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Martel732 wrote:
Primaris were kind of a good idea, and then they made the dissy cannon. And ton of other cheap, 2 damage sources.

You seriously think that?
You realise that they are one of the reason your average marine profile can't be buffed into a place where it actually is worth the salt.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Honestly, I'm one of those people who never saw the problem with the old AP system. If you fire a pebble from a slingshot and a 20mm autocannon round at the main armour belt of a battleship, they are going to achieve exactly the same end result despite the autocannon round being orders of magnitude more powerful. People complained that it was strange that AP4 weapons didn't penetrate Power Armour better than AP- weapons, but that's the entire point of armour in the first place.

We should've had a bunch of weapons that are AP0 but with a special rule like "Ignores saves of 5+ or worse" (flamers come to mind); instead we got a bunch of weapons that relatively speaking are better against Marines than their intended targets, while dropping the offensive output of Marines at the same time.

While I miss many of the effects the old AP (and Toughness) systems had in practice, in theory the new system is much more straightforward and fits right into 8e's "everything is modifiers" milieu. It's just that the knock-on effects of that system haven't been properly calibrated for.

One thing I don't miss is scanning every codex in desperate search of an AP3 gun I could take in the highest possible quantities, because Space Marines were (and remain) the most common enemy for anyone to fight, and anything short of AP3 might as well have been a lasgun under the circumstances. The sliding scale ensures that AP is useful at every level, and I don't have to agonize over whether I should even bother taking an AP4 weapon. It's just that AP is now too useful even at its lowest level, while remaining just as ubiquitous as before.

If we hit a 9e or a second round of army books within 8e, I'd actually expect to see more abilities along the lines of All Is Dust, approaching your "AP-1 but only against low saves" idea from the opposite end. Or "D1 weapons subtract -1 when rolling to wound this vehicle", effectively immunizing them against small arms fire again. Another option is weapons that force re-rolls on saves – a weapon that forces targets to re-roll saving throws of 6 is effectively an old-style AP6 weapon that has only a minor effect on Terminators but screws 6+ saves almost to nothing.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Primaris were kind of a good idea, and then they made the dissy cannon. And ton of other cheap, 2 damage sources.

You seriously think that?
You realise that they are one of the reason your average marine profile can't be buffed into a place where it actually is worth the salt.

Average marines are irrelevant now, I think. They won't get anymore buffs for the most part. They will slowly fade. I'm not going to complain about 8.5 pts/wound vs 1 damage weapons vs 13 pts/wound.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Primaris were kind of a good idea, and then they made the dissy cannon. And ton of other cheap, 2 damage sources.

You seriously think that?
You realise that they are one of the reason your average marine profile can't be buffed into a place where it actually is worth the salt.

Primaris were a good idea poorly executed. If GW had said "Space Marines are now 2W/model with AP-1 boltguns, here are your resculpts but old Marine models use the same profiles" everything would have been fine, basic transports would have been way better, and we might have escaped the idiotic Buzz Lightyear units. The fact that Primaris Marines are distinct units is what's screwing everything up; it means that the units with interesting weapons are stuck with unusable profiles and the units with usable profiles are stuck with uninteresting weapons, so a Primaris army is locked into wildly inflexible mono-builds if it wants to fill out a detachment because you can't (for instance) engage vehicles with your Troops slot.

In my experience of 8e the "Space Marine" unit that functions most like I expect a Tactical Squad should function is a Deathwatch Primaris Kill-Team with five Intercessors, two Hellblasters, and one Aggressor. The Intercessors do strong rifle work with the AP and allow me to remove cheaper models when shot rather than dropping Hellblasters straight away, the Aggressor makes up for the fact that the cost per shot is too high to clear chaff by offering cheap 4/0/1 shots, and the Hellblasters allow the unit to effectively engage things that the riflemen can't. It's a tough, flexible workhorse of a unit that can sit back and provide covering fire or advance to objectives equally well, and it is very much what I wish Space Marines in general felt like on the tabletop.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Primaris were kind of a good idea, and then they made the dissy cannon. And ton of other cheap, 2 damage sources.

You seriously think that?
You realise that they are one of the reason your average marine profile can't be buffed into a place where it actually is worth the salt.

Primaris were a good idea poorly executed. If GW had said "Space Marines are now 2W/model with AP-1 boltguns, here are your resculpts but old Marine models use the same profiles" everything would have been fine, basic transports would have been way better, and we might have escaped the idiotic Buzz Lightyear units. The fact that Primaris Marines are distinct units is what's screwing everything up; it means that the units with interesting weapons are stuck with unusable profiles and the units with usable profiles are stuck with uninteresting weapons, so a Primaris army is locked into wildly inflexible mono-builds if it wants to fill out a detachment because you can't (for instance) engage vehicles with your Troops slot.

In my experience of 8e the "Space Marine" unit that functions most like I expect a Tactical Squad should function is a Deathwatch Primaris Kill-Team with five Intercessors, two Hellblasters, and one Aggressor. The Intercessors do strong rifle work with the AP and allow me to remove cheaper models when shot rather than dropping Hellblasters straight away, the Aggressor makes up for the fact that the cost per shot is too high to clear chaff by offering cheap 4/0/1 shots, and the Hellblasters allow the unit to effectively engage things that the riflemen can't. It's a tough, flexible workhorse of a unit that can sit back and provide covering fire or advance to objectives equally well, and it is very much what I wish Space Marines in general felt like on the tabletop.

This is pretty much perfectly summed up what i thought.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Primaris were kind of a good idea, and then they made the dissy cannon. And ton of other cheap, 2 damage sources.

You seriously think that?
You realise that they are one of the reason your average marine profile can't be buffed into a place where it actually is worth the salt.

Why do Primaris even exist? Who was asking for "True Scale" marines anyway. I literally never even heard the term until the leaked photo of the first Primaris came out, and at that point I'd been playing the game for three years.

Average marine profile hasnt been good since 4th, so can we blame primaris?

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's not fool ourselves. Marines crumble to AP 0 as well. 3+ saves just allow too many wounds through. See: scatterbikes from 7th and FRFSRF from 8th.

you realise that pointswise Guardsmen can't win against Marines right? Especially at 24"-12" range.

What maths are you using to work that out
Even with 7 marines vrs 20 guardsmen (11 point advantage Marines, IG without orders) the guard are last man standing.

Primaris win in a point for point against infantry squads but add in Russ, Basalisk etc and they take a beating.

 Togusa wrote:
Why do Primaris even exist?

Because they look really cool, justify a big shake-up of the setting and lots of exciting new products, and allow GW to more quickly phase out an aesthetic choice ("Heroic Scale") that has been largely obsoleted by advances in modelling technology. There's a reason the new Chaos Space Marines look conspicuously taller and less "Heroic" in scale, despite not having gone under Cawl's scalpel at any point. And thank god for that, because they are gorgeous.

RevlidRas wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Why do Primaris even exist?

Because they look really cool, justify a big shake-up of the setting and lots of exciting new products, and allow GW to more quickly phase out an aesthetic choice ("Heroic Scale") that has been largely obsoleted by advances in modelling technology. There's a reason the new Chaos Space Marines look conspicuously taller and less "Heroic" in scale, despite not having gone under Cawl's scalpel at any point. And thank god for that, because they are gorgeous.

That's fine by me, all the merrier. But why give them completely different rules and stats. Why not just do as was suggested and say "Here is the new stuff, it's the same as the old in rules (maybe a new rule here and there) and then boom. Done. They LITERALLY did this with the CSM stuff.

Ice_can wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's not fool ourselves. Marines crumble to AP 0 as well. 3+ saves just allow too many wounds through. See: scatterbikes from 7th and FRFSRF from 8th.

you realise that pointswise Guardsmen can't win against Marines right? Especially at 24"-12" range.

What maths are you using to work that out
Even with 7 marines vrs 20 guardsmen (11 point advantage Marines, IG without orders) the guard are last man standing.

Primaris win in a point for point against infantry squads but add in Russ, Basalisk etc and they take a beating.

It doesnt matter. Any ap 0 works. Thats the point, not more ig math

Martel732 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's not fool ourselves. Marines crumble to AP 0 as well. 3+ saves just allow too many wounds through. See: scatterbikes from 7th and FRFSRF from 8th.

you realise that pointswise Guardsmen can't win against Marines right? Especially at 24"-12" range.

What maths are you using to work that out
Even with 7 marines vrs 20 guardsmen (11 point advantage Marines, IG without orders) the guard are last man standing.

Primaris win in a point for point against infantry squads but add in Russ, Basalisk etc and they take a beating.

It doesnt matter. Any ap 0 works. Thats the point, not more ig math

Again the issue is a 13point marine statline just doesn't work in 8th edition.
Primaris sort of look OK untill you point anti light tank weapons at them and they then bleed points worse than marines.
8th edition rewards cheapest wound durability above all.

 Togusa wrote:

RevlidRas wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
Why do Primaris even exist?

Because they look really cool, justify a big shake-up of the setting and lots of exciting new products, and allow GW to more quickly phase out an aesthetic choice ("Heroic Scale") that has been largely obsoleted by advances in modelling technology. There's a reason the new Chaos Space Marines look conspicuously taller and less "Heroic" in scale, despite not having gone under Cawl's scalpel at any point. And thank god for that, because they are gorgeous.

That's fine by me, all the merrier. But why give them completely different rules and stats. Why not just do as was suggested and say "Here is the new stuff, it's the same as the old in rules (maybe a new rule here and there) and then boom. Done. They LITERALLY did this with the CSM stuff.

Because they panicked and overcompensated when the Age of Sigmar launch (during which they said "People with old models can f*** off, buy the new shiny hotness!") caused such an incredible outpouring of hate and sent the fanbase running for the hills. They were scared of what would happen if they came out and explicitly replaced old Marines or made Primaris Marines better than old Marines. An explosion of hate from the WHFB fanbase didn't really matter to GW because it was a sideshow that didn't represent a huge chunk of the bottom line, if the 40k fanbase decided en masse that GW were being dicks and left the company wouldn't survive.

Martel732 wrote:
Average marine profile hasnt been good since 4th, so can we blame primaris?

How many marine haters will actually agree with that. They still bitter about bark star and super friends.

Ice_can wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's not fool ourselves. Marines crumble to AP 0 as well. 3+ saves just allow too many wounds through. See: scatterbikes from 7th and FRFSRF from 8th.

you realise that pointswise Guardsmen can't win against Marines right? Especially at 24"-12" range.

What maths are you using to work that out
Even with 7 marines vrs 20 guardsmen (11 point advantage Marines, IG without orders) the guard are last man standing.

Primaris win in a point for point against infantry squads but add in Russ, Basalisk etc and they take a beating.

It doesnt matter. Any ap 0 works. Thats the point, not more ig math

Again the issue is a 13point marine statline just doesn't work in 8th edition.
Primaris sort of look OK untill you point anti light tank weapons at them and they then bleed points worse than marines.
8th edition rewards cheapest wound durability above all.

Sort of. As a thought experiment consider for the moment what would happen if a Guardsman was 4pts and a Space Marine was 5pts. Would you still spend 40pts on a Guardsman squad if you could spend 25pts on a Tactical Squad?

There is some value to higher statlines, but the reason 8e has become a race to the bottom is that GW has assigned too much value to higher statlines, not because higher statlines can't be worthwhile in 8e.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Average marine profile hasnt been good since 4th, so can we blame primaris?

How many marine haters will actually agree with that. They still bitter about bark star and super friends.

5e was the start of size creep; Marines were good when tools that casually and efficiently wiped squads (cover-ignoring Riptides, for instance) weren't a thing and when there were no volume-of-fire AT guns.

Barkstar and Superfriends have nothing to do with whether the base Marine profile was any good and everything to do with the fact that Invisibility and rerollable 2++ existed. Remember that in the same edition where superfriends was a thing GW chose to try to encourage people to play more Space Marines by giving you 550pts of free Razorbacks. You don't need to spot people five hundred points if they're fairly costed.

Of course they CAN be worthwhile. Look at death guard.

Just the right amount of defensive gimmick and marines definitely can be worth while @ 13ppm. Maybe not the best-in-slot, but certainly worth a consideration.

The truth of the matter is some weapons MUST BE taken to deal with larger/tougher targets, but these weapons taken deals with power amour/terminator better than it deals with the larger/tougher targets intended for while being effectively and practically ineffective against cheaper bodies typically 11 ppm or less (due to relativity of opportunity costs - it makes sense to take a 7 pt weapon on a 4 ppm model to deal with 13pt model where as it does not against 9 pt models).

Similarly, an anti-power/termie armor weapons have decent chance at chipping away at wounds of larger/tougher models, so these weapons become the go-to weapon for most lists.

Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

Slayer6 wrote:
Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

How many AP-4 or greater weapons are there in the game? Plus, Sisters already have a 6++, so it wouldn't achieve a thing to differentiate Marines from non-Marine Power Armour anyway. It's almost to the point where I suspect you're being sarcastic and I'm just missing it.

Slayer6 wrote:
Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

This idea would be fine, except for the way Invulnerable Saves and Armour Saves interact in 8e.

In previous editions, Armour Saves were binary. You had your full Armour Save, or you had no Armour Save. Therefore, Invulnerable Saves were an extremely useful backup that kicked in when you had no Armour Save. A Terminator always had a 2+ Armour Save... but even if your opponent went to the trouble of bypassing that save with an AP1 Meltagun or a Power Sword, your Terminator could still get a 5+ Invulnerable Save. Your Terminator was super tough against light arms fire, and still pretty tough against the most powerful weapons in the game!

In this edition, Armour Saves exist on a sliding scale, which means that your Terminator's 5+ Invulnerable Save isn't so much of an emergency backup as it is a lower threshold. This has the perverse effect of encouraging the use of middling-AP weapons against units with combined Armour/Invulnerable Saves. AP-1 weapons work normally against Terminators, reducing them to a 3+ Sv. AP-2 weapons work normally against Terminators, reducing them to a 4+ Sv. AP-3 weapons work normally against Terminators, reducing them to a 5+ Sv. It's only AP-4 weapons (or the very, very rare AP-5) that are in the least bit relevant to a Terminator's Invulnerable Save, and that's basically just Meltaguns, Lances, Heavy Plasma, and Chainfists. Everything else, from Power Fists to Plasma Guns, works just fine.

One potential solution would be to remove the idea that Invulnerable Saves are immune to AP – instead, "split" AP penalties equally between a unit's Invulnerable and Armour Saves. that way, a Terminator hit by an AP-2 weapon would reduce its Invulnerable Save to 6+ and its Armour Save to 3+, instead of just being stuck with an Armour Save of 4+ and an Invulnerable Save it didn't use. Not sure how well that'd work in practice, though, and it seems a little fiddly. It's basically a free All Is Dust to everything with a 5+ Invulnerable Save.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer6 wrote:
Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

How many AP-4 or greater weapons are there in the game? Plus, Sisters already have a 6++, so it wouldn't achieve a thing to differentiate Marines from non-Marine Power Armour anyway. It's almost to the point where I suspect you're being sarcastic and I'm just missing it.

Again, if T3 Sv5+ can save against a flamer and bolters on a 5+, a T4 Sv3+ saving on 5+ against plasma is a fair game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

RevlidRas wrote:
One potential solution would be to remove the idea that Invulnerable Saves are immune to AP – instead, "split" AP penalties equally between a unit's Invulnerable and Armour Saves. that way, a Terminator hit by an AP-2 weapon would reduce its Invulnerable Save to 6+ and its Armour Save to 3+, instead of just being stuck with an Armour Save of 4+ and an Invulnerable Save it didn't use. Not sure how well that'd work in practice, though, and it seems a little fiddly. It's basically a free All Is Dust to everything with a 5+ Invulnerable Save.

Alternatively, revise X++ system into AP negation mechanism.

If a model has 2++, then AP-2 is effectively ignored. If it has AP-4, then -2 would spill over to affect its X+ save.

 skchsan wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer6 wrote:
Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

How many AP-4 or greater weapons are there in the game? Plus, Sisters already have a 6++, so it wouldn't achieve a thing to differentiate Marines from non-Marine Power Armour anyway. It's almost to the point where I suspect you're being sarcastic and I'm just missing it.

Again, if T3 Sv5+ can save against a flamer and bolters on a 5+, a T4 Sv3+ saving on 5+ against plasma is a fair game.

How would a 6++ on a 3+ armour model let you save on 5+ against an AP-3 weapon?

Cover?

That said, why *should* Marines have a 5+ or better save vs AP-3 weapons? Isn't that like giving an IK an invuln vs AT weapons?

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's not fool ourselves. Marines crumble to AP 0 as well. 3+ saves just allow too many wounds through. See: scatterbikes from 7th and FRFSRF from 8th.

you realise that pointswise Guardsmen can't win against Marines right? Especially at 24"-12" range.

What maths are you using to work that out
Even with 7 marines vrs 20 guardsmen (11 point advantage Marines, IG without orders) the guard are last man standing.

Primaris win in a point for point against infantry squads but add in Russ, Basalisk etc and they take a beating.

It doesnt matter. Any ap 0 works. Thats the point, not more ig math

Again the issue is a 13point marine statline just doesn't work in 8th edition.
Primaris sort of look OK untill you point anti light tank weapons at them and they then bleed points worse than marines.
8th edition rewards cheapest wound durability above all.

Sort of. As a thought experiment consider for the moment what would happen if a Guardsman was 4pts and a Space Marine was 5pts. Would you still spend 40pts on a Guardsman squad if you could spend 25pts on a Tactical Squad?

There is some value to higher statlines, but the reason 8e has become a race to the bottom is that GW has assigned too much value to higher statlines, not because higher statlines can't be worthwhile in 8e.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Average marine profile hasnt been good since 4th, so can we blame primaris?

How many marine haters will actually agree with that. They still bitter about bark star and super friends.

5e was the start of size creep; Marines were good when tools that casually and efficiently wiped squads (cover-ignoring Riptides, for instance) weren't a thing and when there were no volume-of-fire AT guns.

Barkstar and Superfriends have nothing to do with whether the base Marine profile was any good and everything to do with the fact that Invisibility and rerollable 2++ existed. Remember that in the same edition where superfriends was a thing GW chose to try to encourage people to play more Space Marines by giving you 550pts of free Razorbacks. You don't need to spot people five hundred points if they're fairly costed.

Yeah totally. Can't tell you how many times I got tabled running 500 free points of razorbacks. The answer is many. Marines have been garbage for so long people expect them to be bad units. Same for Terminators. Terms were good for a short while in 5th eddition with TH SS back when an invulnerable save was something of a rarity and they got free MC TH for being salamanders.

Bharring wrote:
Cover?

That said, why *should* Marines have a 5+ or better save vs AP-3 weapons? Isn't that like giving an IK an invuln vs AT weapons?

They shouldn't. But consider that necrons are a weak list and can have an entire army of -2 AP. It's a mess. It's been a mess for marines since 5th on the whole. As soon as I saw my first IG list with 24 plasma guns in 5th, I knew it was over for marines. GW wont' make them horde, but don't have a clue of how to make them provide 13 pts or 17 pts of value. But they sure can make 4 pt models godly.

Bharring wrote:
Cover?

That said, why *should* Marines have a 5+ or better save vs AP-3 weapons? Isn't that like giving an IK an invuln vs AT weapons?

That has nothing to do with the 6++ save though.

A 6++ isn't going to fix a thing.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Slayer6 wrote:
Give SM Power Armor a 6++ so it is a miniaturized version of a Terminator suit...

That way it can stand out from the armies that don't have the Black Carapace...

How many AP-4 or greater weapons are there in the game? Plus, Sisters already have a 6++, so it wouldn't achieve a thing to differentiate Marines from non-Marine Power Armour anyway. It's almost to the point where I suspect you're being sarcastic and I'm just missing it.

Again, if T3 Sv5+ can save against a flamer and bolters on a 5+, a T4 Sv3+ saving on 5+ against plasma is a fair game.

How would a 6++ on a 3+ armour model let you save on 5+ against an AP-3 weapon?

It was an allusion to what should be which that isn't.

GEQ statlines were effectively buffed through the removal of AP value on what was traditionally considered an 'anti-horde' weapon. That which used to offer no armour saves against Sv +5 now has no effect on GEQ's ability to save on 5+. The same is not true for MEQ's vs plasmas, what was considered as a 'anti-MEQ' weapon.

Making power armour 3+/5++ and termies 2+/4++ (or keep it where it is and lower their price) can be an effective but not overbearing way to make marines more worff.

That's not really going to help I think. I smoke plenty of marines with -2 AP. And have them smoked.

Martel732 wrote:
That's not really going to help I think. I smoke plenty of marines with -2 AP. And have them smoked.

Exactly. It's not a panacea nor is it a way to make them into movie marines but it's a start in dealing with the current way AP is scaled where AP is worthless against lightly armored targets.

If guardsmen can take a 5+ save against flamers then marines better damn well be able to at least save on 5+ against plasmas.