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Well here is a little math for perspective.
10 guardsman vs 5 tactical marines( assuming no cover)

Guardsmen
( rapid fire range)
20x 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/3= 1.1 unsaved wounds

10 x 1/2 x 1/3 x1/3= 0.56 unsaved wounds

Tacticals
Rapid fire range
10 x 2/3 x 2/3= 4.4 unsaved wounds

5 x 2/3 x 2/3= 2.2 unsaved wounds

Realistically you probably would have 5+ cover so 1/3 of the wounds caused on the guardsman would be saved.

 Harley Quinn wrote:


Thanks for the constructive criticism.

Edit: I'm not being sarcastic either. Haha.

Looking back I probably should put more down than just that I disagree XD.

The multiwounds I think would help the most. It would give them more durability but still make you respect heavy weapons. T5 is too easy to abuse as chaos thanks to the mark of nurgle. Overall though, it's a good starting point to improve the individual threat of each marine.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:
Well here is a little math for perspective.
10 guardsman vs 5 tactical marines( assuming no cover)

Guardsmen
( rapid fire range)
20x 1/2 x 1/3 x 1/3= 1.1 unsaved wounds

10 x 1/2 x 1/3 x1/3= 0.56 unsaved wounds

Tacticals
Rapid fire range
10 x 2/3 x 2/3= 4.4 unsaved wounds

5 x 2/3 x 2/3= 2.2 unsaved wounds

Realistically you probably would have 5+ cover so 1/3 of the wounds caused on the guardsman would be saved.

I myself find it fairly amusing how the guardsmen are shot by five guys with rapid-fire mini-grenade launchers at very short range, caught outside of cover, and yet not even half of the guys manage to get any kills at all.

Shouldn't a situation like that result in a massacre?

 n0t_u wrote:
I'd say if anything of those, it'd have to be one or the other and a point boost. Either as they are and 2w or T5, For nurgle if the basic marines go T5 they should go 2w, so either way nurgle marines would be T5 2W.

Huh, didn't even think of this.

I had a similiar discussion with my friends (sleep deprived)

2Wounds 3Toughness EternalWarrior

I can't remember exactly but we had a slight point increase. It seems silly but the extra wound/eternal warrior let them really much with elite style units. But the reduced toughness let them get overwhelmed eventually horde tactics.

DaKrumpa wrote:
I had a similiar discussion with my friends (sleep deprived)

2Wounds 3Toughness EternalWarrior

I can't remember exactly but we had a slight point increase. It seems silly but the extra wound/eternal warrior let them really much with elite style units. But the reduced toughness let them get overwhelmed eventually horde tactics.

I feel like the T3 would make SM seem too weak, even with the W3 and Eternal Warrior. It's like them having the same resilience to guard.

Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

Which is why I would actually say that T4, W2 with no eternal warrior would be just fine for Marines - of course, that is predicated on them going back up to at least 16 points per model, preferably even 18.

Ah, okay then. I see your point.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

Which is why I would actually say that T4, W2 with no eternal warrior would be just fine for Marines - of course, that is predicated on them going back up to at least 16 points per model, preferably even 18.

As tough as 3 guardsmen against ap1&2&3. As tough as 9 guardsmen against ap4&5 and as tough as 6 guardsmen against ap6&-. Assuming no cover.

While I get the notion of having them reflect the lore better, I think it would make actually playing SM less fun. Almost every model would become 2 wounds and sharp price increases across the board, so you'd be less flexible and have less models on the table while having to track wounds for most of your models.

DorianGray wrote:
Make space marines tougher than they already are? What so 9/10 people playing space marines or csm not good enough for you?

If you want 40k to just be all about Speezh Mehraines and all the other armies to just exist to be stomped on by them you can feth yourself.

I hate space marine fantards. Space marines are the kiddy army. Truth.

Truth? I'm 30 and I'm a Space Marine fan/player. When I was a teenager I played Necrons.
SM have an awesome variety of models from GW,FW and 3rd parties, they're quite flexible in what kind of lists you can build, they have unlimited possibilities in terms of fluff and can ally themself with all the other imperial factions. They're cheap to get into (decent model counts, ebay availability) and not that hard to learn - a basic Tac Marine detachment is pretty good for learning the ropes.

That's why there are so many SM players.

Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Generally, the Ork collective psychic powers are proportional to their numbers, and outside of specialised weirdboyz it never manifests as directly as psychic lightning or the like.

But why is this relevant?

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

Well RAW only the highest ML model is counted for any unit, so there isn't any difference

nekooni wrote:

 Harley Quinn wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Yes, and all Orks should be Psychic Mastery Level 1.

Of course. Why not.
But it'd be ML1 for each model, not for a squad.
*ahem*
"Alright, it's my Psychic phase now. That's...(rolls die)...... 5 warp charges, plus 96. And 5 for you."

Well RAW only the highest ML model is counted for any unit, so there isn't any difference

Oh, right. Haha.
I tried, at least.

Making ork boys squads brotherhood of psykers with an increase of mastery level by 1 for every 10 models would be more likely IMO.

Making orks mastery level 1 psykers doesn't really work for me. Their "psychic" passive effects (like red things going faster, guns not running out of ammo, etc.) are all fairly subtle. Actual psychic powers tend to be quite a bit more flashy. When something explodes around non-weirdboy orkz, it's not generally because of psychic. It's because someone threw a grenade or something.

That said, I do like the idea of a, "Powa of da Waaaagh!" detachment wherein at least one weird boy is mandatory, but you generate bonus warp charges the more orks you include in the detachment.

That, or give weirdboyz a rule that gives them +1 warp charge for every 10 boyz in a squad with them.

Ork Psychic dice generation is fine if we only had the free HQ slots to bring more Weirdboyz or some formation of multiple Weirdboyz.

+1 warp charge per 10 boyz in the unit would be hilarious in a green tide. 2 Weirdboyz, 150 Orks, 34+D6 dice. Time to start some daemon summoning.

 Harley Quinn wrote:
For me, it was more about when I play games against them, a tactical/assault squad coming near isn't really all that imposing, where as, if they were all T5 and 2 wounds, I'd definitely be a little more fearful of them.
But oh well.

I'm really happy to read this. I think it is the most important thing about all the armies. What's the scariest an army can get without giving me no chance at all to win against it? From this perspective, if I'm playing against marines and I want it to be really hard, t5 w2 is pretty good. I kdo not like that a melta gun or other s8 weapon wouldn't insta kill them, from the perspective of the "having a chance" portion of the scenario. I think it's good to have tools, and not have all te tools just shut down.



If you are assuming you can use these rules, why in heck would anyone think the plague marineNd mark of nurgle rules would also be the same as they are now? How would that be so obvious? They mark of nurgle would have /different rules/.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Not really, Harley - T3, W3, EW would make a Marine as tough as three guardsmen.

It would also massively unbalance the game in favour of hordes over elites in the same way that Necrons did, only more so, because suddenly things like melta and plasma don't matter against Marines when really, they should.

You do understand that melta and plasma would be just as important for people who don't have scat bikes right? Because str 6+ ap3+ is what it takes to kill Marines if they were T3 W3? It would actually cause more elite builds outside SM because to combat SM people will want S6+ large blast templates. Green tide players won't be able to play due to the meta shift. Good times.

Harley, it's a good idea, but as someone mentioned GW needs to make better rules.

T3 W3 3+ EW is as tough as three guardsmen, becauise Instant Death from S6 weapons doesn't matter if the model its shooting at is EW. Reading comprehension, please.

Well, it does still matter from the perspective of denying FNP, but I'm not sure how relevant that is outside of pathological cases.

Toughening Marines is very tricky from a game play perspective. If they are as good as 20 guardsmen then a balanced game involves a small marine army or a massive guard army. If the game is a massive guard army, it bogs down due to too many models. If it is a small marine army, tactics and manouvers become less dynamic. One or two squads of Marines doesn't give many options in how to interact on the board. So unfortunately the super duper awesomeness that Marines are supposed to be in the fluff is toned down.

Now since it is a pet peave of mine to say in essence that idea is no good or can't work to posts in the rules board, (instead an effort should be made to help OPs find a functional way to modify the game to fit their cinematic vision) I'll try to offer some thoughts on how to work with the proposed concept.

The first thing that needs to be done to make the idea work is to increase the damage output of the marines, or alternatively don't double points cost. Just making them tougher without making them killier doesn't work.

Couple thoughts on how to do this. One is a change to how bolter weapons work. The Eldar basic weapon got a tweak to make it more interesting. Why not do the same for the Marine's basic weapon. My thought is a rule that treats all bolter misses as strength 1/2 (rounding up), AP- hits. So regular bolter misses are S2 hits, heavy bolter misses are S3 hits. The bolter becomes more effective against troops but not against vehicles.

I also think Marines could be given more ability to move and fire effectively. So heavy weapons being able to fire on the move. Not sure how to implement that due to unfamiliarity with the current edition.

They probably would also need two close combat attacks in their profile to ward against tarpitting.

I would also consider making squads smaller (something like min 3, max 8) to keep the unit idea of 40k intact while still allowing numerous tactical choices in game. Maybe make a squad one or two teams of 3 or 4 Marines. If you take one team, one member can take one of meltagun, plasma gun, flamer. If you take two teams one of the cannon weapons can be taken as well.

And for context, I'm not a Marone fan boy. I think they are one of the least interesting armies personally, but don't mind brain storming ways to make them match the fluff better.

Then Krak grenades and missiles should have the same rule, their explosion is much more powerful.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Then Krak grenades and missiles should have the same rule, their explosion is much more powerful.

They're not fragmentation weapons like bolters though.

Cheeky answer borrows from Starseige Tribes:

My plasma cannon says no one is immortal.

So no, Marines should not have two wounds or be toughness 5.

From a gameplay perspective, they are toughness 4 while most things are toughness 3. You could perhaps make the case for Terminators and Centurions to be T5 due to their armor, but base marines no.

The base Tau weapon is a plasma weapon, it shouldn't need a 4+ to wound a marine. Making them T5 would mean bumping up a lot of weapons STRs thus negating the drive to making all Marines T5.

Frankly a Heavy Bolter and similar 5-7 STR weapons should work like they do vs power armor marines.

Multi-wound models bog the game down and make it look bad due to the counters strewn across the table.
Nobz are supposed to be tougher than marines. Therefore if a marine is T5 W2 then a Nob would have to be T6 W3 at least.

A much better solution to the discord between fluff and crunch would be to increase the lethality of standard infantry weapons, a point that fans have been trying to get across to GW since the 90s. A direct hit from a futuristic death ray on an unarmored, uncovered human soldier only has a 50% chance of temporarily incapacitating the human.
This is because 40k was originally based on a transplanted fantasy rule set, replacing WHFB's bows and crossbows with lasguns and bolters respectively. I know arrows and muskets can inflict some nasty wounds, but the little kid in me wants death rays and exploding-rocket-guns to be a little bit more impressive.

I'm thinking all ranged weapons should use the current rending rules, inflicting automatic wounds that ignore armor on a wound roll of 6. That way even marines have to play it smart and use cover. Then every weapon could have its S bumped up and its AP bumped down by 1. Then discard rapid fire entirely, turning RF weapons into assault 2 and doubling the RoF of storm and hurricane bolters. Maybe turn salvo weapons into assault as well.
This isn't really much of a buff for marines in particular. To make tac marines useful as something other than cannon fodder for the special weapon guy you would need to give them a special rule, like an extra shot at close range or the ability to ignore cover when you roll a 6 to hit.

To make close combat a little bit more practical I think units should be able to fire snap shots while charging as well as when being charged.

The "holding off hundreds of enemies alone," "a company conquering a planet" stuff cannot be represented on the table top because it is absurd. You can't simulate it because it is impossible without giving Marines superman-like abilities.

You can write the words "100 Marines conquered the planet." but you cannot actually simulate it, because it is impossible.

Thanks for the input everyone.

Haruspex wrote:
Multi-wound models bog the game down and make it look bad due to the counters strewn across the table.
Nobz are supposed to be tougher than marines. Therefore if a marine is T5 W2 then a Nob would have to be T6 W3 at least.

A much better solution to the discord between fluff and crunch would be to increase the lethality of standard infantry weapons, a point that fans have been trying to get across to GW since the 90s. A direct hit from a futuristic death ray on an unarmored, uncovered human soldier only has a 50% chance of temporarily incapacitating the human.
This is because 40k was originally based on a transplanted fantasy rule set, replacing WHFB's bows and crossbows with lasguns and bolters respectively. I know arrows and muskets can inflict some nasty wounds, but the little kid in me wants death rays and exploding-rocket-guns to be a little bit more impressive.

I'm thinking all ranged weapons should use the current rending rules, inflicting automatic wounds that ignore armor on a wound roll of 6. That way even marines have to play it smart and use cover. Then every weapon could have its S bumped up and its AP bumped down by 1. Then discard rapid fire entirely, turning RF weapons into assault 2 and doubling the RoF of storm and hurricane bolters. Maybe turn salvo weapons into assault as well.
This isn't really much of a buff for marines in particular. To make tac marines useful as something other than cannon fodder for the special weapon guy you would need to give them a special rule, like an extra shot at close range or the ability to ignore cover when you roll a 6 to hit.

To make close combat a little bit more practical I think units should be able to fire snap shots while charging as well as when being charged.

Oooo! Interesting thoughts there! I like that.

@Maniac_nmt: Couldn't the argument be made that a plasma-based weapon shouldn't need a 4+ to wound anything not made out of metal (and maybe even things made out of metal too)?

@Alcibiades: While you're correct, there is definitely a middleground between "holding off hundreds of enemies alone," and the current level of marine potency. Personally, I like the idea of something a few steps removed from movie marines where the model count is low (but not movie marine low), and each model feels like a "miniboss" rather than just an especially well armored guard vet.