Space Marine stigma...

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**morgoth**

Xenomancers wrote:

The reason you don't see banshees is because their delivery method is pathetic. If they actually make CC they are cleaning up MEQ like it's their job...wait...that is their job. No overwatch, I5 power weapons for 13ppm. Plus a baller ass exarch with 3 str 5 ap2 attacks on the charge at I6 WS5. They add 3 to their charge distance too - which means they can charge 15 inches + they have fleet too. They are a great assault unit. Overshadowed by another great assault unit in the same FOC - Striking Scorpions. Eldar lacking an assault vehicle need another method to deliver assault units and scorpions do just fine without one. Scorpians wreck anything that isn't a souped up assault unit.

Hyperbole here we come...

They're not even good at cleaning up MEQ, and that's a lot because of their crappy T3 and S3, very important stats that non-Eldar players take for granted at their base value of 4 for almost anything else.
Do you realize that T3 means that anyone wounds you 66% of the time instead of 50% of the time?
That's +33% wounds in your face.
S3... means that you wound others 33% of the time instead of 50% of the time.
That's 33% less wounds in their face.
Then you've got AP3, which does wonders strictly against 3+ armor, which nobody plays because supposedly it sucks - so we've got a unit that's decent at killing something that sucks, yay. it must be OP.

Overshadowed by scorpions ... which despite their crazy cover rules are still far from being a good unit, not just because it's lacking a delivery method but because the unit's impact can be summed up to that of an Ork boy.

Why am I mentioning the ork boy ? because he sucks. badly. and he's still a lot better in CC than a Striking Scorpion point for point - and gets to assault out of a truck which moves 18" in a turn.
Hell, I've seen my Scorpions get assraped by Genestealers - and even Necron Warriors - none of which are considered good in CC.

They're an assault unit that can't handle any other assault unit, and will even die to other regular units in CC, because their only CC prowess is to have S4, the base strength of every single other model in the game (almost).

**jreilly89**

Play what you want. Some people might complain, but assuming you're not bringing tourney level lists and stomping new players, you should be fine

**nurgle5**

Melissia wrote:]Not true at all. Almost everything significant happens without Space Marines. They're quite rare.

I can't think of a single 40k campaign book since 3rd ed. that wasn't Space Marine centric or heavily involved Space Marines. You could argue that Space Marines are a small force in the 40k universe, compared to trillions of Orks and IG, but they are a core part of the 40k setting.

SolarCross wrote:If the player base lacks variety but GW already has provided many options for variety, then I think the remedy to the problem must come from the players actually. GW will emphasize whatever sells well that is what commercial enterprises must do to keep going. Vet players need to steer people especially newcomers away from SMs.

Well if the problem isn't with Games Workshop's support for other factions, then people are entitled to collect and play Space Marines if they like. Bullying people into spending time and money on their second preference for a 40k army is wrong. In both of those suggested approaches the more likely outcome would be the local player community avoiding that particular player rather than changing faction. By all means, encourage people to play non-MEQ factions, but do it by positive example. Show newcomers that the other factions are fun and rewarding to collect and play rather than punishing them for choosing marines.

**Kain**

Warzone Valedor not only had no space marines, it had no humans at all. Which is something I'd like to see more of. 40k stories with no humans. No Chaos, no Imperials; just Xenos beating the gak out of each other.

**Melissia**

nurgle5 wrote:
Melissia wrote:]Not true at all. Almost everything significant happens without Space Marines. They're quite rare.

I can't think of a single 40k campaign book since 3rd ed. that wasn't Space Marine centric

GW focuses its storytelling around things that happen to Space Marines. What many people forget, including GW itself, is that most things in the galaxy, including major crusades of trillions of people fighting each other, happen without a single Astartes.

If you define "significant" as "includes a Space Marine", then that means wars in which planets are destroyed and billions of people die and massive amounts of territory changes hands are insignificant, but a battle where a few dozen Marines destroy a few thousand Orks is. And that's dumb.

**Quinzy**

SolarCross wrote:
nurgle5 wrote:

People can play whatever they want to play. If the playerbase lacks army variety, it's up to Gee Dubz to make the other factions more enticing.

If the player base lacks variety but GW already has provided many options for variety, then I think the remedy to the problem must come from the players actually. GW will emphasize whatever sells well that is what commercial enterprises must do to keep going. Vet players need to steer people especially newcomers away from SMs.

There are two approaches:

1) Boycott marines at games. "I've played against marines too many times, sorry chap I'll play against anything else". Suitable for the casual player who has a choice against who he plays. If it ever comes to pass that a marine player has literally no choice but to play against other marines all the time that may nudge some thinking towards taking up a new army that is anything but marine.

2) Tailor lists hard against marines even to the point where they are weak against non-marine lists. This will enable a good deal of wins because marines are as common as muck on the tabletop and it may get some marine players wondering if playing a common army is not a strategic weakness and look to take up something a bit anti-meta themselves. This is suitable for the competitive player who does not have the luxury of choosing his opponents very often.

Are you actually advocating being antisocial and making the game less fun for everyone simply because some people like to play Marines? You always have the choice to not play against someone, but how is bullying some hobbyists looking for some fun on their free time and attempting to make them spend possibly 100s of € to start a Tyranid army in any way conducive to fun?

gakky attitudes like this are the reason why many FLGS's die. Warhammer is a "beer and pretzels" game. Just have fun and roll some dice.

**SolarCross**

nurgle5 wrote:

Well if the problem isn't with Games Workshop's support for other factions, then people are entitled to collect and play Space Marines if they like. Bullying people into spending time and money on their second preference for a 40k army is wrong. In both of those suggested approaches the more likely outcome would be the local player community avoiding that particular player rather than changing faction. By all means, encourage people to play non-MEQ factions, but do it by positive example. Show newcomers that the other factions are fun and rewarding to collect and play rather than punishing them for choosing marines.

GW's support is patchy for a lot of factions but it must be acknowledged that even the most neglected of factions only existed because GW punted them out in the first place. It is a pretty reasonable assumption that ongoing support is influenced strongly by sales and in this way the excessive popularity of Space Marines is robbing other factions of the oxygen of ongoing support. GW basically has two kinds of staffers: creative types and bean counters. I dare say the creative types would like to do more space nuns with guns or hive mind gene tweaking bugs or fungal football hooligans but keep getting told by the bean-counters to make "moar marines cos marines make dolla". I'd bet the creative types die a little inside every time they get told to punt up more cookie cutter marines. Perhaps the absurdity of the SW wolfy wolf wolf thing was exactly a passive aggressive revenge by a creative type on both Timmy the teenage space marine and the bean counters.

I don't see my two solutions as bullying but as feedback. The casual player plays for fun and at some point playing against marines again becomes samey samaey and unfun. The casual player is quite entitled to choose not to do that and explain why. For the tourney types it is about winning. In a game full of marines optimising against marines is a solid strat. It is only sporting to inform your opponent how he lost for it gives him an opportunity to remedy is poor tactical choices. By rights the tourney player could just opitmise against marines beat them soundly everytime and say nothing of how it was done.

**Quinzy**

Melissia wrote:
nurgle5 wrote:
Melissia wrote:]Not true at all. Almost everything significant happens without Space Marines. They're quite rare.

I can't think of a single 40k campaign book since 3rd ed. that wasn't Space Marine centric

GW focuses its storytelling around things that happen to Space Marines. What many people forget, including GW itself, is that most things in the galaxy, including major crusades of trillions of people fighting each other, happen without a single Astartes.

If you define "significant" as "includes a Space Marine", then that means wars in which planets are destroyed and billions of people die and massive amounts of territory changes hands are insignificant, but a battle where a few dozen Marines destroy a few thousand Orks is. And that's dumb.

I'd be inclined to draw a mental line between the overall 40k universe and the 40k setting of the tabletop miniatures game, to be honest. The tabletop mini setting is very much so focused on the Imperium.

**G00fySmiley**

nou wrote:
morgoth wrote:
kingbobbito wrote:
morgoth wrote:
Spears are incredibly bad, rangers are terrible, fire prisms ... please.
Wraithblades = Terminators that suck way more than real Terminators.

I'm not overly familiar with rangers, do they have any rules that make them not just T3 scouts?

They also have S3, 5+ armor, no ATSKNF. (they do have shrouded which is their only saving grace)
Their rifles are 36" Heavy 1 AP6 useless.

They may not be the worst snipers in the game, but snipers these days...

From about 30 entries in Codex: Craftworlds just under a half is problematic to use (sometimes beyond saving) and only six make reapeated appearance in netlists (not counting FW units here). From all of those, many aren't that good in TAC lilsts IF you play against various factions, but you don't have to worry about that, because meta IS all about Space Marines. Not only you are playing against Space Marines, but you are also playing against armies specialised in killing Space Marines. Eldar in the meta place so high mostly because they can easily tailor against predominantly SM meta and have three particularily broken units by the virtue of being totally universal and strong at the same time, so they can still win against anybody. My everyday group has no SM players at all, we are almost exclusively all xenos of different kinds (except for one AdMech) and most online tactics/lists suggestions/complaints are simpy non-applicable, because fearless hordes/whac-a-mole hordes/undying MSU/fast glass-cannon units are totally different beasts than MEQs. One of the most outstanding example of this bias is that Wraithguards against non-meta IoM-deathstar/IK/WK armies are almost ridiculously points inefficient and played-because-cool-factor type of unit.

One thing about SM players complaining about all strong xenos factions becomes quite clear after reading this thread, especially from this "90% of 100 players" example. It seems like most SM players lack any practical experience with xenos factions at all, they don't understand them, so when they loose to them, they automatically complain about them being entirely OP bullgak. What many of them miss, is that proficiency in 40K is not enemy faction (or even list) independent. If you have dozens of games worth of experience against various Space Marines armies and you feel good at 40K, then you might get very surprised when you lose to some rarely played armies you know absolutely nothing about. On the flip side, typical xenos player will almost exclusively play against iterations of your army, so will quite fast know everything about your weaknesses and how to exploit them.

OMG yes on the last paragraph. I played against a marines player (black Templar) last month with orks... ORKS and he said orks were OP. I ran 3 battlewagons of boyz, and 2 biker squads with a nob biker group. he went first, put all his rhinos and LR on the line, moved 6, got out 6, fired at bikers killing a few then said it was op they did not run and was surprised when the orks got out and smashed everything. note before the game I warned do not let me get off a charge because volume of attacks will drown you.

**nurgle5**

Kain wrote:Warzone Valedor not only had no space marines, it had no humans at all. Which is something I'd like to see more of. 40k stories with no humans. No Chaos, no Imperials; just Xenos beating the gak out of each other.

Well today I learned.

Melissia wrote:
GW focuses its storytelling around things that happen to Space Marines. What many people forget, including GW itself, is that most things in the galaxy, including major crusades of trillions of people fighting each other, happen without a single Astartes.

Ork vs Imperial Guard conflicts, and so on, may be more widespread in the 40k universe, but when so much of the storytelling, the narrative and the most significant events of the setting center on Space Marines; when they are 40k's most iconic, most played, most collected faction, I really don't think it's unfair to say Space Marines are the defining part of Warhammer 40k. Certainly more so than Orks vs IG, Space Marines are literally the posterboys for the game.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SolarCross wrote:

I don't see my two solutions as bullying but as feedback. The casual player plays for fun and at some point playing against marines again becomes samey samaey and unfun. The casual player is quite entitled to choose not to do that and explain why. For the tourney types it is about winning. In a game full of marines optimising against marines is a solid strat. It is only sporting to inform your opponent how he lost for it gives him an opportunity to remedy is poor tactical choices. By rights the tourney player could just opitmise against marines beat them soundly everytime and say nothing of how it was done.

It absolutely is bullying. You're not talking about list tailoring for competitive advantage, or simply refusing games that you don't want to play, but excluding players or tailoring against them with the hostile intent of discouraging your fellow hobbyists from their faction of choice because you don't like it. I don't see how doing either of these things, especially with new players, is a productive and positive way forward.

**ZebioLizard2**

It absolutely is bullying. You're not talking about list tailoring for competitive advantage, or simply refusing games that you don't want to play, but excluding players or tailoring against them with the hostile intent of discouraging your fellow hobbyists from their faction of choice because you don't like it. I don't see how doing either of these things, especially with new players, is a productive and positive way forward.

Or will likely have the effect of people simply just avoiding said players who list tailor to begin with or exclude others.

**Quinzy**

SolarCross wrote:
I don't see my two solutions as bullying but as feedback.

Excluding people until they spend money on a new army is just 'feedback' and not bullying?

**SolarCross**

Quinzy wrote:
SolarCross wrote:
nurgle5 wrote:

People can play whatever they want to play. If the playerbase lacks army variety, it's up to Gee Dubz to make the other factions more enticing.

If the player base lacks variety but GW already has provided many options for variety, then I think the remedy to the problem must come from the players actually. GW will emphasize whatever sells well that is what commercial enterprises must do to keep going. Vet players need to steer people especially newcomers away from SMs.

There are two approaches:

1) Boycott marines at games. "I've played against marines too many times, sorry chap I'll play against anything else". Suitable for the casual player who has a choice against who he plays. If it ever comes to pass that a marine player has literally no choice but to play against other marines all the time that may nudge some thinking towards taking up a new army that is anything but marine.

2) Tailor lists hard against marines even to the point where they are weak against non-marine lists. This will enable a good deal of wins because marines are as common as muck on the tabletop and it may get some marine players wondering if playing a common army is not a strategic weakness and look to take up something a bit anti-meta themselves. This is suitable for the competitive player who does not have the luxury of choosing his opponents very often.

Are you actually advocating being antisocial and making the game less fun for everyone simply because some people like to play Marines? You always have the choice to not play against someone, but how is bullying some hobbyists looking for some fun on their free time and attempting to make them spend possibly 100s of € to start a Tyranid army in any way conducive to fun?

gakky attitudes like this are the reason why many FLGS's die. Warhammer is a "beer and pretzels" game. Just have fun and roll some dice.

Again it is not bullying or being anti-social it is just feedback. I like marines they are okay they are medieval knights in shining armour in spaaace and what is not to like about that? but I literally do not need to face off against them every single time I play especially if I play guard (lol).

Also FLGS don't die because some of us are bored of spam marines. FLGS die because high street retail is a business with brutally thin margins and because game stores in particular have fairly slow moving stock with even thinner margins than average to deal with. That and online shopping is particularly competitive in this market. It is kind of pathetic trying to blame me for FLGS's going out of business.

**jreilly89**

nou wrote:

One thing about SM players complaining about all strong xenos factions becomes quite clear after reading this thread, especially from this "90% of 100 players" example. It seems like most SM players lack any practical experience with xenos factions at all, they don't understand them, so when they loose to them, they automatically complain about them being entirely OP bullgak. What many of them miss, is that proficiency in 40K is not enemy faction (or even list) independent. If you have dozens of games worth of experience against various Space Marines armies and you feel good at 40K, then you might get very surprised when you lose to some rarely played armies you know absolutely nothing about. On the flip side, typical xenos player will almost exclusively play against iterations of your army, so will quite fast know everything about your weaknesses and how to exploit them.

Man, aren't generalizations great? Also, most SM players own at least one other army, usually some Xenos variant, so complaining about SM vs. Xenos players is hilarious when someone owns both.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Melissia wrote:
They also typically don't understand non-Marine armies in general, not just Xeno armies.

Remember that thread a while back, where someone was asking "is it my responsibility to tell my oponent every single thing that my Sisters of Battle army can do, so there are zero surprises?" and such?

A lot of people literally were trying to argue that if you're not a Space Marine army you had an OBLIGATION to reveal all your strategies and tactics to your opponent because... prigilege and entitlement, really. Yeah.

I read that thread. It was not about entitlement or "privilege", it was the fact that if you don't tell me what weapons/stats your army has and then proceed to beat me, I'm going to get pissed. One of the relevant examples was that an Exorcist looks like a Rhino, but surprise, can put out 1d6 S8 AP1 shots. If I just went in and treated it like a Rhino, I'd get absolutely wrecked.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SolarCross wrote:

Again it is not bullying or being anti-social it is just feedback. I like marines they are okay they are medieval knights in shining armour in spaaace and what is not to like about that? but I literally do not need to face off against them every single time I play especially if I play guard (lol).

Also FLGS don't die because some of us are bored of spam marines. FLGS die because high street retail is a business with brutally thin margins and because game stores in particular have fairly slow moving stock with even thinner margins than average to deal with. That and online shopping is particularly competitive in this market. It is kind of pathetic trying to blame me for FLGS's going out of business.

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

**Quinzy**

SolarCross wrote:

Again it is not bullying or being anti-social it is just feedback. I like marines they are okay they are medieval knights in shining armour in spaaace and what is not to like about that? but I literally do not need to face off against them every single time I play especially if I play guard (lol).

Also FLGS don't die because some of us are bored of spam marines. FLGS die because high street retail is a business with brutally thin margins and because game stores in particular have fairly slow moving stock with even thinner margins than average to deal with. That and online shopping is particularly competitive in this market. It is kind of pathetic trying to blame me for FLGS's going out of business.

You have the right to not play anyone. Nobody denies that right. However, you advocated for refusing to play against them at all in order to force players to buy a new army so you can play something else.

FLGS often die because people don't want to go in because the regulars are awful. When they succeed it's no doubt it's by a thin margin, but an FLGS cannot survive if there is not a high volume of repeat customers. gakky regulars that bully others are a leading factor in turning people off spending money in a store. You don't think everyone refusing to play with a guy because he brought his Imperial Fists with him will put him off coming back? I sure as feth wouldn't like to spend any time in a place where the players have an attitude like that, I'd even be disinclined to spend money there if the staff allowed that sort of carryon.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

jreilly89 wrote:

I read that thread. It was not about entitlement or "privilege", it was the fact that if you don't tell me what weapons/stats your army has and then proceed to beat me, I'm going to get pissed. One of the relevant examples was that an Exorcist looks like a Rhino, but surprise, can put out 1d6 S8 AP1 shots. If I just went in and treated it like a Rhino, I'd get absolutely wrecked.

Aye, if it's freely readable in the codex then what's the problem telling people what it is and does? Nobody is saying you should tell them your battle strategy, but if you refuse to reveal the statline of a weapon then you're being a gowl.

**nou**

jreilly89 wrote:
nou wrote:

One thing about SM players complaining about all strong xenos factions becomes quite clear after reading this thread, especially from this "90% of 100 players" example. It seems like most SM players lack any practical experience with xenos factions at all, they don't understand them, so when they loose to them, they automatically complain about them being entirely OP bullgak. What many of them miss, is that proficiency in 40K is not enemy faction (or even list) independent. If you have dozens of games worth of experience against various Space Marines armies and you feel good at 40K, then you might get very surprised when you lose to some rarely played armies you know absolutely nothing about. On the flip side, typical xenos player will almost exclusively play against iterations of your army, so will quite fast know everything about your weaknesses and how to exploit them.

Man, aren't generalizations great? Also, most SM players own at least one other army, usually some Xenos variant, so complaining about SM vs. Xenos players is hilarious when someone owns both.

You do realise, that it is not a generalisation about EVERY SM player, but a statistical POV on the whole SM-oversaturated community? In FLSG with 90 people playing almost exclusively marines and only 10% SOMETIMES bringing anything else, discrepancy of experience against SM and non SM armies will be MASSIVE.

**SolarCross**

jreilly89 wrote:

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

No I wouldn't be pissed just surprised because none of the those armies are spammed to the same extent. If I played Eldar and the local meta was ripe with Eldar then without needing any encouragement I would look to diversifying away from Eldar and I wouldn't cry at all if some other player said he'd had enough of Eldar and wanted to play against something else. That is just the way it is, no need to cry.

**morgoth**

jreilly89 wrote:

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

People bully Eldar players all the fething time and nobody cares, people generally just gang up and join the beating.

**Quinzy**

SolarCross wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

No I wouldn't be pissed just surprised because none of the those armies are spammed to the same extent. If I played Eldar and the local meta was ripe with Eldar then without needing any encouragement I would look to diversifying away from Eldar and I wouldn't cry at all if some other player said he'd had enough of Eldar and wanted to play against something else. That is just the way it is, no need to cry.

You literally advocated every veteran player in an FLGS to boycott playing SM armies. It's not just one person saying "I'm bored with SM for now, but thanks

" and more a case of every grognard in the room refusing to play you until you buy 2000pts of Tau.

**jreilly89**

nou wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:
nou wrote:

One thing about SM players complaining about all strong xenos factions becomes quite clear after reading this thread, especially from this "90% of 100 players" example. It seems like most SM players lack any practical experience with xenos factions at all, they don't understand them, so when they loose to them, they automatically complain about them being entirely OP bullgak. What many of them miss, is that proficiency in 40K is not enemy faction (or even list) independent. If you have dozens of games worth of experience against various Space Marines armies and you feel good at 40K, then you might get very surprised when you lose to some rarely played armies you know absolutely nothing about. On the flip side, typical xenos player will almost exclusively play against iterations of your army, so will quite fast know everything about your weaknesses and how to exploit them.

Man, aren't generalizations great? Also, most SM players own at least one other army, usually some Xenos variant, so complaining about SM vs. Xenos players is hilarious when someone owns both.

You do realise, that it is not a generalisation about EVERY SM player, but a statistical POV on the whole SM-oversaturated community? In FLSG with 90 people playing almost exclusively marines and only 10% SOMETIMES bringing anything else, discrepancy of experience against SM and non SM armies will be MASSIVE.

It's almost as if SM is the widest available army in terms of kits, second hand models, ease of use, etc. That's like playing Street Fighter and getting mad that everyone plays Ryu when he's the easiest character to learn.

And I don't think you know what the word generalization means.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

morgoth wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

People bully Eldar players all the fething time and nobody cares, people generally just gang up and join the beating.

Dude, I've seen plenty of other threads on "How can I play Eldar/Tau without being cheesy?" and "No one wants to play me because I play Eldar". How about we just not boycott armies?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

SolarCross wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

It is absolutely bullying. If someone did the same to your army or Eldar or CSM across the board, wouldn't you be pissed?

No I wouldn't be pissed just surprised because none of the those armies are spammed to the same extent. If I played Eldar and the local meta was ripe with Eldar then without needing any encouragement I would look to diversifying away from Eldar and I wouldn't cry at all if some other player said he'd had enough of Eldar and wanted to play against something else. That is just the way it is, no need to cry.

Okay, how about if I refused to play you because you play Guard? Do you get it now?

**SolarCross**

jreilly89 wrote:

Okay, how about if I refused to play you because you play Guard? Do you get it now?

I'd be fine with that. If you play SM it makes perfect sense to not play against Guard as they are supposed to be on the same side, why would they fight each other? It is a bit counter-narrative.

But if you play SM you probably won't refuse just be delirious with joy that for once in your gaming experience your beloved SMs aren't being forced to shoot up other Space Marines.

**jreilly89**

SolarCross wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

Okay, how about if I refused to play you because you play Guard? Do you get it now?

I'd be fine with that. If you play SM it makes perfect sense to not play against Guard as they are supposed to be on the same side, why would they fight each other? It is a bit counter-narrative.

But if you play SM you probably won't refuse just be delirious with joy that for once in your gaming experience your beloved SMs aren't being forced to shoot up other Space Marines.

A) I don't really care about it being counter intuitive, there's plenty of in lore battles where SM fight traitor Guard, or vice versa. B) I also own Guard and used to own Orks and Daemons as well, but thanks for proving my point C) I'd only ever refuse a game if my opponent was being TFG, I'd never refuse it based on an army

**Quinzy**

SolarCross wrote:
jreilly89 wrote:

Okay, how about if I refused to play you because you play Guard? Do you get it now?

I'd be fine with that. If you play SM it makes perfect sense to not play against Guard as they are supposed to be on the same side, why would they fight each other? It is a bit counter-narrative.

But if you play SM you probably won't refuse just be delirious with joy that for once in your gaming experience your beloved SMs aren't being forced to shoot up other Space Marines.

Either you're willfully missing the point or you need someone to spell it out in as simple terms as possible. :/

**Xenomancers**

morgoth wrote:
Xenomancers wrote:

The reason you don't see banshees is because their delivery method is pathetic. If they actually make CC they are cleaning up MEQ like it's their job...wait...that is their job. No overwatch, I5 power weapons for 13ppm. Plus a baller ass exarch with 3 str 5 ap2 attacks on the charge at I6 WS5. They add 3 to their charge distance too - which means they can charge 15 inches + they have fleet too. They are a great assault unit. Overshadowed by another great assault unit in the same FOC - Striking Scorpions. Eldar lacking an assault vehicle need another method to deliver assault units and scorpions do just fine without one. Scorpians wreck anything that isn't a souped up assault unit.

Hyperbole here we come...

They're not even good at cleaning up MEQ, and that's a lot because of their crappy T3 and S3, very important stats that non-Eldar players take for granted at their base value of 4 for almost anything else.
Do you realize that T3 means that anyone wounds you 66% of the time instead of 50% of the time?
That's +33% wounds in your face.
S3... means that you wound others 33% of the time instead of 50% of the time.
That's 33% less wounds in their face.
Then you've got AP3, which does wonders strictly against 3+ armor, which nobody plays because supposedly it sucks - so we've got a unit that's decent at killing something that sucks, yay. it must be OP.

Overshadowed by scorpions ... which despite their crazy cover rules are still far from being a good unit, not just because it's lacking a delivery method but because the unit's impact can be summed up to that of an Ork boy.

Why am I mentioning the ork boy ? because he sucks. badly. and he's still a lot better in CC than a Striking Scorpion point for point - and gets to assault out of a truck which moves 18" in a turn.
Hell, I've seen my Scorpions get assraped by Genestealers - and even Necron Warriors - none of which are considered good in CC.

They're an assault unit that can't handle any other assault unit, and will even die to other regular units in CC, because their only CC prowess is to have S4, the base strength of every single other model in the game (almost).

Funny you don't even mention the mandiblasters which are basically the best part about striking scorpions. Not only are they auto hits that wound anything on a 4+ at I10 every turn. They are allocated to models of your choice in base. Scorpions aren't gods but they are better than any Codex Space marine assault unit that I am aware of.

**Melissia**

Quinzy wrote:
SolarCross wrote:
I don't see my two solutions as bullying but as feedback.

Excluding people until they spend money on a new army is just 'feedback' and not bullying?

You mean like what happens every time there's a new codex that excludes options you previously used and makes your army build non-viable? Is GW bullying when that happens, and are people bullying whenever they refuse to play against the old army list that is no longer legal in the current rules?

I find it downright funny that it's considered "bullying" to say "screw it, I'm in it to win".

**jreilly89**

Melissia wrote:
Quinzy wrote:
SolarCross wrote:
I don't see my two solutions as bullying but as feedback.

Excluding people until they spend money on a new army is just 'feedback' and not bullying?

You mean like what happens every time there's a new codex that excludes options you previously used and makes your army build non-viable? Is GW bullying when that happens, and are people bullying whenever they refuse to play against the old army list that is no longer legal in the current rules?

I find it downright funny that it's considered "bullying" to say "screw it, I'm in it to win".

A company has a right to change and modify what they want when they release a new version of the game. But guess what, people can continue to play old versions too! The same thing happened with AoS, there's still people playing WFHB under the old rules.

But yes, it is bullying when you say "I don't want to play you because you play X army" and "I'm going to get everyone to boycott X army because I don't like it", assuming it's current edition and rules legal. If you want to play something older/modified, that's fine, but understand some people won't want to.

**nurgle5**

Melissia wrote:If you define "significant" as "includes a Space Marine", then that means wars in which planets are destroyed and billions of people die and massive amounts of territory changes hands are insignificant, but a battle where a few dozen Marines destroy a few thousand Orks is. And that's dumb.

I mean big events that got a lot of narrative attention and community traction, like Armageddon, Eye of Terror, Medusa V, and all the other campaign supplements which are centered around Space Marines or heavily involve them (which seems to be all of them with the exception of Warzone Valedor, as Kain pointed out). So to say that nameless, faceless, anonymous battles taking place all around the galaxy are somehow more significant to the 40k setting than the events that the narrative and lore focus on is dumb. To suggest that Space Marines are a flashy sideshow in a setting where they participate in so many of its defining and key moments is dumb. Space Marines may not be involved in every single battle in the galaxy, and what interests you most about the 40k universe might differ, but there's no denying that Space Marines are a definitive part of the 40k setting.

**Martel732**

GW has made the marines not a side show, even though at only 1K per chapter, they would TOTALLY be a side show. For the fluff to make any sense, there would have to be millions of marines per chapter. Fighting over a planet would require millions of guardsmen and tens of thousands of marines PER PLANET. Just because GW doesn't write the battles that way, doesn't that's what it would logically require. Their scale in insanely bad.

**Kain**

I'm hoping for more Xenos vs Xenos battles because the Valedor novel was one of the most interesting I've ever read out of 40k. Xenofiction is rare enough in fiction in general, so more of it is never a bad thing.

**Melissia**

nurgle5 wrote:
To suggest that Space Marines are a flashy sideshow in a setting where they participate in so many of its defining and key moments is dumb.

Quite simply, it's not "dumb". Space Marines are a mere million amidst untold trillions of Imperial humans, who aren't even the totality of all humanity, and are outnumbered by the untold quadrillions of Orks and Tyranids and other xenos, and the endless legions of demons. Their accomplishments are a propaganda piece pushed by the Imperium, and there are NEVER enough Marines to go around. Their victories distracting the masses of the Imperium from the fact that we live in a dark galaxy of sin, surrounded by things that want to destroy us. There is no peace amongst the stars, bought by the lives and blood spilled by Space Marines. There is no progress, and understanding, there is no technological advance, no respite and no justice. There is only war.

On the countless billions of worlds in the Milky Way rage countless billions of battles, only a fraction of a fraction being "blessed" by the presence of a Space Marine. The whims and egos of the Astartes chapters often even make them AVOID pivotal battles that would save so many of the Imperium's planets and people, for they decide that they have other priorities instead so they'll go do those rather than respond to requests for reinforcements so that they can go participate in some minor battle elsewhere for some minor selfish pursuit that benefits their chapter, instead.

For such is the state of the galaxy. Its stories go far beyond what GW is willing to provide, never mind what it is able. 40k is more than Space Marines and always has been. I was of course intentionally being provocative when I described them as a "flashy side show", but it does have some truth to it-- they're legends that most people will never get to see, after all, and legends that never participate in most battles, even battles that determine the fate of entire sectors often have not a single Marine in them.

40k is more than Space Marines. It is a vast and expansive universe. So since apparently all of 40k is dumb and irrelevant to you unless it includes Space Marines, I suggest you just don't actually like the setting.

edited by moderator