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Fiend wrote:

Also, the army as a whole, like someone mentioned above, performs much better as a reactive force. Lure them in while shooting, then counterattack when I see the opportunity.

Yeah, vanilla marines (as opposed to the red & blue marines, who fight more strictly offensively) come closest IMO to being able to do Helmuth Von Moltke's offensive defense tactics. That is, you maneuver offensively but fight defensively. You park your guys in a spot where you know your enemy will have to attack you, so you have the positional and firepower advantage when he arrives.

Only vanilla marines with combat tactics (and thus no special characters) have the combination of durability, medium range fire and leadership to hold and fade and regroup while making flanking/encircling attacks that it takes to throw back a strong direct assault.

Carnage43 wrote:I can prove to you that terminators are better in EVERY SINGLE situation imaginable except charging after DS...which you think is a bad idea.

Ok... here is one situation/tactic that I want you to prove terminators are better than vanguard..... Lawnmower.
Hitting an infantry blob and wiping it out.... for example... hitting 19 ork shootas plus nob with a 5 man squad.

I like the flexible aspect of the codex. its not bent on shooting its not bent on assaulting but rather allows both to follow together.
and at good point costs!

and the ability to customize your list with special characters.

the codex covers all aspects fairly well.

helgrenze wrote:

Carnage43 wrote:I can prove to you that terminators are better in EVERY SINGLE situation imaginable except charging after DS...which you think is a bad idea.

Ok... here is one situation/tactic that I want you to prove terminators are better than vanguard..... Lawnmower.
Hitting an infantry blob and wiping it out.... for example... hitting 19 ork shootas plus nob with a 5 man squad.

Sigh. LC termies would be really close in effectiveness to vanguard in this case, the reroll to wound and 2+ save, and 5+ against the power claw would close the point difference a fair bit.

Assuming charge, and shotta boyz being 6 points each 8 Vanguard vs 5 LC termies.

VG; 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 6+ to save, 4 attacks each. 0.833 kills per VG, or ~5 points for 25 (20% of their cost). 6.664 kills total from 8 vanguard
Termies; 4+ to hit, 4+ to wound with a reroll, no save, 4 attacks each. 1.5 kills per termie. 9 points for 40 pt termie. (22.5% of their cost). 7.5 kills total from 5 LC termies.

Hey look, point for point LC termies > VG against hordes! Frankly I'm a little surprised they are better. Factor in half the damage taken from small arms, 83% less from AP3 fire and a third less from power weapons and you have a clear winner. Not to mention they are a much more viable option in an all comers list being over 3 times more effective against power armor.

You could argue that you'd use T-hammer/SS termie over LC (I know I would in anything but maybe a BA list with a Sang priest, nom S5 LCs) as they are widely accepted as being EVEN BETTER, but this is for a horde blending purposes. We both know you'd be using flamers, bolters and blast/template weapons to kill ork boys, not terminators or vanguard. Point is, if you wanna kill power armor, using T-hammer/SS or LCs termies. If you wanna kill hordes, LC termies and plain old normal assault marines are better in melee (and are both widely acknowledged to suck in vanilla lists) and just about every single shooting unit is more effective for the points.

Carnage.. there is one little thing that you have, in fact, ignored in you annalysis.....
Sweeping advance.... Vanguard gets it, Termies do not.
Vanguard can wipe out a 20 model blob by causing more wounds and taking the unit in a sweep.
Terminators can just consolidate and then have to deal with the ork shooting and counter charge (assuming they regroup).

As for how I run my Vans.... 5 man, LC, JP, accompianied by a Chaplain with Plas Pistol.... on a charge thats 24 attacks, rerolls on hits and wounds.... 440 points, a tad pricey but only uses a command and a FA slot in the FOC.
A comparitive Termi unit would need transport from a LRR and cost 570 points total.

yeah, the Vanguards can sweep.


the main problem with that is that things Vanguard will sweep, Terminators will Annihilate.

Still the basis for the "superiority" of Terminators over Vanguards is less than one model, based on the analysis above.
Though, to be fair, basing that on similar points values would change the result.... 9 vanguard is 205 points, 1 extra model = 4 extra attacks with its 0.833 kills added in would result in a total of 7.497 total kills meaning a difference of 0.003.
The Orks would lose the combat either way due to them not being able to remove enough of the marines (strength in numbers vs better saves.). And since the Orks are LD 7 vs the Marines LD 9.... even if the Orks player rolls a 6, the Marine player only needs to roll a 4 for the sweep with VG.

Grey Templar wrote:yeah, the Vanguards can sweep.


the main problem with that is that things Vanguard will sweep, Terminators will Annihilate.

QFT

Also.

Vanguard can wipe out a 20 model blob by causing more wounds and taking the unit in a sweep.
Terminators can just consolidate and then have to deal with the ork shooting and counter charge (assuming they regroup).

IF they win, and IF the mob breaks (Let's face it, almost everything worth while is fearless/ATSKNF, stubborn or has the mob rule like our example orks) and IF you catch them, then yeah...that once in a blue moon wipe out is nice. And IF the mob gets out of range and IF they rally, then they can shoot you, but not charge that turn (I believe marines can, but who's going to re-charge the unit that just smacked them around?).

Every time the word "IF" is used, the situation is more and more unlikely and therefore irrelevant to any sane discussion.

Thank you for all the discussion so far! (minus the VGV vs Termies argument)

So I'm thinking about building a shooty core around a 5 man squad of TH/SS Termies with LR or 10 TH/SS as bubblewrap

I have to mix and match a lot of the "best" units such as Riflemans, Preds, MM/HF Speeders, and Typhoons, as I only have a couple of each.

Overall, I'm happy to hear that spamming Razorbacks is not the way to go with C:SM.

Carnage43 wrote:
http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/01/fallacies-i-use-it-and-it-works-for-me.html

Read that, it sums up my opinion about you and Vanguard well.

Turning it into a personal thing are we?

Anyway, that article is beyond silly. What else are tactics discussions except relaying the units we use, how we use them, and if it worked or not? I am saying that in our group and how we run them (at large tournaments like Adepticon) it has worked well in fairly tough environments.

There are so many considerations to what makes a unit useful you can’t simply number crunch and be done. And even the number crunching favors the vanguard in many situations.

I will again create a list of distinct advantages to Vanguard and why I think they as a unit have uses that assault termies don’t. I’m not saying assault termies are trash, far from it. But they are not the end all be all of the Space Marine book.

Vanguard have small bases – which allows you to squeeze through tight places for charges and multi charges.
Vanguard for the same points gets you more bodies, which allows you to engage more units in armies where assault termies are overkill anyway.
Against a lot of weapons vanguard are as resilient as assault termies. Their save will fail twice as often, they cost half the price. So long as they are in cover the differences start to become negligible.
Frag grenades allow you to keep initiative over orks, guard blobs, plague marines, guants, and lots of other units that would kill 2-3 assault termies before they ever got to swing.
I4 at least allows to swing simo with a host of other enemys that are good for 2-3 dead termies before they swing.
Vanguard can sweeping advance, and if they charge they will defeat most anything out there.
Vanguard take up less room in transports, so if you are so inclined you can put more guys into a raider and hit harder if it makes it.
Vanguard can also fit into rhinos, allowing them to hide in nearby transports at the end of the game.

Again, nobody is saying assault termies are bad, but to say VGVs have no advantages is just disingenuous. Termies have mathematical advantages against certain enemies, but the VGVs have game play advantages that if you use right will be game changing.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
Again, nobody is saying assault termies are bad, but to say VGVs have no advantages is just disingenuous. Termies have mathematical advantages against certain enemies, but the VGVs have game play advantages that if you use right will be game changing.

I think you might want to change that to advantages in limited circumstances over termies.

Overall, the termies are just as good or better in the majority of situations. If list tailoring is your thing, then that's great.

Better investment overall? Termies win.

New thread for VGV vs Termies vs HG discussion?

Gornall wrote:New thread for VGV vs Termies vs HG discussion?

Seconded.

So I was digging the list with all the dreads and dakka preds (since I have most the models and wanted a good gunline), but realized that my (unassembled) venerable dread kit has no autocannons, let alone two. Were do such folks get autocannons for a sniper dread?

imweasel wrote:If list tailoring is your thing, then that's great.

Yikes

Who said anything about tailoring? I’m talking about tournament play.

My on topic point was I have been behind and on the receiving end of very competitive marine lists that use VGVs as their main assault component. Do what you will with that, I don’t see why some people seem threatened by that notion. I guess if you aren’t saying TH/SS, TH/SS, TH/SS over and over again you don’t know what you are talking about.

helgrenze wrote:Still the basis for the "superiority" of Terminators over Vanguards is less than one model, based on the analysis above.
Though, to be fair, basing that on similar points values would change the result.... 9 vanguard is 205 points, 1 extra model = 4 extra attacks with its 0.833 kills added in would result in a total of 7.497 total kills meaning a difference of 0.003.
The Orks would lose the combat either way due to them not being able to remove enough of the marines (strength in numbers vs better saves.). And since the Orks are LD 7 vs the Marines LD 9.... even if the Orks player rolls a 6, the Marine player only needs to roll a 4 for the sweep with VG.

Except that those Orks are fearless due to having a model count higher then 10, Also if you take into account the counter attack that you're ignoring it becomes their remaining 12 models (I rounded your kills up for you) strike back 33 times plus 3 PK attacks. of those 16.5 normal attacks hit and 5.5 wound and you take 1.8 wounds, plus 1.2 PK wound and you lost 3 guys right there, the termies lost about 1.

From their the combat actually goes downhill for you because your attacks were just cut down by 18.

I like VV, but then I play BA. in C:SM Termies are better

Edit: sorry, I missed the new thread for VV vs Terms post, I'll leave quietly now.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:

imweasel wrote:If list tailoring is your thing, then that's great.

Yikes

Who said anything about tailoring? I’m talking about tournament play.

My on topic point was I have been behind and on the receiving end of very competitive marine lists that use VGVs as their main assault component. Do what you will with that, I don’t see why some people seem threatened by that notion. I guess if you aren’t saying TH/SS, TH/SS, TH/SS over and over again you don’t know what you are talking about.

Because most competitive lists take the units that will be more beneficial in the most circumstances. VGV appear to have a more limited role, but when used in those roles they seem to be more effective.

So taking VGV would seem to be more logical when you know those situations are 'coming up' so to speak.