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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.

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?

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the game balanced "without" as their codex release schedule system always results in the old codecies being horribly out of date, either in power-level, or non-conforming with the ruleset.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.

I don't see how I contradicted myself.

Maybe you can tell me, since you didn't in your post.

4-5 internet competitive builds, with alot of dumbing down. Certainly. Still will be 20 competitive builds.

See I've been playing against them for a while now and there really are that many.

keezus wrote:

Stelek wrote:I don't see how I contradicted myself.

You indicate that the new codex is much stronger than the old one in that you see around 20 competitive builds as opposed to the 4-5 sub-par builds available to the old dex.
Then you go on to say that new armies suffering from "new toys syndrome" drop off precipitously in power once everyone gets used to the army or goes on to the new hotness.

Based on this "breaking in period", might you be overstating the might of the new dex in light that it is still in the "new army" part of its lifecycle?

Ah but the difference is this:

Marines now have many builds, and Marines as a baseline army are GOOD.

The last what, 3 Space marine books, they've been nothing but scrubs.

Few builds, and Marines as a baseline army were CRAP.

I do not think 'new toys syndrome' makes armies drop off in power--I think the power stays about the same, but players learn how to fight them.

At Vegas, everyone had 4th edition lists (which Demons massacre) and little experience playing against Demons. So if they are a 3 out of 5, they got +1 for playing against bad lists and +1 for playing against inexperienced players.

Doesn't make them a 5 star army, they are still a 3 star army...but at Vegas they LOOKED really good.

They really aren't in my opinion. Goatboy did what he could, but between my army and his dice rolls--he didn't stand a chance.

I believe stjohn70 beat both his demon opponents. One game ending a turn early cost him a pure win instead of a VP win (I think).

Where pretty much all my games went to turn 7 and it wasn't a good thing for me in any of those games. Maybe one it helped to go to 6, but 7 hurt me almost every time.

Anyway I hope you see the difference in how I define "good".

I think Marines will be "good" in a year.

I think Demons will be "fun" by the time Adepticon rolls around to start next season.

I have serious doubts the Demons will run rampant at the next two tournaments this year.

Time will tell.