Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

covenant84 wrote:I'm pretty sure SM are under scale, both model wise and characteristic wise. The fluff says they stand out among a crowd even without their armour and that one could take on 100 'normal' men. Don't see this in 40K!

How much fun would that be to play? Do you really want to field a 1500+ point space marine army that consists of one 5 man tac squad? If marines can kill 100 guys, that's what your squad is going to cost you (probably double that actualy, 500 IG troopers = 3000 points). If you want to see that level of power and invincibility in a single model, they are going to be so redicilously expensive that its not going to be very interesting.

As things stand now, marines are really good. They have great armor and good stats across the board. The addition of ATSKNF just makes them even better. They have access to both heavy and special weapons in their basic troop squads as well as access to special hand to hand weapons. All these things give them significant advantages over other armies and keep them a fun (and fairly blanced) army.

let me see
Kharn: gorechild(hits on a 2+ and 2xd6 armour penetration) fearless, furious charge(+1 str and init,making str6,init6 when he charges) and yes a 5+invulnerable save.

Fabius bile: Fearless, chirurgeon(+1str,+2A, feel no pain) Xyclos needler assualt3 always wounds on a 2+, Rod of torment all wounds are instant death(not a power weapon though)

though I concede the point about mephiston, both these characters abilitys exeed dantes and they are 35 and 40 points less than he is.

Special characters have never been really well balanced. They always seem to tend towards the extreams of too good for what they cost (Eldrad) or to crapy (most other special characters). Regardless, giving them all increadable super stats might be fluffy, but it doesn't make for good game balance.

fatlad2613 wrote:let me see
Kharn: gorechild(hits on a 2+ and 2xd6 armour penetration) fearless, furious charge(+1 str and init,making str6,init6 when he charges) and yes a 5+invulnerable save.

Fabius bile: Fearless, chirurgeon(+1str,+2A, feel no pain) Xyclos needler assualt3 always wounds on a 2+, Rod of torment all wounds are instant death(not a power weapon though)

though I concede the point about mephiston, both these characters abilitys exeed dantes and they are 35 and 40 points less than he is.

If we're arguing about balance between special characters and the comparative pricing of Dante, does that mean there isn't a compelling argument to move ALL SM characters to S5 base?

If SM Characters get S5 base, Dante isn't special. And S10 PFs become silly. It is better that SM Characters stay S4 base, and keep I5+.

S5 marines is a bit much, I agree, and toughness 5 starts putting Marines out of the wound range of IG (which have enough problems scaring people with flashlights). The Marine stat line is a solid stat line and doesn't need to be changed.

S5 for marine commanders would be a bit much as well. S10 powerfists are damn scary and that opens all kinds of possibilities for people who slap a Chaplain and Librarian in that command squad so you have upteen S10 attacks that reroll misses.

Initiative 3 PFs on marines would be a bit much too. That's the drawback to being able to insta-kill just about everything in the game. Also, if you made it a universal rule for all PFs then Warbosses would rip across the table with a S10 I4 hands of devastating pimp slaps.

There are "Movie" marines in a WD that give really cool stats and rules for marines. You could always try these if you want fluffy marines. I agree that tabletop marines don't live up to the fluff, but in the end very few armies in the game actually do.

When everybody lives up to their individual Fluff, collectively, they're all going to look pretty average.

Here's a totally random thought brought on by a fit of digestive speculation induced by my mother's artichoke dip: what about bumping their strength, but bringing their toughness back down to Rogue Trader levels? (3) You'd have some right mean Assault Squads, especially with FC, but the overall loss of survivability in firefights would balance it. It'd also have all sorts of neat implications for the game since 40k is based on Space Marines. Low-strength, low-AP weapons would become more efficient weapons than they currently are, having to struggle over T4 to get their effect. It could be provoke some moans from newbs facing Howling Banshees or Wyches, but a lot of stuff generally agreed to be sub-optimal, like Dark Reapers and Daemonhosts, would get a substantial boost. With Power Sword Marines having the same odds to a kill as Power Fist Marines, it could even WEAKEN hidden fists. (even though these fists would be pulling a S10 when they ever do attack)

I take in all these comments, and do feel now that their stat line is ok (those catachan models have always annoyed me size wise even when they were metal, the IG is sized right comarative to each other but not the rest of the game).

However it's still anoying when a big monster makes it across the table and starts walking from one squad to another, especially when playing a game where the is little space for moving away from it to get a round of shooting in. Yes it may be the players poor tactics (or the opponents good ones) that have caused the sitution in the first place but when faced with quite a respectable nid army sometimes you're left with a choice of die or die especially if the nids stick to terrain. This rarely happens in the background but then when playing on the table top there seems to be far more big creatures than in the books so I guess fluff wise their actually fine, it's the army compositions that don't fit in. I'm going to look intodevastator squads more. Have thought they were over priced before but then they were pants against my usual opponents. Have also been playing squad command and love the amount of HWPs availble but there's no way that sort of thing will ever be on the tabletop, it's just not how 40K works or come to that matter what the fluff says!

I really wish GW would go to a base 10 system instead of 6. I think that would go a long ways towards getting the sort of granularity in stats people would like while allowing them to be more accurate to the fluff.
I also think they need to get their scale back in line.

Of course, a base 10 system would require me to buy 30 odd dice, and rescaled minis would make for a wierd cross over period. But still, one can dream.