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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 koooaei wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I'm kinda feeling Tacticals might've been better if melee wasn't such a joke.

...have you played in 7-th? Orks, SW, Dark Eldar, Newcrons - all have super solid mellee.

Fine, let me rephrase that:

I'm kinda feeling Tacticals might've been better if melee wasn't such a joke outside of a few units with the speed and durability to get into combat.

Not to mention special rules to help them be good at melee despite the joke that melee is. Fixing the way assaults worked would go a long way to fix melee, ie make the charge 3or 4+d6 inches and maybe 6+d6 for models that move 12inches.

This would be terrible to add, don't need marines running around and firing lascannons/missles/heavy bolters. I would expect a heavy points increase to give them the ability to move and fire these weapons.

I swear people forget space marines even have bolt pistols. All this would do for assault is add 1 shot per marine on the charge.


All this complaining about marines are ridiculous, you have an incredibly durable unit with 3+ saves, thats the save other armies elite units have. You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules. You have decent leadership with decent weapons with the ability to give them any weapon to deal with any weakness in your army. You have a drop pod which is amazing, you have rhino's which are a literal steal for their points, you get a fething objective secured vehicle for 35pts.

The biggest problem with marines is the abundance of cover which mitigates their greatest upside(being their great save). The solution should be rather to decrease the effectiveness of cover, 3+ cover saves shouldn't be a thing(going to ground in ruins is too strong). It's why tau are considered so strong, because they can remove cover which a lot of the codex's use as a crutch so they get their saves.

 NorseSig wrote:
The problem with tac marines is they are far too generalist, and don't really fill their intended role. If tacs could take up to 2 specials or heavies it would make a big improvement on them.

If my DE warriors could take 2 specials, it would be a huge improvement for them, too. Especially since their only anti-tank weapon has to be taken en masse to be even remotely effective.

"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

Well, it does ignore Eldar Ignores Cover.

The 3+ armor ignores whatever cover is present when shot with Serpent Shield or having an airburst dropped on them.

And S6 might ping my CM or Captain for a wound, but it'll ID my Farseer. Which has worse saves, too.

No one said CM and Captains were bad. What were saying is tacticals are bad for what they do.

My argument is it depends on what you compare them to.

I'm comparing them to the crazy firepower I'm taking out at 25"-36" from Tau/Eldar. I can't get close enough to use frag grenades, krak greandes, or double tap with bolters. It's crazy.

I understand that many Eldar units are IDed with S6. But Imperial access to high STR is usually expensive and/or inefficient. Marines in particular have crap firepower for whatever point level they play out without a grav star.

So you're comparing SM troops to xeno tanks?

Well all the firepower they are taking is coming from various sources. The point is that they cost quite a bit still, and have atrocious offensive capabilities for those points.

I'm all for making astartes more accurate to the lore, but their points costs would have to reflect the changes. Relentless for 1-2 points is just crazy.

All in all though, I'd love to see Marines cost more and kinda act as the Ogre Kingdoms army for 40k (not many units, but can take and deliver a pounding).

The more I think about it, the more it seems like we would need a sizeable change to core rules to allow Marines to be the kind of standard-elite they should be.

(And I'd like to apologize for being an ass over the last few days. I still have those points of view, but I didn't always comment with the civility that I should have.)

Eliteness aside, I think infantry in general could do with a buff.

Recent editions have, rather sadly, been making infantry less and less useful - instead heaping buffs on fliers, MCs and such.

Martel732 wrote:
"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

The only reason those mechanics don't come up is because the vast majority of players are marine players, so making an army that is reliant on a mechanic that doesn't work a large portion of the time is not done making those abilities seem useless. Trust me if marines weren't immune to fear test and didn't regroup automatically you would see a lot more armies utilizing fear and morale breaking units, because those units do exist but are considered trash because it doesn't work against a third of the armies.

Tacticals aren't your problem, it's your strategy of trying to do what other armies do well and use it against them. You are using tactical marines who are decent at everything do what your opponent is gak at. Oh your opponent has amazing shooting, drop pod in 5 squads of tacs next to them and assault the next turn. If you stop viewing tacs as tax you'll start to see they are a pretty damn good unit with tremendous flexibility.

Plus your complaining about other armies elite units doing good damage to your troop choices...

Basically the argument here is this: "Oh my gosh tactical Marines suck all armies every where kill them!"
And the other side says " Tacticals don't suck if they did then why would I have to spam s 6+ ap3 weapons to win.?"
I would say 90% of players are marines and so the other armies have adapted to beating THOSE types of armies. Tacticals are not bad per say, but everyone else has gotten REALLY good at killing them. I say a better solution is to fix it so that ap3 and higher weapons can't harm vehicles that way people can't just spam the same weapon to take out my meqs and vehicles at the same time. That way players have to bring things that are actually dedicated anti-vehicle and can not focus as much on your tacticals.

Punisher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

The only reason those mechanics don't come up is because the vast majority of players are marine players, so making an army that is reliant on a mechanic that doesn't work a large portion of the time is not done making those abilities seem useless. Trust me if marines weren't immune to fear test and didn't regroup automatically you would see a lot more armies utilizing fear and morale breaking units, because those units do exist but are considered trash because it doesn't work against a third of the armies.

Tacticals aren't your problem, it's your strategy of trying to do what other armies do well and use it against them. You are using tactical marines who are decent at everything do what your opponent is gak at. Oh your opponent has amazing shooting, drop pod in 5 squads of tacs next to them and assault the next turn. If you stop viewing tacs as tax you'll start to see they are a pretty damn good unit with tremendous flexibility.

Plus your complaining about other armies elite units doing good damage to your troop choices...

Put anything in a drop pod and it becomes much more effective. It says nothing of the tactical squad. Many other troops could utilize a drop pod better - namely fire warriors, eldar gardians, IG vets and special weapons teams.

Martel732 wrote:
"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

Correction: you only want them swept in hand to hand IF it's going to be your turn next so you can shoot them. This is such a bogus complaint, it would only be useful during your opponents turn. Or else you're advocating for TAC marines to be worse at tarpitting assault units in your turn, which would let assault units easily sweep your marines and move on to do more damage. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 TheSilo wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

Correction: you only want them swept in hand to hand IF it's going to be your turn next so you can shoot them. This is such a bogus complaint, it would only be useful during your opponents turn. Or else you're advocating for TAC marines to be worse at tarpitting assault units in your turn, which would let assault units easily sweep your marines and move on to do more damage. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yeah, on the turns where the TACs get assaulted and get their asses handed to them. As I've said before, I've played without ATSKNF several times before voluntarily and I've never missed it. However, maybe it is because opponents have adapted to just murderize marines and forget about any other effects.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Punisher wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"You have ATSKNF which ignores a huge number of rules"

Too bad none of those rules are "laser lock", "nova charge", or "ignores cover". Or the wounding chart for S6 hits. ATSKNF ignores a bunch of crap mechanics that don't even come up much. Not to mention I WANT my tac squads swept in HTH.

The only reason those mechanics don't come up is because the vast majority of players are marine players, so making an army that is reliant on a mechanic that doesn't work a large portion of the time is not done making those abilities seem useless. Trust me if marines weren't immune to fear test and didn't regroup automatically you would see a lot more armies utilizing fear and morale breaking units, because those units do exist but are considered trash because it doesn't work against a third of the armies.

Tacticals aren't your problem, it's your strategy of trying to do what other armies do well and use it against them. You are using tactical marines who are decent at everything do what your opponent is gak at. Oh your opponent has amazing shooting, drop pod in 5 squads of tacs next to them and assault the next turn. If you stop viewing tacs as tax you'll start to see they are a pretty damn good unit with tremendous flexibility.

Plus your complaining about other armies elite units doing good damage to your troop choices...

Put anything in a drop pod and it becomes much more effective. It says nothing of the tactical squad. Many other troops could utilize a drop pod better - namely fire warriors, eldar gardians, IG vets and special weapons teams.

I'm not 100% convinced of this, especially with the BA. Drop pods force you to commit your forces very early and you give up the protection of your transport immediately. There are also still lists I don't want to be close to right off the bat.

"And the other side says " Tacticals don't suck if they did then why would I have to spam s 6+ ap3 weapons to win.?" "

Those weapons are to kill meq units that can actually accomplish something. You can grind out tactical on a per point basis with lasguns, because their return is too low on a per point basis. Their maximum damage output per point is capped at a very low level. They are a defensive unit in a game where defense is overwhelmed unless you are an MC or have 2++ rerollable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Bharring wrote:
The more I think about it, the more it seems like we would need a sizeable change to core rules to allow Marines to be the kind of standard-elite they should be.

(And I'd like to apologize for being an ass over the last few days. I still have those points of view, but I didn't always comment with the civility that I should have.)

Dude, it's all good. It's a frustrating subject. I myself admit that I don't know how to "fix" TACs without going to a D10 system and spreading out all the stats to cover a larger mathematical range.

So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

 krodarklorr wrote:
So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

I don't propose that "fix" at all. It is stupid that bolters are rapid fire given all the marine assault gear, but handing out relentless is not the answer. I know my BA would rather have Ork shoota than boltguns. That's sad.

The tac marine is fairly priced, maybe even a bit undercosted if you sum up all the parts. But the reality is that the tac marine is actually far LESS than the sum of its parts in practice. They can't accomplish any one mission with really any efficacy at all. This game punishes generalists heavily, and that's what makes them less than the sum of their parts.

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

I don't propose that "fix" at all. It is stupid that bolters are rapid fire given all the marine assault gear, but handing out relentless is not the answer. I know my BA would rather have Ork shoota than boltguns. That's sad.

Then that comes down to the issue of, if most things in the game are just gonna have assault weapons and/or Relentless, why have rapid-fire at all?

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

I don't propose that "fix" at all. It is stupid that bolters are rapid fire given all the marine assault gear, but handing out relentless is not the answer. I know my BA would rather have Ork shoota than boltguns. That's sad.

Then that comes down to the issue of, if most things in the game are just gonna have assault weapons and/or Relentless, why have rapid-fire at all?

In even quasi-reality, no organized military would use rapid fire weapons when assault weapons were available. So smart armies WOULDN'T have rapid fire. Unless rapid fire weapons actually put out more firepower, which they don't in this game. They are just liabilities.

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

I don't propose that "fix" at all. It is stupid that bolters are rapid fire given all the marine assault gear, but handing out relentless is not the answer. I know my BA would rather have Ork shoota than boltguns. That's sad.

Then that comes down to the issue of, if most things in the game are just gonna have assault weapons and/or Relentless, why have rapid-fire at all?

In even quasi-reality, no organized military would use rapid fire weapons when assault weapons were available. So smart armies WOULDN'T have rapid fire. Unless rapid fire weapons actually put out more firepower, which they don't in this game. They are just liabilities.

I just feel like the Rapid Fire rule would be pointless pretty much if most things don't have it or ignore it. That's my gripe with it.

Marines with relentless and ignores cover actually exist.....

Lest we forget LoTD.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
So, not only is GW passing out Fear left and right, and Space Marine players ignore it. But now, you want Space marines to ignore Rapid fire/Heavy weapon rules. Might as well not have them, then.

I don't propose that "fix" at all. It is stupid that bolters are rapid fire given all the marine assault gear, but handing out relentless is not the answer. I know my BA would rather have Ork shoota than boltguns. That's sad.

Then that comes down to the issue of, if most things in the game are just gonna have assault weapons and/or Relentless, why have rapid-fire at all?

In even quasi-reality, no organized military would use rapid fire weapons when assault weapons were available. So smart armies WOULDN'T have rapid fire. Unless rapid fire weapons actually put out more firepower, which they don't in this game. They are just liabilities.

I just feel like the Rapid Fire rule would be pointless pretty much if most things don't have it or ignore it. That's my gripe with it.

My gripe is that no one would actually use a Rapid Fire weapon if an assault weapon was available.

Martel732 wrote:


My gripe is that no one would actually use a Rapid Fire weapon if an assault weapon was available.

Exactly. Lets say space marines have assault options. Then Space Marines, Orks, Grey Knights, Necrons (with the detachment), Eldar, and Tyranids would all ignore the Rapid-fire/Heavy rule. Then there would be no point. I think, as I'm sure someone has mentioned, give Vets the option. As with CSM, Chaos Chosen have relentless. That's it. Keep it to an elite unit, and there you go. Otherwise, give Space Marines an immunity to Morale Checks, give them Fleet, 24" assault 3 S5 Bolters, Move Through Cover, ext. Just give them everything, it's cool.

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


My gripe is that no one would actually use a Rapid Fire weapon if an assault weapon was available.

Exactly. Lets say space marines have assault options. Then Space Marines, Orks, Grey Knights, Necrons (with the detachment), Eldar, and Tyranids would all ignore the Rapid-fire/Heavy rule. Then there would be no point. I think, as I'm sure someone has mentioned, give Vets the option. As with CSM, Chaos Chosen have relentless. That's it. Keep it to an elite unit, and there you go. Otherwise, give Space Marines an immunity to Morale Checks, give them Fleet, 24" assault 3 S5 Bolters, Move Through Cover, ext. Just give them everything, it's cool.

There's reasons why marines wouldn't have those other benefits. There is no reason that the entire 40K universe wouldn't use assault weapons if the ORKS can mass produce them.

Martel732 wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:

Martel732 wrote:


My gripe is that no one would actually use a Rapid Fire weapon if an assault weapon was available.

Exactly. Lets say space marines have assault options. Then Space Marines, Orks, Grey Knights, Necrons (with the detachment), Eldar, and Tyranids would all ignore the Rapid-fire/Heavy rule. Then there would be no point. I think, as I'm sure someone has mentioned, give Vets the option. As with CSM, Chaos Chosen have relentless. That's it. Keep it to an elite unit, and there you go. Otherwise, give Space Marines an immunity to Morale Checks, give them Fleet, 24" assault 3 S5 Bolters, Move Through Cover, ext. Just give them everything, it's cool.

There's reasons why marines wouldn't have those other benefits. There is no reason that the entire 40K universe wouldn't use assault weapons if the ORKS can mass produce them.

Well, to be honest, the Orks aren't good at shooting, and their weapons are crudely made and aren't as powerful as a boltgun. So, yeah.

Well, most military firearms have reasonable recoil. Makes them more Rapid Fire than Assault.

A Javilin was an assault weapon back in the day, and it did good work, but some militaries did better with bows, which are more heavy weapon.

If you could have the same RoF, damage, etc, and have no recoil, that would be awesome. But standard rifles werent replaced by 'recoilless rifles', because those are a whole different animal.

For recoil-free weapons, SMs don't have the tech (Shurikats, Pulse Rifles) or biology (Nids, and kinda Orks) other races use for decent 'assault' rifles.

For a standard rifle, bringing it to bear and aiming just isn't that compatible with rushing forward to stab someone while shooting.

Bharring wrote:
Well, most military firearms have reasonable recoil. Makes them more Rapid Fire than Assault.

A Javilin was an assault weapon back in the day, and it did good work, but some militaries did better with bows, which are more heavy weapon.

If you could have the same RoF, damage, etc, and have no recoil, that would be awesome. But standard rifles werent replaced by 'recoilless rifles', because those are a whole different animal.

For recoil-free weapons, SMs don't have the tech (Shurikats, Pulse Rifles) or biology (Nids, and kinda Orks) other races use for decent 'assault' rifles.

For a standard rifle, bringing it to bear and aiming just isn't that compatible with rushing forward to stab someone while shooting.

Rapid fire isn't about recoil...lasguns have 0 recoil and have rapid fire rule. I suppose to rule is supposed to represent having to "take aim"?