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 fraser1191 wrote:
Yeah I don't want a large amount of marines on the board . I think 13ppm is a good cost, but I don't think they are worth 13ppm.

Personally I think 13ppm is far too low; I'd prefer them around the 16-18ppm mark, they're supposed to be elite yet GW just constantly makes things cheaper (may or may not have something to do with the fact it means people need to buy more of them).

Breng77 wrote:
I've said this elsewhere marines all need the primaris stat line 2 W and 2 attacks. They would need a price bump. But at current primaris price, it is slightly worse than marines costing 9 points per model (more vulnerable to multiple damage weapons and fewer shots.), then have terminators get the extra wound and attack (so 3 each).

I'm pretty biased against the whole concept of Primaris Marines in the first place, but I kind of agree with this; 2W 2A for basic marines seems about right to me, costed appropriately of course. I'd maybe keep 1A for Devastators and Scouts, as this makes tactical marines more viable. Veterans should have better WS and/or BS rather than more attacks.

Dunno what to do with Primaris Marines as it's probably a bit late to can them; I liked the idea of them when I thought it was just going to be reinforcements, I hate the idea of them being marines+, I think the only distinction should really be wargear based.

Well, Primaris marines are marines +1, that's not going to change - it's part of the warhammerverse now.

The primary balance issue here is that infantries (aka non-vehicles) should be, and does to a degree, broken down to general categories of:
1. cheap & spammable (guardmen, gaunts, boyz)
2. glass cannons (special weapon AM veterans)
3. specialists (aspect warriors)
4. durable (immortals)

The issue is that marines on tabletop falls into none of the categories, and should be adjusted to do at least one of the roles.

Marines on the tabletop have almost always been grossly underpowered compared to what they are in the fluff. A fluff marine as something like WS6 BS6 S5 T6 W2 A2 2+save on D10. In the fluff their presence on the battlefield is worth anything between 10 and 100 men, depending on what novel you read. On the tabletop as you know its more like 1 marine =2.5 to 3 Guardmen or equivalent.

However in terms of the game itself, increasing marines durability by much would not be a good thing in any way:
-Marines are already a low unit count army. If their survivability is increased, they need an appropriate points increase. Then you have an even smaller, more elite army, which makes the medium and high unit count armies horribly expensive and time consuming, and therefore less attractive, to players
-It would probably be less fun to play too. (picture a 10 model army against 100 enemies).
-It would force GW to increase the prices of the marine range to compensate for less models being bought.

Primaris marines with their 2 wounds are about as close as we're likely to see to the stats of a "true Astartes". I personally think the solution is that GW writers should stop causing this confusion by playing up the Astartes to be ultra-super-duper, and just depict them as "pretty damn good." But then that would be getting rid of what is, to the vast majority of readers (myself included), the appeall of the novels. Best just reconcile ourselves with the fact that fluff marines and tabletop marines are in two different leagues and always will be.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
-Marines are already a low unit count army. If their survivability is increased, they need an appropriate points increase. Then you have an even smaller, more elite army, which makes the medium and high unit count armies horribly expensive and time consuming, and therefore less attractive, to players
-It would probably be less fun to play too. (picture a 10 model army against 100 enemies).
-It would force GW to increase the prices of the marine range to compensate for less models being bought.

No-one's suggesting a huge points increase; just slapping on a second wound is probably worth at most 16ppm IMO. That's just putting them back to 3rd edition pricing, but with more wounds, as their shooting would be no better, they just don't lose shots as quickly as they take damage, except to weapons which do more than 1 DMG. The increase in cost would just mean taking a few less sponge models for soaking up damage.

The fluff is contradictory. There is no way to make a working game out of it. In one story, a squad of marines killed hundred or thousands of Dark Eldar. In Gaunt's Ghosts, a squad of ten (and a bunch of people with poisoned lawn darts) kill 5 marines without losing a single guardsman, although an undetermined number of lawn dart-armed guys perished.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops, I forgot the second part. With that said, I like the idea of rules for various styles of play. A squad of marines (possibly death watch) having stupidly powerful stats vs a full army of tyranids, cultists, etc. would be tons of fun. I suggest finding like minded players and making house rules. We do it all the time for narrative games, campaigns, etc.

 Haravikk wrote:

No-one's suggesting a huge points increase; just slapping on a second wound is probably worth at most 16ppm IMO. That's just putting them back to 3rd edition pricing, but with more wounds, as their shooting would be no better, they just don't lose shots as quickly as they take damage, except to weapons which do more than 1 DMG. The increase in cost would just mean taking a few less sponge models for soaking up damage.

I'm no math-hammerist, but -even allowing for that they are currently underpowered- I imagine that essentially doubling their durability against small arms would require a significant points increase,. And you'd also have to bump up termies and primaris in some way of course.

From what I've heard from GW staff, Secondus marines will be phased out in 5 or 6 years (I paid the rumours no heed until that conversation). So your bog standard marine will have 2 wounds. From a design point of view, I personally would have preffered a toughness increase, but that wouldn't have had much of an impact with the way the new S vs T system works.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Haravikk wrote:

No-one's suggesting a huge points increase; just slapping on a second wound is probably worth at most 16ppm IMO. That's just putting them back to 3rd edition pricing, but with more wounds, as their shooting would be no better, they just don't lose shots as quickly as they take damage, except to weapons which do more than 1 DMG. The increase in cost would just mean taking a few less sponge models for soaking up damage.

I'm no math-hammerist, but -even allowing for that they are currently underpowered- I imagine that essentially doubling their durability against small arms would require a significant points increase,. And you'd also have to bump up termies and primaris in some way of course.

From what I've heard from GW staff, Secondus marines will be phased out in 5 or 6 years (I paid the rumours no heed until that conversation). So your bog standard marine will have 2 wounds. From a design point of view, I personally would have preffered a toughness increase, but that wouldn't have had much of an impact with the way the new S vs T system works.

Price adjustments maybe - they are currently not worth their points so dropping their points or adding stats should have roughly the same effect. I think -1 to the AP of the shooters gun (can't increase your save) for all gravis/termi/and power armor users and make bolters ap -1 would go a long way to fixing marines. Intercessors would then get -2 to a bolt rifle and - 3 to a stalker. Things like sterngard would have -3 special issue boltguns - storm bolters -1. This would obviously apply to choas renditions/greyknights/bloodangels/Deathgarud/ect also - maybe some point cost adjustments needed but mostly - it would just make a lot of non viable units viable.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Haravikk wrote:

No-one's suggesting a huge points increase; just slapping on a second wound is probably worth at most 16ppm IMO. That's just putting them back to 3rd edition pricing, but with more wounds, as their shooting would be no better, they just don't lose shots as quickly as they take damage, except to weapons which do more than 1 DMG. The increase in cost would just mean taking a few less sponge models for soaking up damage.

I'm no math-hammerist, but -even allowing for that they are currently underpowered- I imagine that essentially doubling their durability against small arms would require a significant points increase,. And you'd also have to bump up termies and primaris in some way of course.

From what I've heard from GW staff, Secondus marines will be phased out in 5 or 6 years (I paid the rumours no heed until that conversation). So your bog standard marine will have 2 wounds. From a design point of view, I personally would have preffered a toughness increase, but that wouldn't have had much of an impact with the way the new S vs T system works.

Wouldn't need to be too much of a price increase. Primaris Marines are +1W, +1A, and have a better gun at 18 points per model. So if you gave the wound and attack to a regular marine you would be looking at maybe 17 points per model. Not too much really. No reason to buff primaris unless you are giving them 3 wounds. Termies if they go to 3 wounds and 3 attacks are probably 50 points fully equipped.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Price adjustments maybe - they are currently not worth their points so dropping their points or adding stats should have roughly the same effect. I think -1 to the AP of the shooters gun (can't increase your save) for all gravis/termi/and power armor users and make bolters ap -1 would go a long way to fixing marines. Intercessors would then get -2 to a bolt rifle and - 3 to a stalker. Things like sterngard would have -3 special issue boltguns - storm bolters -1. This would obviously apply to choas renditions/greyknights/bloodangels/Deathgarud/ect also - maybe some point cost adjustments needed but mostly - it would just make a lot of non viable units viable.

I agree completely about the bolter. I was lost for words when I read the 8ED weapons spoiler and saw it had no AP...just ridiculous

Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Price adjustments maybe - they are currently not worth their points so dropping their points or adding stats should have roughly the same effect. I think -1 to the AP of the shooters gun (can't increase your save) for all gravis/termi/and power armor users and make bolters ap -1 would go a long way to fixing marines. Intercessors would then get -2 to a bolt rifle and - 3 to a stalker. Things like sterngard would have -3 special issue boltguns - storm bolters -1. This would obviously apply to choas renditions/greyknights/bloodangels/Deathgarud/ect also - maybe some point cost adjustments needed but mostly - it would just make a lot of non viable units viable.

I agree completely about the bolter. I was lost for words when I read the 8ED weapons spoiler and saw it had no AP...just ridiculous

Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

Raises the question.

And the performance of Marines is multi-factoral. You just can't bring enough of them to dominate the board, and the standard one doesn't really hit all that hard.

There's a thread on the bolter - lots of people agree with you about the lack of AP.

That's why part of the Tactical Marines issue is one that transcends the whole army. The issues are tied to special weapon spam and the Bolter never being worth using.
Make the Bolt weapon inflict two hits on a 6 to hit (I'm not a fan of this one, but the majority likes it more than my fix) and then fix the special weapon ratios. Done.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Price adjustments maybe - they are currently not worth their points so dropping their points or adding stats should have roughly the same effect. I think -1 to the AP of the shooters gun (can't increase your save) for all gravis/termi/and power armor users and make bolters ap -1 would go a long way to fixing marines. Intercessors would then get -2 to a bolt rifle and - 3 to a stalker. Things like sterngard would have -3 special issue boltguns - storm bolters -1. This would obviously apply to choas renditions/greyknights/bloodangels/Deathgarud/ect also - maybe some point cost adjustments needed but mostly - it would just make a lot of non viable units viable.

I agree completely about the bolter. I was lost for words when I read the 8ED weapons spoiler and saw it had no AP...just ridiculous

Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

"Or is it just another in the long string of insufficient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?"
Yep - that is exactly it. This is essentially still a game in beta. So it's hard to get too angry about it except it's really a poor way to do business. The community has a much better feel for what balance is - they should listen to us.

Lets pretend bolters go to ap -1. What do necron gauss weapons get for free now? What about tau rifles? Their gun tech is BETTER then humanitys.

 Lance845 wrote:
Lets pretend bolters go to ap -1. What do necron gauss weapons get for free now? What about tau rifles? Their gun tech is BETTER then humanitys.

I dunno why don't you go to the thread. It's been addressed.

 Lance845 wrote:
Lets pretend bolters go to ap -1. What do necron gauss weapons get for free now? What about tau rifles? Their gun tech is BETTER then humanitys.

This isn't the thread for that, though.

 Infantryman wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
Lets pretend bolters go to ap -1. What do necron gauss weapons get for free now? What about tau rifles? Their gun tech is BETTER then humanitys.

This isn't the thread for that, though.

It's not the specific thread, BUT when that suggestion happens it NEEDS to be talked about.

 Lance845 wrote:
Lets pretend bolters go to ap -1. What do necron gauss weapons get for free now? What about tau rifles? Their gun tech is BETTER then humanitys.

Something that actually fulfills the role of gauss, presumably. Maybe "roll of 6 deals an additional 2 damage" so you can actually strip apart vehicles with massed gauss fire like you used to.

Quoted from the other thread.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Except they dont. They dont want 3 man units. They want 5-10 man units. If they just wanted primaris marines they would just be using them.

 Lance845 wrote:

pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Except they dont. They dont want 3 man units. They want 5-10 man units. If they just wanted primaris marines they would just be using them.

If people want marines with one more wound and Ap-1, then they what they want is Primaris Marines. The alternative is cheaper tacticals, say, at 11 points or so. Because that is what tacticals are worth.

People keep saying what things are worth, is there like an equation for these values?

 fraser1191 wrote:
People keep saying what things are worth, is there like an equation for these values?

There used to be. GW just eyeballs things. What we do is look at Mathhammer and eyeball it too.

You guys are making me nostalgic. I remember the days of 30ppm Marines lol.

The problem with the fluff is that in it, everyone is amazing. The Imperial Guard are not just bog standard planetary defence forces; they're the elite creamed from a planet of billions. To compare to the fluff, it would be like if we gathered all of the worlds special forces and all of our elite infantry units, then chucked in the finest police officers, the roughest and toughest gangsters and career criminals, the best cage fighters and boxers, and the entire contents of most Division 1AA schools atheltic programs, then let all of them fight it out in a series of tests until we'd narrowed them down to just 650 or so candidates, who then represented us as the 1st Regiment of Earth.

Orks are supposed to be genetic freaks in their own right, vastly stronger and tougher than humans. Eldar are supposed to be so fast, lithe and agile that an Eldar olympic team would mop the floor with most of our olympians and smash our world records to pieces. They'd make Usain Bolt look like a snail and there wouldn't be enough steroids on the planet to make Lance Armstrong competitive against them in a cycle race. The Tyranids are basically the aliens from, err, Alien; predators of such skill and ferocity that a group of average humans with weapons are merely a very lively snack.

In this context Space Marines are really in about the right place. The problem with buffing them to their perceived fluff level is that you'd have to buff everyone else the same. The traditional way to handle this dilemma is to have weaker units like conscripts/gretchin etc, describe them as representing an average human, then give them a stat line that's uglier than the winner of a gurning competition.

pismakron wrote:

If people want marines with one more wound and Ap-1, then they what they want is Primaris Marines.

Indeed. Just forget the tiny marines exist, the Primaris are the proper marines now.

pismakron wrote:

 thegreatchimp wrote:


Reading some of the comments, I knew regular marines were underpowered but not to that extent. If that's the case (I haven't played 8th so I won't pretend to know) then it begs the question -is GW deliberately making them substandard to spur sales of Primaris and pave the way for this alleged phase-out? Or is it just another in the long string of insuffucient playtesting and poor points balancing issues?

It is a balance tendency that has somewhat defined the edition: From the beginning elite infantry was overcosted and certain types of light infantry was undercosted. Bikers are struggling a lot more than tacticals, and Primaris Marines was very difficult to do anything with before the codex. Tacticals would be more viable at 11 points, but what about Scouts then? Should they be nine points? And if so then you kind of have to adress Necron Warriors, and Fire Warriors probably would need to go down to 7 points.

But there is another way of fixing them: Give tactical marines an extra wound, an extra CC attack and AP-1 on the bolter. And abracadabra now you have intercessors. Tactical Marines will soon be a thing of the past, and when reading this thread and the bolter thread it is clear that EVERYBODY wants primaris marines to replace old-marines.

Fair points, except about the old marines. If the gaming community in my country is anything to go by, feelings are split on Primaris, with about a quarter of collectors on the fence about them -they like the models, but are in fear that their old marine armies will be relegated / not supported anymore, - and about another 5-10% or so of marine players (most of them older players) who outright detest them, because they think their introduction has butchered the fluff.

As someone who last year spent a decent amount of money buying a marine army, just for new marines to come out.
I want them to be a part of the codex not replace the codex....

It is just bizarre that people here are basically proposing rules that already exist.

When it comes to marine durability, I feel like marine design philosophy has, perhaps, been restricted due to marines' status as the most popular army.

Their gimmick is that they're extremely few in number but individually potent and durable. So every time their price goes down another point thus encouraging people to field more bodies, I cringe a bit.

Really, I think that intercessors have the statline I would want for normal marines. It's just weird having your flagship army also be an unusually small, elite one. I'm all for 2 wound marines and strength 5 bolters at a modestly increased price.

Guess I'll bring this copy paste job out again:

One of the big issues is that tac marines are mis-equipped. The bolter is a "quantity over quality" weapon (low str, no AP, no abilities) that needs to overwhelm the enemy damage mitigation with sheer numbers, while the marine himself is priced as a "quality over quantity" unit, and thus you can't bring the number of bolters needed to have them be threatening compared to the total points spent on them.

Their single melee attack runs into the same issue, wanting a high quantity to get through mitigation, but again stuck tied to an overly expensive elite model that can't provide that quantity.

Atsknf is a joke. Anyone with a lick of sense constructs their lists so that morale will be a non-issue anyway, using MSU squads or fearless effects, so a reroll for a test you never take isn't exactly in high demand.

They also don't take up much table space per point, which is a very strong "unlisted" ability of cheap units that screen well and make armies with those units functionally immune to melee and close range damage against their important units during the early turns.

The only thing the tacs do reasonably well is hide in cover, but in such an offense oriented game, where every early kill means negating 5-7 turns of that unit attacking, the value of a unit whose only decent ability is to hide in bushes is...questionable at best.

Assuming that one wants to keep the marine "elite," there are a few solutions. Either upgrading the boltgun to a more elite weapon, changing their function to be compatible with the model it is equipped on, or giving marines the ability to use boltguns as rapid fire 2 if they stand still, which would mimic the amount of shots a quantity type weapon needs without increasing the marine model count.
Additionally I'm of the opinion that all marines need +1 attack. It's quite silly that they are touted as "reasonable" in melee with 1 low str AP0 swing.

Anyway all those factors added up, and the fact that all the other armies are getting buffed with their own chapter tactics, and it is very obvious that this is absolutely not the edition for the humble power armor marine.

...I guess they want the marine players to buy primaris.