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Some of these arguments are just weird. Gaunt-spam is like any other horde, still vulnerable to the same stuff and still good in the same situations.

Yep. Those situations are just going to have half as much time as they previously did to occur. Make no mistake, gaunt spam got a lot better in this edition.

And the Argument against wyches also seems strangely pessimistic, charging out of a fast skimmer still provides a large threat range, and fleet is also, if nothing else, reliable.

Wyches are either relatively unchanged or severely hampered depending on how defensive fire works.

The Tac marine hate seems to be unfounded because Marines got a whole lot of love in this version. The standard 10 tac squad with missile and flamer is a solid versatile choice which has been improved by the rapid fire and fire sweep rules, defensive fire rules, and the boosted ATSKNF rules, not to mention that drop pods are extra awesomesauce now.

Everything with a rapid fire weapon got the boost to that. They're still the worst MEQ troop choice. The missile launcher is nigh useless since it requires that the squad stay stationary which is much more dangerous now. The critical hit rules hurt them quite badly as well. Drop pods don't actually change much at all.

They're still bad. Nothing in the edition particularly helps them and the evasion, increased assault speed, and transport scoring changes hurt them badly.

I don't think Space Marine players will ever have to worry about not being competitive, they seem to have a way to take advantage of every change in the rules.

They haven't been particularly competitive for years so "ever' is a bit of a poor choice of words there. I think you were searching for "aren't going to become more uncompetitive".


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You must be playing a different game from the rest of us or using an older edition codex. I can only get a tact squad up to 240pts with a plasma pistol powerfisting meltabomber teleport homering sergeant and a las/plas loadout on the squad (namely the most expensive options available)... that is hardly a "standard" loadout. The standard 10 man tact squad with flamer/heavy bolter is 170pts and is the best loadout vs the horm swarm you keep whining about. Padding your example with an extra 70pts doesn't do the discussion any justice.

10 tacs, missile, combi melta, melta, pfist, rhino w/dozer. 250. 2-3 kill points. Fairly bog standard loadout.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Mandor wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:You clearly don't play those two armies than or you play a bog standard razorspam list. Razorspam isn't gonna work too well in sixth.

You are right, I don't play either. However, my question to you: shouldn't 20 hormogants roll over your tac squad in assault? Upgraded with FC and poison, that's like 160 points of gaunts that don't do any shooting. How is it justified that you kill half of them just because they assault you, which is the sole reason they exist?

Because if I don't I lose automatically. How is it justified that a 160 point horm squad (less than tacs) can beat them in combat at a rate of four to one while being half the point cost per model (thus winning eight to one) after taking the brunt of the squads entire shooting? It's not fair. At all. Statistically they win even with defensive fire. All the tyranid player has to do is push his models forward and play super smash brothers between dropping bucketloads of dice. There is not strategy and all he's going to have to do to beat me is show up. That is lame and stupid.

Defensive fire is about the only thing that gives me a chance since it gives me back the round of shooting that I'm losing in these new rules. Please, pay attention to that fact. I'm losing a turn of shooting. Defensive fire gives it back. I'm not getting extra shooting. They aren't at a sudden disadvantage. Without that turn I can't win. The codex I use becomes blatantly unviable against fast assault forces.

How do you justify that a dedicated assault squad completely takes out a ranged/static hybrid unit when you compare them mathematically in a void? I don't know, that sounds about right to me. Now, the problem is how Bounding Leap and Move Through Cover interacts, essentially completely removing movement penalties when assaulting - and I think here lies the problem. At 20" charge range for a two-base-attack infantry with Scything Talons, they are a bit cheap.
I don't quite see how a unit that is distinctly good should be compared to a unit with moderate problems (and for the sake of all that is holy, let's not repeat this exercise with ANY Eldar troop choice - we all know how that ends, ok?) when the decent unit is geared to handle the marines and the marines are not geared for anything special.

But just for the thought exercise, let's put some terrain on the table, giving the marines Alpha Strike. Additionally, let's stick down a supporting squad of Assault Marines. For the hell of it, let's give them a flamer.

warboss wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:
I said FC or poison. They're redundant together. FC allows rhino popping poison is better for killing infantry. The squad I discussed is 240, which places it about on par with a standard tac marine loadout.

You must be playing a different game from the rest of us or using an older edition codex. I can only get a tact squad up to 240pts with a plasma pistol powerfisting meltabomber teleport homering sergeant and a las/plas loadout on the squad (namely the most expensive options available)... that is hardly a "standard" loadout. The standard 10 man tact squad with flamer/heavy bolter is 170pts and is the best loadout vs the horm swarm you keep whining about. Padding your example with an extra 70pts doesn't do the discussion any justice.


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Absolutionis wrote:Dear God, people are still pretending you get Defensive Fire in response to an assault? There is NOTHING in the rules that supports this regardless of how much you wish it so.

Long story short, if you want to house-rule that your squads get Defensive Fire to every assault, automatically come with rocket launchers, and have 2+ invulnerable saves, or whatever house rules you wishlist, you're free to. I won't play with you, and others won't play with you. We'll play Warhammer 40,000 6thEdition instead.

While I agree that the rules don't allow auto-defensive fire vs assault without some other rule allowing it (like the strategem), I do think it would be a good idea for GW to allow it INSTEAD OF regular close combat attacks and prior to any done by the charging units. Instead of arming yourself with whatever close combat you have in prep for the assault, your squad would instead be firing at them while they're coming in. This would give some gunline squads like tacts and especially firewarriors a boot more oompf without having to change their actual unit specifics.

I don't think that's necessary. Defensive fire is the balance for units being able to assault out of deep strike. It's a tricky balance, but I think it was well handled. Overwatch is one of those abilities that should be severely limited to a few unique characters, no more than 1 per codex. Shooting and assault are meant to be mutually exclusive, and any shift in favor of shooting is going to, too dramatically, hurt assault armies. The way that the rules stand now, heavy assault, heavy shooting, and balanced armies all have a fair shot against one another, and I think that is a testament to the graceful construction of this ruleset.

Obviously, people that are commenting on the imbalance of defensive fire need to go back and re-read the rules, assault is not at any point listed as a trigger for defensive fire.

For what it's worth, Furious Charge and Poison together can be rather useful, being when your Strength is equal to or greater than their Toughness, you get to re-roll to wound.

warboss wrote:

Absolutionis wrote:Dear God, people are still pretending you get Defensive Fire in response to an assault? There is NOTHING in the rules that supports this regardless of how much you wish it so.

Long story short, if you want to house-rule that your squads get Defensive Fire to every assault, automatically come with rocket launchers, and have 2+ invulnerable saves, or whatever house rules you wishlist, you're free to. I won't play with you, and others won't play with you. We'll play Warhammer 40,000 6thEdition instead.

While I agree that the rules don't allow auto-defensive fire vs assault without some other rule allowing it (like the strategem), I do think it would be a good idea for GW to allow it INSTEAD OF regular close combat attacks and prior to any done by the charging units. Instead of arming yourself with whatever close combat you have in prep for the assault, your squad would instead be firing at them while they're coming in. This would give some gunline squads like tacts and especially firewarriors a boot more oompf without having to change their actual unit specifics.

That's what pistols are for. Pistols have statlines now and their work in initiative order. You can also use flame-template weapons in close-combat with their special attack. It may be a "cool" idea, but it's not a "good" idea. For every unit that you think it'll help into balance, it'll break others.
No matter how much you love your Tactical Marines and think they should do everything, they should not win in Assault against Hormagants. Yes, Hormagaunts cost less, but that's because they're limited in their use.
Hormagaunts should be able to decently win any assault against Marines because Marines decisively and strictly win any firefight against Hormagaunts. That's why Hormagaunts are cheaper.

Tau have not had their new codex yet, and they don't even have a Codex Updates entry it's not right to break all of 6thEd just to accommodate one old army. For all you know, Tau will have an Overwatch fetish throughout every unit entry.

Ovion wrote:For what it's worth, Furious Charge and Poison together can be rather useful, being when your Strength is equal to or greater than their Toughness, you get to re-roll to wound.

It's been like that since 5thEd.

But just for the thought exercise, let's put some terrain on the table, giving the marines Alpha Strike. Additionally, let's stick down a supporting squad of Assault Marines. For the hell of it, let's give them a flamer.

They'll probably maul the horm squad after they've mauled the tac squad. The problem with this theory is that first of all, standard marine assault squads are actually pretty bad. They have 2 attacks in close combat which is bad for the cost and they're paying for mobility that they aren't using. Once they break that horm squad (which isn't unlikely) they'll be standing there prone for a charge from another horm squad (or genestealers which would be a good followup since they're a turn 3 assaulter and are far more damaging).

The main problem with any scenario like this is that standard marines aren't particularly efficient for cost in either shooting or CC and when they're getting hit by dedicated CC units before they can employ their shooting they start to have major problems with recouping costs. The castle is an attrition formation designed around trading positively point for point by using ablative squads and firing to max effectiveness. The formation works almost the same in this edition as it used to, the enemy just reaches it a turn sooner which cuts out between 33% and 50% of the time it has to actually use its guns before it starts taking heavy losses.

Necrons can still work the castle tremendously well in the new edition thanks to their ability to suddenly re-position late game for objectives. Marines have neither the resilience or maneuverability 'crons have though.


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Ovion wrote:For what it's worth, Furious Charge and Poison together can be rather useful, being when your Strength is equal to or greater than their Toughness, you get to re-roll to wound.

It's almost never needed though. One is almost always enough.

warboss wrote:While I agree that the rules don't allow auto-defensive fire vs assault without some other rule allowing it (like the strategem), I do think it would be a good idea for GW to allow it INSTEAD OF regular close combat attacks and prior to any done by the charging units.

This is possibly an interesting option, though it would make units deliberately weak in assault considerably better at it.

Hoping that your static gunline will be able to withstand a horde or mech based assault list simply through shooting can't be conductive to a strategic game system.
Manoeuvrability, support between units and tactics is what's needed if you want to make a shooting force work.

(Plus it's boring and unimaginative.)

DarknessEternal wrote:
Bikes also go from good to awesome.

Why? They loose bonus T in close combat, they loose 3+ coversave from turboboost, everybody else can now also fire rapidfire weapons on the move and everything is much faster than before, making it more likely to be caught in assault (which they are now worse at). You are also likely to see less tanks, which is what bikes are best at killing.

@Shuma: Not changing your lists and tactics after a new edition equals to taking the choice of being less competitive. Your rant about hordes is ridicolous - hordes kind of live on the principle of the opponent not being able to kill them all. You could just as easily mention 200+ guardsmen hordes in 5th. Your gunline marines would struggle even more against such a list. There are reasons you just don't see these lists often however: they are expensive, time consuming to play and paint, and they have weaknesses against certain match-ups.

Shooting is awesome in 6th ed. If you actually try a few games with these rules, you will see that shooting is absolutely devastating. Yes, infantry heavy weapons have lost power. However, everything else has become much more deadly. Rapid fire is really good now - making marines much better, templates and blasts are now even better and coversaves/hit rolls are pretty much universially reduced. Power armour is also more valuable with these rules with the reduction in coversaves.

You have to be ready for stuff to die with these rules, as everything is killier. You will have to change your tactics and strategies to account for new rules and the tons of new builds made available with these rules. If you are super-worried about hordes, bring some thunderfires, they just became much better with these rules. If two of those isn't enough either, bring tons of typhoons - they also got better. If even that isn't enough, bring 10 sternguard with 2x heavy flamers and 8x combi-flamers, with the better rapidfire rules, sternguard just got better too. They will also rape those hordes in close combat with all those flamers, and poor whatever gets those 10 templates on themselves.

Change up your list, change up your strategy and change up your tactics and codex marines will do just fine. (they will probably get new rules quickly too)

Shuma, your whining is annoying and unsubstantiated, and your idea of proliferating defensive fire is horrible.

"Oh yeah, this is my 50 man IG blob with ML/plas. You want to charge? Ok lol, 50 lasguns fire 100 times and 20 of your assaulters die. Now I fire my special weapons..."

And let's not forget that you are whining about vanilla marines the codex with the (now even more buffed!) land raider redeemer, and the TFC which now scatters an average of oh, ZERO INCHES.

If you can't beat 180 ork horde with vanilla marines, you are doing it so wrong.

ShumaGorath wrote:

You must be playing a different game from the rest of us or using an older edition codex. I can only get a tact squad up to 240pts with a plasma pistol powerfisting meltabomber teleport homering sergeant and a las/plas loadout on the squad (namely the most expensive options available)... that is hardly a "standard" loadout. The standard 10 man tact squad with flamer/heavy bolter is 170pts and is the best loadout vs the horm swarm you keep whining about. Padding your example with an extra 70pts doesn't do the discussion any justice.

10 tacs, missile, combi melta, melta, pfist, rhino w/dozer. 250. 2-3 kill points. Fairly bog standard loadout.

So... you're using the "benefit" of the upgraded rhino to pad your points in the 240pt tact vs 240pt horm fight but never mentioned the rhino in any of your dozen posts about how overwhelmed the marines are in that fight?

In that case, you need to included the benefits of the rhino stormbolter firing at the horms for two turns and somehow figure out a way to calculate the added benefit of having the rhino simply BLOCKING the charge in the first place instead of counting it against the marines but ignoring it being for them also. Or simply revise your point total down to 210pts with the loadout you're using (I wouldn't call it standard but that's a judgement call.. the padded but ignored 40pts for the rhino is not) and redo the horms to the same point total for a more accurate assessment of what would happen.

Why? They loose bonus T in close combat, they loose 3+ coversave from turboboost, everybody else can now also fire rapidfire weapons on the move and everything is much faster than before, making it more likely to be caught in assault (which they are now worse at). You are also likely to see less tanks, which is what bikes are best at killing.

They're considerably harder to shoot.

@Shuma: Not changing your lists and tactics after a new edition equals to taking the choice of being less competitive. Your rant about hordes is ridicolous

Refusing to use the only realistic and viable cookie cutter build isn't ridiculous. It's dissapointing to me as a player that I would have to, but I don't think it's ridiculous that I refuse to counts as my entire force into salamander mech spam just because large swathes of my codex is 20-30% overcosted otherwise.

Your rant about hordes is ridicolous - hordes kind of live on the principle of the opponent not being able to kill them all. You could just as easily mention 200+ guardsmen hordes in 5th. Your gunline marines would struggle even more against such a list. There are reasons you just don't see these lists often however: they are expensive, time consuming to play and paint, and they have weaknesses against certain match-ups.

I know three separate people who own them. Guess they're more common out in the boondocks.

Shooting is awesome in 6th ed. If you actually try a few games with these rules, you will see that shooting is absolutely devastating.

Shooting for a gunline is unchanged. I get one shot at 24 with a bolter? Oh, I already had that. Woo. Hows the tac becoming better again?

Yes, infantry heavy weapons have lost power. However, everything else has become much more deadly.

If I played IG that would help me in some way. As it is it hurts me.

Rapid fire is really good now - making marines much better, templates and blasts are now even better and coversaves/hit rolls are pretty much universially reduced. Power armour is also more valuable with these rules with the reduction in coversaves.

I'm sure it'll be great when a still viable IG mech line blows me off the table with ap3 weapons that hit easier than before and I get less cover. I'm sure that'll help a lot.

You have to be ready for stuff to die with these rules, as everything is killier. You will have to change your tactics and strategies to account for new rules and the tons of new builds made available with these rules. If you are super-worried about hordes, bring some thunderfires, they just became much better with these rules. If two of those isn't enough either, bring tons of typhoons - they also got better. If even that isn't enough, bring 10 sternguard with 2x heavy flamers and 8x combi-flamers, with the better rapidfire rules, sternguard just got better too. They will also rape those hordes in close combat with all those flamers, and poor whatever gets those 10 templates on themselves.

I've done some of that already. You just described a 300 point sternguard unit thats worthless against non hordes. So I'm metagaming against specific opponents now? Wheres the all comers list in the space marine codex exactly?

Change up your list, change up your strategy and change up your tactics and codex marines will do just fine. (they will probably get new rules quickly too)

No. They won't. They haven't for years and they won't suddenly now.


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warboss wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

You must be playing a different game from the rest of us or using an older edition codex. I can only get a tact squad up to 240pts with a plasma pistol powerfisting meltabomber teleport homering sergeant and a las/plas loadout on the squad (namely the most expensive options available)... that is hardly a "standard" loadout. The standard 10 man tact squad with flamer/heavy bolter is 170pts and is the best loadout vs the horm swarm you keep whining about. Padding your example with an extra 70pts doesn't do the discussion any justice.

10 tacs, missile, combi melta, melta, pfist, rhino w/dozer. 250. 2-3 kill points. Fairly bog standard loadout.

So... you're using the "benefit" of the upgraded rhino to pad your points in the 240pt tact vs 240pt horm fight but never mentioned the rhino in any of your dozen posts about how overwhelmed the marines are in that fight?

In that case, you need to included the benefits of the rhino stormbolter firing at the horms for two turns and somehow figure out a way to calculate the added benefit of having the rhino simply BLOCKING the charge in the first place instead of counting it against the marines but ignoring it being for them also. Or simply revise your point total down to 210pts with the loadout you're using (I wouldn't call it standard but that's a judgement call.. the padded but ignored 40pts for the rhino is not) and redo the horms to the same point total for a more accurate assessment of what would happen.

Its not padded. Without transport for the troops I've already lost (in fifth which is what makes the build standard), and honestly I'm not taking tacs at all in sixth anyway. Just minimum scout squads since everything can score.

ShumaGorath wrote:So I'm metagaming against specific opponents now? Wheres the all comers list in the space marine codex exactly?

I gave you two other totally viable options before the sternguard bomb. Notice how I said "if even that isn't enough''. While the sternguard example is going far, sternguard are not useless against other stuff than hordes. They have super-bolters which got a big boost with these rules too.

ShumaGorath wrote:Refusing to use the only realistic and viable cookie cutter build isn't ridiculous

Yeah... the cookie cutter suggestion I offered with thunderfire cannons and typhoons... I didn't mention vulkan with a word. Refusing to change your gaming style or list at all is ridiculous.

ShumaGorath wrote:honestly I'm not taking tacs at all in sixth anyway. Just minimum scout squads since everything can score.

Everything can score, but only scoring units get 3pts for objectives.

Well why don't you just play IG then?

Everyone else seems pretty happy with the interplay between their marines and these rules. It's not like they've been crippled or nerfed by the rules; everything they could always do, they can do better. They are good in shooting, assault, and very survivable - it seems like you're upset that they don't auto-win.

ShumaGorath wrote:and honestly I'm not taking tacs at all in sixth anyway. Just minimum scout squads since everything can score.

Vehicles can't.

Plus, non-scoring units only get you 1 point a turn. Scoring units get you 3 plus 6 at the end of the game.

My tactics are going to change considerably;
I'm actually more interested in going second now if I think I can squeeze out enough SPs to nullify or hamper their first turn, 'wasting' their bid to go first.
My force has always relied more on shooting than people expect, now my wagons can unload the dakka while moving forward and my meganobs can affect more than one unit if I use Engage (kill one unit, shoot another).

If we're talking a mixed bag marine army against 180 hormagaunts and a prime (cheapest HQ we have), there are many other considerations that never make it into discussions like these.

I've had lists where I use 30 gargoyles and 30 hormagaunts. Even those 60 units are hard to fit onto the table without spreading out and covering my entire deployment area. If I don't spread out, small blasts are hitting 5/6 models instead of 3. Fitting 180 hormagaunts into your table corner would be comical honestly.

Also, horms cannot hurt Dreadnaughts or Land raiders. If your "balanced" vanilla marines list doesnt' include either one you're purposefully nerfing yourself. Throw one dread at a squad of 30 gaunts and they all die without scratching him. End of story. Tank shock your LR into the middle of them and fire away. The tyranid player will be lucky if he's got half his units by the time he reaches you, and if you're smart, you've spread out your tacs, not bunched them up. That way once I've finished one assault, I now have to run over to where your other marines are instead of immediately assaulting again.

180 horms with a single upgrade (8pts each) is 1440pts. If you can't fit blasts/flamers/dreads/LR's into a 1500 pt list, that's your mistake at list making, not a mistake of the new rules.

Dribble Joy wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:and honestly I'm not taking tacs at all in sixth anyway. Just minimum scout squads since everything can score.

Vehicles can't.

Plus, non-scoring units only get you 1 point a turn. Scoring units get you 3 plus 6 at the end of the game.

I'm looking at that vs none. Scoring matches are a very uphill battle with codex marines, I'm going to have to hope I can outplay for KPs and use OPs as a bonus. I'm not under many illusions that it's getting easier for me in sixth, I'm just not going to fool myself into the belief that the tac unit is getting anything but worse in this ruleset (the heavy weapon rules and non transport scoring are very painful to a unit that basically lives in its metal box and prays late game).


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Nalathani wrote:If we're talking a mixed bag marine army against 180 hormagaunts and a prime (cheapest HQ we have), there are many other considerations that never make it into discussions like these.

I've had lists where I use 30 gargoyles and 30 hormagaunts. Even those 60 units are hard to fit onto the table without spreading out and covering my entire deployment area. If I don't spread out, small blasts are hitting 5/6 models instead of 3. Fitting 180 hormagaunts into your table corner would be comical honestly.

Also, horms cannot hurt Dreadnaughts or Land raiders. If your "balanced" vanilla marines list doesnt' include either one you're purposefully nerfing yourself. Throw one dread at a squad of 30 gaunts and they all die without scratching him. End of story. Tank shock your LR into the middle of them and fire away. The tyranid player will be lucky if he's got half his units by the time he reaches you, and if you're smart, you've spread out your tacs, not bunched them up. That way once I've finished one assault, I now have to run over to where your other marines are instead of immediately assaulting again.

180 horms with a single upgrade (8pts each) is 1440pts. If you can't fit blasts/flamers/dreads/LR's into a 1500 pt list, that's your mistake at list making, not a mistake of the new rules.

I'm pretty sure that many horms can ignore a land raider and one dread and stomp the piss out of the rest of a codex marine army without breaking a sweat. I've watched it happen several times. They're really not that hard to fit on a table side, especially with the swarmlord or trygons giving options for reserves. The 180 horms is more of an 1850 list, it wouldn't be needed in 1500. 120 with support would do the trick.

Ah yeah, tank shock. I had almost forgot about that!

Remember: The rhino got a huge buff. Now it is only 1 killpoint -- marine armies no longer have to worry about losing by having all their cheap tanks and drop pods blown up.

If you tank shock the hormagaunts and they can't escape the path, you just killed every one that couldn't make it.

Oh and now they're clustered up? You'll be hitting 6 or more gaunts with every blast from your thunderfire, with 100% accuracy. Average scatter distance: 1/3rd of an inch.

So maybe your rhino manages to flatten 2 gaunts, and your TFC kills... 17 more? So your 135 points of units (including your "worthless" rhino) killed 152 points of gaunts.

Boo hoo wah. Did I also mention all their Tyranid Monstrous Creatures now have a hell of a time getting cover, and you get +1 to hit them? Yeah, your long fangs now deal 3.5 MC wounds each to that nasty trygon, assuming it doesn't get cover, and it won't.

ph34r wrote:Ah yeah, tank shock. I had almost forgot about that!

Remember: The rhino got a huge buff. Now it is only 1 killpoint -- marine armies no longer have to worry about losing by having all their cheap tanks and drop pods blown up.

If you tank shock the hormagaunts and they can't escape the path, you just killed every one that couldn't make it.

Oh and now they're clustered up? You'll be hitting 6 or more gaunts with every blast from your thunderfire, with 100% accuracy. Average scatter distance: 1/3rd of an inch.

So maybe your rhino manages to flatten 2 gaunts, and your TFC kills... 17 more? So your 135 points of units (including your "worthless" rhino) killed 152 points of gaunts.

Boo hoo wah. Did I also mention all their Tyranid Monstrous Creatures now have a hell of a time getting cover, and you get +1 to hit them? Yeah, your long fangs now deal 3.5 MC wounds each to that nasty trygon, assuming it doesn't get cover, and it won't.

I don't play space wolves (space wolves are gonna love sixth, they do everything marines do for cheaper and aren't trash in CC) and the rhino trick is neat and could be pretty effective during the one turn that I get to try it. Unfortunately it's a one turn popasition and isn't much different than using a flamer command squad or stern squad for the same effect. Then again they could just assault it turn one and kill it if I'm throwing it out there. A 21" charge range gives them a lot of options and a 3.98 inch CC attack range lets them avoid clumping.

The doom of malantai is going to make thunderfires hard to utilize though. It'll kill the techmarine on average rolls and if I'm clustering to protect my back field valuables it's str10 blast which is now much more accurate is going to be exceedingly painful. Tyranids are a pretty total package against non mechspam armies in sixth.

Absolutionis wrote:That's what pistols are for. Pistols have statlines now and their work in initiative order. You can also use flame-template weapons in close-combat with their special attack. It may be a "cool" idea, but it's not a "good" idea. For every unit that you think it'll help into balance, it'll break others.
No matter how much you love your Tactical Marines and think they should do everything, they should not win in Assault against Hormagants. Yes, Hormagaunts cost less, but that's because they're limited in their use.
Hormagaunts should be able to decently win any assault against Marines because Marines decisively and strictly win any firefight against Hormagaunts. That's why Hormagaunts are cheaper.

Tau have not had their new codex yet, and they don't even have a Codex Updates entry it's not right to break all of 6thEd just to accommodate one old army. For all you know, Tau will have an Overwatch fetish throughout every unit entry.

There is a difference thematically between using your pistol in close combat versus firing a rifle just prior to the assault connecting. What units would this break with the new rules? As for the last part about the tau overwatch fetish, I do hope they have some vastly increased access to it instead of some hamfisted improvement to their actual close combat abilities. Giving them an armywide modified overwatch (allowing them if unengaged to shoot with defensive fire when assaulted at the expense of their close combat attacks) would go a long way towards making them competitive if the new rules are indeed legitimate. I don't think the tau should become yet another close combat focused force but instead should use their adaptive brains to somehow get around close combat (like with defensive fire), keeping their crappy stats but giving them the option to do something different. This is of course blatant wishlisting so don't anyone quote this as a rumor of any kind.

Dribble Joy wrote:

warboss wrote:While I agree that the rules don't allow auto-defensive fire vs assault without some other rule allowing it (like the strategem), I do think it would be a good idea for GW to allow it INSTEAD OF regular close combat attacks and prior to any done by the charging units.

This is possibly an interesting option, though it would make units deliberately weak in assault considerably better at it.

Hoping that your static gunline will be able to withstand a horde or mech based assault list simply through shooting can't be conductive to a strategic game system.
Manoeuvrability, support between units and tactics is what's needed if you want to make a shooting force work.

(Plus it's boring and unimaginative.)

I frankly don't see this as actually giving most of them the ability to actually win close combats but instead to simply weather a single assault round before risking getting destroyed (which is what currently happens). If you've got a 10 man firewarrior squad assaulted by a completely unoptimized 5 man assault squad (both 100pts), they each do roughly 2 casualties to each other during that first turn. After the initial charge, the balance swings towards the marines as the tau wouldn't get any shots but would be using their much worse close combat attacks instead and going last regardless even with the marines getting less attacks due to not charging. This is with a completely unoptimized assault squad with nothing but bolt pistols and only gets better (albeit for more points) with the usual loadouts of powerfists and plasma pistols.

ShumaGorath wrote:I don't play space wolves.

Completely aside from that fact of not caring how the overall balance of the game is, take a look at regular, cheap Devastators with MLs; That's still a badly wounded Trygon/Beasty.

warboss wrote:I frankly don't see this as actually giving most of them the ability to actually win close combats but instead to simply weather a single assault round before risking getting destroyed (which is what currently happens). If you've got a 10 man firewarrior squad assaulted by a completely unoptimized 5 man assault squad (both 100pts), they each do roughly 2 casualties to each other during that first turn. After the initial charge, the balance swings towards the marines as the tau wouldn't get any shots but would be using their much worse close combat attacks instead and going last regardless even with the marines getting less attacks due to not charging. This is with a completely unoptimized assault squad with nothing but bolt pistols and only gets better (albeit for more points) with the usual loadouts of powerfists and plasma pistols.

But then there's also at least one round of regular shooting, two rounds could see the FWs easily deal with the marines before they hit combat. We can't simply take the assault potential in isolation.

Sustained fire to 18" if stationary might be interesting.

If you don't have space wolves take thunderfires, or devastators with plasma cannons, or a redeemer, or just "guys in a rhino with flamers".

Flamers are buffed so much, you can tank shock right into a horde and kill everything with just a couple flamers.

Dribble Joy wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:I don't play space wolves.

Completely aside from that fact of not caring how the overall balance of the game is, take a look at regular, cheap Devastators with MLs; That's still a badly wounded Trygon/Beasty.

True. The MCs are honestly not what worries me in this edition. It's the fast and numerous hordes.

More kombi-skorchas for my meganobs methinks....

ph34r wrote:If you don't have space wolves take thunderfires, or devastators with plasma cannons, or a redeemer, or just "guys in a rhino with flamers".

Flamers are buffed so much, you can tank shock right into a horde and kill everything with just a couple flamers.

+3 inches reeeaalllly isn't that much of a buff to flamers. They already have the vehicle mobility and if I'm deploying and firing templates (which would be preferable) then I'm not assaulting and using them in combat. The end result isn't much different than in fifth. I'll probably vaporize their first squad in my shooting phase and then the 90 models behind them hop my viable threat range for flamers directly into assault with the body of my army.

I can probably metagame a flamerfull army with thunderfires and metal boxes to clump and win in those scenarios, but I've been searching for a codex all comers list that wasn't vehicle heavy with vulkan and a cost effective list just isn't coming up. Too many of the required units are overcosted or under effective (devs, preds, CC hq slots, mobile assault elements, etc).

Shuma, you're killing me.

Adding any range to template weapons, even 1" increases their effectiveness against hordes by a great deal, not having the template 'locked' to the base of the firing model is huge. Also, Firesweep is a huge buff; you're adding an average of +2 attacks on the charge.

Also, why is your 1 squad fighting the entire army by itself?

junk wrote:Shuma, you're killing me.

Adding any range to template weapons, even 1" increases their effectiveness against hordes by a great deal, not having the template 'locked' to the base of the firing model is huge. Also, Firesweep is a huge buff; you're adding an average of +2 attacks on the charge.

Also, why is your 1 squad fighting the entire army by itself?

It's not, but it's fighting the one viable target (the first wave). You're all theoryhammering gak that didn't work at all in fifth (while pretending it's old hat and obvious), ignoring the fact that I'm trying to build an all comers list, and assuming that if I can down one squad of the enemy the rest of it with it's 21" charge range somehow goes home instead of proceeding to stomp me from well outside flamer range. I can't flamer something from half a table away. They on the other hand can assault something half a table away. Thats why this gak doesn't work. The threat ranges are all out of wack.

You're also ignoring the fact that theres more in a fast horde than just line troops.

This conversation is pretty circular. This rough document is not the finished version, so I'm happy to wait and see how the meta works out. This conversation has run its course though. I don't like debating with 10 people at once.

Well, if you're building an all-comer's list, you should have some alternate means of dealing with hordes in there, instead of trying to defeat the entire army with a single squad of tac marines.

Your Blast markers have become more accurate, your template weapons have become deadlier, your vehicles are more resilient, your troops are harder to break than almost any other army excluding fearless units, you're getting more attacks in CC; if you do wipe out a unit on the assault you can still shoot, the enemies don't have the ubiquitous 4+ cover save anymore... I mean what else did you want? Tac marines that were immune to damage? Universal FNP? +6 attacks per model?

[edit in response]

Oh, good.

ShumaGorath wrote:
Its not padded. Without transport for the troops I've already lost (in fifth which is what makes the build standard), and honestly I'm not taking tacs at all in sixth anyway. Just minimum scout squads since everything can score.

It is padded as you're including the tank in the points cost but not considering its possible effects in the combat. Something about having cake and eating it too...

Either way, I'd be curious if those more learned than me in the ways of the rumored 6th edition rules could figure out how a typical fight with just a bog standard tactical squad of 10 with the freebie flamer/heavy bolter would do vs an equal point total of hormagants (170pts)... poisoned, furiously charging, or standard.. whatever is best for them with the new rules. Obviously this type of fight that would exclude any other parts of the armies involved isn't standard but sure would go a long way to understanding the mathhammer balance of the "new" rules using existing codicies.

junk wrote:Shuma, you're killing me.

"Game over man!"

There's no question that Tyranids got a huge boost using the 6e Rules, in fact most of the newer codexes benefit more than the older ones. I'm sure the next VSM codex will feature some new stuff that fits in the ruleset a little better, but I doubt there will be a magical upgrade to give standard tac squads +6 toughness and 12 extra attacks in CC.