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What good are primaris marines? Can you run me through how you would leverage them against meta lists? This is a competitive thread after all.

I've got to say as someone on the fence on the issue, that bananathug, and the data-heavy podcast he linked to (which is amazing, really impressive amount of work went into it), are convincing me much more than anything I've hear from the other side. Marines are at a low-middling rank from the first 7 months of 8th, and bearing in mind that they jumped the codex gun, it seems they will settle lower down the ranks without GW-intervention. That's not to say that we won't see listbuilding change and adapt to conditions. Marines do have a boatload of options, so it's possible I suppose.

My local tourny scene is very fluffly, with lots of well painted armies and a generally great vibe, so I'm mercifully spared from bleeding-edge optimisation. Ignorance is bliss.

I don’t run a pure PSM army - I view them as any other units in the codex. Intercessors have always worked well for me - small squads that fill the requirement for compulsory troops; I do run scouts too. Some of the characters are okay if you don’t need them highly mobile. In general having two wounds and two attacks per model is good for MSU units.

Martel732 wrote:
18 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill a marine.
19.5 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill the same points of guardsmen.

Pretty sure you have to get down to S2 for the marine to get an advantage.

Include the effects of morale.

One thing in particular to consider is that "points removed" by a similar amount of shooting hurts guardsmen much more, as it's 3ish guardsmen to one marine. It takes two marine kills to begin threatening marines with morale, while their points equates to 6 guardsmen, making loosing additional models to morale highly likely.

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bananathug wrote:
SM are tied at 16th with 4 other armies with an average of 60 ITC points earned by SM players in over 7,187 recorded games of 40k in 8th edition.

The conclusions you come to rely on the assumption that player skill by faction is equal, which in my experience is often not the case. A lot of nubs play marines. A lot of not great players go to tourneys for the lulz as well. It could also be the case that marines are easy to pick up, but difficult to master, which would also effect resulting numbers. There's room for skew in the data.

Also, ITC rules are quite particular, and may benefit some armies and playstyles more than others. The tables played on often strike me as sparse. This leaves more room for skew in the data. Are we attempting to balance the game based only on ITC and tables with simple terrain?

 deviantduck wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Evidence:

It takes 9 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove a space marine
It take 11 BS 3+ boltgun shots to remove the same points value of guardsmen.

And this is a weapon that's supposed to be good vs light targets.

This gets so much uglier with any kind of AP on a weapon.

Again, in a a vacuum that sounds like solid math, but isn't. Rework the same problem with a lasgun. You can also kill 385 pts of Guilliman with 2 lascanon shots but at max only 8 points of guardsmen. Why don't you include that fact as a balance argument?

Because Bolters are supposed to be good against light infantry? It's right there in his post?

And they are great against Guardsmen. The comparison is wrong. He's comparing shots per points and not shots per wounds. Guardsmen have a higher wounds to points ratio. In that vacuum, every gun in the game is worse against Guardsmen than SM.

I don't know about you, but I pay POINTS for my units. That's my entire point. You just made my case for me. My comparison is NOT wrong, because everything ultimately comes down to points. In fact, doing it any other way is wrong.

Ok... what is the point you're trying to make? I read your statement as apples to armadillos. A bolter is better at killing marines than guardsmen if you base it on how many points it could potentially kill. 2 bolter shots can kill 8 points of guardsmen, 26 points of Tacticals, or 45 points of Termies. So what?

These are the averages being done. Math isn't THAT hard sometimes.


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 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
18 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill a marine.
19.5 BS 4 lasgun shots to kill the same points of guardsmen.

Pretty sure you have to get down to S2 for the marine to get an advantage.

Include the effects of morale.

One thing in particular to consider is that "points removed" by a similar amount of shooting hurts guardsmen much more, as it's 3ish guardsmen to one marine. It takes two marine kills to begin threatening marines with morale, while their points equates to 6 guardsmen, making loosing additional models to morale highly likely.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

bananathug wrote:
SM are tied at 16th with 4 other armies with an average of 60 ITC points earned by SM players in over 7,187 recorded games of 40k in 8th edition.

The conclusions you come to rely on the assumption that player skill by faction is equal, which in my experience is often not the case. A lot of nubs play marines. A lot of not great players go to tourneys for the lulz as well. It could also be the case that marines are easy to pick up, but difficult to master, which would also effect resulting numbers. There's room for skew in the data.

Also, ITC rules are quite particular, and may benefit some armies and playstyles more than others. The tables played on often strike me as sparse. This leaves more room for skew in the data. Are we attempting to balance the game based only on ITC and tables with simple terrain?

1. Morale is a non-factor. Seriously. For the difference in points you can get a Commisar to negate morale if you want. More the point that there is nobody killing squads by morale because you build to avoid it. ATSKNF is a useless rule beyond belief because you take MSU or barely above it in the first place.

2. Your second point is under the assumption Marine players are just that bad. You are the one claiming miracles but you can't ever make time to go to a tournament to prove that point we are all just terrible and you discovered the REAL way to run Marines.

You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.

Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.

It's absolutely fair as long as they are the unit being spammed in tournaments.

Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

How man entrants were there for each faction. Because if half the entrants were SM, that's pretty miserable.

"The tables played on often strike me as sparse"

I've seen way more sparse tables in this game than heavy ones. Also, piling on more terrain just helps the IG anyway.

" but difficult to master"

Or impossible and those marine entries are from sheer brute force of entrants.

Martel732 wrote:
How man entrants were there for each faction. Because if half the entrants were SM, that's pretty miserable.

"The tables played on often strike me as sparse"

I've seen way more sparse tables in this game than heavy ones. Also, piling on more terrain just helps the IG anyway.

" but difficult to master"

Or impossible and those marine entries are from sheer brute force of entrants.

I stopped counting after 158 entrants, but out of those 17 were SM. About a third were UM, some Ravens, a Salamander and a couple of BT, the other ones were mixed SM.

So, slightly more than 10% of entrants.

Okay, that's pretty reasonable. SM are right on target.

Spoletta wrote:
You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.

Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.

LOL funny you are comparing them to a unit with a 6+ save that has the same cost as them and equal toughness. I can't believe the unit with a weaker save dies more. It's mind boggling.

After looking at these numbers I have 2 possible explanations:

1) SM became better recently due to the all the nerfs to other factions (ynnary, brimstones, concscripts and so on).

2) ITC rules are screwing SM.

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
You shouldn't compare marines to guardsmen, they are absolutely not the model representing the average durability at that point cost. Redo the math with termagants and you will see that S3 is better on them than on marines.

Not saying that basic marines are fine, i even sent GW some mails on that matter, but comparing things to guardsmen isn't fair.

LOL funny you are comparing them to a unit with a 6+ save that has the same cost as them and equal toughness. I can't believe the unit with a weaker save dies more. It's mind boggling.

And that was my point, so?

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.

>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1

Horay for GK! We got a perfect score. Who's the Worst? GK! GK!

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.

>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions

It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.

Did you really just state that you can't include results in your data if the factions those results involve aren't 'competitive enough' for your view of the game/meta?

I think I just found my answer to why this forum is so dull to read from a non-competitive viewpoint

Where are you getting these numbers? It doesn't seem like a very competitive meta but i'm curious to read lists and see more information. Specifically, how did Necrons/DE do anything at all.

Rather than broad proclamations, maybe we should look at the compositions of those lists.

Martel732 wrote:
Rather than broad proclamations, maybe we should look at the compositions of those lists.

I agree, but I would also like to see where these numbers are coming from in the first place. He's provided no evidence whatsoever. A site like BloodofKittens i would trust more than this. Is he getting it from BOK? I haven't checked recently. I guess that's my point. Who is this random guy with tournament results, and why should i believe them?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's the BOK list for ITC up to 12/28:

20 Astra Militarum
17 Chaos Space Marines
16 Ultramarines
16 Daemons
16 Ynnari
7 Orks
4 Space Marines
4 T’au Empire
4 Grey Knights
3 Officio Assassinorum
3 Blood Angels
3 Sisters of Battle
3 Death Guard
2 Genestealer Cults
2 Imperial Knights
2 Renegade Knights
2 Adeptus Mechanicus
2 Tyranids
1 Space Wolves
1 Adeptus Custodes
1 Dark Angels

https://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/

His data is trustworthy because:

1. All ITC events use BCP, so the data is present and accountable.

2. He posts lists.

Also, this flies in the face of the results posted earlier.

Also someone posted earlier about the golden sprue GT.

No army list posted but I do see 2 ultra marine armies in the pictures.

1 has an Astraeus and 2 replusors + tiggy / GMan probably 3 units of intercessors inside them.

The other one seems to have 3 preds and a bunch of infantry and clagar + lieutenant .

I am going to assume the Astraeus army is the one that placed. It's the standard space marine competitive model.

Guilliman Tiggy + superheavy. I think it could do even better if you traded the repulsors for fire raptors and a storm talon for an air wing. That is a pretty powerful army.

Results come from here https://www.bestcoastpairings.com

I simply checked all the results reported for 40K tournaments from January 1 to the present date. Unfortunately, no lists are given there, only final results.

I prefer it to BoK because as i stated BoK is too slow in providing results, the ones from December are already talking about a different meta, and the fact that BoK is only ITC which while a common house rules it is still an house rule and the majority of tournaments don't follow that.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.

>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions

It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.

This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.

New FW releases will definitely complicate the picture. They throw balance out the window. Which is why GW nerfed the alphabet soup monster so hard.

 Marmatag wrote:
New FW releases will definitely complicate the picture. They throw balance out the window. Which is why GW nerfed the alphabet soup monster so hard.

I thought the Astraeus sucked when it first came out - but that's just because it's points compared to the flachion. Now the Falchion costs over 1000 points which makes the Astraeus a little bit more attractive. I still don't think it's great. First time I've ever seen one place in a tourney.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Asmodios wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Ok, i compiled all the results from tournaments since January 1, here are the total top4 of the various factions:

Eldar 11
CSM 9
SM 8
Nids 8
Astra Militarum 6
Ynnari 6
Dark Angel 4
Imperium 4
Death Guard 4
Chaos 3
Daemons 3
Mechanicus 3
Tau 3
Dark Eldar 2
Sororitas 2
Necrons 1
Orks 1
GS Cult 1
Blood Angel 1


Take from this what you want, but if we consider the average number of players for all those factions, what I get is that:

1) CSM Eldar and Nids are a bit overscoring
2) Blood Angels are slightly underscoring
3) Everything else (SM included) is fine.

Note: More than half of that SM were not UM.

Any tournament in which DE/Necrons/Tau place in the top 4 can basically be disqualified as for not having sufficient levels of competitiveness. We are literally talking about the worst armies in the game. End of discussion.

>show me evidence
>shows tournament results
>you can’t show that evidence it doesn’t support my conclusions

It's easy to call out BS data. SM aren't in the same league as Eldar/IG/Nids/Choas. This data would lead you to believe they are. Same with Tau, DE, Crons.

This is the definition of circular logic. "This can't be true because SM are bad and it says they're not. And SM are bad because this isn't true." Not to mention that there are about 80 points here (too early to math) and it's apparently it's so unbelievable that DE had 2 points on the board and Necrons had 1. Oooookay.

So be it with the circular logic. It doesn't make me any less right. The data is misleading AF. It also has no supporting documentation.

Damn Spoletta, thanks for the work.

I'm curious about tourneys that use ITC vs those that don't. All my local tournaments use ITC and from what I can tell most Majors use them (LVO will). I really wish the info provided was more granular (ITC or not, number of entrants, points...)

If it is as simple as Marines are punished by ITC then that is awesome to figure out what the issue is and maybe we can get with the ITC guys and try to figure something out based on this data (your rules suck for SM players). Anecdotally the ITC champions missions really punish marine armies and reward eldar.

I really want to poke at the data a bit but then I'd probably come off as pedantic but I will say that BCP data is prone to distortion due to all of the small tournies\leagues included and probably needs a larger sample size to really tease out an solid data but this is definitely an interesting data point from which to launch as much conjecture as possible. For example my local does it's tournies on BCP and we have as few as 12 people attending bi-monthly and based on what people around here say about their local meta I'm not sure a small sample size of such local meta dependent data "proves" anything but it sure does provide food for thought.

It does seem that the marine meta is RG+tiggy+super heavy/fire raptor and pray your enemy brought anti-horde weaponry and that you don't go against dark reaper spam (at least thats better than GK get). I'm really curious about the non-ultra lists especially the ones that aren't raven guard but I still want to chalk that up to local meta idiosyncrasies.

Thanks again for taking the time to sort through all that data.

Addendum on Spoletta's data: The problem with a list like this is what is defined as a "Space Marine list". I've been scanning BloodOfKittens' compilation of ITC 2017 top-3 army lists (events up through Christmas only), and they're listing things as "Space Marines" that are actually imperial soup lists running more Guardsmen than Space Marines. (And if your metric is "your primary detachment must be Space Marines only" then any list with Guilliman in an auxiliary detachment as a Warlord is an "Ultramarines list", even if it's otherwise entirely a Guard army.)

(For the curious they list 25 "Space Marine" (including DA, BA, SW) armies, 22 of those contain fewer than ten Scouts and no other Space Marine units other than Dreadnaughts, flyers, and characters, 2 of those contain thirty Devastators and no other non-vehicle/non-character Marine units, and one (count them, one) includes any Tactical Marines.)

Which is why they should change the army definition to "most specific keyword that encompasses all units."

Or, go back to mono-faction detachments, and bring back the concept of an "allied detachment" that can be no more than 25%.

If you want to be considered the best <Insert Marine Faction> here, you should have to actually know how to play that faction, not take a tiny detachment with your warlord, and the rest guard.