, it is below average, it is propped up by orders/chapter traits, strats, auras, psychic powers , warlord traits etc. The gun is below average, in fact it's only taken by armies who have no choice, I.e. sisters. I'm not talking about auto bolters, bolt rifles. Bolters. The ones you find on sister squads, tactical Marines, chaos marines.

You want the game to stop being FUBAR, remove the layer upon layer of stacks rules something has and get back to barebones. You'll soon notice a bolter firing 1 s4 ap- d1 shot at 24" is vastly worse than the new shuriken catapults, fleshborers, pulse rifles etc.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 13:33:19


Post by: Not Online!!!


this just shows that the Primaris 1upmanship wasn't beneficial at all.

Wouldn't be surprised if GW bypassed that for CSM though with something like cursed ammo / boltgun.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 13:54:43


Post by: Gene St. Ealer


Dudeface wrote:

You want the game to stop being FUBAR, remove the layer upon layer of stacks rules something has and get back to barebones. You'll soon notice a bolter firing 1 s4 ap- d1 shot at 24" is vastly worse than the new shuriken catapults, fleshborers, pulse rifles etc.


Really? That 24'' range is "vastly worse" than things with 18'' range when you're 24'' away?

...I get it, that's not a big enough deal to make bolters feel alright compared to those other weapons. But man, let's go back to Insectum's wonderful work from probably a year or so now where he showed how Marines have crept way forward when compared to offense and defense of Xenos units. The Shuricat was garbage in 8th and 9th, has been crept on for probably 20 years now. The Fleshborer was basically never good and Fleshborer Gants have not been anything other than wound counters. Maybe GW twisted the knob a little too far in one direction (though I don't know that we have enough evidence to believe that at this stage), but those weapons needed improvements, end of story (and same with pulse rifles too!)

Somebody already said it in this thread. If you want a grimdark world where there is only war and humanity is doomed (i.e. the plot of the fething setting), you need a world where Xenos and Xenos weapons are scary.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 13:55:50


Post by: Breton


 JNAProductions wrote:
Breton wrote:
 JNAProductions wrote:

But if the conclusion you got was "Gants are obviously superior to Intercessors" your conclusion is.


No the conclusion I got was wondering what the durability of Gants mattered in a discussion of bolters, with mathhammering them being shot at Intercessors not Gants, nor why even that would matter if they were all shooting at Gants.
Because a unit is more than just shooting.

What conclusion do you think should be drawn from the data presented?


Conclusion A) We're not comparing units, we're comparing the bolter.
Conclusion B) The drop in AP never made sense from a balance standpoint. For the people focusing on the SM only aspect - The minor PPM difference between Intercessor and Tactical vs 1A, 6" of range and AP-1 is going to keep Tacs on the shelf while any concerns of AP-2 basic weapons runs strait into the Bolt Rifle that already does such.. For the Sisters/Guard/etc players they're just screwed until/unless the AP is restored.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 14:04:27


Post by: Blackie


Dudeface wrote:


I agree it should be average, it is below average, it is propped up by orders/chapter traits, strats, auras, psychic powers , warlord traits etc. The gun is below average, in fact it's only taken by armies who have no choice, I.e. sisters. I'm not talking about auto bolters, bolt rifles. Bolters. The ones you find on sister squads, tactical Marines, chaos marines.

You want the game to stop being FUBAR, remove the layer upon layer of stacks rules something has and get back to barebones. You'll soon notice a bolter firing 1 s4 ap- d1 shot at 24" is vastly worse than the new shuriken catapults, fleshborers, pulse rifles etc.


It's not below average. Shootas, splinter rifles and lasguns aren't better, I think they're all worse. Lots of basic stuff also have pistols which are worse than bolters. And all bolter platforms with a 9th edition codex have tools to be on par with the troops which have native AP-1 and/or S5 or are cheap enough (sisters) they are already on par pointswise. So basically only Deathguard have really crappy bolters, aka below average basic weapons. Some armies, like marines, don't use many bolter dudes only because they have the luxury to have tons of options, including troops with the stats of elites. I'd argue that their problem is not having basic dudes with average weapons, but basic dudes with too high stats and too good weapons that are in competition with the most average guys.

Generic Chaos dudes are still 8th, so they don't count as we don't know how they'll be upgraded.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 14:28:27


Post by: catbarf


 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
But man, let's go back to Insectum's wonderful work from probably a year or so now where he showed how Marines have crept way forward when compared to offense and defense of Xenos units. The Shuricat was garbage in 8th and 9th, has been crept on for probably 20 years now. The Fleshborer was basically never good and Fleshborer Gants have not been anything other than wound counters.


Not to steal Insectum's thunder, but yeah let's hop in our time machine and go back twenty years to 3rd Ed and look just at the guns.

Bolter: Stationary, you get two S4 AP5 shots at 12" or one S4 AP5 shot at 24". Moving, you only get one shot at 12". You cannot shoot and charge.
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP5 shots at 12".
Fleshborer: One S4 AP5 shot at 12".

All the same S4 AP5 profile, just different ranges and number of shots. Even the Fleshborer- a bolt pistol analogue- rivaled the firepower of a bolter on the move and you could still shoot and charge with it. The Shuriken Catapult had double the firepower of a bolter on the move and could shoot and charge. Shooting an enemy, then charging the survivors to finish them off was an effective tactic that Marines simply could not do.

The downside to these weapons was that they did not have the option to stay still and fire at longer range, and with Marines ignoring the armor of Guardians or Termagants altogether they really could stay still and gun you down before you could get into range.

The advantages of the Assault weapon type then got systematically eroded for twenty years, to the point where having two shots at 12" was a joke because the only advantage it had over the 24" Rapid Fire was the ability to Advance and fire at -1.

So where are we right now?

Bolter: Two S4 shots at 12" or one shot at 24".
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP-1 shots at 18", bonus AP on 6s, and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.
Fleshborer: One S5 AP-1 shot at 18" and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.

All three guns have more reach than in 3rd- the Catapult and Fleshborer due to range increase, but the Bolter being able to move and still fire at full effectiveness. That also means that if a Catapult or Fleshborer gets in range, a bolter-armed model can move forwards to get in rapid fire range. The Fleshborer is more than half a Catapult now, but the platform that carries it has also gotten relatively more expensive, so it's not quite a cannon fodder unit anymore.

Give regular bolters the same AP-1 that Bolt Rifles have and then bolters and Catapults are pretty much on par again, with Fleshborers still coming in behind against anything T7 or less. Plus with Bolter Discipline and Doctrines, Marines still have access to force-multipliers on bolters that let them punch above the other two.

Really, I think the issue is that players have become accustomed to things like Catapults being lasgun analogues, rather than bolter analogues. Back in the day, the advantage of Marines over Eldar wasn't superior firepower, it was superior durability with comparable firepower.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 14:52:00


Post by: Dudeface


 catbarf wrote:
 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
But man, let's go back to Insectum's wonderful work from probably a year or so now where he showed how Marines have crept way forward when compared to offense and defense of Xenos units. The Shuricat was garbage in 8th and 9th, has been crept on for probably 20 years now. The Fleshborer was basically never good and Fleshborer Gants have not been anything other than wound counters.


Not to steal Insectum's thunder, but yeah let's hop in our time machine and go back twenty years to 3rd Ed and look just at the guns.

Bolter: Stationary, you get two S4 AP5 shots at 12" or one S4 AP5 shot at 24". Moving, you only get one shot at 12". You cannot shoot and charge.
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP5 shots at 12".
Fleshborer: One S4 AP5 shot at 12".

All the same S4 AP5 profile, just different ranges and number of shots. Even the Fleshborer- a bolt pistol analogue- rivaled the firepower of a bolter on the move and you could still shoot and charge with it. The Shuriken Catapult had double the firepower of a bolter on the move and could shoot and charge. Shooting an enemy, then charging the survivors to finish them off was an effective tactic that Marines simply could not do.

The downside to these weapons was that they did not have the option to stay still and fire at longer range, and with Marines ignoring the armor of Guardians or Termagants altogether they really could stay still and gun you down before you could get into range.

The advantages of the Assault weapon type then got systematically eroded for twenty years, to the point where having two shots at 12" was a joke because the only advantage it had over the 24" Rapid Fire was the ability to Advance and fire at -1.

So where are we right now?

Bolter: Two S4 shots at 12" or one shot at 24".
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP-1 shots at 18", bonus AP on 6s, and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.
Fleshborer: One S5 AP-1 shot at 18" and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.

All three guns have more reach than in 3rd- the Catapult and Fleshborer due to range increase, but the Bolter being able to move and still fire at full effectiveness. That also means that if a Catapult or Fleshborer gets in range, a bolter-armed model can move forwards to get in rapid fire range. The Fleshborer is more than half a Catapult now, but the platform that carries it has also gotten relatively more expensive, so it's not quite a cannon fodder unit anymore.

Give regular bolters the same AP-1 that Bolt Rifles have and then bolters and Catapults are pretty much on par again, with Fleshborers still coming in behind against anything T7 or less. Plus with Bolter Discipline and Doctrines, Marines still have access to force-multipliers on bolters that let them punch above the other two.

Really, I think the issue is that players have become accustomed to things like Catapults being lasgun analogues, rather than bolter analogues. Back in the day, the advantage of Marines over Eldar wasn't superior firepower, it was superior durability with comparable firepower.


Wonderful post and sums it up perfectly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Blackie wrote:
Dudeface wrote:


I agree it should be average, it is below average, it is propped up by orders/chapter traits, strats, auras, psychic powers , warlord traits etc. The gun is below average, in fact it's only taken by armies who have no choice, I.e. sisters. I'm not talking about auto bolters, bolt rifles. Bolters. The ones you find on sister squads, tactical Marines, chaos marines.

You want the game to stop being FUBAR, remove the layer upon layer of stacks rules something has and get back to barebones. You'll soon notice a bolter firing 1 s4 ap- d1 shot at 24" is vastly worse than the new shuriken catapults, fleshborers, pulse rifles etc.


It's not below average. Shootas, splinter rifles and lasguns aren't better, I think they're all worse. Lots of basic stuff also have pistols which are worse than bolters. And all bolter platforms with a 9th edition codex have tools to be on par with the troops which have native AP-1 and/or S5 or are cheap enough (sisters) they are already on par pointswise. So basically only Deathguard have really crappy bolters, aka below average basic weapons. Some armies, like marines, don't use many bolter dudes only because they have the luxury to have tons of options, including troops with the stats of elites. I'd argue that their problem is not having basic dudes with average weapons, but basic dudes with too high stats and too good weapons that are in competition with the most average guys.

Generic Chaos dudes are still 8th, so they don't count as we don't know how they'll be upgraded.


Stop and think about that.

It's not below average. --- Some armies, like marines, don't use many bolter dudes
Bolt rifles are better bolters and more preferable. Because the bolter is at best, worse than a bolt rifle.

What do you propose they do to fix the output of plague marines then given you can't alter their gun without impacting 5+ other armies.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 15:10:46


Post by: Quasistellar


Bolters aren't really a problem. It's the things carrying them.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 15:58:52


Post by: catbarf


Dudeface wrote:
Bolt rifles are better bolters and more preferable. Because the bolter is at best, worse than a bolt rifle.

What do you propose they do to fix the output of plague marines then given you can't alter their gun without impacting 5+ other armies.


And really that's the reason I see giving bolters AP-1 as a no-brainer. Most armies are Marines and most Marine armies are Primaris; they already have AP-1 on their default weapons.

Are we headed for a game state where pretty much anything that isn't a lasgun has AP-1 or better? Trick question, we're already there. Might as well let the Firstborn and Sisters players catch up. And ultimately it's okay if a bolt rifle is just a bolter with 6" extra range.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:07:35


Post by: Insectum7


 catbarf wrote:
Spoiler:
 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
But man, let's go back to Insectum's wonderful work from probably a year or so now where he showed how Marines have crept way forward when compared to offense and defense of Xenos units. The Shuricat was garbage in 8th and 9th, has been crept on for probably 20 years now. The Fleshborer was basically never good and Fleshborer Gants have not been anything other than wound counters.


Not to steal Insectum's thunder, but yeah let's hop in our time machine and go back twenty years to 3rd Ed and look just at the guns.

Bolter: Stationary, you get two S4 AP5 shots at 12" or one S4 AP5 shot at 24". Moving, you only get one shot at 12". You cannot shoot and charge.
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP5 shots at 12".
Fleshborer: One S4 AP5 shot at 12".

All the same S4 AP5 profile, just different ranges and number of shots. Even the Fleshborer- a bolt pistol analogue- rivaled the firepower of a bolter on the move and you could still shoot and charge with it. The Shuriken Catapult had double the firepower of a bolter on the move and could shoot and charge. Shooting an enemy, then charging the survivors to finish them off was an effective tactic that Marines simply could not do.

The downside to these weapons was that they did not have the option to stay still and fire at longer range, and with Marines ignoring the armor of Guardians or Termagants altogether they really could stay still and gun you down before you could get into range.

The advantages of the Assault weapon type then got systematically eroded for twenty years, to the point where having two shots at 12" was a joke because the only advantage it had over the 24" Rapid Fire was the ability to Advance and fire at -1.

So where are we right now?

Bolter: Two S4 shots at 12" or one shot at 24".
Shuriken Catapult: Two S4 AP-1 shots at 18", bonus AP on 6s, and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.
Fleshborer: One S5 AP-1 shot at 18" and you can Advance and shoot at a penalty.

All three guns have more reach than in 3rd- the Catapult and Fleshborer due to range increase, but the Bolter being able to move and still fire at full effectiveness. That also means that if a Catapult or Fleshborer gets in range, a bolter-armed model can move forwards to get in rapid fire range. The Fleshborer is more than half a Catapult now, but the platform that carries it has also gotten relatively more expensive, so it's not quite a cannon fodder unit anymore.

Give regular bolters the same AP-1 that Bolt Rifles have and then bolters and Catapults are pretty much on par again, with Fleshborers still coming in behind against anything T7 or less. Plus with Bolter Discipline and Doctrines, Marines still have access to force-multipliers on bolters that let them punch above the other two.

Really, I think the issue is that players have become accustomed to things like Catapults being lasgun analogues, rather than bolter analogues. Back in the day, the advantage of Marines over Eldar wasn't superior firepower, it was superior durability with comparable firepower.
I approve this message. Also I'm kinda flattered that anyone remembers something I might have posted a year ago.

Tbh though, I kinda prefer the 2nd ed Catapult, which was actually better than a Storm Bolter. But Guardians only has BS 3 (4+) back then too.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:08:21


Post by: Voss


 catbarf wrote:


Are we headed for a game state where pretty much anything that isn't a lasgun has AP-1 or better? Trick question, we're already there. Might as well let the Firstborn and Sisters players catch up. And ultimately it's okay if a bolt rifle is just a bolter with 6" extra range.
Honestly its ok if they're just the same weapon.
Along with almost all the others from the list o' doom.

I don't particularly think any basic weapons need to be 30" with the table size the designers assume, but that ship sailed.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:13:10


Post by: Quasistellar


I play mostly space marines armies but even I think just giving the bolter -1 AP is not what the game needs.

Again, the humble bolter isn't so much a problem as the things that carry it. In the case of Space Marines, they're just a bit overpriced compared to all the newer codex troops/infantry, and vehicles with bolters are flaming dumpster fires.

We already get doctrines to address this.

I think we'd be complaining a lot less about bolters if Tac marines were a point cheaper and their heavy weapon options were better/cheaper (see: lascannons below), Plasmaceptors weren't as likely to delete equal points of themseves as the enemy just by firing, Hellblasters weren't grossly overpriced, Lascannons did 3+ d3 or 2d3 damage, etc etc.

Imagine if tac marines could take a lascannon that did reasonable damage and could ride in a rhino or razorback that wasn't total garbage.

Boltguns aren't meant to pull much weight aside from killing chaff, but the rest of the armies that use them aren't pulling their weight enough to compensate.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:22:47


Post by: Insectum7


Quasistellar wrote:
I play mostly space marines armies but even I think just giving the bolter -1 AP is not what the game needs.

Again, the humble bolter isn't so much a problem as the things that carry it. In the case of Space Marines, they're just a bit overpriced compared to all the newer codex troops/infantry, and vehicles with bolters are flaming dumpster fires.

We already get doctrines to address this.

I think we'd be complaining a lot less about bolters if Tac marines were a point cheaper and their heavy weapon options were better/cheaper (see: lascannons below), Plasmaceptors weren't as likely to delete equal points of themseves as the enemy just by firing, Hellblasters weren't grossly overpriced, Lascannons did 3+ d3 or 2d3 damage, etc etc.

Imagine if tac marines could take a lascannon that did reasonable damage and could ride in a rhino or razorback that wasn't total garbage.

Boltguns aren't meant to pull much weight aside from killing chaff, but the rest of the armies that use them aren't pulling their weight enough to compensate.
The idea that Tacs are bad is crazy to me. Because of their Heavy/Special they can do so much more damage than Intercessors. The disregard for Tacs seems like a sort of collective insanity.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:45:02


Post by: Dudeface


 Insectum7 wrote:
Quasistellar wrote:
I play mostly space marines armies but even I think just giving the bolter -1 AP is not what the game needs.

Again, the humble bolter isn't so much a problem as the things that carry it. In the case of Space Marines, they're just a bit overpriced compared to all the newer codex troops/infantry, and vehicles with bolters are flaming dumpster fires.

We already get doctrines to address this.

I think we'd be complaining a lot less about bolters if Tac marines were a point cheaper and their heavy weapon options were better/cheaper (see: lascannons below), Plasmaceptors weren't as likely to delete equal points of themseves as the enemy just by firing, Hellblasters weren't grossly overpriced, Lascannons did 3+ d3 or 2d3 damage, etc etc.

Imagine if tac marines could take a lascannon that did reasonable damage and could ride in a rhino or razorback that wasn't total garbage.

Boltguns aren't meant to pull much weight aside from killing chaff, but the rest of the armies that use them aren't pulling their weight enough to compensate.
The idea that Tacs are bad is crazy to me. Because of their Heavy/Special they can do so much more damage than Intercessors. The disregard for Tacs seems like a sort of collective insanity.


I think that you're taking the bolter dudes to clear infantry, when they get 6" less range and a point of AP less but make up 7/10 of the unit it's a hard sell when they're not that much cheaper, just take the better intercessors and then a devastator squad if you needs the heavies is where we're at.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:56:44


Post by: Insectum7


Dudeface wrote:


I think that you're taking the bolter dudes to clear infantry, when they get 6" less range and a point of AP less but make up 7/10 of the unit it's a hard sell when they're not that much cheaper, just take the better intercessors and then a devastator squad if you needs the heavies is where we're at.
Run the math, 5 Intercessors vs. 5 Tacs with a Grav Cannon against a variety of targets. The Tacs come out ahead, while costing the same. Not only that, but because their damage output is more concentrated in the Heavy, their damage output degrades slower as they take casualties.

Putting Bolters at AP-1 puts Intercessors completely out of a job. (Fine by me!)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:57:34


Post by: SemperMortis


 catbarf wrote:
Dudeface wrote:
Bolt rifles are better bolters and more preferable. Because the bolter is at best, worse than a bolt rifle.

What do you propose they do to fix the output of plague marines then given you can't alter their gun without impacting 5+ other armies.


And really that's the reason I see giving bolters AP-1 as a no-brainer. Most armies are Marines and most Marine armies are Primaris; they already have AP-1 on their default weapons.

Are we headed for a game state where pretty much anything that isn't a lasgun has AP-1 or better? Trick question, we're already there. Might as well let the Firstborn and Sisters players catch up. And ultimately it's okay if a bolt rifle is just a bolter with 6" extra range.


And i'll bet you dollars to donuts that shortly after that kind of a buff happens the players will be demanding something new be added to Bolt Rifles to make them more different(better) than just a 2pt cheaper Tac Marine with a Bolter.

I do agree with you that a lot of guns have become AP-1 but the game is already deadly enough, we need a toning down rather than an increase in dmg output. And I would really like to see more balance across the board in terms of dmg output by units/weapons. GW hamfisting "Dakka" weapons onto us has shown me though that this isn't likely to ever happen. The guys writing the rules really don't have a clue what they are doing. Hell, they made "Trukk" Boyz illegal not once, but twice this edition alone. And both times it was by accident because they didn't know what they were doing.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 16:58:27


Post by: Quasistellar


Tacs aren't *too* bad. Maybe 1 point overcosted IMO.

They just ride in crap vehicles, lascannons are trash, etc.

The original question was posed: "do bolters need buffs across most platforms?"

My short answer is: "no, but most platforms that take bolters need buffs, or other platforms/factions need nerfs".

Rhinos and razorbacks in particular being good would go a LONG way toward making tac marines better. Other factions are getting transports that fly, have more wounds, more durability, and more weapons for like 10-15 points more than a Rhino.

Or just compare a Razorback to a Raider, Devilfish, Falcon, or Wave Serpent. I mean holy cow these transports aren't even in the same league as a Razorback yet they cost between 10-15 points LESS (devilfish/raider) and 30 points more (wave serpent/falcon).


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:03:08


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Insectum7 wrote:
Dudeface wrote:


I think that you're taking the bolter dudes to clear infantry, when they get 6" less range and a point of AP less but make up 7/10 of the unit it's a hard sell when they're not that much cheaper, just take the better intercessors and then a devastator squad if you needs the heavies is where we're at.
Run the math, 5 Intercessors vs. 5 Tacs with a Grav Cannon against a variety of targets. The Tacs come out ahead, while costing the same. Not only that, but because their damage output is more concentrated in the Heavy, their damage output degrades slower as they take casualties.

Putting Bolters at AP-1 puts Intercessors completely out of a job. (Fine by me!)

Honestly you just proved why Tactical Marines don't have a job. They're anemic outside the Grav Cannon, which means you should load up on Grav Cannons with Sternguard and Devastators. That's just the shooting too. Even with Shock Assault, Tactical Marines are anemic on the melee side.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also that shows why Assault Intercessors are liked the most.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:09:32


Post by: brainpsyk


 Blackie wrote:

Bolters mostly (only?) matter in turns 2 and 3. In turn 1 they might be out of range, or at least out of rapid fire range. After turn 3 the appropriate targets might be locked in combat or dead. Most marine armies are shooty oriented and the few melee units have access to get the assault doctrine bonus even when the bolter doctrine is still in play. Space Wolves have a stratagem to do that for example. Others might strike with high enough AP to not need the bonus.

I think bolters should be AP0 with no doctrines, while primaris should be AP-1. I'd accept all bolters AP-1 assuming their platforms get a price hike and intercessors don't get flat AP-2 but still keep some kind of niche compared to regular bolter dudes to be justified.

Bolters are good for playing the mid-board, which can be as soon as turn 1 for the player going 2nd. Then they should matter in later turns but because of the lack of AP (and the additional attack), the chainsword becomes the weapon of choice.

I agree with you that bolters should get AP-1 by default, for Sisters, Chaos and SMs. Then Intercessors should get some bonus to compensate, like exploding 6s or something. That would boost the output nicely, give a reason to take firstborn, but still make intercessors slightly better.
intercessor Bolt Rifle vs. intercessor No Mods mean: 1.7 μ=2.0 σ=1.2
intercessor Bolt Rifle vs. intercessor sixesToHitExplode mean: 2.1 μ=2.0 σ=1.3



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:19:40


Post by: Insectum7


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Dudeface wrote:


I think that you're taking the bolter dudes to clear infantry, when they get 6" less range and a point of AP less but make up 7/10 of the unit it's a hard sell when they're not that much cheaper, just take the better intercessors and then a devastator squad if you needs the heavies is where we're at.
Run the math, 5 Intercessors vs. 5 Tacs with a Grav Cannon against a variety of targets. The Tacs come out ahead, while costing the same. Not only that, but because their damage output is more concentrated in the Heavy, their damage output degrades slower as they take casualties.

Putting Bolters at AP-1 puts Intercessors completely out of a job. (Fine by me!)

Honestly you just proved why Tactical Marines don't have a job. They're anemic outside the Grav Cannon, which means you should load up on Grav Cannons with Sternguard and Devastators. That's just the shooting too. Even with Shock Assault, Tactical Marines are anemic on the melee side.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also that shows why Assault Intercessors are liked the most.
Incorrect. Tacs are the mandatory troops/obsec choice that can take Gravs and Meltas in addition to the Devs you already bought because Devs are awesome but you can only take 3 of them.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:30:32


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


If we’re looking to buff bolters, buff shootas. They’re the real bolt weapon that’s suffering hard. 18” 3 shots s4 ap -1 would maybe start to make em good, especially because unlike other bolter factions you can barely buff through commanders, psychic, army core rules, or commanders.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:39:26


Post by: SemperMortis


EviscerationPlague wrote:

Honestly you just proved why Tactical Marines don't have a job. They're anemic outside the Grav Cannon, which means you should load up on Grav Cannons with Sternguard and Devastators. That's just the shooting too. Even with Shock Assault, Tactical Marines are anemic on the melee side.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also that shows why Assault Intercessors are liked the most.


They are a bog standard Marine. They aren't elites, they aren't heavy support and they aren't Fast attack. You are comparing them to specialists and wondering why they aren't as good at that specialists specialty lol seems kind of silly.



Going back to the general topic though. If a bolter goes to AP-1 base than everyone else needs a similar buff to compensate, a lot of factions already have this because their weapons were doing even less than bolters previously.

Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous. And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more. So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 17:55:47


Post by: Dudeface


SemperMortis wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:

Honestly you just proved why Tactical Marines don't have a job. They're anemic outside the Grav Cannon, which means you should load up on Grav Cannons with Sternguard and Devastators. That's just the shooting too. Even with Shock Assault, Tactical Marines are anemic on the melee side.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also that shows why Assault Intercessors are liked the most.


They are a bog standard Marine. They aren't elites, they aren't heavy support and they aren't Fast attack. You are comparing them to specialists and wondering why they aren't as good at that specialists specialty lol seems kind of silly.



Going back to the general topic though. If a bolter goes to AP-1 base than everyone else needs a similar buff to compensate, a lot of factions already have this because their weapons were doing even less than bolters previously.

Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous. And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more. So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.




The problem with the increased durability on the marine was that it was very short lived. If they hadn't just slapped d2+ on everything and immediately invalidated the increased durability then they'd be in a decent place where you pay for the durability with reduced output (in an ideal world where 6 special rules don't make them fire iWins). Sort of like where plague marines are at in ranged output, which ironically are the "bad bolters" as noted in here.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 19:17:40


Post by: catbarf


SemperMortis wrote:
Going back to the general topic though. If a bolter goes to AP-1 base than everyone else needs a similar buff to compensate, a lot of factions already have this because their weapons were doing even less than bolters previously.

Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous. And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more. So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.


Most Marine armies at this point are Primaris and they already have AP-1.

There is no reason why legacy Firstborn armies getting AP-1 would mean anyone else needs to be buffed to compensate.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 19:31:32


Post by: VladimirHerzog


Don't buff bolters, nerf other small arms.

The first pip of AP is the most impactful.

Make Armor Great Again


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/17 19:34:33


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Insectum7 wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Dudeface wrote:


I think that you're taking the bolter dudes to clear infantry, when they get 6" less range and a point of AP less but make up 7/10 of the unit it's a hard sell when they're not that much cheaper, just take the better intercessors and then a devastator squad if you needs the heavies is where we're at.
Run the math, 5 Intercessors vs. 5 Tacs with a Grav Cannon against a variety of targets. The Tacs come out ahead, while costing the same. Not only that, but because their damage output is more concentrated in the Heavy, their damage output degrades slower as they take casualties.

Putting Bolters at AP-1 puts Intercessors completely out of a job. (Fine by me!)

Honestly you just proved why Tactical Marines don't have a job. They're anemic outside the Grav Cannon, which means you should load up on Grav Cannons with Sternguard and Devastators. That's just the shooting too. Even with Shock Assault, Tactical Marines are anemic on the melee side.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also that shows why Assault Intercessors are liked the most.
Incorrect. Tacs are the mandatory troops/obsec choice that can take Gravs and Meltas in addition to the Devs you already bought because Devs are awesome but you can only take 3 of them.

Objective Secured is only valuable if the army has a rule granting it to basically everything. Otherwise you don't need it to hold an objective from a dead opponent.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 00:03:26


Post by: Hellebore


In the current environment, I could see standard bolt rounds becoming S5. Due to the way the SvsT rules work, they've been expanding T5. S5 has no effect on T3, but improves against T5.

So I could see it like this:

bolts are S5
Advanced bolts are AP-1
heavy bolts are S6


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 02:14:29


Post by: Tygre


 Hellebore wrote:
In the current environment, I could see standard bolt rounds becoming S5. Due to the way the SvsT rules work, they've been expanding T5. S5 has no effect on T3, but improves against T5.

So I could see it like this:

bolts are S5
Advanced bolts are AP-1
heavy bolts are S6


And Pulse rifles become S6? Pulse Rifles have always had Range and Str over Boltguns.

Boltguns have since at least 2nd edition wounded marines on a 4+. Why do we have to change it to a 3+? Is it because Marines have W2 now?

Please let the power creep end. Maybe reduce Marines to W1. Their special organs are why they are T4 instead of the normal human T3. If Marines have to stay at W2 (and pray to all the gods that CSM match them) and Bolt weapons have to improve; maybe on a 6+ to wound Bolt weapons cause an additional point of damage.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 05:26:43


Post by: Hellebore


Tygre wrote:
 Hellebore wrote:
In the current environment, I could see standard bolt rounds becoming S5. Due to the way the SvsT rules work, they've been expanding T5. S5 has no effect on T3, but improves against T5.

So I could see it like this:

bolts are S5
Advanced bolts are AP-1
heavy bolts are S6


And Pulse rifles become S6? Pulse Rifles have always had Range and Str over Boltguns.

Boltguns have since at least 2nd edition wounded marines on a 4+. Why do we have to change it to a 3+? Is it because Marines have W2 now?

Please let the power creep end. Maybe reduce Marines to W1. Their special organs are why they are T4 instead of the normal human T3. If Marines have to stay at W2 (and pray to all the gods that CSM match them) and Bolt weapons have to improve; maybe on a 6+ to wound Bolt weapons cause an additional point of damage.


I said 'in the current environment'. I find arguments like 'stop the power creep' pretty irrelevant because they're arguing from a position that doesn't exist - power creep has happened and you need to work within that paradigm. No amount of 'but I don't wanna' changes that.

The current paradigm uses a SvsT matrix that fundamentally changes the relationship between numbers and as such arguments about old editions have no relevance.

"But bolters always wounded marines on 4+" - well heavy bolters used to wound T3 on 2+ and now they currently don't. Fleshborerers used to wound marines on a 4+ but GW had no problem changing that.


So, IN THE CURRENT PARADIGM, (not in a hypothetical fantasy land where GW DIDN'T make fleshborers S5), I think that the bolter's mechanical position in the game would be around S5.




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 05:55:38


Post by: bat702


Buffing just the boltgun is probably not a good idea; however, once you buff the boltgun then probably other buffs would probably be needed around the primaris section of bolters. It just seems silly if you read the lore on space-marines do believe that rapid fire 1 str 4 ap-0 boltguns are substantial to the fluff.

That being said it was pretty obvious to me games-workshop had a plan to sell as many primaris models as possible; thus doing so, had every intention to poop on the standard tactical marine.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 05:56:46


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Hellebore makes a good point in regards to the wounding chart. While I was a fan of the fact nobody was immune to certain weapons anymore, GW didn't help fix certain weapons to help reflect the new wounding chart. When I suggested Orks get T6 in another thread, someone brought up the fact some vehicles were T6.

Maybe that's a problem too?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 06:22:44


Post by: Breton


SemperMortis wrote:


Going back to the general topic though. If a bolter goes to AP-1 base than everyone else needs a similar buff to compensate, a lot of factions already have this because their weapons were doing even less than bolters previously.
Not really. Some are supposed to be better than bolters, some are supposed to be worse.

Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous.
Bog Standard Marines aren't specialist troops, they're elite troops(as opposed to specialist elites) that compete with specialist troops.

And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more.
They doubled their wounds, not their durability.

So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.
Pretty sure that's not required for other factions to argue they need an increase. Nor would it make those claims valid or invalid.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 07:24:58


Post by: Insectum7


 Hellebore wrote:

So, IN THE CURRENT PARADIGM, (not in a hypothetical fantasy land where GW DIDN'T make fleshborers S5), I think that the bolter's mechanical position in the game would be around S5.
And Gauss Rifles, Shuriken Catapults, Pulse Rifles, Shootas, etc?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 07:32:36


Post by: Wyldhunt


 Hellebore wrote:

I said 'in the current environment'. I find arguments like 'stop the power creep' pretty irrelevant because they're arguing from a position that doesn't exist - power creep has happened and you need to work within that paradigm. No amount of 'but I don't wanna' changes that.

Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.


"But bolters always wounded marines on 4+" - well heavy bolters used to wound T3 on 2+ and now they currently don't. Fleshborerers used to wound marines on a 4+ but GW had no problem changing that.

Here's a suggestion that is probably way outside the scope of this thread: what if we got rid of S vs T in favor of flat to-wound values and a dramatic increase in hitpoints? Or better yet, just ditch the to-wound roll entirely. So a lasgun might wound a marine (and everything else for that matter) on a 4+, but the marine might have (just throwing a number out there) 5 wounds. So a lasgun that does 1 Damage wouldn't be very good against our marine. A bolter might be AP-1 and D2 making it significantly better against the marine. A shuriken catapult might be AP-1 but only D1etc.

Basically, the relationship between S and T is hard to tweak without getting a lot of weird consequences. See: bolters being worse at hurting T5 than T4, but a lasgun hurts both equally. So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

PROS:
* You eliminate one of the major sources of dice rolling thus speeding things up.
* You eliminate an all-or-nothing failure point. So instead of being bummed that his lasguns only wound 1/3rd of the time, the guard player might see his lasguns steadily chipping away at the enemy.

NEUTRAL
* Weapons can still be anti-tank/anti-horde or whatever. You just represent it through AP and Damage.
* There shouldn't be any extra book-keeping; you'd still just have to figure out how many times over dudes in your army have died and then figure out how many wounds the last guy to get hurt has remaining. No different from tracking wounds on something like gravis armor marines now.

CONS
* Someone would have to overhaul every statline in the game.
* It's kind of Sigmar-y, which some people will dislike purely because hating on Sigmar was cool for a while.
* It's a dramatic change, and we all know change is scary and probably the work of Tzeentch.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 08:33:29


Post by: Karol


Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.

There is no way, aside for 10th being drasticly different from 9th ed, that the design team of the game sits down and in a span of 3-6 months depowers 7 to 9 books. And the changes for some of the armies would have to be big, not everything can be fixed with a points hike. And I assume realy fixing and not, it is a problem so we slap 100-150pts extra on it, so now no one will ever take it and the problem is gone.

Codex and codex fixs can not be writen with some mythological balance situation in mind. Because that does not exist, and will probably not exist. Worse, if the design team really does put out a balanced book, it is just bad and unfun to play.

The positive way of dealing with power creep is giving all books multiple valid ways to play. And if something happens to be too powerful, nerf it. Going to other way around can mean months, if not years of an army being bad. Just look at CSM for example.
That is an army GW balanced the living hell out of. In 8th GW was so worried to make GK too good, that they made them extremly bad. I don't know for which edition the new necron rules were writen, because it sure as hell was not the 9th.


So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

And then to play stuff like melee walkers, dreads or knights you special set of rules and extra layers of defence or super speed and always hit first in melee, so they don't get farmed by swarms of 30 models hiting them on +4 and then wounding on+5/6 with a -1 to save, which can be buffed with stratagems.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 09:38:55


Post by: Wyldhunt


Karol wrote:
Eh. I feel like "roll back the power creep" is just as valid as "do more power creep" though. And would probably be healthier for the game given that a lot of us seem to agree that things are too lethal. Like, sure. Power creep happened. But maybe the next step in a positive direction would be one that reduces overall lethality.

There is no way, aside for 10th being drasticly different from 9th ed, that the design team of the game sits down and in a span of 3-6 months depowers 7 to 9 books. And the changes for some of the armies would have to be big, not everything can be fixed with a points hike. And I assume realy fixing and not, it is a problem so we slap 100-150pts extra on it, so now no one will ever take it and the problem is gone.

Codex and codex fixs can not be writen with some mythological balance situation in mind. Because that does not exist, and will probably not exist. Worse, if the design team really does put out a balanced book, it is just bad and unfun to play.

I mean, that depends on what level of control over the future of 40k we're imagining we have, right? If we're dreaming about the GW designers being inspired by these forum posts and writing next year's releases with these posts in mind, then accounting for marketing decisions, how hard it would be to roll out updates, etc. makes sense. If we're having this discussion purely for the sake of enjoying a chat about game design, then we don't have to worry about how hard it would be to update all the books and other logistical issues. Neither approach to engaging in this thread is "better" than the other, but I'm not sure we can assume everyone is engaging with this thread in the same way. I think it's perfectly valid to discuss the topic both lenses (or other lenses entirely).


So maybe it would be easier to just ditch S vs T and lean into Damage and Wounds (basically hit points).

And then to play stuff like melee walkers, dreads or knights you special set of rules and extra layers of defence or super speed and always hit first in melee, so they don't get farmed by swarms of 30 models hiting them on +4 and then wounding on+5/6 with a -1 to save, which can be buffed with stratagems.

Nah. Not necessarily. A couple considerations:

A.) In the current rules, it is possible to drag down melee walkers, dreads, knights, etc. with swarms of models. Like, there's an average number of unbuffed lasgun shots you would need to kill a dreadnaught in the current rules. So if we were to ditch strength/toughness/to-wound rolls and raise the number of Wounds models have to compensate... Couldn't you just raise the wounds on a dread sufficiently high to make it basically as durable to lasguns in the new system as it is in the current system? It's entirely possible I'm overlooking something.

B.) It doesn't seem unreasonable to me that a sufficiently large horde could bring down a walker. My imperial knight model has lots of metal cables and important looking bits peeking out through gaps in its armor. There are even what appear to be giant fuel tanks strapped to the side of its chainsword. Presumably at least some of those wires, fuel tanks, etc. serve a purpose. If ork boyz fling enough shots between those armored plates and hack away at those leg cables long enough, it seems like something could conceivably give.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 09:45:38


Post by: Karol


From what I have seen from the new monsters in 9th. Practically all of them get a str 5-6 10-12 A with -2 to save often doing 2-3D per hit. No one is swarming any big stuff in melee. Maybe nids will be able to do it, if their big squads are valid way to play. I personaly do not know.

B I would not bring lore in to game mechanics. If we go by that. A squad of my termintors, not paladins, should be able to solo a planet of demons or clean up a derelict craftworld of all the nids. Including the one that blew up the entire thing. I am also sure other armies can or have similar stuff in their lore.

I am talking about game mechanics. Same way knights can be seen , and shot, from behind terrain, but can't shot back , right now. It is not a fun thing to see and stuff like 30 grots or guants shouldn't be larger models hunters, specially at range. with str 5 basic guns, I assume the avarge wounding rate for the gun would be something in the range of +2/+4. Unless we split all weapon profiles in to two. One for hiting/wounds tanks, monsters and vehicles and the other one for infantry sized stuff. not sure how to do such a change without an edition reset. I guess it could be interesting with bolters being a +4/+4 weapons. While something like a fleshborer could bye +3/+6 while a shurikan catapult is +4/+5 with some special AP rules on to hit roll.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 15:42:21


Post by: Quasistellar


EviscerationPlague wrote:
Hellebore makes a good point in regards to the wounding chart. While I was a fan of the fact nobody was immune to certain weapons anymore, GW didn't help fix certain weapons to help reflect the new wounding chart. When I suggested Orks get T6 in another thread, someone brought up the fact some vehicles were T6.

Maybe that's a problem too?


That’s definitely a problem. GW has artificially limited themselves to T8 as the top end, when that’s clearly not taking advantage of the systems abilities. Many vehicles (pretty much every “tank”) should be at least T8, with some of the biggest being T9 (baneblades, land raiders, big FW tanks, etc.)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 17:28:23


Post by: Wyldhunt


Karol wrote:

I am talking about game mechanics. Same way knights can be seen , and shot, from behind terrain, but can't shot back , right now. It is not a fun thing to see and stuff like 30 grots or guants shouldn't be larger models hunters, specially at range. with str 5 basic guns, I assume the avarge wounding rate for the gun would be something in the range of +2/+4.

Well, unless I've missed something major, I don't think grots with their 12" guns are successfully hunting down knights, nor would they have to be if we dropped to-wound rolls and upped Wound stats. I haven't followed the gaunt situation very closely, but their updated gun profile is what? S5 Assault 3? So 30 gaunts -> 90 shots -> 45 hits. In the current system that turns into 7.5 wounds, 2.5 of which get through after saves. A paladin knight has 24 Wounds, so that's about 10% of its health gone. Under my proposal, those 45 hits become 15 failed saves, so to maintain the status quo, we'd want to up the knight's Wounds to something like 150 (about 6 times its current wounds).

People reading that might get a little number shock there, but consider that a lascannon might be doing something like 1d6 x 10 damage in the new system. So small arms fire would continue to be suboptimal vs big stuff. Big guns would continue to be relatively good against big stuff. AP still matters. Damage still matters. You just get to eliminate the kind of messy Strength VS Toughness comparison that leads to some weird interactions. Like how an S9 lascannon is better vs a T8 land raider than an S8 krak missile is, and yet they're both wounding a T7 rhino on 3s. Plus it's one fewer steps for new players to remember and one less step to resolve with dice rolls when playing the game.


Unless we split all weapon profiles in to two. One for hiting/wounds tanks, monsters and vehicles and the other one for infantry sized stuff. not sure how to do such a change without an edition reset. I guess it could be interesting with bolters being a +4/+4 weapons. While something like a fleshborer could bye +3/+6 while a shurikan catapult is +4/+5 with some special AP rules on to hit roll.

Sure. That might be neat. You could include or exclude a mechanic like that depending on how things work out after playtesting.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 17:47:42


Post by: Karol


Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 19:50:18


Post by: G00fySmiley


Karol wrote:
Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.



given that a lot of monstrous creatures and vehicles are pretty underwhelming i think part of the fix there is either upping wounds across the board for vehicles and monstrous creatures (they seemingly did this with the upcoming tyranid book). Alternatively they could also consider upping the armor saves including for some vehicles introducing the 1+ armor save where 1s always fail. Shooting a Landraider, Battlewagon, Leman Russ, monolith and maybe a few more. Then they could pass out 2+ armor to most vehicles and a 3+ to the weaker ones.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 20:18:05


Post by: Some_Call_Me_Tim


I feel like that sort of used to be accomplished by armor values and the pricing on weapons. Something s6 is going to struggle against most armor facings, and using a lascannon against infantry is a massive waste of points cause you’re not shooting it at armor.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 20:28:01


Post by: Dudeface


 Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote:
I feel like that sort of used to be accomplished by armor values and the pricing on weapons. Something s6 is going to struggle against most armor facings, and using a lascannon against infantry is a massive waste of points cause you’re not shooting it at armor.


Make tanks t12 and lascannons s14, job done.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 20:46:40


Post by: Arson Fire


Wyldhunt wrote:

I haven't followed the gaunt situation very closely, but their updated gun profile is what? S5 Assault 3?

No they don't have any S5 Assault 3.
Their basic fleshborer has strengthened, going from 12" Assault 1 S4 AP0, to 18" Assault 1 S5 AP-1.
However their devourer has weakened, going from 18" Assault 3 S4 AP0, to 18" Assault 2 S3 AP0.
Sounds like you're mixing up parts of the old devourer profile with the new fleshborer one.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 21:01:30


Post by: Insectum7


I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 21:19:37


Post by: ClockworkZion


 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 23:01:59


Post by: Hecaton


 ClockworkZion wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.


Again, they care way more about internal than external balance.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 23:12:58


Post by: SemperMortis


Dudeface wrote:

The problem with the increased durability on the marine was that it was very short lived. If they hadn't just slapped d2+ on everything and immediately invalidated the increased durability then they'd be in a decent place where you pay for the durability with reduced output (in an ideal world where 6 special rules don't make them fire iWins). Sort of like where plague marines are at in ranged output, which ironically are the "bad bolters" as noted in here.


And any increase to Marines durability or dmg output will be short lived because they are the STANDARD faction. Everything in this game is based on Space Marines which is why there is 120 (Obvious exaggeration) different flavors of Marines and rules for Marines. But at the end of the game their profiles stay relatively similar so everyone bases their lists around how to kill Marines as they will most likely be their most common opponent. And while everyone did bring out a lot more D2 weapons, what did that do to the weapons/factions that didn't receive a host of D2 upgrades? Any unit/weapon which now takes 2x more firepower to remove Marines is basically not taken unless there is no other options available.

 catbarf wrote:

Most Marine armies at this point are Primaris and they already have AP-1.
There is no reason why legacy Firstborn armies getting AP-1 would mean anyone else needs to be buffed to compensate.


What would be the point of Primaris Marines at that point? Why take 2ppm more expensive intercessors when you can just take cheaper first born Marines who basically do the exact same things but have more options? And literally in this very thread you have people mentioning that if you do buff bolters that Primaris would need a bump as well LOL. And one more time, why wouldn't everyone else get a similar increase so that their weapons perform better? Used to take 9 Shoota boyz to kill 1 Marine, now its 18. Why shouldn't my Shootas get 2x as many shots so that they are more effective?
 Hellebore wrote:
In the current environment, I could see standard bolt rounds becoming S5. Due to the way the SvsT rules work, they've been expanding T5. S5 has no effect on T3, but improves against T5.
So I could see it like this:
bolts are S5
Advanced bolts are AP-1
heavy bolts are S6


Ok....so then my Orkz get to go back to 6ppm than right? I mean you just invalidated their entire durability bonus since 4th edition so we get to go back to 4th edition prices right? And i'm assuming that price cut is across the board for all my T5 models since you just invalidated their durability bonus as well. So Warbikers drop 3-5ppm, Deffkoptas go down 10pts or so, Kommandos are now 9ppm etc etc etc.

You can't take the absolute most common weapon in the game, hand it a MASSIVE buff like S5 and then not expect a huge cascading effect of throwing the game balance completely out of whack.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
Pre-9th edition Codex. A unit of Intercessors with Bolt rifles were beating Tau Firewarriors point for Point in a ranged duel. They were also drawing even with Ork Choppa boyz in CC point for point. So this just exacerbates the problem that Marine troops are competing and in some cases beating specialist troops from other factions and its a bit ridiculous.
Bog Standard Marines aren't specialist troops, they're elite troops(as opposed to specialist elites) that compete with specialist troops.
So just by tacking on the word "Elite" to the troop choice its now ok for them to be Better than a ranged combat focused troop choice point for point while also being on par with a CC oriented troop choice point for point? That is the problem with this line of thinking. Just because you call them "Elite Troops" Doesn't mean game balance wise they should outperform a troops choice that is SOLELY dedicated to that one form of combat point for point.

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

And yet again i'll point out that people have been independently of this topic calling for Marines to get more durable, deadlier in CC or increase ranged firepower. Think about what I just said, you have people arguing that Marines need to be even more durable, they literally doubled their durability and people still want more.
They doubled their wounds, not their durability.
Which DOUBLED their durability against anti-infantry weapons. What happened was right after that the game re-balanced itself to favor D2 weapons which is why you saw heavy bolters and analogues becoming much more prevalent then ever before. Which just reiterates the point previously made that any substantial change to Marines inevitably leads to changes to every other faction to adjust to the most common meta opponent...Marines. Hence giving them AP-1 will mean a host of other changes are now warranted, and hell, I would argue some already are just from the increase in SM's Bolter discipline and doctrines not to mention durability increases against common weapon types which are now functionally useless unless they've likewise been buffed (Shootas are dead, Big shootas are useless except when spammed by units under +1 to hit aura's)

Breton wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

So go ahead and give bog standard Marines -1AP and then other factions will argue they need an increase as well to compensate for the difference and shortly thereafter you will have this same argument about why Marines need 3 shots each instead of 2, or that Bolters need to go to S5 etc. etc. etc.
Pretty sure that's not required for other factions to argue they need an increase. Nor would it make those claims valid or invalid.
Ironically in this very thread you already had people say make bolters S5 and yes if you buff Marines to make them better against everything in the game with -1AP on bolters you need to adjust other weapons to become better as well otherwise you aren't playing a game you are playing a fantasy power trip.

18 shoota shots to kill 1 Marine in 4th.
3 bolter shots to kill 1 Ork in 4th.

36 shoota shots to kill 1 Marine in 9th.
5.4 bolter shots to kill 1 Ork in 9th.

Make it AP-1 and the math goes to 4.5 So Orkz used to have an exchange rate of 3.6, IE it takes 3.6pts of shoota boyz to kill 1pt of Marine. Its now 9pts to kill 1pt of Marine.
Bolters used to have an exchange rate of 7.5pts of Marine to kill 1pt of Ork. Its now 5.4, and if you make them AP-1 it goes to 4.5

So explain to me why Orkz should now be 250% worse at killing Marines with shootas in the same time frame that Marines are 28% better at killing Orkz with bolters and then further explain to me why that isn't good enough and you need the math to go even further to become 40% better at killing?



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 23:25:56


Post by: Karol


Most factions weapons already are better then bolters, and often on much more efficient platforms. Tau, ad mecha, even eldar guns , and now the updated nid guns are carried by models that often cost half or even less then what a marine does.

Comparing marine bolters to orks, who clearly were not ment to shot, or probably even be taken in 9th ed, is a bit off a stretch. I mean even the -1AP thing seems to be give out like candy to most newer factions.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 23:42:14


Post by: SemperMortis


Karol wrote:
Most factions weapons already are better then bolters, and often on much more efficient platforms. Tau, ad mecha, even eldar guns , and now the updated nid guns are carried by models that often cost half or even less then what a marine does.

Comparing marine bolters to orks, who clearly were not ment to shot, or probably even be taken in 9th ed, is a bit off a stretch. I mean even the -1AP thing seems to be give out like candy to most newer factions.


Jidmah will be happy to post you a list of all the ork shooting focused units which prove you 100% wrong. But for brevity...yeah you are wicked wrong bud. And as far as not taken in 9th...thats because the muppets who wrote the ork codex don't understand orkz in the slightest....hence they have not once, but twice made Trukkboyz illegal or unable to ride in trukks

But even if Shoota boyz are so bad they aren't taken (Which is 100% true) then why wouldn't they get a massive increase in dmg output to the tune of more than DOUBLING their shots?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/18 23:42:36


Post by: ClockworkZion


Hecaton wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
I hate what they've done with the Devourer. Total weaksauce.

Fully agreed. It feels like they nerfed if because it was the most popular Gaunt build, not because there was an actual problem with it.


Again, they care way more about internal than external balance.

I don't disagree with that statement, but the worst part is that the Fleshborer buff already fixed internal balance on those options.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 03:20:20


Post by: Breton


 G00fySmiley wrote:
Karol wrote:
Well it is just observations, I am not game designer.

But I think it would be good if plasma vs very good at killing heavy infantry, but not that awesome at maxing damage to heavy tanks.

Maybe it would even be a way, besides range and points cost, to make a difference between a lascanon and a Melta/MultiMelta. Different anti infantry/anti tank stats, would also help with those rare moments when due to rules over lap a heavy bolter or a liquifire becomes a weapon that kills horde, tanks, titans everything. Autocanons and heavy bolters could be balanced against each other, same as Rocket Launchers. AC would be more anti tank, hvy bolters could do more dmg to infantry a RL would splat normal targets, infantry or light vehicle, but it would be one shot and struggle vs the heavier stuff. Am not sure if this wouldn't also impact how needed inv saves are for the game. With the need to spread weapon profiles more across all armies, it would be harder to find that those ,I take fourteen of those and they kill everything, kind of weapons.

I am just not sure if people would like the change. the double stated weapons would have to come at a cost or removal of some rules, to not make each codex end up being 300pages long.



given that a lot of monstrous creatures and vehicles are pretty underwhelming i think part of the fix there is either upping wounds across the board for vehicles and monstrous creatures (they seemingly did this with the upcoming tyranid book). Alternatively they could also consider upping the armor saves including for some vehicles introducing the 1+ armor save where 1s always fail. Shooting a Landraider, Battlewagon, Leman Russ, monolith and maybe a few more. Then they could pass out 2+ armor to most vehicles and a 3+ to the weaker ones.


I'd borrow what they did with AIRCRAFT and anti-aircraft - Vehicles can be T11-T20 Anti Vehicle weapons can get a Grav Canon style bespoke that gives them +10S vs Vehicles - Or perhaps they need to do it with wounds I don't know. Vehicles are W 31-50 or something and Anti vehicle weapons get Damage D6+6 or some such vs vehicles. I'm not suggesting final numbers, just some pulled from thin air for generic theme/idea/examples. They basically created a shared but rarely overlapping space for Aircraft - do the same with at least medium to heavy vehicles (tanks from Rhinos to Land Raiders)

One thing I hated but miss about the old AV system was that tanks could live forever or they could get one shot. In a perfect world, I'd return to a version of that system - just different. They'd have two AV's. A lower one for that chips away wounds with a small potential for weapon destroyed etc. or a higher one that has destroyed and higher chances of weapon destroyed, immobilized, etc. So a Grav Canon might strip wounds (slower than now) - while a Quake Canon would be more likely to hit that top AV and destroy it outright.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 15:06:48


Post by: Alcibiades


Quasistellar wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:

That’s definitely a problem. GW has artificially limited themselves to T8 as the top end, when that’s clearly not taking advantage of the systems abilities. Many vehicles (pretty much every “tank”) should be at least T8, with some of the biggest being T9 (baneblades, land raiders, big FW tanks, etc.)


I have thought about this a bit and come to the conclusion that this is not a good idea, as it messes with the profiles of many weapons. Autocannons, for instance, will lose what niche they have completely, heavy bolters become better at killing light vehicles. Melta weapons start wounding heavy armor, which is their preferred target supposedly, on 5s.

I do not think that low T is the problem with vehicles/big monsters, but lack of wounds.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 15:18:40


Post by: ClockworkZion


In the current design space it does feel like wounds are not high enough across the board. I don't think I want to see wounds keep increading though because then we start bleeding into the granularity one would expect from a skirmish game like Kill Team and I don't think that'll fit 40k as effectively.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 15:21:43


Post by: Karol


A lot of w40k rules don't fit or hurt the game play stricktly because we are playing with a skirmish mind set for some rules and fixs. While the game is clearly mass combat orientated. Maybe there are some people with more expiriance playing something else then 2000pts, who can say if w40k is more balanced and fun at 500 or 750pts. From the few non 2000pts games I saw, I think it is not the case.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 16:20:25


Post by: Voss


 ClockworkZion wrote:
In the current design space it does feel like wounds are not high enough across the board. I don't think I want to see wounds keep increading though because then we start bleeding into the granularity one would expect from a skirmish game like Kill Team and I don't think that'll fit 40k as effectively.


The bigger problem is some armies simply can't deal with it. Their design simply doesn't include many (or any) big honking space guns, so they can't deal with ever increasing toughness and/or wounds.

On the other hand, big honking space guns are in play, so trivialize a lot of models, and now base weapons are encroaching into special/heavy weapons territory. Its a messy disaster with a lot of 'haves' and 'have nots.'


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 16:53:10


Post by: Tyel


As other people have said, with the way the to wound table works, you start getting weird (or undesirable) results if T9 becomes a more regular thing.

The Autocannon is (imo anyway) already screwed because you have an ever increasing number of rules that make S8 a break point. Not to pick on Orks - but imo "autocannons" should be the correct weapon to use versus T6 buggies - but Ramshacle exists to completely neuter this for no obvious reason. S7 AP-1 2 damage is just a very soft profile in the current game - where you stand to be screwed over by toughness, armour or special rules reducing damage. But from say a DE perspective, you'd be back to favouring say Disintegrators over Dark Lances into T9 without additional rules impacts. And you could say "well we'll just make lances S9 then" but that surely defeats the point if you want vehicles to be more resilient.

I feel a lot of arguments on S and T are about some sort of aesthetic sense rather than in game maths. It may upset people that a Fleshborer is S5 AP-1 while the bolter is S4 AP-, but as I think various people have argued in the thread it doesn't obviously make a fleshborer termagant an especially "good" shooting unit - given the points hike.

Really I think I'm with those who just want this manufactured discontent/codex creep to end. GW can give almost every weapon in the game AP-1 - but if GW then up every save in the game by 1, what was the point? Marines going to 2 wounds was meant to matter - but 2 damage has now been given to about half the weapons in the game seemingly for free. Orks going to T5 was meant to matter - but in the same way, S5 has become a far more common phenomenon, probably because Tournament Players *need* to be wounding on 3s into T4 (with rerolls, obviously.)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:04:30


Post by: EviscerationPlague


D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:05:51


Post by: ClockworkZion


I feel like the 2 wounds on Marines paired with D2 weapons was to start splitting the game up so no one weapon is good against everything.

I get that AP generally did that in the past (along with the wounding chart which gatekept small arms from ever working on tougher models) but the new AP system needs more to seperate things out and make the game more interest as every weapon will have prefered targets encouraging a wider range of wrapons being mixed into armies.

At least that's what the intent looks like. In practice players still gravitate towards the single most optimal weapon (or set of weapons) they can run because redundancy is so important in mitigating risk.

Plus not every army has been updated yet so until the dust settles we're all in a weird limbo right now.

Like I applaud the design direction in that they are taking great pains to try and give weapons more distinct niches and roled that feel lore appropiate but dang does the whole thing feel like it needs a bit more time in the oven.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:21:14


Post by: Karol


EviscerationPlague wrote:
D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

The problem is that marines got 2W, because in 8th , even primaris with their 2W were considered not worth taking.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:38:08


Post by: SemperMortis


Karol wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

The problem is that marines got 2W, because in 8th , even primaris with their 2W were considered not worth taking.


Yep, it was totally the durability problem and not the fact that Gravis Units like Bolt Aggressors with shoot twice were a thing. I mean...who wouldn't want to take an intercessor with 2 shots at 30' instead of those garbage Aggressors with T5, 3 wounds and functionally 24 shots each against horde units.

The problem wasn't durability, it was as always is the case with Marines, there were even better options available.

In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:39:26


Post by: Insectum7


 ClockworkZion wrote:

Plus not every army has been updated yet so until the dust settles we're all in a weird limbo right now.

Here's the problem though: The moment the game is "settled", GW will flip the table. Back in 8th, right before SM 2.0 came out, the game was in a pretty decent spot. It lasted a couple months, then SM 2.0 plus supplements came out and traahed it. Before corrections could be made, SMs 2W and 9th ed. Churn, baby, churn!


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:43:04


Post by: ClockworkZion


 Insectum7 wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:

Plus not every army has been updated yet so until the dust settles we're all in a weird limbo right now.

Here's the problem though: The moment the game is "settled", GW will flip the table. Back in 8th, right before SM 2.0 came out, the game was in a pretty decent spot. It lasted a couple months, then SM 2.0 plus supplements came out and traahed it. Before corrections could be made, SMs 2W and 9th ed. Churn, baby, churn!

While churn will always be a thing (they can't get you to buy new stuff if it's identical to the old after all), the game did go 5 editions before they shook up weapon profiles and statlines in a major way, so once it's settled into the new system I could see them looking at other ways to tweak the game instead.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 17:47:18


Post by: Karol


SemperMortis wrote:
Karol wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

The problem is that marines got 2W, because in 8th , even primaris with their 2W were considered not worth taking.


Yep, it was totally the durability problem and not the fact that Gravis Units like Bolt Aggressors with shoot twice were a thing. I mean...who wouldn't want to take an intercessor with 2 shots at 30' instead of those garbage Aggressors with T5, 3 wounds and functionally 24 shots each against horde units.

The problem wasn't durability, it was as always is the case with Marines, there were even better options available.

In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.


Up until marine codex 2.0. marines armies would consists of scouts, because they were the cheapest marines, 2 suicide smash hammer captins, and the rest was spend on everything but marine stuff. The loyal 32 , castellans etc. No one was running aggresors, and the primaris stuff was for most of 8th considered unplayable,and the old classic marine stuff wasn't that much better.

marines, or to be exact IH, got resilient in 8th. And aggresor builds were a thing for salamanders for like second, and GW destroyed that way of playing in an instant. As they really didn't want people to play armies made out of 6 ETB boxs.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 19:21:36


Post by: Tyel


SemperMortis wrote:
In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.


I feel in late 8th it was common to see Marine armies with 30 Intercessors, sometimes even 40, because yes, they were clearly undercosted relative to the rest of the game.
Aggressor spam feels more like an early 9th thing. But as the years go on its getting hard to remember accurately.

I guess the deeper point is that this greater variety of profiles was meant to break the curse of "just take what's efficient". On paper it would encourage more TAC lists across codexes and result in a more variety of lists and potentially at least a more balanced game (as viewed through tournament performance). But that hasn't really happened. People should have been able to build to counter Marines - but couldn't when they were busted. Then build to counter DE - but couldn't when they were busted. And now to Custodes/Tau, probably Harlequins etc - but won't, because they are just busted.

Or at least that's my thoughts. From the position of Orks say - could you list tailor into Custodes? Or would it just be "grab all the units you tend to see in functional Ork lists and hope"?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 19:56:18


Post by: AnomanderRake


Tyel wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.


I feel in late 8th it was common to see Marine armies with 30 Intercessors, sometimes even 40, because yes, they were clearly undercosted relative to the rest of the game.
Aggressor spam feels more like an early 9th thing. But as the years go on its getting hard to remember accurately.

I guess the deeper point is that this greater variety of profiles was meant to break the curse of "just take what's efficient". On paper it would encourage more TAC lists across codexes and result in a more variety of lists and potentially at least a more balanced game (as viewed through tournament performance). But that hasn't really happened. People should have been able to build to counter Marines - but couldn't when they were busted. Then build to counter DE - but couldn't when they were busted. And now to Custodes/Tau, probably Harlequins etc - but won't, because they are just busted.

Or at least that's my thoughts. From the position of Orks say - could you list tailor into Custodes? Or would it just be "grab all the units you tend to see in functional Ork lists and hope"?


The to-wound table and AP as a modifier conspire to make the greater variety of profiles less mathematically relevant.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 20:24:15


Post by: Karol


Tyel wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.


I feel in late 8th it was common to see Marine armies with 30 Intercessors, sometimes even 40, because yes, they were clearly undercosted relative to the rest of the game.
Aggressor spam feels more like an early 9th thing. But as the years go on its getting hard to remember accurately.



That was at the very end of 8th, when the 2.0 marine book and more important the supplements came out. Before that the basic marine model, who wasn't a smash hammer or a scout, was a razorback. Same way for the orks under the new book the basic ork was a buggy. And they weren't undercosted, they were just better then what was considered broken before them. And again this was the end of an edition. For most of 8th if someone was running intercessor, it ment they were a noob.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 20:56:27


Post by: SemperMortis


Karol wrote:
Up until marine codex 2.0. marines armies would consists of scouts, because they were the cheapest marines, 2 suicide smash hammer captins, and the rest was spend on everything but marine stuff. The loyal 32 , castellans etc. No one was running aggresors, and the primaris stuff was for most of 8th considered unplayable,and the old classic marine stuff wasn't that much better.

marines, or to be exact IH, got resilient in 8th. And aggresor builds were a thing for salamanders for like second, and GW destroyed that way of playing in an instant. As they really didn't want people to play armies made out of 6 ETB boxs.


And Karol, was that because Marines were garbage tier or was it because Soup was just stupid and allowed for even more options to powerbuild which further diluted the power of individual codex's? I'll give you a hint, Marines weren't garbage tier and if you claim they were you're either ignorant of the meta or lying. They had Marine only builds placing well in GTs and majors and even had I believe a top 8 at LVO, they weren't broken, nor were they top tier, but they weren't garbage tier.

Soup was just a stupid rule by GW, now instead of competing against internal balance options, Codex's had to compete against several others. And in this case Imperial players were spoiled for choice, you could Soup with literally any imperial faction so you had EVERY Marine chapter to choose from, Every Regiment of IG, Custards, SoB, assassins, inquisitors, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights and of course Cult Mechanicus.

And it was Ravenguard players who were really abusing Bolt Aggressors. Ravenguard brought 6 of them at Dicehammer in 2019 and won the GT where the player even said he wanted to take more Centurions instead but was glad he had brought those instead because they were the deciding unit in 3 of his 5 games at the GT. Being able to sneak up to the enemy turn 1 and just unload was a wicked powerful build and would decimate Ork gate keeping armies that were bringing mobz of 30 boyz. A unit of 5 of them was 1 shotting a mob of 30 boyz a turn. In other words, they had a better than 100% return on investment turn 1 against horde lists.

Tyel wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:

I feel in late 8th it was common to see Marine armies with 30 Intercessors, sometimes even 40, because yes, they were clearly undercosted relative to the rest of the game.
Aggressor spam feels more like an early 9th thing. But as the years go on its getting hard to remember accurately.

I guess the deeper point is that this greater variety of profiles was meant to break the curse of "just take what's efficient". On paper it would encourage more TAC lists across codexes and result in a more variety of lists and potentially at least a more balanced game (as viewed through tournament performance). But that hasn't really happened. People should have been able to build to counter Marines - but couldn't when they were busted. Then build to counter DE - but couldn't when they were busted. And now to Custodes/Tau, probably Harlequins etc - but won't, because they are just busted.

Or at least that's my thoughts. From the position of Orks say - could you list tailor into Custodes? Or would it just be "grab all the units you tend to see in functional Ork lists and hope"?


As soon as Soup became a thing, Intercessors were functionally dead. In fact, karol was kind of right in that you rarely saw anything besides scouts, and why? because they were a troop tax to unlock the better units, AKA centurions and Aggressors etc or to fill out the troop requirements to take Smash captains and then field the loyal 32 and/or some knights.

I'm going to disagree with you though on your last comments. In 8th, nobody could build against IH, they were just too broken. Too much durability teamed with too much firepower, GW being GW. But in 9th you had Cult Mech and Drukhari going head to head in most GTs and orkz and several other factions were able to steal top finishes from them occasionally, it was nowhere near as bad as IH, the only saving grace i think for us in 8th 2.0 was that very few IH players existed and few were willing to really convert lists near the end of an edition.

Against Tau/custards i'm just going to flat out say it, its too soon to judge how broken they are. They are clearly broken, the question is, are they Drukhari/Admech broken or are they Iron Hands broken. I'm hitting a GT next weekend and can say a bit more with first hand knowledge but we will see.

As far as list tailoring against Custards...I mean...yeah you totally could, its just they are a relatively rare list so you could build against them and in a GT literally never face them unless you beat several lists that aren't custards and meet them in the finals to finally use your tailored list against them.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 21:23:05


Post by: Tyel


SemperMortis wrote:
As far as list tailoring against Custards...I mean...yeah you totally could, its just they are a relatively rare list so you could build against them and in a GT literally never face them unless you beat several lists that aren't custards and meet them in the finals to finally use your tailored list against them.


Its a fair point on Ad Mech. I think the mid 2021 meta got old, but yes, it wasn't just Marines and Marines with Marines.

With that said (and things may change/all tournaments are somewhat bespoke) - but aren't Custodes currently the most played tournament list, with about 13% or something of lists? (I need Daed to run in with some stats).
But yes. Its probably why "meta adaption" is relatively rare in 40k. You don't want to lose your 2nd game to some random Daemons list you'd normally crush, but you can't when hard skewed into taking on something else. So everyone kind of ends up running "faction good stuff".




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 23:23:35


Post by: vipoid


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like the 2 wounds on Marines paired with D2 weapons was to start splitting the game up so no one weapon is good against everything.


I honestly have no idea how that was supposed to work.

With Marines being by far the most common army, you're basically halving the effectiveness of all D1 weapons against infantry. So far from increasing choice, you're basically cutting off the lower-tier of weapons by making them outright terrible at their job. If your anti-infantry weapons can't efficiently kill the most common infantry in the game, what is even the point?

This is yet another case of GW wanting to have their cake and eat it, and buggering the game in the process.

Marines cannot be elite because of their sheer ubiquity. It doesn't matter how strong or weak you make them - they will always, always be the benchmark for infantry because they represent by far the most common profile you'll see on the table.

The only way for Marines to be as elite as people want them to be is for them to also be rare. You either need to convince 80-90% of Marine players to pick different armies or else change the way Marines work so that their lists have to be 90+% Imperial Guard or Inquisition units, and no more than 10% Space Marines.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 23:46:56


Post by: ClockworkZion


Nah, elite has to do with the size of the army put on the table, not the number of players. I mean at this point there are more Custodes models on tables than there are actual Custodes.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 23:47:44


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 vipoid wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
I feel like the 2 wounds on Marines paired with D2 weapons was to start splitting the game up so no one weapon is good against everything.


I honestly have no idea how that was supposed to work.

With Marines being by far the most common army, you're basically halving the effectiveness of all D1 weapons against infantry. So far from increasing choice, you're basically cutting off the lower-tier of weapons by making them outright terrible at their job. If your anti-infantry weapons can't efficiently kill the most common infantry in the game, what is even the point?

This is yet another case of GW wanting to have their cake and eat it, and buggering the game in the process.

Marines cannot be elite because of their sheer ubiquity. It doesn't matter how strong or weak you make them - they will always, always be the benchmark for infantry because they represent by far the most common profile you'll see on the table.

The only way for Marines to be as elite as people want them to be is for them to also be rare. You either need to convince 80-90% of Marine players to pick different armies or else change the way Marines work so that their lists have to be 90+% Imperial Guard or Inquisition units, and no more than 10% Space Marines.

What garbage logic. It doesn't matter how common the army is to play against, otherwise you're saying nobody in a casual setting should have a counter to Dark Eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
SemperMortis wrote:
Karol wrote:
EviscerationPlague wrote:
D2 was given out too much because people complained Marines are too durable and with how GW plays in house they probably agreed.

The problem is that marines got 2W, because in 8th , even primaris with their 2W were considered not worth taking.


Yep, it was totally the durability problem and not the fact that Gravis Units like Bolt Aggressors with shoot twice were a thing. I mean...who wouldn't want to take an intercessor with 2 shots at 30' instead of those garbage Aggressors with T5, 3 wounds and functionally 24 shots each against horde units.

The problem wasn't durability, it was as always is the case with Marines, there were even better options available.

In 8th, Intercessors were beating Tau Firewarriors at ranged combat point for point, and by a significant amount. But again, why take a lesser unit when you could just take MSU troop choices and grab aggressors instead.

Most people aren't agreeing that Aggressors should've had the ability to shoot twice. The complaints of them going to W3 is silly though since it's an expensive model.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/19 23:54:37


Post by: Voss


vipoid wrote:The only way for Marines to be as elite as people want them to be is for them to also be rare. You either need to convince 80-90% of Marine players to pick different armies or else change the way Marines work so that their lists have to be 90+% Imperial Guard or Inquisition units, and no more than 10% Space Marines.
You're not wrong, but also, yeah, neither of those options are going to happen.


EviscerationPlague wrote:The complaints of them going to W3 is silly though since it's an expensive model.

Not sure I followed that logic. There are lots of expensive models that aren't 3W.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 00:01:09


Post by: vipoid


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Nah, elite has to do with the size of the army put on the table, not the number of players.


Provably wrong.

Marines have always, always been the standard specifically because of their ubiquity. They never *felt* elite because they represented the standard troop and also the one that people primarily tailored against.


EviscerationPlague wrote:

What garbage logic. It doesn't matter how common the army is to play against, otherwise you're saying nobody in a casual setting should have a counter to Dark Eldar.


Nothing I said or suggested in the post you quoted alluded to that so I have no clue what you're even on about.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 00:05:34


Post by: ClockworkZion


What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 01:33:00


Post by: Dai


I didnt interpret them saying that its about how the army feels but that gw has to balance around them being the baseline (back in the day it was the guardsman or the ork but times change). No idea if they are onto anything with that but seems to be a misunderstanding.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 01:59:05


Post by: ClockworkZion


Dai wrote:
I didnt interpret them saying that its about how the army feels but that gw has to balance around them being the baseline (back in the day it was the guardsman or the ork but times change). No idea if they are onto anything with that but seems to be a misunderstanding.

I disagree. They could just as easily use Guard, or a statline of all 4s if they want. There is no requirement to choose one faction over another just because it's more commonly played.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 03:31:32


Post by: pelicaniforce


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Dai wrote:
I didnt interpret them saying that its about how the army feels but that gw has to balance around them being the baseline (back in the day it was the guardsman or the ork but times change). No idea if they are onto anything with that but seems to be a misunderstanding.

I disagree. They could just as easily use Guard, or a statline of all 4s if they want. There is no requirement to choose one faction over another just because it's more commonly played.


I think it’s pretty true that GW had to design affordable plasma guns into guard infantry, or something with the same function, because marines are a common opponent. They also could have left heavy bolters in their can’t-pierce-power-armor status. We’d probably still have griffon mortars, in plastic. Grenade launchers and ap4 are better against cultists, orks, Eldar, even necron warriors sometimes.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 04:03:20


Post by: ClockworkZion


pelicaniforce wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Dai wrote:
I didnt interpret them saying that its about how the army feels but that gw has to balance around them being the baseline (back in the day it was the guardsman or the ork but times change). No idea if they are onto anything with that but seems to be a misunderstanding.

I disagree. They could just as easily use Guard, or a statline of all 4s if they want. There is no requirement to choose one faction over another just because it's more commonly played.


I think it’s pretty true that GW had to design affordable plasma guns into guard infantry, or something with the same function, because marines are a common opponent. They also could have left heavy bolters in their can’t-pierce-power-armor status. We’d probably still have griffon mortars, in plastic. Grenade launchers and ap4 are better against cultists, orks, Eldar, even necron warriors sometimes.

Ideally every army should be able to handle a range of targets with their weapons, not just Marines. Balancing around Marines would be more about relative points cost if anything else.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 04:06:52


Post by: pelicaniforce


That’s depressing


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 04:16:59


Post by: ClockworkZion


pelicaniforce wrote:
That’s depressing

That's game design for you. Like sure you want your thematic stuff in there, but you have to balance it against a variety of things not just around a single enemy type.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 04:21:43


Post by: Voss


Dai wrote:I didnt interpret them saying that its about how the army feels but that gw has to balance around them being the baseline (back in the day it was the guardsman or the ork but times change)..

It was never guard or orks. Guard provided the baseline points calculation in Rogue Trader (based on the WFB points calculation for normal humans, where every stat point above 3 (or 7 for leadership and the like, or 1 for wounds or attacks) costs extra), but they weren't ever the baseline for gameplay performance or power.

GW has openly said it designs around marine performance. Go all the way back to the end of 1st and dawn of 2nd, and marines got their first stat adjustment- better power armor, and toughness rise for 3 to 4. Why? They didn't feel 'heroic' enough.
The quote from GW was that with the better army lists for their enemies (particular orks and eldar, craftworld rules had just happened) marines had fallen behind in performance and (exact quote here, complete with exclamation point) "this is hardly appropriate!"
9th edition blatantly reopened with that attitude- marines just needed to be better, so 2nd wound and better imperial guns. Next marine codex will bring them back up.

Marines are, and have always been, the default. Everything is mapped to how marines perform. Other factions are 'too good' if playing marines feels bad. So marines got the statbump at the dawn of 2nd, and when that wasn't good enough, eldar got their shuriken catapults snapped over GW's knees, and it took almost 25 years to get that back into something resembling its old self.

Now, this rarely actually made marines OP, because GW game design is... uh... well, its GW game design. Well, partly anyway. Much of the marine problem's with success versus other armies is they're often designed as generalists in a system that doesn't actually reward that. Hyper-specialization often wins more and marine lists tend to be more successful when they can lean into that. But the baseline assumptions for the game are around marines, and yes its because they're so popular and common on the table. They sell, so they get more attention, if not always good quality support.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 05:23:02


Post by: pelicaniforce


 ClockworkZion wrote:
pelicaniforce wrote:
That’s depressing

That's game design for you. Like sure you want your thematic stuff in there, but you have to balance it against a variety of things not just around a single enemy type.


It’s like the opposite of game design. They’ve printed rules for 3 out of four weapons that are barely ever used. Grenade launchers never, and if infantry squads had never had melta or flamers, there wouldn’t be a lot of dakka threads demanding the option to replace a plasma gun with a melta. Just a few.


Game design would be saying that since there is practically only one weapon, and three other mostly dispensable lines of print, we’ll just say that all four weapons have the same profile.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 07:34:00


Post by: Karol


Well the designers job is to make things worth taking. So melta and plasma are more powerful weapons. Then the g.launcher have real utility. Maybe it can fire grenades that can slow opponents down, maybe they can put out LoS blocking smoke for a turn, maybe a grenade is really devastating if you are sitting inside a walled room. Options are not the enemy of any game. Only options not worth taking. It is like having a codex of 100 potential units, but if in reality everyone just take 4-5, then the codex is a 4-5 option codex.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 08:33:07


Post by: Insectum7


 ClockworkZion wrote:
What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.
Sure it does. If everybody is playing marines then marines don't ever get to roflstomp lesser troops.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 08:41:29


Post by: Karol


Marines are very rarely a top army. And it mostly happens at the start or very end of an edition. And some marines go through a whole edition or more without getting to stomp anyone.
And all of those things have their roots in rules of the game, and nothing else. In the lore Salamnders, Crimson Fists etc are doing great.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 10:21:36


Post by: Tyel


 vipoid wrote:
I honestly have no idea how that was supposed to work.

With Marines being by far the most common army, you're basically halving the effectiveness of all D1 weapons against infantry. So far from increasing choice, you're basically cutting off the lower-tier of weapons by making them outright terrible at their job. If your anti-infantry weapons can't efficiently kill the most common infantry in the game, what is even the point?


Because they should be balanced against each other. It goes back to the thread title - how good should bolters be?

The point of making Marines 2 wounds was to "de-glass" them.
Ignore all the rules that were piled on later (and the fact GW didn't just do this, but did boost Primaris attack values a bit on release at 20 points).
Lets say you could take basic tactical marine at 13 points a model - or "Primaris tactical marine" at 18 points but with 2 wounds.

Well he's twice as tough versus 1 damage shooting/assault. But he also only does about 72% the damage to everything. Because his bolt gun and punch is just as effective for 18 points as it was when he was 13.

Put another way - the game can be "balanced" at various different levels of damage. If I "expect" to do 25% points worth of damage to you, you should "expect" to do 25% of damage to me. But we could also match at 50% - or 100%. "Primaris Tactical Shooting" would be "bad" but so would "everything 1 damage into him". There's a bit of flavour to this - DE vs Harlequins should be a ludicrously lethal everything dies ASAP - while DG into say DA Terminators should be a slow 5 turn grinding slog.

2 damage weapons should have offered a higher exchange rate against Marines - but in turn these should have been expensive. So Marines were relatively efficient back into them - and they shouldn't have been efficient against a range of other targets, and so shouldn't have been spammed on a TAC basis. But in classic GW style they screwed up. Plasma guns were far too cheap. 3 buffed up Dissie Ravagers could more or less table entire Marine armies if they got to shoot over 3 turns. And its not like these weapons were taken to explicitly tailor into Marines - they were taken to tailor into basically everything in the game, and efficient against anything with a higher points/wound ratio than an Ork Boy.

And so the Marine players wept bloody tears, despite getting to the last 8 of the LVO, had to be buffed quickly and dramatically. With bolter discipline, shock assault, doctrines, super doctrines etc etc. At which point we are throwing the aim to "de-glass" out the window. Its all about upping the offensive power for the points (with IH providing ludicrous defensive bonuses on top). And this is where we are now - basically every unit and faction in the game is a glass hammer. And to "not" be a glasshammer, you need something like a 2+/4++, protection to mortal wounds, transhuman and cut off people's rerolls (and even then you still die, just not as consistently as most other stuff). The relative damage/points exchange rate in 40k goes up and up.

I guess you can argue that Marines were so popular people would always spam the 2 damage weapons - but I'm not convinced that's automatically true. I don't think anyone putting a list together for tournaments today thinks "wait, can I beat space marines?" The issue is that GW failed to make 2 damage=the anti-marine choice, and bad against a range of other armies. Which is why in 9th I think they took another approach - with -1 damage on DG, Ork vehicles, dreadnoughts etc. This was meant to temper damage 2 spam. But again, codexes were not all written which this philosophy. Buffed up Fire Warriors can get 100% shooting returns into Intercessors. Buffed up Skitarri get 70% returns. Guardians are about 45% before buffs and rise quite rapidly etc. This is all 1 damage shooting. As always, GW does balance by throwing knives at a board.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 10:50:30


Post by: Karol


People don't build their armies around, can this beat marines, because most of the time marines aren't the army to be beat, if you want to do good. This does have the effect that games played outside of tournaments, become less fun for marine players. Because unless they play a close copy of tournament lists, they often are not having a good time vs basic weapons of other armies. And ad mecha or eldar players don't have to meta in to killing marines, even if his list is a casual one, it will happen by itself just by virtue of him taking stuff to take out tanks, monsters or stuff like custodes etc.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 22:57:31


Post by: Hellebore


 ClockworkZion wrote:
What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.


No, it's also the ubiquity on the table and therefore the default optimised force being deliberately anti marine. It's a probability game - you are so much more likely to fight a space marine army that it's safe bet to optimise your force against them. Which then undermines how elite they are because then they will drop quickly. What your argument amounts to is 'marines need to be elite as default, but even when facing elite destroying enemies, they should still be mostly elite' which is not a balanced force at all.

Perhaps the classic example of this was back in 3rd when eldar had Heavy 3 starcannons. Starcannon spam was the default list because it took out marines effectively and you were almost always going to face them. Had it been guard in ubiquity, then they'd be carrying shuriken cannons which would have been relatively useless against marines.

If guard were the most ubiquitous force, the a marine army equipped with nothing but heavy bolters and other lighter Anti Infantry weapons would be effective. But as soon as it was turned on other marines, suddenly that effectiveness bottoms out.

Then of course there's the fact that it's often marines VERSUS marines that is the common battle and marine players want their army to be survivably elite AND destructively elite, which is a zero sum game when fighting other marines. Either you both destroy each other, or you do bugger all to each other.

But either way, their eliteness is going to suffer.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/20 23:56:37


Post by: ClockworkZion


 Hellebore wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.


No, it's also the ubiquity on the table and therefore the default optimised force being deliberately anti marine. It's a probability game - you are so much more likely to fight a space marine army that it's safe bet to optimise your force against them. Which then undermines how elite they are because then they will drop quickly. What your argument amounts to is 'marines need to be elite as default, but even when facing elite destroying enemies, they should still be mostly elite' which is not a balanced force at all.

Perhaps the classic example of this was back in 3rd when eldar had Heavy 3 starcannons. Starcannon spam was the default list because it took out marines effectively and you were almost always going to face them. Had it been guard in ubiquity, then they'd be carrying shuriken cannons which would have been relatively useless against marines.

If guard were the most ubiquitous force, the a marine army equipped with nothing but heavy bolters and other lighter Anti Infantry weapons would be effective. But as soon as it was turned on other marines, suddenly that effectiveness bottoms out.

Then of course there's the fact that it's often marines VERSUS marines that is the common battle and marine players want their army to be survivably elite AND destructively elite, which is a zero sum game when fighting other marines. Either you both destroy each other, or you do bugger all to each other.

But either way, their eliteness is going to suffer.


Now you're describing people's list design and not game design itself.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 03:36:26


Post by: Hellebore


 ClockworkZion wrote:
 Hellebore wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.


No, it's also the ubiquity on the table and therefore the default optimised force being deliberately anti marine. It's a probability game - you are so much more likely to fight a space marine army that it's safe bet to optimise your force against them. Which then undermines how elite they are because then they will drop quickly. What your argument amounts to is 'marines need to be elite as default, but even when facing elite destroying enemies, they should still be mostly elite' which is not a balanced force at all.

Perhaps the classic example of this was back in 3rd when eldar had Heavy 3 starcannons. Starcannon spam was the default list because it took out marines effectively and you were almost always going to face them. Had it been guard in ubiquity, then they'd be carrying shuriken cannons which would have been relatively useless against marines.

If guard were the most ubiquitous force, the a marine army equipped with nothing but heavy bolters and other lighter Anti Infantry weapons would be effective. But as soon as it was turned on other marines, suddenly that effectiveness bottoms out.

Then of course there's the fact that it's often marines VERSUS marines that is the common battle and marine players want their army to be survivably elite AND destructively elite, which is a zero sum game when fighting other marines. Either you both destroy each other, or you do bugger all to each other.

But either way, their eliteness is going to suffer.


Now you're describing people's list design and not game design itself.


You've invented an arbitrary distinction. The list building is part of the game design - otherwise they wouldn't have rules for how you build your army and you could just take 10 avatars of khaine.

The game design includes the list design and the balance mechanics are built around how players can build armies. If not, then there would be no way to playtest rules because there'd be no method of quantifying how people play.



Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 03:41:21


Post by: ClockworkZion


Game design, such as game balance takes different considerations in balancing than list building. One is a pursuit of making all options feel equally useful and balanced against each other and the various things they can be used against. The other is how you engage with the systems designed in the game.

It's not arbitrary to say that they're not identical things even if game design feeds into how people build lists.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 04:47:50


Post by: bat702


I havent been paying as much attention to 9th, but it seems like marines are less played now than they were in previous editions of the game, now in tournament lists you have way more T3 stuff like dark eldar, ad-mech, harlequins, etc.

But in most list buildings previously, you could expect up to 50% or more of your opponents to be either marines or chaos-marines; this, lead to almost every list created to be built around the fact that marines were going to be an extremely common thing to be fighting in your meta.This could obviously change if your group you play with does not typically bring marines or chaos-marines.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 05:54:59


Post by: Saturmorn Carvilli


 Hellebore wrote:
Spoiler:


No, it's also the ubiquity on the table and therefore the default optimised force being deliberately anti marine. It's a probability game - you are so much more likely to fight a space marine army that it's safe bet to optimise your force against them. Which then undermines how elite they are because then they will drop quickly. What your argument amounts to is 'marines need to be elite as default, but even when facing elite destroying enemies, they should still be mostly elite' which is not a balanced force at all.

Perhaps the classic example of this was back in 3rd when eldar had Heavy 3 starcannons. Starcannon spam was the default list because it took out marines effectively and you were almost always going to face them. Had it been guard in ubiquity, then they'd be carrying shuriken cannons which would have been relatively useless against marines.

If guard were the most ubiquitous force, the a marine army equipped with nothing but heavy bolters and other lighter Anti Infantry weapons would be effective. But as soon as it was turned on other marines, suddenly that effectiveness bottoms out.

Then of course there's the fact that it's often marines VERSUS marines that is the common battle and marine players want their army to be survivably elite AND destructively elite, which is a zero sum game when fighting other marines. Either you both destroy each other, or you do bugger all to each other.

But either way, their eliteness is going to suffer.



What is MEQ in current day?

A loyalist space marine army can go heavy Gravis with T5 and 3 wounds. Chaos Space Marines are 1 wounds less than loyalists. And Death Guard and Thousand Sons have their own durability quirks. None of which are tearing up the meta at the moment.

You're telling me that somehow people are crafting their list to take on: (T4, Sv 3+, 2W) (T4 Sv 3, 1W) (T5 Sv 3+, 3W) (T4, v 3+(2+ vs 1D weap), T4, Sv 3+, 2W (-1 D) to tackle marines all at the same time?

40k isn't 3-7th edition anymore. MEQ covers a pretty wide range of stat profiles, and if 9th wasn't rocket/railgun tag levels of lethality where Invuls are the only actually not glass cannons/hammers, players couldn't specifically counter-build vs. space marines (loyalist, Chaos, DG, TS). As MEQ isn't T4, Sv 3+, W1 anymore.

If GW hadn't lost their gawd-dang minds when they intended (CSM may some day see 2 wounds) that all marines at least 2 wounds and weren't utterly incompetent at game design, there would be no one-size-fits-all approach to counter marines of pretty much any flavor. Instead, GW got in their heads that defensive stats and abilities cost 1.5 to 2 times that of offensive stats and abilities, To the point that 40k would weakening Saves by 1 and reduce AP by 1, and other than the Imperial Guard, very little of 40k would change.

Honestly, marine vs. marine (all kinds sans maybe Grey Knights) games are the only games I enjoy in 9th edition 40k. Since they are the only games it is kinda hard to table either side, and even harder to decide before Turn 2-3.

I absolutely don't want boltguns to be anything more than R24", S4, AP0, D1. However, 9th edition has gone around the bend with everything having AP, increased Strength and/or damage. To the point I absolutely regret marines, save CSM, having 2 (+1) wounds. Games Workshop has turned into that Monty Hall D&D DM giving the players way more than they should have. And everyone is reaping the results of it.

I honestly didn't think I would join Dakka Dakka in my contempt for 40k. But between having to ask permission to play on 6'x4' tables, asking for Open War missions instead of Matched Play and when basically playing as without X++/X+++ Saves any/and all units are made of glass and all the other tournament-hammer elements, I have truly come develop a healthy disdain for GW and 40k. It certainly doesn't help that I'm a CSM-main using the codex from 2017 (because the 2019 one didn't change that much) with all that entails. And when the new one finally releases, if I want to pick it up, I get the privilege of paying +$5 more since it is coming after the 2022 price increase. (note: I'm just not going by books from GW anymore now).

I still occasionally play 40k (2 years of painting time to come back to this, bah.), but even in an area with a large player pool, I feel on the outside wanting to keep with 6'x4' tables and not play those awful matched play missions. I much rather let luck decided via Open War cards, even if it means some games are pretty much locked in even before they start. As both a spiky and Nu marine player, I can say AP0 bolter feel bad comparably. But what feels worse is space marines basically having a base 4+ Save with all the AP in 9th. And my dice really like to twist the knife on me having marines with essentially a 4+ Save.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 11:59:37


Post by: G00fySmiley


Karol wrote:
People don't build their armies around, can this beat marines, because most of the time marines aren't the army to be beat, if you want to do good. This does have the effect that games played outside of tournaments, become less fun for marine players. Because unless they play a close copy of tournament lists, they often are not having a good time vs basic weapons of other armies. And ad mecha or eldar players don't have to meta in to killing marines, even if his list is a casual one, it will happen by itself just by virtue of him taking stuff to take out tanks, monsters or stuff like custodes etc.


I would point out this is seemingly mostly only true for the tournament scene (in my experience). I play 1-3 games a week and in my area (Tallahassee FL) and the towns i have lived in in the past (Chicago suburbs, Orlando, Long Beach) marines are always the most played faction. I am generally one of the few or at times only xenos player/s (mostly orks and eldar for me), there is always a mix of some chaos marines, but you if I kept track probably 7/10 casual pickup games I find are vs normal or spikey marines. Anecdotal I know, but outside tournament prep groups is anybody actually seeing less than a 50% marine player base?

Also on marines in the other comment not usually being the strongest I agree there, they rarely are the top dog, but they are also rarely in the bad category. If they drop below the bottom 50% of codexes GW actually responds and gives them a bone making them back to mid to upper mid tier. That part only applies to codex marines though and not chaos or specialty factions books liek dark angels, space wolves, gray knights etc which are swingier on more or less powerful than vanilla marines. .


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 12:46:46


Post by: Insectum7


Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

What is MEQ in current day?

A loyalist space marine army can go heavy Gravis with T5 and 3 wounds. Chaos Space Marines are 1 wounds less than loyalists. And Death Guard and Thousand Sons have their own durability quirks. None of which are tearing up the meta at the moment.

You're telling me that somehow people are crafting their list to take on: (T4, Sv 3+, 2W) (T4 Sv 3, 1W) (T5 Sv 3+, 3W) (T4, v 3+(2+ vs 1D weap), T4, Sv 3+, 2W (-1 D) to tackle marines all at the same time?

MEQ is T4 3+ 2W, because loyalists are the most popular army in 40K. And the ubiquity of the 3+ save in Marine armies still makes the save modifier highly valuable in weapon selection. If you can punch through power armor, then regardless of Strength and Damage, you can kill marines be they the T4, T5, 1-3W varieties.

If the armor and toughness of Marines makes them "elite", then the same weapons that people take to kill marines will kill most everything else in the game as well, because everything else is "lesser" than the elite marines. The only things safe become things with invuln saves.

Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:
. . . To the point I absolutely regret marines, save CSM, having 2 (+1) wounds.

Correct. Moving Marines to 2W means that in order to adequately rebalance factions/units that are supposed to be decent at killing marines means a further propagation of damage increases. Which in turn just makes the game more lethal for everyone else, and then forces these new -1 Damage mechanics for things not to get entirely out of hand.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 13:33:27


Post by: VladimirHerzog


bat702 wrote:
I havent been paying as much attention to 9th, but it seems like marines are less played now than they were in previous editions of the game, now in tournament lists you have way more T3 stuff like dark eldar, ad-mech, harlequins, etc.

But in most list buildings previously, you could expect up to 50% or more of your opponents to be either marines or chaos-marines; this, lead to almost every list created to be built around the fact that marines were going to be an extremely common thing to be fighting in your meta.This could obviously change if your group you play with does not typically bring marines or chaos-marines.


This is the edition of up-trading.

Drukhari, sisters, Harlequins are all about killing more than their points on a objective to take it from the opponent.

This is why T3 super killy stuff is being played so much, because of how squishy they are, they cost peanuts.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:


What is MEQ in current day?


T4, W2, 3+

all the other stuff is just buffs on the basic MEQ profile


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:08:26


Post by: ClockworkZion


Arguably, charging more for the privilege of D2 actually benefits 1W models because the increased cost of said weapons to tailor against MEQ other 2W models means the extra damage is wasted and comes with a premium that makes the model carrying it less efficient vs 1W models for it's points.

Which could be an interesting design mechanic if GW bothered to actually make the 2D weapons cost more or upped the base cost of the models carrying them.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:31:36


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Arguably, charging more for the privilege of D2 actually benefits 1W models because the increased cost of said weapons to tailor against MEQ other 2W models means the extra damage is wasted and comes with a premium that makes the model carrying it less efficient vs 1W models for it's points.

Which could be an interesting design mechanic if GW bothered to actually make the 2D weapons cost more or upped the base cost of the models carrying them.


Is this preconception that D2 weapons are so prevalent even based on real life? Most lists i bring or play against still have plenty of D1 weapon and losing my CSM to these while they would live if GW would just put out a FAQ for them is getting old.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:32:57


Post by: ClockworkZion


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Arguably, charging more for the privilege of D2 actually benefits 1W models because the increased cost of said weapons to tailor against MEQ other 2W models means the extra damage is wasted and comes with a premium that makes the model carrying it less efficient vs 1W models for it's points.

Which could be an interesting design mechanic if GW bothered to actually make the 2D weapons cost more or upped the base cost of the models carrying them.


Is this preconception that D2 weapons are so prevalent even based on real life? Most lists i bring or play against still have plenty of D1 weapon and losing my CSM to these while they would live if GW would just put out a FAQ for them is getting old.

CSM need FAR more than a FAQ with +1W to be fixed and pretending like that's the only pressing concern for that book is laughable.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:35:04


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 ClockworkZion wrote:
 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
Arguably, charging more for the privilege of D2 actually benefits 1W models because the increased cost of said weapons to tailor against MEQ other 2W models means the extra damage is wasted and comes with a premium that makes the model carrying it less efficient vs 1W models for it's points.

Which could be an interesting design mechanic if GW bothered to actually make the 2D weapons cost more or upped the base cost of the models carrying them.


Is this preconception that D2 weapons are so prevalent even based on real life? Most lists i bring or play against still have plenty of D1 weapon and losing my CSM to these while they would live if GW would just put out a FAQ for them is getting old.

CSM need FAR more than a FAQ with +1W to be fixed and pretending like that's the only pressing concern for that book is laughable.


Its not the most pressing concern, its just the most simple stopgap GW couldve done to keep us in the game.
getting rid of our wombocombo nature and how slaanesh is the only real playable alignment is ridiculous is much harder than saying "CSM cost Xpts more and gain 1 wound"

Its a simple, quick fix that still hasnt been done after ~two years of the edition


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:38:47


Post by: ClockworkZion


See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 15:43:01


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 ClockworkZion wrote:
See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.


Why is having 20 marines in a squad problematic really? Theyre legionnaires ffs.
And even if GW thinks this is too much, drop the squad size to 10 max, its not rocket science.

oh and "lets not FAQ because people don't look at FAQs" is a pretty gak take. Even the most casual players i know of are aware that CSM will eventually have 2W and are eagerly waiting for the FAQ to drop


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:06:17


Post by: ClockworkZion


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.


Why is having 20 marines in a squad problematic really? Theyre legionnaires ffs.
And even if GW thinks this is too much, drop the squad size to 10 max, its not rocket science.

oh and "lets not FAQ because people don't look at FAQs" is a pretty gak take. Even the most casual players i know of are aware that CSM will eventually have 2W and are eagerly waiting for the FAQ to drop

40 wounds on a 3+ save would be problematic, yes. And that's my point, it's not just "give them +1w" it's "rework the codex to better work with an additional wound without breaking the game with jank".

And you assume far too much about the community and the prevelance of checking FAQs.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:12:31


Post by: Kaied


 ClockworkZion wrote:
See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.
Has it been a problem that Space Wolves can take a 16-man squad of Blood Claws... ever? One of which can be a Terminator with a Storm Shield. Or is it the 4 extra bodies that are the issue?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:14:29


Post by: ClockworkZion


Kaied wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.
Has it been a problem that Space Wolves can take a 16-man squad of Blood Claws... ever? One of which can be a Terminator with a Storm Shield. Or is it the 4 extra bodies that are the issue?

Can Blood Claws fight three times in a turn?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:17:41


Post by: Tyel


You can run 20 possessed now if you want to?

I think CSM need more help than just extra wounds - but not convinced 20 T4 3+ save 2 wound models is really a concern.

I think the point was more that you don't see many bogstandard T4 3+ 2 wound models in armies. CSM infamously do not run CSM and have not for ages - and its unlikely they would today if you could take them for say 17-18 points but with 2 wounds. Marine armies often have say 1 squad of Intercessors (or Infiltrators etc) and that's about it. Everyone else is clutched a storm shield. Or has a gravis statline. Plague Marines and Rubrics are obviously a bit different.

Its a similar argument really about bolt guns. No one takes them if they can help it. Not Marines, Not CSM, not Sisters, not DG. Unfortunately no one will take them "unless they become good" and since being good is a relative thing, making them "good enough to be taken" drives codex creep.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:24:57


Post by: ClockworkZion


The issue with the bolter is really a problem that crosses faction lines: the standard small arms of an army is never going to be the best choice for dealing with specific threats and buffing can break game balance. GW wants people taking cool and exciting weapons so they can't make the core weapons in an army too good or no one will use them. Making them too bad though just causes other issues. See the discussion about Guard and their lasgun problems for instance.

Maybe the intent of the basic small arms should be for cherry tapping, not primary damage dealing in any situation, but even then I'm not sure that's the right answer.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 16:48:49


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Kaied wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
See the thing is I don't think it works as a stop gap without other changes. Like dropping max squad sizes so we don't have 20 2w Berserker squads alpha striking armies.

Or squads of 20 2w Noise Marines.

Yes, Crusaders can go up to 20 models, but most of the unit is on a 4+ save, not a 3+ forcing more fragility into the unit than we'd see with CSM.

Plus now you're looking at having an update in an FAQ when people can't even be bothered to check them at any other time meaning that a good chunk of the community wouldn't even know about the change.
Has it been a problem that Space Wolves can take a 16-man squad of Blood Claws... ever? One of which can be a Terminator with a Storm Shield. Or is it the 4 extra bodies that are the issue?

Can Blood Claws fight three times in a turn?

Can most units survive one round with either unit charging to begin with?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:10:09


Post by: VladimirHerzog


EviscerationPlague wrote:

Can most units survive one round with either unit charging to begin with?


exactly, if you're so scared of 20-man berzerkers it means theyre walking up the field : so slow as feth.

10 berzerkers already will mulch through anything they touch anyway, the triple fighting is overkill.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:13:50


Post by: Insectum7


Just poking in to say I'm not on board with CSM squads being limited to 10 models.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:18:04


Post by: ClockworkZion


I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:21:07


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.


I think people need to understand that even if they personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something is a problem.

"MEQ are so bad now, they die to everything, i'd rather have 1w and be cheap than 2w"
"Nooooo, don't let CSM keep 20-man with 2 wounds!! theyll be unkillable!!!"


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:22:00


Post by: Gadzilla666


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.

Well, considering how long it's taking to get the codex out, they must be doing a LOT of "consideration" and "playtesting".


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 17:37:15


Post by: ClockworkZion


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.


I think people need to understand that even if they personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something is a problem.

"MEQ are so bad now, they die to everything, i'd rather have 1w and be cheap than 2w"
"Nooooo, don't let CSM keep 20-man with 2 wounds!! theyll be unkillable!!!"

I did not say they'd be "unkillable". I said they'd be a problem balance-wise. Big difference. And I didn't argue for CSM to remain 1W, I argued it shouldn't be done haphazardly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.

Well, considering how long it's taking to get the codex out, they must be doing a LOT of "consideration" and "playtesting".

Considering Covid delayed a LOT of stuff and they're still having shipping issues (why else would we get preview articles on Craftworlds for a month straight?) I suspect that planned releases keep getting shuffled around and if CSM are seeing any kind of major release that it got delayed and shuffled behind much smaller releases that are easier to get into place.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 19:13:33


Post by: EviscerationPlague


 Insectum7 wrote:
Just poking in to say I'm not on board with CSM squads being limited to 10 models.

Does it really even matter?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 19:17:36


Post by: VladimirHerzog


EviscerationPlague wrote:
 Insectum7 wrote:
Just poking in to say I'm not on board with CSM squads being limited to 10 models.

Does it really even matter?


in-game, not really since no one will run them as 20 competitively.
to be fluff accurate tho? It totally does since thats one of the main difference between legions and chapters


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/21 22:31:59


Post by: vipoid


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Arguably, charging more for the privilege of D2 actually benefits 1W models because the increased cost of said weapons to tailor against MEQ other 2W models means the extra damage is wasted and comes with a premium that makes the model carrying it less efficient vs 1W models for it's points.

Which could be an interesting design mechanic if GW bothered to actually make the 2D weapons cost more or upped the base cost of the models carrying them.


I was about to reply but then realised you'd said what I was going to say already.

Yeah, A lot of D2 weapons could give W1 infantry something of a niche . . . except that GW just made a load of weapons D2 without any increase in their cost.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 10:50:42


Post by: ClockworkZion


So if this is true, GW didn't like the 40 wound blob possibility either:
 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Okayyy....New rumours from B&C courtesy of Clockworkchris (and at least one of these is going to make some people angry):

Squad sizes:

Legionaires: 5-10

Terminators: 5-10

Havocs: 5

Obliterators: 1-3

Chosen: 5-10


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 11:32:17


Post by: tneva82


 ClockworkZion wrote:
I think people need to understand that even if they don't personally think it's a problem doesn't mean something can't be a problem. Changes aren't made in a vacuum and it's clear that GW isn't as slapdash as people want to say they are about these things.

Not going to say GW is perfect mind you, but consideration and playtesting needs to go into retuning the CSM book for the change.


Ah yes. Unit of 20 easily killable models is a problem.

It might be problem if W2 meant same as it was in 8e but with the d2 spam it only matters vs mortal wounds. Guns will scythe through and seeing you pay more per model you get shot off easier than before...

Nobody would take 20 blobs if they didn't want to lose games with 1W. Even less with 2W seeing all you do is lose more points for same effort.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 11:39:15


Post by: ClockworkZion


tneva, you missed my point. No one takes them NOW but that doesn't mean no one will take them in the FUTURE. Making adjustments with the future of the game in mind is important too.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 12:57:51


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 ClockworkZion wrote:
tneva, you missed my point. No one takes them NOW but that doesn't mean no one will take them in the FUTURE. Making adjustments with the future of the game in mind is important too.


we know that NOW 20-man blobs are bad. Making it ~60pts more expensive for the second wound won't magically make them better. Killing a full sized bloodclaw unit is trivial, killing a 20-man crusader squad is trivial (yaya, 4+ on the bowlcuts). 20 man marines just take too much space on the board to hide them properly.

And theres no real FUTURE to set to since GW knew their codex wouldnt be out for that long, patching us up with some extra wounds instead of lowering points yet again in a hope that people start taking CSM instead of cultists is dumb. there is no world in which giving us a second wound would bring us to the ridiculous winrates of the new codexes


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 13:39:42


Post by: SemperMortis


EviscerationPlague wrote:

What garbage logic. It doesn't matter how common the army is to play against, otherwise you're saying nobody in a casual setting should have a counter to Dark Eldar.


On the contrary its solid logic that you are misunderstanding. The most common defensive profile in the game is T4 3+, add in the similar profiles of T3 and T5 with 3+ and its ridiculously common. Marines of all flavors, Grey Knights, Custards, Sisters of Battle etc etc. So you build your army with the mindset that you are going to be facing a lot of good saved, multi-wound targets. And the best part? That mindset also builds into a relatively effective anti-tank unit as well. A heavy bolter, a single heavy bolter averages 3 shots, 2 hits and 0.66dmg to a T6-8 3+ vehicle a turn. That is with zero buffs. Not great, but compare that to say a Stormbolter which is 4 shots, 2.66 hits, against T6-7 its 0.88 wounds, against T8 its 0.44, against 3+ saves its 0.29 and 0.15dmg. So less than half the dmg against vehicles. So its better at killing Marines than a stormbolter and better at killing vehicles. its just a better all around profile than a D1 S4 weapon.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
What you're describing is ludonarrative dissonance. And no, the number of people playing a faction isn't a factor to how elite something feels, it's the rules that do that.


You are misunderstanding as well. Space Marines AREN'T elite in the playing of the game because they are the most common factor. They are supposed to feel elite, but since they are literally the measuring stick of the game, everything is built to how they compare to or against a Marine profile. Complain about it to your hearts content, but Marine buffs will never be sufficient to fulfill that powerfantasy without breaking the game, Iron Hands 8.5 as an example.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

I disagree. They could just as easily use Guard, or a statline of all 4s if they want. There is no requirement to choose one faction over another just because it's more commonly played.


Yes, they absolutely could. So if T3 5+ begins to make up a massive percentage of the units in the game you'll see the meta shift towards that defensive profile. But since Ultramarines, Ravenguard, Salamanders, Iron Hands, Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Imperial Fists, Crimson Fists, Chaos Marines, Death Guard, Grey Knights, Custards etc etc all share a relatively similar defensive profile, you are going to have a long time to wait until they aren't the most common.
Karol wrote:
Marines are very rarely a top army. And it mostly happens at the start or very end of an edition. And some marines go through a whole edition or more without getting to stomp anyone.
And all of those things have their roots in rules of the game, and nothing else. In the lore Salamnders, Crimson Fists etc are doing great.


Karol you have been provably wrong on this subject for years now bud. In 7th edition Marines were top tier. In 8th edition you had Bobby G Gunlines, smaller success during the height of soup and then right into Iron Hands 2, Electric Boogaloo. In 9th Marines ran away with the tournament scene until GW put out Dark Eldar and Ad-Mech. I'll be utterly floored if Marines don't get a 2nd codex this edition.

Now if you want to argue that a specific sub faction doesn't do well, that's fine. DA suffered a lot in the recent decade or so. But that wasn't the argument you made.

Tyel wrote:

I guess you can argue that Marines were so popular people would always spam the 2 damage weapons - but I'm not convinced that's automatically true. I don't think anyone putting a list together for tournaments today thinks "wait, can I beat space marines?" The issue is that GW failed to make 2 damage=the anti-marine choice, and bad against a range of other armies. Which is why in 9th I think they took another approach - with -1 damage on DG, Ork vehicles, dreadnoughts etc. This was meant to temper damage 2 spam. But again, codexes were not all written which this philosophy. Buffed up Fire Warriors can get 100% shooting returns into Intercessors. Buffed up Skitarri get 70% returns. Guardians are about 45% before buffs and rise quite rapidly etc. This is all 1 damage shooting. As always, GW does balance by throwing knives at a board.


As I mentioned above, it is true because D2 is also a useful profile when you are attempting to dmg vehicles as well. And its not just D2, its also D3+3 and even D6 and D6+2/4. A Multi-Melta against a Marine unit averages 2 shots , 1.33 hits and 1.1 wounds. It goes straight through Marine armor and averages 1 dead Marine a turn and it can spike and do 2 occasionally. That still isn't a bad return on investment for a 50-60pt model. And of course against their preferred targets, those MM's are doing work against Vehicles.

Karol wrote:
People don't build their armies around, can this beat marines, because most of the time marines aren't the army to be beat, if you want to do good. This does have the effect that games played outside of tournaments, become less fun for marine players. Because unless they play a close copy of tournament lists, they often are not having a good time vs basic weapons of other armies. And ad mecha or eldar players don't have to meta in to killing marines, even if his list is a casual one, it will happen by itself just by virtue of him taking stuff to take out tanks, monsters or stuff like custodes etc.


....Um....Yes, yes we do. I'm going to a GT this week, of the 27 players who have declared their faction so far, 12 of them are Power Armor. Of the 15 who have not declared I know 5 of them and I know for a fact they are running Marines/custards and a sole Grey Knights player. So out of 42 players at the very least 17 of them will be running Power Armor armies. I will not be even remotely surprised if it becomes 20 to 25 of them running Power Armored lists. So yes, we build around the concept of dropping Marines for the above stated reasons. Marines profiles are THE most common and they also double as ok(ish) anti-tank weapons.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 13:47:38


Post by: ClockworkZion


There is a major misunderstanding between the type of army (horde, elite, ect) and how often you see it. Just because you see an army often doesn't make it not "elite" in type, it just means it's popular.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 13:54:45


Post by: vipoid


 ClockworkZion wrote:
There is a major misunderstanding between the type of army (horde, elite, ect) and how often you see it. Just because you see an army often doesn't make it not "elite" in type, it just means it's popular.


This is the equivalent of saying "I want the average army to be above average!"


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 13:56:32


Post by: ClockworkZion


 vipoid wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
There is a major misunderstanding between the type of army (horde, elite, ect) and how often you see it. Just because you see an army often doesn't make it not "elite" in type, it just means it's popular.


This is the equivalent of saying "I want the most average army to be above average!"

No it's drawing a line in the sand between army types and army popularity. By the logic of people in this thread CUSTODES aren't an elite army. Which is fething bananas.

Just because an army is popular doesn't change it's type. A horde army is still a horde, an elite army is still elite. Just because the meta swings and you need to tailor towards one or the other or something else doesn't change the inherit nature of the size and playstyle of that army.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:10:12


Post by: Voss


GW obliterated your 'line in the sand' decades ago.

IN 40k, on the table, 'elite' is standard. By design.

In 9th edition 40k, 'horde army' is almost extinct, also by design.

It isn't about 'popularity,' its about game design, and what counters the standard marine profile. Which happens to be the same things that counters.... nearly everything else (barring some remaining pea-shooters that didn't get buffs (or buffs yet when it comes to chaos, knight and guard weapons)


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:12:59


Post by: Tyel


SemperMortis wrote:
As I mentioned above, it is true because D2 is also a useful profile when you are attempting to dmg vehicles as well. And its not just D2, its also D3+3 and even D6 and D6+2/4. A Multi-Melta against a Marine unit averages 2 shots , 1.33 hits and 1.1 wounds. It goes straight through Marine armor and averages 1 dead Marine a turn and it can spike and do 2 occasionally. That still isn't a bad return on investment for a 50-60pt model. And of course against their preferred targets, those MM's are doing work against Vehicles.


Well yeah - I think that's the problem.
GW seems torn between making D2 expensive - or throwing -1 damage on everything. Which would to be fair, fix issues for monsters/vehicles if you don't want them efficiently attacked by these guns. (Admittedly this sort of skews things - because to my mind the "Autocannon" stat line should be efficient against light vehicles/monsters, but GW doesn't seem to want that distinction.)

I think the bigger issue though is that efficient S5+ AP-2+ and 2 damage guns are also good versus 15-17+ point single wound infantry. And there's quite a lot of that in the game. GW's answer has to been to just throw out invuls everywhere - but I'm not sure if that really does enough. I don't think you regret shooting aspect warriors with such weapons - even if technically there may be better options in your book if you were to list tailor. Its only really harlequins where you might see some skew - and that's due to stacking defensive mechanic on defensive mechanic.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:15:03


Post by: SemperMortis


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Game design, such as game balance takes different considerations in balancing than list building. One is a pursuit of making all options feel equally useful and balanced against each other and the various things they can be used against. The other is how you engage with the systems designed in the game.

It's not arbitrary to say that they're not identical things even if game design feeds into how people build lists.


HAHA! Balance! Ah, i just laughed so hard it hurt a bit. Harlequins have a Sniper at 70pts who ignores Look out Sir and who AVERAGES 7 hits a turn at S6 -2AP and 2dmg. And if he rolls a 6 to wound its -4AP. They also have Voidweavers lol. 90ppm, makes Chickenwalkers look balanced by comparison. 2 shots hitting on 3s S12 AP-4 2D3dmg, OR it can shoot 3D3 shots at S5 AP-3 1dmg. And of course it also gets a Shuriken cannon which are now just significantly better heavy bolters. S6 AP-1 2dmg and since shuriken, AP-3 on a 6 to wound.
LOL balance.
 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Well, considering how long it's taking to get the codex out, they must be doing a LOT of "consideration" and "playtesting".


LMAO! Please stop, i'm going to pee my pants if you guys keep making me laugh.

 ClockworkZion wrote:
There is a major misunderstanding between the type of army (horde, elite, ect) and how often you see it. Just because you see an army often doesn't make it not "elite" in type, it just means it's popular.


No there isn't. You are just using the terms interchangeably when talking between perception and reality. You perceive them to be "Elite" elite generally means rare since if "everything" is elite then the default setting would be "elite" making it ...wait for it...not elite. So yes, in the fluff of the game Marines are elite. But likewise, in the fluff of the game there is like 1 Marine per Imperial planet, IE they are rare. In the game they are anywhere from 20-40% of the meta meaning they are dirt common and in other words, NOT elite.




Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:16:41


Post by: ClockworkZion


Voss wrote:
GW obliterated your 'line in the sand' decades ago.

IN 40k, on the table, 'elite' is standard. By design.

In 9th edition 40k, 'horde army' is almost extinct, also by design.

It isn't about 'popularity,' its about game design, and what counters the standard marine profile. Which happens to be the same things that counters.... nearly everything else (barring some remaining pea-shooters that didn't get buffs (or buffs yet when it comes to chaos, knight and guard weapons)

Yeah no. I don't buy this arguement. You want to argue that 9th is MSU focused because people are scared of blasts? Fine. But it doesn't make Marines no longer an "elite" army when they only things aren't outnumbered by are Knights and Custodes. The game gives tools for a wide range of targets to every army, not just Marines. Leaning into the ones that counter Marines because MEQ is common isn't changing the core dynamic of the army, it's just showing us which match ups are common in the meta.

Conflating "popular to play" with "not-elite sized army" is ridiculous. By that definition it means Custodes aren't an elite army, which is patently absurb as well.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:19:48


Post by: SemperMortis


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
GW obliterated your 'line in the sand' decades ago.

IN 40k, on the table, 'elite' is standard. By design.

In 9th edition 40k, 'horde army' is almost extinct, also by design.

It isn't about 'popularity,' its about game design, and what counters the standard marine profile. Which happens to be the same things that counters.... nearly everything else (barring some remaining pea-shooters that didn't get buffs (or buffs yet when it comes to chaos, knight and guard weapons)

Yeah no. I don't buy this arguement. You want to argue that 9th is MSU focused because people are scared of blasts? Fine. But it doesn't make Marines no longer an "elite" army when they only things aren't outnumbered by are Knights and Custodes. The game gives tools for a wide range of targets to every army, not just Marines. Leaning into the ones that counter Marines because MEQ is common isn't changing the core dynamic of the army, it's just showing us which match ups are common in the meta.

Conflating "popular to play" with "not-elite sized army" is ridiculous. By that definition it means Custodes aren't an elite army, which is patently absurb as well.


You are arguing against a non-existent argument. yes Marines and custards are "Elite" in the fluff and in their army size. But they AREN'T elite in the sense that we measure the entire game off of them because they are so COMMON. SO please stop making this ridiculous argument where you conflate elite, popular and battle size.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:21:01


Post by: ClockworkZion


@Semper: again, your argument means that Custodes are not "elite" since they're currently so commonly seen in the meta.

Army types are broken up based on scale, durability and predominant unit type, not popularity. It's why we describe foot Guard as a horde army while the vehicle heavy guard is considered to be a different animal. These distinctions make it easier for us to communicate the way an army is put together, the approximate model count and how durable it is.

To ignore that in favor of pushing a nonsense argument that the META determines if something is "elite" is asinine and undermines the ability to communicate ideas about different army types.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:21:39


Post by: SemperMortis


 ClockworkZion wrote:
@Semper: again, your argument means that Custodes are not "elite" since they're currently so commonly seen in the meta.

Army types are broken up based on scale, durability and predominant unit type, not popularity. It's why we describe foot Guard as a horde army while the vehicle heavy guard is considered to be a different animal. These distinctions make it easier for us to communicate the way an army is put together, the approximate model count and how durable it is.

To ignore that in favor of pushing a nonsense argument that the META determines if something is "elite" is asinine and undermines the ability to communicate ideas about different army types.


And continue to miss the entire point. Roger.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:23:47


Post by: ClockworkZion


SemperMortis wrote:
 ClockworkZion wrote:
@Semper: again, your argument means that Custodes are not "elite" since they're currently so commonly seen in the meta.

Army types are broken up based on scale, durability and predominant unit type, not popularity. It's why we describe foot Guard as a horde army while the vehicle heavy guard is considered to be a different animal. These distinctions make it easier for us to communicate the way an army is put together, the approximate model count and how durable it is.

To ignore that in favor of pushing a nonsense argument that the META determines if something is "elite" is asinine and undermines the ability to communicate ideas about different army types.


And continue to miss the entire point. Roger.

No, I get your "point" but your conflating terminology and it muddles the way we discuss army types. If you want to argue that Marines are common that's fine, but I don't agree that it changes the type of army it is.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:35:51


Post by: Voss


 ClockworkZion wrote:
Voss wrote:
GW obliterated your 'line in the sand' decades ago.

IN 40k, on the table, 'elite' is standard. By design.

In 9th edition 40k, 'horde army' is almost extinct, also by design.

It isn't about 'popularity,' its about game design, and what counters the standard marine profile. Which happens to be the same things that counters.... nearly everything else (barring some remaining pea-shooters that didn't get buffs (or buffs yet when it comes to chaos, knight and guard weapons)

Yeah no. I don't buy this arguement. You want to argue that 9th is MSU focused because people are scared of blasts? Fine.

Uh... Nope. Didn't say that. Didn't write that. Re-reads post again. Yep. Not there.

But it doesn't make Marines no longer an "elite" army when they only things aren't outnumbered by are Knights and Custodes.

Didn't... mmm. No, didn't say this either.

The game gives tools for a wide range of targets to every army, not just Marines.

Well, no, actually. Some armies are missing tools, or only get them in bad slots on bad units. Especially compared to marines. But... I'm not sure of the relevance to this discussion.

Leaning into the ones that counter Marines because MEQ is common isn't changing the core dynamic of the army, it's just showing us which match ups are common in the meta.

Yes, indeed. It doesn't change the 'dynamic' of the army. Whatever you happen to think that is.
But leaning into the ones that counter marines does tell you something about the game design and that it _is_ centered around marines.

Conflating "popular to play" with "not-elite sized army" is ridiculous. By that definition it means Custodes aren't an elite army, which is patently absurb as well.

Not sure where this size thing came from. I've seen marine hordes and teeny-tiny model count marine armies. It doesn't change the way the game design is centered on marines as 'the standard'


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:37:35


Post by: Tyel


I'd stick to the original guns. Marines are an elite army mainly because they are (usually anyway) not run as a blob of T4 3+ 2 wound guys.

Although I don't really know what (if anything) Marines can do into Custodes, Tau and now Harlequins. I kind of feel Redemptor Dreadnoughts are not what they were.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 14:46:19


Post by: Semper


The trend seems to be going the way where they would have 'earned' a boost due to fluff and other faction power creeping but I think there's bigger issues to tackle than the power of the humble bolter.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 15:10:36


Post by: pelicaniforce


Tyel wrote:You can run 20 possessed now if you want to?
CSM infamously do not run CSM and have not for ages - and its unlikely they would today if you could take them for say 17-18 points but with 2 wounds. Marine armies often have say 1 squad of Intercessors (or Infiltrators etc) and that's about it.

Unfortunately no one will take them "unless they become good" and since being good is a relative thing, making them "good enough to be taken" drives codex creep.


People also avoid guardians and guard infantry, and these days shoota boyz. The custodes bolter troops are also marginal in the game, even though they are depicted in the most famous illustration of the most famous fight. Basic infantry with basic gun doesn’t have rules to do any job. So the alternative is to power creep or not.

ClockworkZion wrote: Changes aren't made in a vacuum

Yes when there’s something popular with players GW see it and enact a monkey’s-paw half measure version of it. People were making truescale marines and other people were complaining about marine scale, so GW did primaris and all the strange effects of not-terminator units, not sharing transports etc etc. People wanted overwatch and so GW added over watch but only as a charge reaction and only on 6s. People wanted cross fire so only Genestealer cultists can do it. For four editions the really weak Howling Banshees have been getting stacks of special rules that didn’t actually make them good. You don’t have to anticipate or compromise with what GW is likely to do. You can only go strongly and one direction and hope the needle moves half as far as you want it to.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 16:00:56


Post by: Karol


SemperMortis 804013 11330930 wrote:....Um....Yes, yes we do. I'm going to a GT this week, of the 27 players who have declared their faction so far, 12 of them are Power Armor. Of the 15 who have not declared I know 5 of them and I know for a fact they are running Marines/custards and a sole Grey Knights player. So out of 42 players at the very least 17 of them will be running Power Armor armies. I will not be even remotely surprised if it becomes 20 to 25 of them running Power Armored lists. So yes, we build around the concept of dropping Marines for the above stated reasons. Marines profiles are THE most common and they also double as ok(ish) anti-tank weapons.


If someone has an army that has to spec in to marines to counter them, then they are not going to win the event or end up in top 8. Save for some real good luck with match ups.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 16:16:18


Post by: G00fySmiley


Karol wrote:
SemperMortis 804013 11330930 wrote:....Um....Yes, yes we do. I'm going to a GT this week, of the 27 players who have declared their faction so far, 12 of them are Power Armor. Of the 15 who have not declared I know 5 of them and I know for a fact they are running Marines/custards and a sole Grey Knights player. So out of 42 players at the very least 17 of them will be running Power Armor armies. I will not be even remotely surprised if it becomes 20 to 25 of them running Power Armored lists. So yes, we build around the concept of dropping Marines for the above stated reasons. Marines profiles are THE most common and they also double as ok(ish) anti-tank weapons.


If someone has an army that has to spec in to marines to counter them, then they are not going to win the event or end up in top 8. Save for some real good luck with match ups.


I would only say this is half right. You can't just build to optimize against marines and expect to be able to podium or even make it to the top tables. That said you also cannot just ignore power armor when building your list. I have played in tournaments since 4th edition and have never not faced at least one space marine player in a tournament, generally it is 2+ marines lists on the way up the ladder.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 16:21:59


Post by: Karol


All the good lists right now, tau, nids, custodes and eldar just breeze through marine match ups. A custodes player is not going to have to train or test much what happens, if he faces the best DA or WS build. He does have to learn to play a high risk game vs tau, and I have no idea what he does vs eldar. Probably nothing.

It is like in sports. I don't ask myself what are guys 2 years younger going to do, same way 2-3 years ago no one older then me care what I would do. Marines are like that. They can be annoying, if someone goes insane and brings a knight or IG lists to the event. Because those marine match up are the ones that those armies could , with luck and skill involved, win. They ain't going to win any eldar or tau match ups. So maybe those people try to meta in to marines. But then complaining about marines in a tournament setting would be the same as me being unhappy that termintors are bad for GK.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 16:35:59


Post by: G00fySmiley


Tau, custodes and craftworlds/harlies are the big bads right now, all 3 are in need of nerfs. Anybody not playing those 3 books currently is starting with a disadvantaged position sadly.

On Tyranids, Crusher stampede is good but looking at tournament results and having played against it not ready to call it broken and marines from watching games seem to have some of the better tools to deal with them. i doubt Crusher stampede rules stay with the new book though so we will see how it stacks up. The book leaked but it might be fake (pretty elaborate if a fake though). They are looking strong but i would put them in current reading around the black templar and dark eldar for power level from my initial thoughts, this may change with seeing them on the table though.

A lot of what works well against custodies also happens to be what is good against marines and tau battlesuits though so I think thier codex is being incedentally countered , but if it were eldar dark eldar and admech still you would have do rework to consider them as a possible opponent.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/22 19:13:30


Post by: Niiai


bat702 wrote:
serious question, I could totally see either in 10th edition or maybe for basic bolters in Chaos Space Marines Codex, that bolters will get significant upgrades to keep up with how killy 40k is getting


I do not think so. I play GSC and SM. Shotguns are S4. But to get acces to S4 i need to drop into the Heavy 3 gun. I really enjoy that a bolter is just as deadly as an close ranged shotgun or a longrange heavy guns.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 00:15:23


Post by: The_Real_Chris


Just replace your primitive bolters with farms and fleshborers!


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 00:47:40


Post by: SemperMortis


Karol wrote:
SemperMortis 804013 11330930 wrote:....Um....Yes, yes we do. I'm going to a GT this week, of the 27 players who have declared their faction so far, 12 of them are Power Armor. Of the 15 who have not declared I know 5 of them and I know for a fact they are running Marines/custards and a sole Grey Knights player. So out of 42 players at the very least 17 of them will be running Power Armor armies. I will not be even remotely surprised if it becomes 20 to 25 of them running Power Armored lists. So yes, we build around the concept of dropping Marines for the above stated reasons. Marines profiles are THE most common and they also double as ok(ish) anti-tank weapons.


If someone has an army that has to spec in to marines to counter them, then they are not going to win the event or end up in top 8. Save for some real good luck with match ups.


Well Karol, you pretty much only have to spec into Marines now because so many complained about hordes that cheap chaff infantry are basically useless now. If Boyz, gants, Guardsmen actually became useful/good than it would likely help Marines indirectly by actually giving opponents a reason to spec into D1 weapons which Marine's get their benefits off of as opposed to just running MORE anti-marine weapons because as I stated, a MM is actually getting a decent return on investment every turn in which it kills a Marine or two.

So this upcoming event, I know for a fact i'm going to run into a host of Tau battlesuits who are all T5-6 with 2+ and 3+ saves. I'm going to run into a host of power armored opponents who are all T3-T5 with 2+ and 3+ saves and mostly multi-wounds. So, with that in mind, why would I bring anti-infantry weapons when I know they are mostly useless against the majority of the game right now when I could instead bring multi-dmg weapons with lots of -AP?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 01:34:26


Post by: Karol


Well Karol, you pretty much only have to spec into Marines now because so many complained about hordes that cheap chaff infantry are basically useless now

Tau run kroots and DE run kabalites. Same as tyranids run their guants. And other armies being better doesn't help marine. Because either marines are in those rare 2.0 moments, when they don't care if guants or anything else just became a bit better. Or the army is not popular enough or worse impossible to counter without losing army efficiency.

As someone said in this thread, one of the problems all meq have is that all anti tank is generally efficient or super efficient against them. And if neither tanks, nor monsters are run, then we are in the middle of a horde meta which then makes it moot what ever the marine runs.

So, with that in mind, why would I bring anti-infantry weapons when I know they are mostly useless against the majority of the game right now when I could instead bring multi-dmg weapons with lots of -AP?

No one takes melta or plasma to counter marines. Marines get countered by stuff in addition to specific weapons or unit formations being good vs something else.

A lot of what works well against custodies also happens to be what is good against marines and tau battlesuits though so I think thier codex is being incedentally countered , but if it were eldar dark eldar and admech still you would have do rework to consider them as a possible opponent.

Lets say you have to counter harlis or DE, a lot of their power comes from the skimers their run. So you need high number of shots good D weapons , because of all the -1 to hit, invs etc. The same kind of a weapon also happens to be extremly good at a killing marines of all kind.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 02:47:17


Post by: EviscerationPlague


Karol has a point that you REALLY don't need to spec an army into killing Marines. 3rd-7th kinda showed that via how AP3 was somehow rarer than AP2. It doesn't matter if you face Marines or not when the Fleshborer is ridiculous now and wounding any tank on a 5+. The AP-1 is just the icing on the cake.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 02:51:47


Post by: pelicaniforce



SemperMortis wrote:
If Boyz, gants, Guardsmen actually became useful/good than it would likely help Marines indirectly by actually giving opponents a reason to spec into D1 weapons which Marine's get their benefits off of as opposed to just running MORE anti-marine weapons.


Well yeah so how do you get useful guardsmen boys and gants, also guardians? They each have some limitations on where they can go, and it would be hard to rebalance all of them individually. It’s probably infantry until general that should be rebalanced.

If lasguns were s4 they wouldn’t be that useful, and also at the moment that’s just a bolt gun. It’s not roll more dice, because they’re already at saturation both from lasgun shots and from number of models per square foot of board space. Maybe more special weapons, but then it’s still to fix boyz gants guardians and potentially others if something takes away the strats or abilities that make coffee horde or t3 type units work.


Karol wrote:

Tau run kroots and DE run kabalites.


Those don’t run as hordes. They don’t work just on the weight of their bodies.


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 03:25:39


Post by: carldooley


This whole thread is hilarity itself...
'We should give Space Marines a second wound to reflect on the tabletop the resiliency of Space Marines in the fluff.'

'We need more deadly weapons to deal with the 2W Space Marines.'

'Space Marines no longer hit like they used to. Let's make their bog standard weapons more deadly.'

Is anyone willing to consider that this upward spiral of damage and lethality can be laid squarely at the feet of those same people who wanted Space Marines to be more durable?

After all, it isn't like Space Marines should demean themselves on the tabletop by using cover, when THEIR BEST ARMOR IS CONTEMPT?!?


Do bolters need buffs across most platforms? @ 2022/03/23 03:34:19


Post by: ClockworkZion


 carldooley wrote:
This whole thread is hilarity itself...
'We should give Space Marines a second wound to reflect on the tabletop the resiliency of Space Marines in the fluff.'

'We need more deadly weapons to deal with the 2W Space Marines.'

'Space Marines no longer hit like they used to. Let's make their bog standard weapons more deadly.'

Is anyone willing to consider that this upward spiral of damage and lethality can be laid squarely at the feet of those same people who wanted Space Marines to be more durable?

After all, it isn't like Space Marines should demean themselves on the tabletop by using cover, when THEIR BEST ARMOR IS CONTEMPT?!?

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I don't think the answer is giving bolters -1AP. I think the answer is taking an AP off all small arms weapons base. And if that still leaves bolters uninteresting make them D2 so at least MEQ mirror matches are more interesting.