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The game has gotten steadily more lethal over the years. T4 with a 3+ save was a lot more durable in 3rd edition, for example. I tend to keep my Marines in metal boxes when they're not in cover because while they can still hold up pretty well to small arms fire, there's a lot of crazy weapons and abilities out there that will straight murder them.

 vipoid wrote:

Rihgu wrote:

Don't forget power swords, power axes, and power fists.

The cornerstone of any IG army.

Power axe sergeants in IG blobs is not entirely uncommon.

There is power in the humble 4's across the board stateline and a 3+ save. If you think otherwise, try and kill 60-80+ Marines in a game. That 3+ armor save will make you tear your hair out.

A regular SM opponent of mine holds that in a 1500 points or higher game, you should field roughly 30 space marines, split into combat squads.

Why? Because you get efficient weapons split, you can more easily hide small units, you are unlikely to run when taking casualties (and insta-regroup if you do), and you can throw your weight around more easily. And Blast weapons have a lower maximum hit.

Throwing their weight around, and getting into the enemy's face makes them surprisingly tough to handle in many occasions.

My mean grievance with marine survivability is that in the current meta, they either get wounded as easily as sisters by things that don't care that they're t4, or they drop like ork boys by things that ignore the armor, or both and they die like gretchin. Almost every gun fielded in the meta right now accomplishes at least one of those.

Either way, the units don't feel "elite" enough to be "the most elite basic troop."

I've had a lot of success running the gladius and having a ridiculous saturation of units with tons of power armor, but that's a 104 model army. Not really "an elite force." I admit that if they were tougher and I was still allowed to field so many, it would be flat out unfair. My complaint isn't really from a balance standpoint as much as a "army feel" standpoint. They "feel" like I'm just playing armored guardsmen. I end up losing half a company or more in every game.

Marines have good durability per point as long as you don't give them anything. As soon as they become Sternguard, Vanguard, carry a plasma gun, etc, they have terrible durability/pt.

So, if you want your models to DO anything, you have to sacrifice durability and defeat the purpose of the 3+ armor.

I play Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Harlequins, and I used to play GK and Tau.

3+ armor is awesome in terms of survivability. There are certainly more weapons currently that can penetrate it, as opposed to previous editions, but it has by no means become useless.

I suppose I should add close combat weapons to my list:

AP3:
Power sword, power axe, power fist

Not AP3:
Close Combat Weapons, ripper guns, slab shields, power mauls, power lances, chainswords

A 3+ save is fantastic at surviving 2/3rds of the time. That's a third more often than a 4+ save model survives. However, it still eventually dies. If you placed it in the right spot, it'll die to something that didn't ignore its armour, but they forced you to throw enough dice that the averages failed you. If you placed it wrong, it'll die, and it'll be entirely your fault. Sometimes you won't have a chance to place it "right", so you'll do the best you can with cover saves, but they rarely are as good as 3+, but they'll still die.

Ultimately, models die. A 3+ save is great, but it's just a part of the model. You can't just rely on it like you used to in 3rd and 4th edition to out-survive stuff. Now it's more like a "useful if caught by something light, but you better hit cover soon". Still, that's more than you'll get with 4+ "die once they choose for you to die" armour.

^ this.

Seems people play on Bowling Ball Planet.
IMO if you keep marines inside a rhino, ideally in cover, they are pretty tough.
I mean, you have to crack the transport (with at least a 5+ save for a turn) then start shooting the marines with heavy weapons, which you get your cover save against. if you want durability and uber damage output play Movie Marines.

Or Eldar.

As a side note, my meta is quite frindly, so we don't have flyrants air force or eldar scatbikes all over the place.

That same logic can be applied to anything. Guardsmen aren't squishy when they spend the entire match rolling in a Chimera, and you can in fact get a veteran squad and chimera DT for less points than a tactical squad.

Saves 3+ and 4+ is big difference because there is so many AP4 weapons.Sv2+ is costly, sv3+ is more balanced option. Plasma penetrates sv3+ and sv2+ so you pay much just against ap3 weaponry. I prefer tacticals over scouts.

I think a large part of it is a lot of people play marines, thus they have the largest voice. This then creates a few issues. One is when you are playing a faction you are naturally going to notice your failed saves more and you are also going to notice the least survivable unit in your list. So when that T4 3+ model dies its quite noticeable as generally its the least survivable model in your marine army and you get into the mindset that marine durability sucks as compared to your centurions or chapter masters etc, when its actually fine. The second goes along with marines being the most popular, thus people know they need AP 2/3 weaponry to handle 30 marines in a battle as at least 50% of the armies they will face are marines. Third is the prevalence of Knights along with hard to kill models and deathstars (centurions, riptides etc) where a lot of lists are bringing weaponry to deal with these models, these weapons naturally works vs marines as well since they are generally AP 3 or less.

It all adds up, but I would say the biggest part is my first point. When you only play marines and the least survivable unit in your army is T4 3+...well you just end up thinking its a bad defensive statline, when if you played other armies (from my experience most marine players may play other marine chapters, but not necessarily other armies) its pretty clear its a great statline for the cost.

Well I can upgrade my boyz to Eavy Armor boy for 4pts a model, making them 10pts each. Then I can laugh at SM players who fire bolters at me as I get my 4+ save. Of course they in turn laugh at me when they just wipe me out with all the AP4 in the game.

 Ghazkuul wrote:
Well I can upgrade my boyz to Eavy Armor boy for 4pts a model, making them 10pts each. Then I can laugh at SM players who fire bolters at me as I get my 4+ save. Of course they in turn laugh at me when they just wipe me out with all the AP4 in the game.

'Ere 'ere!

 Melissia wrote:
tl;dr: for whatever reason, Space Marines are popular, therefor people take counters that target Space Marines.

100% this.

If the meta was composed of 70-80% Orks, a 3+ save would be incredibly useful. People would be all about AP2 or massed fire, with a little AP4 ignores cover to handle bikers and 'ard boys. Still mainly massed fire to take out Tshirt save in cover.

Because so much of the player base is running around with T4 3+ saves people tailor their army to taking out T4 3+ saves as efficiently as possible.

Eldar don't need to tailor because S6 ROF 4 is a panacea in this game.

If people learned how to play\started out with armies like orks or guard, this sort of thread would be rarer. it is the prevalence of marine armies in this game that lead some to believe that marines are not terribly durable at all.

An idea for anyone who doesn't believe that marines are durable? double the wounds on all models (and HPs on vehicles) for a game. Yours and, critically, your opponent's. Then you can see whether it is the durability that you don't like, or the ID aspect.

I make no secret of what armies I play, I started with tau, marines were my second army (and I rather enjoyed their durability), but what drove the difference home to me, my last army was guard, and there were some games where I would spend minutes deploying my models on the field to scoop them up in handfuls in seconds when they took casualties. I appreciate having fewer models on the field, but that also means that their staying power has increased as well.

I already stated that their durability is quite good until you start equipping them. And the base marine has awful output/pt, so that is a real problem.

Martel732 wrote:
I already stated that their durability is quite good until you start equipping them. And the base marine has awful output/pt, so that is a real problem.

I don't suppose that you play have played fallout3? you start out with barely more than the shirt on your back, but you get Power Armor part way into the game. This is (IMO) to give you better appreciation for the abilities of the armor. This game (40k) starts you out with an excellent model (if playing SM) (which you correspondingly never have to learn to appreciate as you start out with it), and if whoever taught you the game, they started with tutorial games that allowed you a save against their attacks - think SM on SM. both have Str4 AP5 bolters and a 3+ save.

Now think about what would have happened if you had started out with guard v SM. BS3 T3 5+sv models with Str3 AP- weapons versus BS4 T4 3+sv models with Str4 AP5 weapons. If there were more guard and correspondingly fewer SM. . . I've said this before.

Without descending to name calling, I'm not sure what you want here. But something to keep in mind. . . GUARD PAY THE SAME PRICE AS MARINES FOR THEIR UPGRADES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

if you think that marines have awful output per point. please do the math for guard in return.

"GUARD PAY THE SAME PRICE AS MARINES FOR THEIR UPGRADES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

No one said the Guard were tearing things up, either. That being said, the base guardsmen is a deal against weapons like the scatterlaser, which is very common marine killer at this point. Forget AP 1/2; its' all about wound spam with crap AP.

The wound spam approach is double duty because high STR, high ROF also doubles as anti-tank in 7th ed.

Yes, space marines are incredibly efficient at killing guardsmen. Unfortunately, that is a vast minority of targets of space marines. And don't forget that Eldar now have the best T4 3+ unit in the game, not marines.

I've army swapped with most armies at this point. I'm keenly aware of how IG works, or in 7th ed, doesn't work. But that's more about vehicles being crap in 7th. Cheap dudes with good guns still trump expensive dudes with terrible guns. The drop from BS4 to BS3 just isn't severe enough.

"I'm not sure what you want here."

For high STR, high ROF weapons to be extremely expensive. There is no universe where a scatterlaser should be cheaper than an assault cannon.

are there any models that don't get worse on an output\pt basis?

 carldooley wrote:
are there any models that don't get worse on an output\pt basis?

Please clarify.

Martel732 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
are there any models that don't get worse on an output\pt basis?

Please clarify.

Martel732 wrote:
the base marine has awful output/pt, so that is a real problem.

Martel732 wrote:
the base marine has awful output/pt

They're actually really good as far as utility per point, capable of handling many situations better than many other factions' specialists-- Tactical Marines are still better at close combat than most guard, sisters, or tau close combat specialists, for example (ogryns notwithstanding, but I've never seen anyone actually take ogryns so ymmv), and even their devastators are a risky proposition to assault for non-marines who aren't themselves assault specialists.

I know it's a longstanding tradition for marine players to whine that their marines aren't movie-marine enough, but the hyperbole here is ridiculous.

 carldooley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
are there any models that don't get worse on an output\pt basis?

Please clarify.

Martel732 wrote:
the base marine has awful output/pt, so that is a real problem.

So you're saying marines are bad for their point cost. But was there a question in there? Were you asking if other models were worse for their point costs? If that's what you are asking, then yes, the answer is Terminators. Horrible for their point costs and they have much better stats than your average marine.

I think the problem space marines is not their "survivability" per se, but instead their ability to withstand the onslaught of a similarly priced unit.
For example lets say we have 200 points of Tactical Space Marine vs 200 points of Slugga Ork Boyz.
Thats like a full tac squad with some nice upgrades and a 30-large ork blob with a nob, bosspole and maybe a big choppa. and enough for a rokkit launcha in there also.

Even footslogging, that 200 points worth of orks is going to destroy those marines. So the marine, on his own, on paper with t4 and a 3+ save is yeah, plenty survivable. However, marines, pt for pt, are not as survivable as other units. Orks have t4 and a 6+ save but because there are so many of them, they tend to shrug of casualties and keep on marching.
So wound size in a unit is also important. 10 wounds vs 31 wounds (the nob has 2 wounds).

 Melissia wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
the base marine has awful output/pt

They're actually really good as far as utility per point, capable of handling many situations better than many other factions' specialists-- Tactical Marines are still better at close combat than most guard, sisters, or tau close combat specialists, for example (ogryns notwithstanding, but I've never seen anyone actually take ogryns so ymmv), and even their devastators are a risky proposition to assault for non-marines who aren't themselves assault specialists.

I know it's a longstanding tradition for marine players to whine that their marines aren't movie-marine enough, but the hyperbole here is ridiculous.

Their utility/pt is only theoretical. The reality is most of them get shot to death before they can use said theoretical utility. From this perspective, a marines Str, WS, Bolt pistol, and grenades are all useless utility. The only thing that matters is their gun, BS, T, and save. And the T doesn't matter against S6 high ROF.

Vanilla marines are good because ATSKNF, csm marines are not so good for their points.

I'm getting together some Black Templars to support my IG.

I say support. They're the allied detachment, but take up more than 50% of the points, and are the main offensive.
The reason being, I get mass-slaughtered at close range, and I cannot compete at long range. So I'm taking some of the fastest, toughest, most aggressive front-line murderers can get my hands on.

3+ Saves and T4 are a damn blessing.

 Icculus wrote:

 carldooley wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 carldooley wrote:
are there any models that don't get worse on an output\pt basis?

Please clarify.

Martel732 wrote:
the base marine has awful output/pt, so that is a real problem.

So you're saying marines are bad for their point cost. But was there a question in there? Were you asking if other models were worse for their point costs? If that's what you are asking, then yes, the answer is Terminators. Horrible for their point costs and they have much better stats than your average marine.

I think the problem space marines is not their "survivability" per se, but instead their ability to withstand the onslaught of a similarly priced unit.
For example lets say we have 200 points of Tactical Space Marine vs 200 points of Slugga Ork Boyz.
Thats like a full tac squad with some nice upgrades and a 30-large ork blob with a nob, bosspole and maybe a big choppa. and enough for a rokkit launcha in there also.

Even footslogging, that 200 points worth of orks is going to destroy those marines. So the marine, on his own, on paper with t4 and a 3+ save is yeah, plenty survivable. However, marines, pt for pt, are not as survivable as other units. Orks have t4 and a 6+ save but because there are so many of them, they tend to shrug of casualties and keep on marching.
So wound size in a unit is also important. 10 wounds vs 31 wounds (the nob has 2 wounds).

Wounds are trumping saves in 7th, except in extreme cases.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Draco wrote:
Vanilla marines are good because ATSKNF, csm marines are not so good for their points.

ATSKNF is virtually useless against most lists.