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BYE

Blow Fly... your posts continue to impress me with how little they have to do with the topic at hand, or how often you miss the meaning of the OP.

Coming from you that must be an endorsement.

Anyways, Space Marines are the funnest race to play in the game. Pretty much you can do stuff just for fun and still generally not get yourself wiped. Their fluffy armies are actually quite useful, and they are dead simple to paint.

Plus, who doesn't dream of being an 8ft tall superhuman whose only occupation is to smite things? Hell I would do it.

From a different perspective just imagine the game without Marines. The army rarely wins big tournaments... so these are easy games for veteran xenos players. I think a lot of people start off with Marines then gradually move on to other races.

G (vote for me as top trolle )

Green Blow Fly wrote:The army rarely wins big tournaments... so these are easy games for veteran xenos players.

And that was my (albeit cryptic) original point Greeny - this has nothing do with how many tournament games they win. This is more to do with the emphasis on 40K being put on something other than Marines, from art-work to fluff, not just 'competative gameplay' (which as Jervis has explained to us, is only for the fringes of gaming society and mean people).

As many have said, I think the game would lose some of its appeal if, say, Guard were the focus and Marines were not. Where's the fun in the main heroes just being GI Joes in space especially when just around the corner there's this little talked about but still known force of super-human warrior monk knight soldiers who seem far more powerful.

And I say this as a Guard player. I love my Guard army to bits, but if the game focused on Guard as much as it does now Marines? Wow. That would not be interesting.

BYE

Look at the ratio of armies that are featured in Black Library books:

Gaunt's Ghost
Ciaphas (sp?) Cain
new novel by Dan Abnett about Titan Legio

Certainly Space Marines in general get the most love from the Black Library but there are other novels that will appeal to those that don't get into power armor... and some of those are my favorite reads. To me many of the novels about power armor are boring to say the least, while the others seem to be much more interesting.

G

I think a lot of people are mixing the ideas of "should GW focus on marines" and the original post's question.

If marines sell so well, and are a good army for beginners, I can't really fault them for focusing so much attention on them.

On the other hand, as someone who plays multiple non-marine armies, it is annoying to see constant marine updates and very little for everyone else. Facing marine after marine gets old, too, as the game is much more enjoyable (to me) when facing a variety of very different opponents that present unique tactical challenges.

I think the most annoying thing, though, is the fact the marines are given license to basically ignore 50% or more of the standard rules of the game:
- ATSKNF and other leadership/morale boosts
- drop pods with first turn strike, ignoring dangerous terrain
- with new codex, new toys to ignore cover saves
- etc

I think it's even worse for marine players...the game is best when it's aliens vs. humanity, but with so many marine players, it gets kind of silly. The new ork codex helps a bit, as does Eldar being so tough, but there are still a LOT of marines out there.

I really am annoyed with Space Marines. I have read that sacred boltgun bit like one million times, I find that their fluff as "brave heroes" fighting against all odds is pretty stupid. I mean come on, if they are suppose to be heroes then how come they get all the best weapons and vehicles and crap and just get better with every update. When I played 4th edition, I lost alot to SM I will admit and I believe I won once (thanks to an excellant bomb by my Kommandos that destroyed a predator). Some would call it bitterness but I call it boredom. Like everyone placed SM there, or CSM and there was like 2 other people who played Ork (one was speed freak). Like it is all shoved in your face with the Space Marines but quite frankly I'd like to see guard or Inquisition step up to the plate. When Iam going to watch a movie per se, and I have a choice between the Crusades, World War 2 or maybe even one based on the spanish inquisition I would definatly choose the later two as they are more appealing.

Despite that I don't think Space Marines should be underplayed I just think they should stop being OVERPLAYED. I lost two battles once against DE and Eldar. Even though I lost I enjoy the fact of playing another race, however when I face Space Marines it's like damn I have to beat them or this is just going to be a waste of time. No new strategies, no colourful units just same old fearless, high powered, standback and shoot space marines in power armour.

Either Space Marines sshould lose their powerful weaponary, recieve morale, or create an army list for them to make the players who play them actually think!

Thats pretty much gamewise, fluff I think they just say how good their emperor is blah blah. With the Guard or Inquisition its more like you better hope you make that shot or this weird monster is going to melt your brain, It makes for an interesting read.

Should they dominate? I don't see why. Once people who have Marines meet people who Also have Marines I'd Imagine games would get boring for you. It's about Sci-fi warfare in the future with Aliens, Demons and Bloody Hungry Gods not about super humans in "ceremite" suits fighting each other. 40k has a host of strange alien technology and unique troop types with teleportation and such, If everyone wants to play SM then buy Dawn of War or at least use them as an occasional second army or for your newbie friend to play as.

To me Space marines could be cool if they were represented the same way as the guard(fluff and marketing-wise) that way the game would be more Imperium based (instead of Emperor based) yet give way to more Xenos armies.

It is the will of the Space Emporer, how can anyone be against it?

I agree with the posters who hold SMs to be a starter army. The super morale, armour saves, etc are training wheels. They make it harder to lose.

Fluff wise the SMs are exactly what a 12-year old boy wants to see. Tough, big and respected, and no girls.

It's no wonder that GW push SMs so hard.

Also because to lure people to the game they need something that doesnt require to much time or money to put a decent army together and SM's do that.

With orks, IG and nids you need heaps of troops or heaps of MC, with eldar, tau and dark eldar you need to know what you want, you really need to want to collect SoB, WH, DH and know some of the fluff and have the money for them.

I can see why, im not for or against, i have done my bit, i have 2 friends that have two armies [thanxs to me] one has tau and CSM and the other has orks and dark eldar

For all those who have been to Warhammer World and seen the 9' tall bronze statue of a Spase Marien (HURR!) standing outside the door - I think this is a pretty big clue as to what they think their main seller is.

If anyone is not convinced - the door I'm talking about is not the door to the shop and the gaming hall. Its the door to the offices where the men in suits walk in!!!

I think that Space Marines have always been popular amongst 40K players. They're simply the coolest, most iconic 40K race. Considering their absolute dominance (numerically) over the other races, I think that GW making a variety of different army lists (SM, CSM, DA, BA, SW, BT, DH) for them makes sense. It helps to mix things up a bit. In an ideal world, only a few people would play SM, and there would be lots of IG and Ork players, but that's just not how it panned out. GW might as well play the hand they've got, right?

Space Marines are one of the most iconic things about 40K, they've been there right from the begining, the game was practically built around them. They are appealing in many ways.

GW have expanded the various Marine lists to offer a variety of marine armies rather than making them all identical, which seems the most appropriate approach. They do dominate 40K but it's ok.

Though too many marine armies in a small area means players will end up playing marines against each other, which is a bit silly really.

I remember my first game... Blood Angels vs. Ultramarines in 2nd ed. I was BA. I was being shown how to play and the other guy took a vortex grenade and tabled me, as though that helped me to learn.

My first 3rd ed. game was Space Wolves vs. Ultramarines. How much more vanillanoob can you get than that? Then the plastic catachans came out and THEY were in for a while.

I think before the new space marine codex came out I would have answered the question rather differently.

The problem with Marines Dominating is that they become so vanilla. I really don't care if you go and make a heavily themed, in terms of conversions and painting, chapter and then proceed to take x4 tactical squads and two "other" units. To me that is still vanilla boringness. Both to play against and look at. Generally I found that is what most marine armies looked like. It was only when you came up against one of the more unusual lists that it became a bit more exciting. Deathwing, ravenwing, Templars with big crusader squads. Those armies were exciting.

But now with the new codex and the amazing amount of options open to marine players, right the way from HQ choices which can dramatically change the way you play, to heavy support they are much more exciting.

There is infinitely more diversity and I fully expect Marine players to take advantage of it. Please make exciting armies, not necessarily ultra competitive, but not armies that just spam tac marines.

The great background in the new dex helps a lot as well. When playing Marines I want to feel like im fighting humanities finest. I want to reminded of their fluff because under the new codex I think it is cooler than ever.

I've always played marines, right from second ed 40k, and to tell you the truth in some eyes they may be 'boring' but with the past 2 editions of the vanilla marine codex i see so much variety now that no two marine armies are never the same, for example my 4th ed army was based around loads of tanks, now im moving towards a fast moving transport force with Shrike leading it no two of my marine armies have ever been the same. GW puts alot of focus into them as for the aforementioned points they are the flagship army and they are GWs biggest sellers and are a great army for people to begin with, but they offer alot to experienced players aswell, to so it will never annoy me that they 'dominate' 40k, and if you dont like them just collect another army and beat the upstart marines down with the orks or tau

Does anyone think that possibly the reason that 1/3 of all GW sales are SM could be that 1/2 of all the cool models are SM? If GW made new and interesting units for their other armies *cough*Dark Eldar*cough* then maybe we wouldnt see such a trend.

orks are on the rise

99mdeery:
Tell people not to use Tac marines? Tell Tau players to stop using fire warriors!

I've never fought a battle with my space marine force but I enjoy modelling and painting. The selection of space marine models and parts is consistently high quality. I pick and choose individual models from the other races. So it is sales in my opinion, either for game players or modellers.

Basic laws of supply and demand? If no one bought the models, they'd have to diversify. If they restrict the supply, why do people still buy them?

So have we come to the conclusion that SM players have a lack of imagination?. I understand they are popular and i have no problem with that, but why not create new armies or focus on maintaing other armies before dishing out yet more codex's for SM.

And is it only me that have noticed in EVERY codex or rulebook the examples will always use SM.

"The orks fire their big shoota with strengh 5, For example" hmm i wonder whats coming next "five space marines" << ahhh wtf not them again

They just have to rub it in that SM take the front centre role of 40k. But then again who am i to complain, im new to 40k anyway.

I just personally find it boring to be an overplayed race which is dominated by kiddies.

they need to have starter packs without marines, like they used to do with 3rd edition

The funny thing about it is that from a fluff perspective most people in the 40K galaxy would never have seen a space marine.

There are over a million planets and only about 10,000 companies of Space Marines. If you spread them out as evenly as possible, one in one hundred planets could have a company land on it.

Pariah Press wrote: I think that Space Marines have always been popular amongst 40K players. They're simply the coolest, most iconic 40K race. Considering their absolute dominance (numerically) over the other races, I think that GW making a variety of different army lists (SM, CSM, DA, BA, SW, BT, DH) for them makes sense. It helps to mix things up a bit. In an ideal world, only a few people would play SM, and there would be lots of IG and Ork players, but that's just not how it panned out. GW might as well play the hand they've got, right?

Pretty much my thoughts.

When a third of your sales are from one army, surely it makes sense to offer as much variety as possible into said force? After all, Space Wolves play differently to Dark Angels, and Black Templars aren't exactly your standard Marine force either.

Add in their genuinely iconic status, mixing as they do Monks, Knights and Sci-Fi Super Soldier, and they pretty much set the feel of the 40k Galaxy nicely. 40k is not Science Fiction. 40k is Science *Fantasy*. Without Marines as they are, the game would be fairly lame, with Eldar just being Elves...in space! Orks just being Orks...in space! and so on. But the Marines made the setting uniquely recognisable.

And most importantly, if this is a chicken and egg question, I have the answer. Marines came out, got RTB01, and became popular off their own back. So their popularity came first, then the sheer amount of product based around them.

I know Marine players are infinitely inferior to any other type of player, especially when they beat you (which clearly only happened because they were playing Marines, and only NooBs play Marines) but you can't fight statistics.

It doesn't annoy me but I think marines should remember how good they have it. Bolt guns are one of the best standard guns in the game.

I think all marine players should play a guard army. Just to remind them that a BS4 bolter really is a god weapon.

Kilkrazy wrote:The funny thing about it is that from a fluff perspective most people in the 40K galaxy would never have seen a space marine.

There are over a million planets and only about 10,000 companies of Space Marines. If you spread them out as evenly as possible, one in one hundred planets could have a company land on it.

No. The funny thing is how many CHAPTERS of Marines each veteran player has likely destroyed in the course of playing games. Conservatively speaking - I think I must have obliterated the entire Deathwing many times over, and exterminated somwhere in the neighbourhood of 4-5 codex marine chapters worth of powered armored brethern in my years of playing! All of the Xenos armies (other than Eldar) can easily accomodate that kind of attrition.

Let's not go so far as to say that marine players lack imagination. I'm starting a smurf army - by stripping and repainting my homebrew codex marines - because I've always liked them and think the variety and quality of models are highly appealing. The simplicity of play for vanillas and ultras allows one to gauge the effectiveness of other armies as well.

I don't think anyone who knows me would call me unimaginative (quite the opposite, actually) and while I'm not entirely up-to-date on curent gameplay, I'm not a noob to 40K as I've been collecting armies since Rogue Trader and 2nd ed. Marines are not my only army, but they were my first.

They provide an apealing counterpoint to other armies in their simplicity. It's because of marines that I can enjoy the unique specialization of units in my eldar army and the subtle yet significant differences between Necrons and Marines. I haven't played orks since 2nd edition, but I can't wait to get my RT-era boys on the table against the marines I've just finished painting.

Marines have statlines, abilities, and equipment that other armies can only hope to mimic, however, and unfortunately their point costs don't accurately reflect this advantage. Dakkites have a long tradition proposing alterations to the rules (for the betterment of the game) in the hopes that someone influential enough will have their ear bent. Perhaps one day this will happen, but more likely not.

No other army will eclipse the marine's influence on the game and the business except in passing. I think we can all agree on this point! The unfortunate truth of the matter is that due to this fact, no army will ever receive the development, expansions, or models that SM get.

There are far to many updates and new things for SM, and personally I hate them... they just remind me of the catholic church to much.

But hey, if they sell a lot let them, the more people that play SM the more I will win.

I wonder what will happen if GW took away all other armies and just went along with the Marinehammer 40k idea.

Sales up? Down? You guys say they already make up 1/3 of sales so why not make it 100%?
Maybe people will get bored and long for the days when they had other armies to fight against (yet maybe only had marines themselves so really weren't part of the solution)? Or maybe they'll be like OMG SPACE MARINES FOR EVERYONE and it'll be totally cool cuz everyone plays a homoerotic superhero army.

Yeah, I think the latter is what would happen. Make it so, GW. Make it so.

stonefox wrote:I wonder what will happen if GW took away all other armies and just went along with the Marinehammer 40k idea.

Sales up? Down? You guys say they already make up 1/3 of sales so why not make it 100%?
Maybe people will get bored and long for the days when they had other armies to fight against (yet maybe only had marines themselves so really weren't part of the solution)? Or maybe they'll be like OMG SPACE MARINES FOR EVERYONE and it'll be totally cool cuz everyone plays a homoerotic superhero army.

Yeah, I think the latter is what would happen. Make it so, GW. Make it so.

That would kill them. And they know it.

Yes SM are a large part of sales for new players, but who in there right mind stays with them?

Pluse if they did away with everything els i would not be shocked to hear and GW getting a few mail bombs or some old school anthrax.