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Vanilla marines is still the best meq codex in terms of tournament power, imo.

@Schadenfreude
Nope, no one else has the very, very useful Null Zone.

@Nuggzthe Ninja
I disagree. Vanilla Marines can still hang. 30 TH/SS fleeting termies backed up by a Nullzone/Gate Libby and Shrike with shooty units behind them will go toe-to-toe with damn near anything. You bring that list to a tournament and you will do just fine.

Khan, Pedro and Vulkan lists still win tournaments.

And yes, of course specialty builds and match-ups are what win, that is true of ever single codex. That is why we have terms like Logan Wing, Missile Spam, DoA, "the meta," etc.

No book can take a random selection of units and win. I doubt that is what you meant, but I am trying to point out that saying you must specialize your list to maximize your odds of winning applies to every codex.

@CKO
You said it. BT has plenty of handicaps that hold it back from being insane.

People are having Chicken Little syndrome here. The sky is not falling, the game will be fine, there are just two new top tier armies and IMO, that is a good thing.

Rurouni Benshin wrote:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:I think Scubasteve is arguing that the Vanilla Marines dex is the worst Marine dex, not the worst overall dex. In that case, he'd be right with the exception of certain specialty builds in certain matchups.

I fail to see how this supports his argument, Nuggz. If (for some reason) C:SM is most effective in "certain match ups", (as opposed to other MEQ codices) as you put it, that would prove that C:SM is not the worst amongst the MEQ codices.

And honestly, I think Scubasteve has a lot more explaining to do if he's trying to convince people that he's right.

As far as Marine codices, he's right. The UK Masters lists shows that very succinctly. The breakdown:

Imperial Guard 3
Eldar 2
Tyranids 2
Chaos Daemons 2
Space Wolves 2
Chaos Space Marines 2
Dark Eldar 2
Blood Angels 1

Literally zero players running Vanilla Marines, while 1/3 are Marine dexes. The SW lists are both the stereotypical Razor-TWC jobs, whereas the CSM lists are Double-Lash. Altogether very cookie-cutter with little variation. People seem to have maxed out the competitive builds for these dexes, and C:SM just doesn't make an appearance.

Everyone seems to be missing the point here...

Someone is complaining about the SPACE MARINES being BAD. This is almost the greatest irony since the Emperor stopped moving!

Reecius wrote:@Schadenfreude
Nope, no one else has the very, very useful Null Zone.

@Nuggzthe Ninja
I disagree. Vanilla Marines can still hang. 30 TH/SS fleeting termies backed up by a Nullzone/Gate Libby and Shrike with shooty units behind them will go toe-to-toe with damn near anything. You bring that list to a tournament and you will do just fine.

Khan, Pedro and Vulkan lists still win tournaments.

And yes, of course specialty builds and match-ups are what win, that is true of ever single codex. That is why we have terms like Logan Wing, Missile Spam, DoA, "the meta," etc.

No book can take a random selection of units and win. I doubt that is what you meant, but I am trying to point out that saying you must specialize your list to maximize your odds of winning applies to every codex.

@CKO
You said it. BT has plenty of handicaps that hold it back from being insane.

People are having Chicken Little syndrome here. The sky is not falling, the game will be fine, there are just two new top tier armies and IMO, that is a good thing.

I get what you're saying, and when I look at the Pedro and Shrike lists on paper they look fantastic, but most of the times I've seen Vulkan and Khan lists at Tourneys they get pasted. That doesn't make them bad, perhaps that was the players' doing.

I'd like to see battle reports of the 30 Combiweapon Sternguard Pedro list and the 30 TH/SS Terminators Shrike list.

As a separate observation, I think it's worth noting that ALL codices' potentially competitive builds are harder to put together than most of the lists at the UK Masters, either because they're spammy or because they rely upon a single model. Spammy, as in 15 ML Fangs, 30 TH/SS Terminators, or 30 Sternguard with combi-weapons ($$$), or relying upon a single model as in the TWC-spam lists. Do you really want to build an assload of Logan Grimnars?

Rurouni Benshin wrote:What's with all the "Dreadnought Hate"? I've played Ironclad's and Venerable's numerous times before, and they've easily earned back their points (in most games). Furioso Librarians are legitimately better, but are also more expensive (which makes sense). Regular Furioso better? That's debatable....

I agree, my Venerable Dread is often one of my most reliable units.

@Nuggzthe Ninja
Who is in the UK Masters GT is not definitive proof of anything really. That is such a limited sample of players and there are so many other variables to consider that all that is is interesting data.

You have to consider a million other things: player skill, points level, missions, what armies these players actually have, what they chose to play, the meta, etc. etc. etc.

In order to gain any kind of real data you would have to analyze a LOT of tournament results. One tournament with 16 players is not indicative of the game as a whole. Not even close.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:

Rurouni Benshin wrote:What's with all the "Dreadnought Hate"? I've played Ironclad's and Venerable's numerous times before, and they've easily earned back their points (in most games). Furioso Librarians are legitimately better, but are also more expensive (which makes sense). Regular Furioso better? That's debatable....

I agree, my Venerable Dread is often one of my most reliable units.

BT can runs Venerable Dreads w/ TL-Lascannons + ML & Tank Hunters for that S10 and S9 shot...ugly! Arguably one of the better choices that people haven't futzed with yet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Reecius wrote:@Nuggzthe Ninja
Who is in the UK Masters GT is not definitive proof of anything really. That is such a limited sample of players and there are so many other variables to consider that all that is is interesting data.

You have to consider a million other things: player skill, points level, missions, what armies these players actually have, what they chose to play, the meta, etc. etc. etc.

In order to gain any kind of real data you would have to analyze a LOT of tournament results. One tournament with 16 players is not indicative of the game as a whole. Not even close.

Fair enough. If you want to direct us to a meta-analysis of army list breakdowns in different tournaments, it'd sure shed a lot of light on the discussion!

Destroyer wrote:Everyone seems to be missing the point here...

Someone is complaining about the SPACE MARINES being BAD. This is almost the greatest irony since the Emperor stopped moving!

I actually pointed that out in my post, but it needs to be reiterated: Space Marine players don't get to complain about the strength of their codex for any reason.

$$$ and logistics does come into the equation, I agree.

You make good points, but honestly, this is a whine thread, which is annoying.

Vanilla is just fine. They are not as good as SWs but that are inferior by a small degree, and player skill can compensate for that.

It just gets annoying to see people complain about something like this. Make a comment, sure, but to start a thread essentially crying about it is pretty lame and I was just coming to the good old Vanilla Marine's defense!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

Fair enough. If you want to direct us to a meta-analysis of army list breakdowns in different tournaments, it'd sure shed a lot of light on the discussion!

I actually did just that last year! Haha, it is on BoLS somewhere, but I can't be bothered to find it right now!

I studied the results of tournaments from events around the world and found that in fact, there was a really wide variety of lists and armies represented, even Crons (3rd place UKGT finish last year).

The thing is that at 1500 points, you don't have so much room to customize and as such you see more cookie-cutter lists only because that is all that fits! At larger points values the game opens up. Weaker armies can get better. What you do see though, is that some armies scale really well, like IG.

Anyway, my point was that it is more about player skill and luck than it is about book. The book is the foundation but the castle is built by the player, so-to-speak.

You know what this thread is?

Lol at the whining. This bandaid didn't make Dark Angels better than space marines. Dark Angels are still the WORST marine army in 40k. Since I am a Dark Angels player:

1. Relic blades
2. Cheaper terminators with COMBAT SQUADS (3 point discount per model) Dwing are restricted to 5 man squads, which I hate. No 10 man squads.
3. Space Marine characters are way better. Vulkan, pedro, etc.
4. Special ammo sternguard. I'm sorry, dark angels vets suck. There's no reason to take them. Ever.
5. Ironclad
6. 35 point droppods. Dark Angels cost 50!
7. Scouts as troops with sniper rifles, camo cloaks, and more options. DA scouts are frickin ELITES.
8. Superior tactical marines. Sgt can have combi-melta, don't pay for heavy or special weapons, combat tactics. AND they are still less points. They are better in EVERY WAY except for the 5 man squads.
9. Cheaper razorback.
10. Las/plas razorback
11. No restrictions on typhoon. For all the idiots complaining about DA Typhoons, they are 75 points for ONE PER SLOT. I'd rather I could take 9 thank you very much.
12. Much better bikesquads with attack bike attachments <- this really makes me sad. This is why ravenwing suck.
13. Attack bike squads. Ravenwing can only take attack bikes as a separate detachment of a super expensive (ravenwing cost like terminators) ravenwing squad. A single 1 that doesnt' have vulcan making it twin-linked. And is a free kill point. No taking 3 in one slot. You have to buy 3 ravenwing bikes first to take 1 single attackbike.
14. Shooty dreadnoughts are more expensive, regardless of build.
15. No autocannon on left arm of dreadnought. Missile launcher only.
16. Crappy dozer blades. Dark Angel dozer blades can ONLY be used if you moved 6" or less..making them utterly worthless.
17. Any autocannon pred is cheaper. Auto/las is 120 vs. 130. Dakka 85 vs. 95. The only same cost one is the overprice triple las pred that no one takes.
18. No landraider redeemer.
19. DA landraiders have smaller carrying capacities compared to marines. All their transports do. 10 for droppod, 10 for landraider, etc.
20. Absolute crap librarians that cannot have an invul save worth taking and are leadership 9. <- That's a suck psychic hood. And when your only powers are force barrier (remove 1 invul wound! whoopie) and a random strength flamer that can be strength 0..yeah not so much.

I can just go on and on and on about everything...this isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

The only things that are better for DA are:
1. 5 man terminator squads, and then only sort of because of nullzone, cost and 10 man squads. You want to take 8 termies in a crusader with DA? ...awww...out of luck.
2. Single dinky landspeeders. If you like taking singles, then the DA's do it better. Want more than 3? You're out of luck...play black templars who can have 3 in one slot for 70 points (which is cheaper than 75 for DA).

People saying that Dark Angels are suddenly at the top obviously never played Dark Angels.

Edit: Oh yeah..while I'm at it, Dark Angel landspeeders cannot deepstrike.
You can only take teleport homers on ravenwing bikes.
You cannot turboboost on ravenwing scout moves.

As much noise as doublewing has made...we've long since figured out that 1st and 10th (terminators and scouts) are a superior build. MUCH superior build. And that hasn't changed. The only real nuts thing the deathwing can do over space marines is use deathwing assault (You may choose at the start of your first turn to have half of your deathwing squads show up on first turn...the you may choose part makes it good)..but since you can't turboboost on ravenwing scout moves, 1st and 10th trashes mech so much better with scout bikes.

@ Reecius, literally the only thing I have to whine about is that in updating the wargear, they neglected to modify the rule about DA Psychic Hoods affecting the entire battlefield. Other than that, whatever...every army has its strengths and weaknesses. Double Lash / Oblit lists will still paste BT Terminator spam so I'm happy.

It seems crazy for someone to complain about a wargear update. Our cyclone missle launchers shoot the same how do we have the advantage? Now when we met in cc we both have a 3+ inv save? Or maybe the power of the machine spirit is to powerful?

This is the best thing they have done in a long time as a company and we should applaud them for this.

And as far as the psychic defense thing goes maybe the marines in dresses are trying to protect their black templar brothers!

Dark Angel psychic hoods are leadership 9..they already suck as they are. They didn't need to be nerfed further. WORST psykers in the game. I'd rather have an ork one. At least eve though their psykers suck, they don't cost 120 base for a 2 wound guy with no invul save.

I cant stand threads like this. Someone will come on, complain and whine about why said codex sucks and then no matter HOW MANY points people prove then wrong, they completely ignore those points and then say something along the lines of "ok so all those suck whatelse do you have?"


If you dont like a certain codex, stay the hell away from it, plain and simple. I personally cant stand the BA/SW so guess what? I dont have/play them.

DA psychers are the 2nd worst of any meq codex, BT don't even get ld 9 psychic hoods.

KingCracker wrote:If you dont like a certain codex, stay the hell away from it, plain and simple. I personally cant stand the BA/SW so guess what? I dont have/play them.

QFT.

So where's the troll that started this thread now...?

BT can take an Inquis ally though, for the infinite range Ld10 hood. Or can they? I seem to remember them not being able to ally with psykers or something. Have to check that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/340105.page

Nope, the inquisitor ally is good to go. BT give up an HQ for the solution to their biggest weakness, or defense against it at any rate. Cheap troop unit too in IST.

Ok I admit I was furious when I saw the updates and QQed a bit. I am not trolling. A lot of people in this thread bring up valid points and the Vanilla marines are in fine shape and will always be competitive.

In my opinion though, they are still on the bottom of the barrel as far as the MEQ codexes go (C:SM, BA,BT,DA,SW) Even if its by a small 1% margin, they are still on the bottom. Scout bikes, thunderfires, relic blades, ironclads, storms for the nilla codex compared to expensive troops, transports, limiting FOC does not matter when you min-max everything that is good in the 4th ed codexs (75pt typhoons, 2x HW tank hunter terminators for BT, army wide 3++ for DA, ect) and take full advantage of the recent amendment.

My problem is DA/BT getting these updates to cyclone, SS, ect, without the points cost increase. The entire codex needs to be rebalanced before major updates like these can be implemented for balancing purposes. Why don't Tau, or Necrons, or any older codexes get amendments? GW is going overboard on MEQ, and its really getting boring to keep getting MEQ vs MEQ matchups on the tabletop.

I still love codex:space marines, and I will play them religiously since the day I started playing Salamanders.

Hulksmash wrote: You just want to whine and hear people agree with you.

QFT

Anyways you can untwist your knickers Space Marines will get a new codex quicker than any other race. Get over it

The problem with this thinking is that you've forgotten EVERYTHING ELSE in the marine book is less points.

Pretty much, you build any DA list, you make the equivalent space marine one, and it is less points.

That, and I still think space marine landspeeders SHOULD cost more. The DA ones can't deepstrike and are limited by the force org. They also don't have the landspeeder options that the VSM have.

Example:
5 DA terminators with cyclone: 215+20 = 235
5 space marine terminators with cyclone: 200+30=230

Yes, you can mix and match thunderhammer storm shield in, but you're limited to 5 and can't combat squad. Add nullzone and cheaper terminators, and I don't know if the DA ones are necessarily better.

Even if you max the 3 FA slots, at most you save 60 points. That gets easily wiped out by the fact that everything else is worse and more expensive.

This thinking that VSM are totally worse is way way offbase.

notabot187 wrote:C:SM are still fine, BT and DA are finally better (though still have major issues due to restrictivce FOC issues). I personally look foward towards seeing more than the Vanilla marines, and not having to remember old wordings on the same war gear. Who cares that the other books get a discount on certain upgrades and units, C:SM pay a premium on MLs and other common things over what BA or SW get, and people still take them and they are still good.

I don't know how accurate this analysis is, but my gut tells me it's pretty close.

Except for that last bit about ML's (which I am assuming is referring to dev squads - there are better choices for 'nilla marines).

And a nod to Reecius as well.

That's all I had time to digest before I posted.

scubasteve04 wrote:Ok I admit I was furious when I saw the updates and QQed a bit. I am not trolling. A lot of people in this thread bring up valid points and the Vanilla marines are in fine shape and will always be competitive.

In my opinion though, they are still on the bottom of the barrel as far as the MEQ codexes go (C:SM, BA,BT,DA,SW) Even if its by a small 1% margin, they are still on the bottom. Scout bikes, thunderfires, relic blades, ironclads, storms for the nilla codex compared to expensive troops, transports, limiting FOC does not matter when you min-max everything that is good in the 4th ed codexs (75pt typhoons, 2x HW tank hunter terminators for BT, army wide 3++ for DA, ect) and take full advantage of the recent amendment.

My problem is DA/BT getting these updates to cyclone, SS, ect, without the points cost increase. The entire codex needs to be rebalanced before major updates like these can be implemented for balancing purposes. Why don't Tau, or Necrons, or any older codexes get amendments? GW is going overboard on MEQ, and its really getting boring to keep getting MEQ vs MEQ matchups on the tabletop.

I still love codex:space marines, and I will play them religiously since the day I started playing Salamanders.

As I said before, that 60 point advantage is wiped out easily by the extra expense of everything else in Dark Angels. As for army wide 3++...the only things that can take storm shields are deathwing and vets. Since deathwing are scoring and cheaper than vets, you would never take them. Ever. So that leaves deathwing. I'm just not seeing how this is all that great. You can take 30 assault terminators for less points in space marines. You use all 6 troop slots for 6*5=30 terminators that are fearless, more expensive, but also can't combat squad. And if you've ever played deathwing, you know that the low model count hurts.

If you think that's "good", don't forget blood angels can take 30 assault terminators and take sanguinary priests giving feel no pain and furious charge, etc etc. This new Dark Angel "trick" isn't really anything that people haven't tried. <- take command squad

I've already seen loganwing lists with a couple of stormshields and cyclones per squad. The extra cost is offset by taking cheaper power weapon storm bolter terminators (those cost 33 points)

It's already been done, and it's not all that.

No, people will figure out fast...deathwing still sucks. You can still do better with other codices.

Wow... you did such a good job debunking that you almost made me get unexcited over my own army's update...

C:SM is by no means the worst.

Once people adjust to seeing 25-30 termies on the table they'll not be so fast to jam pack every special weapon option with melta and add in some plasma for balance.

My prediction is that within a year there won't be a ton of people still spamming terminators.

In the meantime, I'll be breaking out my terminator collection and spam some myself.

Well, I didn't mean to do that, but before I dropped the army I tried playtesting them with 3++ storm shields and the new cyclone.

I'm not saying it's terrible...in testing it wound up being pretty decent.

I only felt like the army was really good when I added ravenwing to the army, then combined it with deathwing assault to get early shots at side/rear armor.

Then one of my buddies showed me his counter to mech guard...scout bikes.

^ Yeah, I like the bikes as well, though I'm hesitant to drop a raider for another terminator group... though both would be able to Deep Strike. hmm. ahh, choices.

My test games with DW have been super encouraging. They have been doing very well, I am still super excited to see them on the table.

Well, the army is very very good against classic mech armies. It's not a hard counter, but it's not necessarily an uphill battle either. You can't bubble wrap effectively to stop deepstriking cyclone termies..not really.

And the short range of most melta spam armies combined with deathwing placement + deep strike control means that melta spam armies really struggle to get in against the terminator alpha strike.

I used this type of army pretty often against eldar until Dark Angels/5th edition came out.

What beats lots of termies? Foot armies. Las/plas guys. Plasma cannon devestators. Lasguns. Cheap pieplates..like from a whirlwind or the new eldar spinner. Oblits do a great job.

Those are army types that we haven't seen in a while because of mech spam.