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Feldmarshal Goehring wrote:

leohart wrote:@d-usa and @Joey: I duly re-read the rulebook, page 62 and I believe I was wrong. Vehicle does get the benefit of the cover save of buildings as long as it is obscured. Thank to the TM, it is always 3+ save then.

Bravo for being big enough to come back on here and make this statement. A lot of folks on the forums could learn from you.

I think the TFC might be one of the most complicated units in C:SM. Lots of different rules apply to it and you really have to dig through the BRB to find all of them.

Vanilla Space Marines - reading Jesse's battle reports over on that forum scares the bejeezus out of me. He makes use of SM tactical withdraw to maintain separation from would-be CC units to great effect, and has a BOATLOAD of balanced fire potential. I'm convinced his army (and the way he plays it) would give the best tournament GK list a challenge.

Pony_law wrote:. Bike lists and shrike lists are fun but I would say they are not tournament winning lists.

When I speak of a shrike list it consists of the following
* 6-10 TH/SS fleeting termies inflitrating 18" away from the opponent, so they will be assaulting on turn 2.
* Rest of army is a "Pure shooting SM"
What this gives is a significant threat that the opponent has to deal with, which can do a great deal of damage if ignored. That threat will gather the attention of most/all of the opponents army for a few turns, allowing the C:SM player to do what they need to.

Bike lists are similar. They are not all bikes, but instead use bikes as troops with fire supports (dreads, predators, etc). These lists have some good matchups (KP missions, vs shooty IG, etc).
Below is a picture of my standard 1750 bike list, which has done extremely well at tourneys. I assure you that it does not get crushed consistently by competitive players.
As I mentioned, their good armies but not great armies. It's likely that playing them you will wind up in the middle tables somewhere at a major event.
This is because GK can do nearly everything your C:SM can do, only better. Psydreads and psycannons are extremely powerful weapons. DCAs are extremely powerful point for point. C:SM has a hard time competing with those armies.

Pony_law wrote: Again you need to know what you are doing but those armies can and have won major tournaments.

I agree that C:SM and Vulcan lists have won major touneys in the past. I'm not sure that's the case anymore.
Take a look at the results from the 2012 adepticon. Note how many C:SM lists are below.

G00fySmiley wrote:vanilla marines are still on the upper half of the power curve, they are just closer to the center than the top

imo you've got

space wolves
grey knights
blood angels
necrons
imp guard
dark eldar
vanilla marines
orks
tyranids
black templar
sisters of battle
eldar
dark angels
chaos marines
chaos demons
tau

granted thats just my opinion but I'd put them at 7th of 16 in terms of potential power, there are worse places to be

This sums up the competitive scene pretty well. Closer to the top of the list you get, the better chance you have at winning a tourny. Post DE, you are getting into the "almost never" territory, and post BT, you are in the "never" territory.

I'd personally put DA and chaos marines above Eldar and sisters, and orks above vanilla marines though.

Wanna win? Play one of the top ~6 armies to have a decent shot. Want the best shot? Play SW or GK.

Vanilla marine top lists are sadly about fragile speeders, bad tactical marines, average melee ability and limited armor saturation. Even our trump unit of TH/SS terminators has issues in actually getting into combat. Nothing truly unique or scary can come out of the book. Vanilla also suffers from being one of the most prolific armies in the LFGS level, so everyone has a ton of experience against them.

I'd put orks over codex marines. other than that, agreed.

I think the thing that hurts vanilla the most is that they are so popular. Most people "list build" to counter generic MEQ since they are so prevalent. The MEQ builds that dominate do so by being strategically different, and in most cases criminally undercosted for their powers.

C:SM has become a fairly less competitive list. Space Wolves and GK do ranged combat and close combat better than Vanilla Marines, even with Vulkan lists and whatnot.

I would really like to see the new C:SM and what the author will do to make the C:SM competitive again. I don't play Vanilla Marines in a competitive environment, so it won't have as big of an effect on my playstyle. They've simply fallen by the wayside as 5th ed codices have come out. That's the penalty for being first, I suppose.

Vulkan list.

RapeStove wrote:Vulkan list.

Is not all that effective when other armies can do what yours does, but better.

Carnage43 wrote:This sums up the competitive scene pretty well. Closer to the top of the list you get, the better chance you have at winning a tourny. Post DE, you are getting into the "almost never" territory, and post BT, you are in the "never" territory.

You need to take some consideration how many of each army enters the tourney. BT and DA are under represented in tournaments but do extremely well given the small number of players. In relation to this thread you do see a load of vanilla marines at the start but then they tend to be missing towards the final matches: I suppose a lot of new people take vanilla marines to play but actually a noob can build a grey knight army cheaply and think they are instant win so this should work mostly against GK.

labmouse42 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:. Bike lists and shrike lists are fun but I would say they are not tournament winning lists.

When I speak of a shrike list it consists of the following
* 6-10 TH/SS fleeting termies inflitrating 18" away from the opponent, so they will be assaulting on turn 2.
* Rest of army is a "Pure shooting SM"
What this gives is a significant threat that the opponent has to deal with, which can do a great deal of damage if ignored. That threat will gather the attention of most/all of the opponents army for a few turns, allowing the C:SM player to do what they need to.

Bike lists are similar. They are not all bikes, but instead use bikes as troops with fire supports (dreads, predators, etc). These lists have some good matchups (KP missions, vs shooty IG, etc).
Below is a picture of my standard 1750 bike list, which has done extremely well at tourneys. I assure you that it does not get crushed consistently by competitive players.

Spoiler:

As I mentioned, their good armies but not great armies. It's likely that playing them you will wind up in the middle tables somewhere at a major event.
This is because GK can do nearly everything your C:SM can do, only better. Psydreads and psycannons are extremely powerful weapons. DCAs are extremely powerful point for point. C:SM has a hard time competing with those armies.

Pony_law wrote: Again you need to know what you are doing but those armies can and have won major tournaments.

I agree that C:SM and Vulcan lists have won major touneys in the past. I'm not sure that's the case anymore.
Take a look at the results from the 2012 adepticon. Note how many C:SM lists are below.

Spoiler:

Game 5 (Sunday Round 1)
Alexander Fennell (Necrons – Winner) vs. Tim Gorham (Grey Knights)
Tony Grippando (Grey Knights) vs. Reece Robbins (Eldar – Winner)
Mike Mutscheller (Space Wolves) vs. Nick Nanavati (Grey Knights – Winner)
Justin Cook (Grey Knights) vs. Brad Chester (Grey Knights – Winner)
Bill Kim (Chaos Daemons) vs. Dave Ankarlo (Grey Knights – Winner)
Jose Mendez (Dark Angels) vs. Tony Kopach (Space Wolves – Winner)
Joakim Engstrom (Grey Knights) vs. Paul Murphy (Grey Knights – Winner)
Doug Johnson (Orks – Winner) vs. Brett Perkins (Imperial Guard)

Game 6 Winner Brackets (Sunday Round 2)
Reece Robbins (Eldar) vs. Paul Murphy (Grey Knights – WINNER)
Alexander Fennell (Necrons – WINNER) vs. Doug Johnson (Orks)
Brad Chester (Grey Knights – WINNER) vs. Dave Ankarlo (Grey Knights)
Tony Kopach (Space Wolves – WINNER) vs. Nick Nanavati (Grey Knights)

Game 7 Winner Brackets – (Sunday Round 3)
Alexander Fennell (Necrons) vs. Brad Chester (Grey Knights) – LIVESTREAM
Tony Kopach (Space Wolves – WINNER) vs. Paul Murphy (Grey Knights)

Game 8 (Sunday Round 4)
Tony Kopach (Space Wolves) vs. Brad Chester (Grey Knights)

I'm aware of the adepticon results. Again I still believe sm can win/place major tourneys and they have. Only 7% of the field was vanilla players so not finishing in the top 16 doesn't really mean anything. Also the adepticon missions unique key favored gk in my opinion. E missions were always a combination of objectives and kill points. Most of the gk lists were henchman dragowing hybrid lists. These lists would be really vulnerable In a pure kp game. Units of 3 toughness 3 5+ Guys In a chimaera is nice to spam for cheap scoring units but is just asking to s
It your opponent like 6 kp. I mean it seems every battle report I've been reading has had gk losing the kp section of the mission almost every time (how often have you heard of gk losing kp?).

Depends heavily on your definition of competitive. Some people are veteran players looking for a literal TAC list; for them, maybe the SM Codex doesn't quite have enough in it (Lookin' at you, Wolves and Knights ).

For me, competitive means anything not played for the lols. Something that is designed to help the player win first, be funny/fluffy/fun second. For that, Codex Marines do the job.

No offense meant to Space Wolves or Grey Knights players. XD I just like to around sometimes.

juraigamer wrote:Well as a player that uses 3 thunderfire cannons and sprinkles in good amounts of anti tank, I can tell you that my FLGS I'm feared. We got the normal bandwagon crowd and veteran players.

The thing is codex marines is a shooting army. Don't try to do anything else with them. Those who try to melee are the ones who says it's weak.

I agree with this post alot.

Are vanilla marines bad? no.
Are they good? no.

If you look at a GK space marine, for 6 points they get a force power weapon, hammerhand, storm bolters, prefered enemy against demons.

Vanilla tacticals dont have alot of tricks. What they do have is a solid stat line, and if played correctly they have all the assets needed to win a tournament. unfortunantly it is an "up hill" battle as you described.

Smitty0305 wrote:

juraigamer wrote:Well as a player that uses 3 thunderfire cannons and sprinkles in good amounts of anti tank, I can tell you that my FLGS I'm feared. We got the normal bandwagon crowd and veteran players.

The thing is codex marines is a shooting army. Don't try to do anything else with them. Those who try to melee are the ones who says it's weak.

I agree with this post alot.

Are vanilla marines bad? no.
Are they good? no.

If you look at a GK space marine, for 6 points they get a force power weapon, hammerhand, storm bolters, prefered enemy against demons.

Vanilla tacticals dont have alot of tricks. What they do have is a solid stat line, and if played correctly they have all the assets needed to win a tournament. unfortunantly it is an "up hill" battle as you described.

4 points from a tactical to a GK strike actually.

Pony_law wrote:Only 7% of the field was vanilla players so not finishing in the top 16 doesn't really mean anything.

It seems that only 7% of the field being C:SM would mean quite a bit. The top adeptecon players are not idiots. They know which armies increase their chances of winning and will play the army that gives them the best opportunity. Isn't that evidence that the C:SM army list is a weaker list than more modern codexes?

Pony_law wrote: Again I still believe sm can win/place major tourneys and they have.

No one is denying that. There are always good matchups, lucky dice rolls, and player skill that bear impacts a game right?

I am curious though, what would you say a tourney-winning C:SM list is?

Pony_law wrote: Also the adepticon missions unique key favored gk in my opinion. E missions were always a combination of objectives and kill points.

It's intresting that you bring that up. There is a podcast called The 11th company which is discussing this right now. Their theory is that KP spam armies (like henchmen) are at a significant disadvantage in combo-missions and KP denial lists are at and advantage.

labmouse42 wrote:

Pony_law wrote:Only 7% of the field was vanilla players so not finishing in the top 16 doesn't really mean anything.

It seems that only 7% of the field being C:SM would mean quite a bit.

I tend to agree here. My experience is that the Vanilla Marines represent far more than 7% of the playing population at the FLGS or at large. The fact that they only represent 7% of the playing field in a highly competitive tournament setting speaks to the question at hand. It can be interpreted that they have lost their competitive edge. This trend is only one piece of evidence, and we cannot guarantee our conclusion with only this piece of evidence. Nevertheless, it lends its support to the conclusion.

Ok I have a few things to respond to

@labmouse, I don't think the 7% number means anything when it comes to how competative C:SM can be. I'll be the first to admit that it is more challanging to create a top tier list out of of C:SM than it is out of SW, IG, BA, and GK. The fact that a large portion of the competitive community chooses to go with easier dexs thus doesn't suprise me. Further when you factor in the low cost of builing GK armies compaired to other armies again you will see a lot of GK builds. It also helped that 1850 is probably the perfect point level for GK. You have enough to build Draigowing and still spam henchman razors. This doesn't speak to how good C:SM is it speaks to how good GK's are with these type of Missions at 1850. Now when you guys say 7% is really disproportionate to the FLGS community that is because most of the most casual players play SM. This is because they buy AOBR and play SM. Again thats why you see alot of bad CSM players at your local store, these are the very people who take the hobby the least seriously.

Now here is why I think the Missions at adepticon favored GK builds. I couldn't find the PODcast you were talking about but I assume there argument was something like it's easy to contest/tie objective based missions and KP are usually winner and loser thus you want to win KP. here is the problem with that argument. 1) draigowing hybred lists still bring a competative amount of KP to the game compaired to other powerbuilds in the meta. IG leafblower, BA/SW/GK razor Spam, Venom/lance spam all have about the same amount of KP as a hybred GK list and their KP are easier to get AV11/10 as compaired to mostly AV12. 2) GK lists' easier KP are on units that otherwise need to be a low target priority. I mean you can spend your time getting the easy KP against this list but leaving a Pladain deathstar and riflemen dreads to itheir own devices is not a good way to beat a GK player. 3) did you notice how victory points were often the tie breakers/an objective as well? the units you want to kill for KP are worth almost no VP. This puts you in a bind and you are earning very few points for each of the henchman squad you kill. On the flip side, what has always been draigowings disadvantage? Small amount of relatively nonmobile scoring units. hechman spam solves this problem in Objective games and as long as the games aren't pure KP games you still have all of the good things a draigowing army brings that made them good in the firstplace.

Ok you also asked about what I think are winning/highly competative C:SM tournaments lists. Here is a shooty 2000pt list I know can rock tourneys. This is Jesse's list so I hope he doesn't mind me posting it. It scales well down to the lower point level. Played at a high level like Jesse can play it this army can really handle anything.
Libby-nullzone and who cares he has nullzone (Pretty sure Avenger)
2 x rifleman dreads
5 x sternguard, 3 x combi-meltas, 2 x combi-flamers, rhino
10 x tac squad (two of these) lascannon, combi-melta, meltagun, rhino
5 x tac squad (two of these) las/plas razor
2 x typhoons (2 units of 1)
2 x multi-melta attack bikes
2 x dakka preds
5 x devs, 4 missile launchers, asscannon razor

I run a counter assault list at 1500 point list that also has an in your face element with a drop pod dread and deepstricking termis w/ a libby. It also is a highly competative list. It takes advantage of the fact that I can dictate where the enemy has to send his army and usually require him to split his forces. My 400 points of killyness can usually hold its own againt a large portion of their army and my remainging 1100 points have all the tools to deal with 800 or so points sent it's way.

Also there is a Space marine player from the bell of Souls group in Austin who runs a counter puching SM list that I know has a thunderfire cannon and a phobos landraider with some termis. I can't think of his name right now but his list is also highly competative. I'm pretty sure he captains the USA team that goes to the Euro championships every year.

I linked to the podcasts page in my post. just click on the colored words The 11th Company.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Your post was well thought out and logical.