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There's been lots of talk about how the new Marines are a "balanced" codex. They sure seem to do lots of things well. The Xenos armies typically have areas where advantages in one area are offset by a weakness elsewhere.

Are there any areas where Marines are deficient?

Marines have good mobility, good toughness, good armor, excellent leadership, good (individual) shooting, good (individual) HTH, medium to high points cost (average).

Mobility: Marines have 5 transport options. Much more than any other army. They have access to deepstrike, scout and flank march. They have 3 units which may be mounted on bikes, Two units which may have jump packs.
Toughness: T4 base.
Armor: 3+ base, some 2+/5+I, buyable 4+ invulnerable and 3+ invulnerable (can't comment if artificer armor is still an option)
Leadership: ATSKNF keeps the army good to the last drop. Bundled vet sgts in squads keeps base leadership high without the drawbacks of fearless.
Shooting: Despite having lots of options, basic marine shooting output is only a bit above average, lack of numbers keeps this from being good, though combat squads and razorbacks will keep all weapons firing to full effect.
HTH: Despite having lots of options, lack of numbers in dedicated HTH troops, and the lack of attacks in the basic marine, marine HTH is only average when taken as a whole.
Cost: Medium to High. Lack of numbers is the only area where I think the Marines -might- be deficient. This has to be taken with a grain of salt however, as the basic marine is often equal to the "elite" troops of other armies, often for less cost.
Intangibles: Combat squads can provide 2x scoring units on demand. Combat tactics are mutable. Marines have arguably the best psykers and best leader characters in the game.

Not terribly defficient in any area.

Chaos Marines have been the obvious comparison to Marines. How do they stack up?

Mobility: CSM have 2 of the same transport options (Rhinos and Landraiders. The same, but somehow worse, due to differences in POTMS, and land raider carrying capacity - Chaos uses the extra two spots to store skulls). They have access to deepstrike and flank march. They can get scout on a random roll. YAY. They have one unit which is bike mounted. They have one unit which may have jump packs.
Toughness: T4 base.
Armor 3+ base, some 2+/5+ with leader models having a 3+/5+I. I guess that buyable 2+ for leaders is overpowered!
Leadership: Base LD of 9 is good. Ld10 is usually buyable at the cost of one marine. Lots of expensive fearless troops. Fearless can actually be a detriment as these units can take a lot of wounds upon loosing combat.
Shooting: Options for special weapon spam, obliterators and weapon loadouts in cult squads makes Chaos shooting "better than standard marines".
HTH: Base units have BP/CCW standard, making Chaos HTH "pretty damn good, and better than standard marines".
Cost: Medium to High. Chaos has more problems with numbers than basic Marines due to higher cost on the cult squads.
Intangibles: The Chaos dex contains many sub-par units. Bikes are overpriced, Daemons are poor performers, Posessed and Dreadnoughts are too random, they have one uncontrollable unit, and a few units that have negative mobility in that they are slow and purposeful. Characters who are not daemon princes are overpriced. Chaos terminators are arguably better than Loyalist ones though.

===

So in conclusion, we have two armies which are -both- not really deficient in any areas. The standard Marine dex gets the nod for being better than the Chaos one however. Despite having (marginally) inferior shooting and worse 1:1 hth than Chaos, they make up for it by having almost 3x mobility options, a better leadership system, better flexibility due to combat squads / combat tactics and greater numbers than Chaos can field - (arguably). As Chaos is touted as being a "strong" codex, and Marines seem to be a cut above, what is the trend for the new xenos books? The Xenos armies usually have huge weaknessess which can be easily exploited - i.e. Tau are terrible in HTH, Eldar suffer from S/T3 on high cost models etc - how will GW balance them against a Marine dex that has no deficiencies?

Marines aren't deficient in any one area--that's pretty much the entire point of the army. They're versatile and do everything reasonably well. Their weakness or deficiency is the fact that they excel in no particular aspect of 40k. They can be out-shot, out-assaulted, out-lasted, and out-maneuvered.

Mobility: Marines have 5 transport options. Much more than any other army. They have access to deepstrike, scout and flank march. They have 3 units which may be mounted on bikes, Two units which may have jump packs.

Counting a Land Raider Redeemer as a different transport option as a regular Land Raider is like saying Eldar have a million transport options because Wave Serpents can be mounted with all sorts of different weapons. And are there any armies that DON'T have access to deepstrike, scout, and outflank, bikes, or jump infantry? You seem to be grasping at straws.

Leadership: ATSKNF keeps the army good to the last drop. Bundled vet sgts in squads keeps base leadership high without the drawbacks of fearless.

This is an exaggeration. If you're losing combat by a lot then Ld 9 isn't going to do very much for you unless you get lucky. If you're losing combat by a little then Fearless wouldn't have mattered much anyway due to having 3+ saves against the No Retreat wounds.

The great strength of the marine codex from my preliminary look-throughs is its opportunity for spam. As a codex it's balanced overall, but based on which options you take you can field homogeneous armies (bike spam, terminator spam, drop pod spam, dreadnought spam, land raider spam, marine spam) that can overwhelm balanced lists.

The opportunities available are the strength of the codex.

Danny Internets wrote:Counting a Land Raider Redeemer as a different transport option as a regular Land Raider is like saying Eldar have a million transport options because Wave Serpents can be mounted with all sorts of different weapons. And are there any armies that DON'T have access to deepstrike, scout, and outflank, bikes, or jump infantry? You seem to be grasping at straws.

HURR. I did not count any variants in the number: Rhino, Razorback, Landraider, Landspeeder Storm, Drop Pods. Unless I counted wrong, that is 5! In comparison, many codeces have one transport option and some have two.

And as for the special deploy options, it is not the availability, but the number of units which have these special rules. Most codecies have one each of bikes and jump packs, but this is not necessarily the case. As well, to counter your claims that the special rules and movement types are included in all the codecies: Many old codecies do not have "scout" (DE, Space Wolves) - Chaos only gets "scout" in a 1/6 roll on Posessed. Imperial Guard do not have jump troops, or bikes. Tyranids obviously do not have bikes (I believe Raverners are cavalry - please correct if this is incorrect), nor do they have transports. Daemonhunters do not have jump packs or bikes. Witch Hunters do not have bikes. Necrons do not have jump troops, and the Monolith is arguably not a transport, as it breaks all the rules that transports normally use. Grasping at straws indeed.

Haven't space marines always been this way? I mean, there are very few things they don't have. Their issue has always been that even their specialists are generalists. They're ok to good at everything but great/the best at very little. Here are some of the few things I think they don't get:

Tough Monstrous Creatures

Initiative 6 assault troops

inexpensive open-topped transports

really large numbers of troops

Skimmer tanks

highly dedicated specialists (think eldar aspect warriors or genestealers)

Jump-Shoot-Jump

I think the main thing to understand is that the SM are supposed to be this highly flexible, and highly varied fighting force. Look at how many different chapters are supposed to be represented by the one book. Tau and Necrons, on the other hand, are armies designed to fight and look and be armed a certian way, with some variation but not a lot. Does this suck? Well, maybe...but they get advantages for the way they play that SM don't have.

lambadomy wrote:

Tough Monstrous Creatures

And before you point to the dreads, even the best hand to hand dread will have its smoke stacks handed to it by the worst TMC.

I don't have the codex on me but as I recall the Ironclad can have 2x Dreadnought combat weapons for a total of 4 attacks, right? Meltagun shot for 1 wound, charge with 5 attacks, hitting with 3, probably wounding with 3, that's a dead Carnifex.

i would not call the new space marine leadership system superior to chaos. Correctly built chaos armies are generally entirely fearless.

Jack of all trades, master of none, fits the bill for the two 'super soldier' armies. The fun that most experienced players have with xenos (or guard) is finding ways to shield your weaknesses from your opponent.

Tau may be the worst of the worst in H2H, but good tau players are the best of the best in terms of avoiding such conflicts.

Lots of veteran players play marines as well. I don't want to perpetuate any stereotypes. But their 'game' is less about maximizing strengths/minimizing weaknesses. Its more about target priority and mid-range distance control. Lash for chaos and drop pods for loyalist are the strongest tools they have in controlling that "not too far, not too close" distance that marines excel at.

HURR. I did not count any variants in the number: Rhino, Razorback, Landraider, Landspeeder Storm, Drop Pods. Unless I counted wrong, that is 5! In comparison, many codeces have one transport option and some have two.

Oops, forgot about the Land Speeder. Looks more like a gimmick to me than anything else though.

Imperial Guard do not have jump troops, or bikes. Tyranids obviously do not have bikes (I believe Raverners are cavalry - please correct if this is incorrect), nor do they have transports. Daemonhunters do not have jump packs or bikes. Witch Hunters do not have bikes. Necrons do not have jump troops, and the Monolith is arguably not a transport, as it breaks all the rules that transports normally use. Grasping at straws indeed.

And Space Marines don't have heavy weapons platoons, MCs, Faith Points, WBB, etc. We can play this game all day, but let's not. Every army has stuff that others don't. Welcome to 40k.

Marines can have (most of it) all, and pays out the nose for it.

Well, at least I can field combat squaded termies, right?For 460 points, mind you...

Danny Internets wrote:Oops, forgot about the Land Speeder. Looks more like a gimmick to me than anything else though.

Thanks for the clarification. I forgot that its gimmicky nature precludes it from being a real choice.

Danny Internets wrote:And Space Marines don't have heavy weapons platoons, MCs, Faith Points, WBB, etc. We can play this game all day, but let's not. Every army has stuff that others don't. Welcome to 40k.

Thanks for the insight and friendly welcome to the world of 40k. I can see how a rebuttal to your claim that every army uses all of the USRs (scout, deepstrike, flank march, bikes and jump packers) necessitates a lesson on how Marines don't have MCs, army specific force organization formations, nor special rules exclusive to certain armies. Thanks for that awesome clarification. Now I -know- marines don't have it all.

Thanks for that awesome clarification. Now I -know- marines don't have it all.

Knowing is half the battle. It helps prevent the seemingly infinite number of silly little SM rant threads like this one.

keezus wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:Oops, forgot about the Land Speeder. Looks more like a gimmick to me than anything else though.

Thanks for the clarification. I forgot that its gimmicky nature precludes it from being a real choice.

Danny Internets wrote:And Space Marines don't have heavy weapons platoons, MCs, Faith Points, WBB, etc. We can play this game all day, but let's not. Every army has stuff that others don't. Welcome to 40k.

Thanks for the insight and friendly welcome to the world of 40k. I can see how a rebuttal to your claim that every army uses all of the USRs (scout, deepstrike, flank march, bikes and jump packers) necessitates a lesson on how Marines don't have MCs, army specific force organization formations, nor special rules exclusive to certain armies. Thanks for that awesome clarification. Now I -know- marines don't have it all.

One would think you could stipulate a gimmick choice is precluded from being a real choice. However I'm not quite ready to stipulate the Speeder is a gimmick choice. If gimmick choices are not precluded then chaos scouting shouldn't be either.

And As for your drawbacks, I think you're underestimating the model count issue. Now that everybody and their sister gets a 4+ cover save when their model's shadow intersects with a shadow from the ruins 4 tables over, the value difference between power armor and carapace(or worse) got even smaller.

It's not the number of transport choices that matter. All you really need is one good one. For example Eldar only have 2, and most would say they are more mobile than space marines.

Breton: I used to think the same way as you did, however, I think that the new cover rules have benefited the MEQ archetype more than it detracted from it. For one, pricy MEQ killing weapons are not taken as often, as MEQs can easily gain a 4+ cover save from them. Against low AP weapons, the MEQs don't care if they are in cover or not, meaning that in the new, fewer high AP environment, MEQs have pretty much unrestricted movement due to their 3+ save.

Others who rely on terrain to gain a boost in save have to stick to terrain and stay out of assault. Exiting terrain removes that advantage. Now that objectives are important, they can not stick to terrain all the time - in practice, I find that cover is not as important as math-hammer might seem to indicate. YMMV though.

frenrik: I would say that any army with a "fast" transport has more mobility than bog standard marines. The downside is that fast transports are either made of tissue paper (ork truk, raider) or made of gold (waveserpent, falcon). Being able to pick the transport that suits your needs is a huge advantage IMO, though again, YMMV. (Rhino=cheap no-frills, Razorback=basic fire support, Landraider=assault/heavy fire support, Landspeeder=fast/disruption, drop pod=deepstrike). Less mobile in terms of inches moved, but more flexible in army build. The fast transports are only that - fast. They are not flexible. I'm sure the DE would love to have a vehicle that doesn't fold in a stiff wind, and the Eldar would love to have an open topped skimmer that aspects could assault from. Alas, this isn't the case. Even though they may be percieved lesser in quality, the Marines have it all with respect to transports - (at a price).

In conclusion, I do agree with all the posters that the Marine dex appears balanced - However, as they set the bar very high, in terms of flexiblity and inherent abilities, it begs the question as to what following codecies will be like. I only ask this because the V4 marine codex was pretty potent, and stayed fairly competitive through-out V4. Later V4 codecies were markedly diminished in capabilities however. Even the early V4 dexes that followed Marines, in Tau, Eldar and Tyranids - even though they were competitive, they did not have near the flexibility that the Marine dex did, and were largely shoe-horned into one build (Mechanized, Tri-Falcon and Nidzilla).

Are we looking at a repeat situation in V5.

I certainly hope not.

Are you worried that the bar is set too high for marines in that there is some sort of power creep in the new codex?

Your claims seem to be based on the availability of units in the codex, but has no bearing on the actual points cost of the units. I would think in order to have any sort of discussion on power creep within the codex, you would need to compare the effectiveness of the units based on how much the costs.

I think we're definitely looking for a repeat in V5. New non-marine codexes will look like the current non-marine codexes, with new/rearranged fluff, some points shuffled around, one or two new units that play to the armies existing strengths, a couple of the more confusing rules changed and inapplicable to 5e rules removed. If you expect more, I think you're crazy.

IG and Tyranids may have the biggest overall re-work in their rules - IG will probably get more flexible (or just have some special character to make an armored fist). Tyranids will just become less interesting and probably lose all of their 2x or 3x attacks/different costs for the same weapons on different guys that so confuses the kiddies.

keezus wrote:
In conclusion, I do agree with all the posters that the Marine dex appears balanced - However, as they set the bar very high, in terms of flexiblity and inherent abilities, it begs the question as to what following codecies will be like. I only ask this because the V4 marine codex was pretty potent, and stayed fairly competitive through-out V4. Later V4 codecies were markedly diminished in capabilities however. Even the early V4 dexes that followed Marines, in Tau, Eldar and Tyranids - even though they were competitive, they did not have near the flexibility that the Marine dex did, and were largely shoe-horned into one build (Mechanized, Tri-Falcon and Nidzilla).

Are we looking at a repeat situation in V5.

I certainly hope not.

The marine dex is not balanced if you look outside of it. Inside the book the numbers look right. This unit does more than that unit and as such costs a few more points. Sure thats about right. But when you consider that the generic SM is still undercosted when compared to other units from other codexs in the game the situation becomes unbalanced. Add in that the current codex has the power to spam any number of unit types the situation becomes even grimmer.

Seriously, points don't matter. With the marine codex, if you go with something that is good, even expensive point wise, you can still get a sick number of them onto the table just by taking 180 points worth of Tactical marines. That leaves you 1570 points for all the Sternguard, assault marines, dreads, razors, Landraiders, you could want to take. Since there is always an option (using special characters) that allow you to break the typical force org slot for units, it won't be that hard to spam out your favorite. Chances are one unit of Sternguard doesn't look that bad, but 3. Worse scoring (with the application of the right special character)

Yes the marine dex would be balanced if all armies consisted to some degree of a special character, dread, three tac squads, two battlefield tanks, and either shooty or assaulty elite unit of some sort. But they wont. You will see assault marine spam, dreadnaught spam, razorback spam, bike spam. You know... 5, 6, or more of the same thing doing what they do best and ignoring the rest of the codex. Most codexs right now are hamstrung in that the best stuff usually tops out at 3 units. Not for SM.

Like I said, the codex is balanced if you look only at the codex, but for those of us who don't play marines the scales seem to be wiggling awfully strongly in the wrong direction.

As I say quite a lot, marines are deficient because people specialize in killing them.

As I say quite a lot, marines are deficient because people specialize in killing them.

I agree wholeheartedly Marines in the 4th ed codex can break all the rules of the FOC as well, and spam lots of different things, but you just don't see many of them mopping up in tournaments because that is what other armies are geared to deal with.

Jayden...I think you should be more happy that Marines don't suck anymore.

Having a 5 year old to beat on is fun and all, but I'd rather face a grown man in a fist fight.

Much greater challenges await Xenos players than ever before because no longer are Marines just built to TAKE the punishment from Xenos.

Now they can dish it out in return.

It's only taken...20 years, for the super soldiers, to actually BE super.

I can't wait.

The Marines Are Coming!

About damn time, too.

For a codex that "sucks" there sure seems to be a lot of basic codex Marine armies out there. Its GWs own fault for making so many MEQ army types that non MEQ armies had no choice but to bulk up on weapons designed to just kill them.

The main question I was responding to was if the codex was balanced or not. Not if I was happy for the change. I think its a lot like fifth edition, some good changes some not so good for the world of 40K as a whole.

There are alot of Marines because of all the basic box sets and price breaks for Marines have created a LOT of marine armies.

Doesn't mean they are any good. I lose to Black Templar/GKT mech spam with my non-tank killing fluff armies, but I don't find the usual marine armies in any way competitive.

I ran them at the ard boyz last year and I felt like I was cheating somehow.

I think the Codex is balanced within. Without, hard to say. It's difficult to beat a well built marine army in an objective mission, how's that?

I think that it is easy to look back on the 4th ed codex and say that it was not really a powerful codex despite its high level of customization. I think that this is largely because it pretty old, having been released at the start of 4th ed - and at time of release, it seemed to be giving other armies a run for their money, with drop pod spam, lysanderwing assault cannon spam and the like. It is easy to say that they aren't doing well at the end of their codex lifecycle, as everyone has figured out all their tricks already.

The 5th edition codex is a huge improvement in codex design in general, as it alows the gamer to get more use out of their models. It was written somewhere else that this is kind of GW's kneejerk response to the Warmachine force org, as it is completely opposed to GW's old model where you buy a model for one purpose, and one purpose alone - if you want a different playstyle, you buy a new army - mentality.

Stelek: GW will never have the game balanced "without" as their codex release schedule system always results in the old codecies being horribly out of date, either in power-level, or non-conforming with the ruleset. Any army that is deemed overpowered is always nerfed within the first half dozen books in the new cycle, regardless of how new/old the book was. This kind of hamfisted updating inherently builds unbalance into the ruleset.

I'm sorry but I just don't see what will make the marines stand out above Nids or Orks.

Certainly some army builds will stand out over others, and create rock-paper-scissors style matchups against the various popular Xenos builds, but there will always be that "auto-lose" army you can draw at a tournament.

I'm not really enthusiastic about the new SM codex.
Marines remain to be the jack of all trades, but the master of none.
Spam lists might be the right answer to build semi-competitive lists.
On the other hand, the new edition requires rethinking about achieving mission objectives and Marines are not that bad in this role.

Jayden63 wrote:But when you consider that the generic SM is still undercosted when compared to other units from other codexs in the game the situation becomes unbalanced.

Is it, though?

Space Marine: 15(ish) points.
Ork Boy: 6 points.
Plague Marine: 23 points.

If we look at troop choices from the recent codices, I don't think any of the point values are particularly out of line.

Now, Fire Warriors and Guardsmen are overcosted, definitely. Gaunts probably are too, if only slightly. But the Boy/Marine/Plague Marine scale looks good.

keezus wrote:I think that it is easy to look back on the 4th ed codex and say that it was not really a powerful codex despite its high level of customization. I think that this is largely because it pretty old, having been released at the start of 4th ed - and at time of release, it seemed to be giving other armies a run for their money, with drop pod spam, lysanderwing assault cannon spam and the like. It is easy to say that they aren't doing well at the end of their codex lifecycle, as everyone has figured out all their tricks already.

The 5th edition codex is a huge improvement in codex design in general, as it alows the gamer to get more use out of their models. It was written somewhere else that this is kind of GW's kneejerk response to the Warmachine force org, as it is completely opposed to GW's old model where you buy a model for one purpose, and one purpose alone - if you want a different playstyle, you buy a new army - mentality.

Stelek: GW will never have the game balanced "without" as their codex release schedule system always results in the old codecies being horribly out of date, either in power-level, or non-conforming with the ruleset. Any army that is deemed overpowered is always nerfed within the first half dozen books in the new cycle, regardless of how new/old the book was. This kind of hamfisted updating inherently builds unbalance into the ruleset.

I don't think I ever lost to the old Codex.

Not in tournaments, not in friendly play.

I think I drew a couple times.

It was so subpar (and the one before it was too) that I couldn't be bothered to even make a marine army.

The new Codex is indeed far better, but for more reasons than 'marines with bolters can now do this too'. The Codex was built with flexibility in mind, something that Jervis screwed up badly with the older Codices he's rewritten.

You can literally make at least 20 competitive army builds out of the new Codex. Better than 3 or 4, which were semi-competitive, like in the old Codex.

As far as balanced books goes, I think GW has figured out with the last year of release to stop screwing around. Alot of people think Vampire Counts and Demons of Chaos are all-powerful. They aren't. They're just the new toys everyone is running. Next year, it'll be whatever gets released. Same with Eldar and Chaos Demons. It isn't that they lose power, it's that they lose all the members of the FOTM club running them this year so they 'look' better than they really are.

If you look closely at the 40k and Fantasy results...you'll see ALOT of new books in the top 25.

Then you'll see good generals taking older books and beating everyone down with them.

Hell Witchhunters made a comeback to the tournament scene and did alot better than expected--but people were running 4th edition lists and the Witchhunter armies there excelled in that environment (just like the Chaos Demons did). Until they ran into 5th edition armies and got crushed.

I think there's alot of 'excellence' in older books that people don't notice.

An excellent example is going to be the rebirth of Space Marine armies using the DH and WH codices. Worried about being weak to something? Bring DH or WH 'allied marines' along and have a field day.

It's not like you get everything in the Marine book, but you do get an awful lot.

Enough to make me worry about those army builds, because while they aren't "obvious" they do exist and they will prove deadly (in my opinion).

Voodoo Boyz wrote:I'm sorry but I just don't see what will make the marines stand out above Nids or Orks.

Certainly some army builds will stand out over others, and create rock-paper-scissors style matchups against the various popular Xenos builds, but there will always be that "auto-lose" army you can draw at a tournament.

Nid players have yet to make the change to the new rules.

Both Orks and Demons of Chaos can cripple the shooty Nid force everyone is used to.

Mech spam from Eldar and Tau can too.

The new Marines have many tools to deal with Nids. Sternguard can destroy an elite carnifex without much effort. Cluster mines screw hordes, and Whirlwinds + Cluster mines is crippling against alot of armies.

Ork players don't seem to realize the biggest change in 5th (everyone gets cover) which they hailed as some kind of Miracle empowering Orks to OrkWinLand, is also propagating a huge change in armies over to flamer weapons, huge numbers of shots downrange, and heavy vehicle armies. All of which are big screws on Orks.

The new Codex is indeed far better, but for more reasons than 'marines with bolters can now do this too'. The Codex was built with flexibility in mind, something that Jervis screwed up badly with the older Codices he's rewritten.

You can literally make at least 20 competitive army builds out of the new Codex. Better than 3 or 4, which were semi-competitive, like in the old Codex.

What are the dramatic changes?
Marines with bolters, bolt pistols, ccws, and tiny grenades?
Marines able to split into combat squads?
Cheaper transports that are harder to take down?