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BrianDavion wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:
Normal marines are still too vulnerable to massed weak firepower.

The best defense is a good offense, and their offense is getting better and better and better.

Honestly I think at this case he['s just suffering from a serious SERIOUS case of confirmation bias

At only 45 posts is this a Martel account?

 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
the easy to build kits he's not proposing buying to use, but to test paint schemes on.

This. I think $15 U.S. isn't too bad of a try and buy compared to a full $60 box. If he does ultimately decide to bail, he is out like a restaurant meal or a couple of drinks. But a whole box of them make the sunk-cost fallacy a lot easier to rationalize even though he is still not really having fun. For me, I didn't really like Primaris until I actually started building and painting them up. So, I think someone of the fence should have them in their hands and really get familiar with the models in a way that only building and painting allows. The easy-to-build element isn't great for this, but they are fairly unique sculpts so if he does decide to press on and get more they can plug in fairly well with more. If he decides not to, well I don't think $15 is too much to ask to find out what he should do with his future time.

Oh, the dinky little 3 model box. I was thinking you were talking about a 10 model easy to build. The downside to that is, he can't play with them. They're not even a minimum unit.

no although he can hold onto them, if he buys 3 boxes of intercessors he can then assmble them as 6 5 man squads, and have a replacement for any he builds as a serent if he ever wants to run them as 10 man squads

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:
Normal marines are still too vulnerable to massed weak firepower.

The best defense is a good offense, and their offense is getting better and better and better.

Is there anything that ISN'T vulnerable to massed firepower?

Breton wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:
Normal marines are still too vulnerable to massed weak firepower.

The best defense is a good offense, and their offense is getting better and better and better.

Is there anything that ISN'T vulnerable to massed firepower?

Not really. "this unit dies when my enemies entire army list focus fires it" isn't really a valid complaint TBH

BrianDavion wrote:


Not really. "this unit dies when my enemies entire army list focus fires it" isn't really a valid complaint TBH

Well fair is fair, that's not their complaint either. If I give them the benefit of the doubt, their complaint is that it's too easy to mass the firepower necessary to erase a 10 man SM squad. And there is some truth to that - an Tac Squad is about the price of 4 Guard squads once you upgrade them both. 4 guard squads pump out 40-80 24" S3 -0 D1 shots per turn - losing 1-2 shots per heavy weapon and special that would pump out more and/or better shots. The Tacticals pump out 10-20 24" S4 -0 D1 shots - losing 1-2 for specials and heavies that pump out more and/or better shots per turn. The Tacs cannot kill proportionally more guardsmen than those guardsmen will kill Tacticals.

GW is overcharging for Durability and/or undercharging for rate of fire. You make those Lasguns Assault 1 18" or Bolt(ers) Rapid Fire 2 so they need those 30-40 guardsmen to get a proportional damage input and output, and 160 points of guardsmen vs 170 points of Tacticals starts to balance.

Give the Tacs first shot and first double tap.

20 shots, 13.4 hits 8.978 woundings, 7.54 dead (5+ -1 from tactical doctrine)

22.5 (23) left
46 shots, 23 hits, 7.59 woundings, 2.5 dead after 3+ saves

6.5 (7 left)
14 shots, 9.38 hits, 6.284 woundings 5.27 dead.
17.2 (18) left
36 shots 18 hits, 6 woundings. 2 dead

4.5 (5) left
10 shots, 6.7 hits 4.489 woundings 3.77 dead
13.43 (14) left
28 shots 14 hits, 4.62 woundings, 1.52 dead.


3 left. 3 left
6 shots, 4 hits 2.68 woundings 2.25 dead
11.3 (12) left
24 shots, 12 hits, 4 woundings 1.32 dead
1.68 (2 Left)

I didn't give either group a special and/or Heavy Weapon - and lets be honest the Guard with 3+ Heavies and 3+ specials giving them anti-marine armor save mods is just going to make the math end faster because 50% (hitting on 4's) of 67% (wounding on 3's) of 84%(saving on 6's (Plasma) of 3 is more than 67%(hitting on 3's) of 67% (wounding on 3's) of 100%(Not even a T Shirt save) of 1.

If you run it vs Intercessors it goes the other way. 2W has them getting more shots per game because it halves the rate at which their ROF drops off in this scenario.. Tactical Marines paid 300% of a guardsman for their +1T, 3+ and a couple background rules. Intercessors paid 400% for an extra wound that adds a lot (more or less doubles) - indirectly - their ROF.

You run this same thing against intercessors with their longer range (More RoF) Save nullifying AP(After Tactical Doctrine basically doubling their rate of EFFECTIVE fire), and two wounds - a lot more durability but less than double- for

Ok, here's the thing, tacs are going to come off worse for wear because with the way the points system works they are kind of priced into a dead end. They can't get much less without just hands down better than other like infantry, like scions, sisters of battle, etc. Intercessors can't do down much more without making tacs utterly pointless but 1 extra wound is good unless you are dealing with damage 2 weapons.

In this edition though defense is basically trumped by offense, so I'd worry less on tacs living and more on squeezing all the firepower you can out of what squads you have.

Also I'd say defense isn't what the game is all about at this point, it's damage dealt. Are intercessors better ? Yeap, for a few reasons. Though there are things you can't quantify with mathhammer , such the fact tacticals are tactical. Taking a special and/or a heavy is good. It's weapon of opportunity which can turn the tide in a battle.

If you just run tacs vs intercessors with base gear of boltguns vs bolt rifles, of course the new beats the old, their guns are better and they have more wounds to shrug off small arms fire.

Take into account the whole battle though and I think tacs come off better because they are more flexible with weapon options with weapons that can make a key difference in a fight with any bit of luck or proper target priority.

Like if I'm dealing wit a knight, I want all the hard hitting heavies I can find in my list.

Now Deathwatch primaris units feel better but they can mix and match and have the illusion of weapon variety, and I can say hell blasters with intercessors feels good.

Let's not try and pretend that Guard are the yard stick for balanced infantry.

Marines werr bad, very true however they are now on a playing field level where with some smart play they can contribute and they are no longer the total liability they used to be.

They atleast now brought a knife to the gun fight instead of a white flag.

AngryAngel80 wrote:


If you just run tacs vs intercessors with base gear of boltguns vs bolt rifles, of course the new beats the old, their guns are better and they have more wounds to shrug off small arms fire.

Take into account the whole battle though and I think tacs come off better because they are more flexible with weapon options with weapons that can make a key difference in a fight with any bit of luck or proper target priority.

So you're saying a Tac Squad with 1 Plasma Rifle and 1 Heavy Bolter will outperform 3 Guard Squads with 3 plasma rifles and 3 heavy bolters?

Like if I'm dealing wit a knight, I want all the hard hitting heavies I can find in my list.

Oh I see, you're saying a Tac Squad with a Lascannon will outperform 3 Guard Squads with 3 lascannon?

Well, let's see. the Tac Squad gets one shot, and hits 67% of the time. It gets .67 hits per turn. The rest of the math will be the same for both -

The Guard squad gets 3 shots, hitting half the time. It'll get.. 1.5 hits.

That can't be right. I think we may have been doing something wrong.

Also I'd say defense isn't what the game is all about at this point, it's damage dealt.

Dead Marines deal no damage. Marines that don't deal enough damage end up dead. You're playing Chicken Or Egg while the guardsmen are eating a Chicken Egg and Cheese Bagel from Chick-Fil-A.

Ice_can wrote:
Let's not try and pretend that Guard are the yard stick for balanced infantry.

Why not? If we admit they're not balanced infantry, we don't have to balance them, because we admitted they're not balanced? Truth be told, they could be balanced. I don't know, I haven't run the numbers against troops from every list. The problem could be 1.0 Marines. The problem could be the same divide they've had for years trying to balance horde vs elite and continue making the same mistakes over and over with. Why is objective securing model count instead of points value or power level? Why do 11 Grots worth about 30 points (fudged to protect the datasheet) score the objective against 9 Intercessors worth 5 times as much? What we do know is that elite armies need enough staying power to kill enough to earn their keep or enough killing power to stay around long enough to earn their keep, and that too frequently doesn't happen because they don't make elite shooting voluminous enough to make up for the lower number of platforms.

Breton wrote:

AngryAngel80 wrote:


If you just run tacs vs intercessors with base gear of boltguns vs bolt rifles, of course the new beats the old, their guns are better and they have more wounds to shrug off small arms fire.

Take into account the whole battle though and I think tacs come off better because they are more flexible with weapon options with weapons that can make a key difference in a fight with any bit of luck or proper target priority.

So you're saying a Tac Squad with 1 Plasma Rifle and 1 Heavy Bolter will outperform 3 Guard Squads with 3 plasma rifles and 3 heavy bolters?

Like if I'm dealing wit a knight, I want all the hard hitting heavies I can find in my list.

Oh I see, you're saying a Tac Squad with a Lascannon will outperform 3 Guard Squads with 3 lascannon?

Well, let's see. the Tac Squad gets one shot, and hits 67% of the time. It gets .67 hits per turn. The rest of the math will be the same for both -

The Guard squad gets 3 shots, hitting half the time. It'll get.. 1.5 hits.

That can't be right. I think we may have been doing something wrong.

Also I'd say defense isn't what the game is all about at this point, it's damage dealt.

Dead Marines deal no damage. Marines that don't deal enough damage end up dead. You're playing Chicken Or Egg while the guardsmen are eating a Chicken Egg and Cheese Bagel from Chick-Fil-A.

Ice_can wrote:
Let's not try and pretend that Guard are the yard stick for balanced infantry.

Why not? If we admit they're not balanced infantry, we don't have to balance them, because we admitted they're not balanced? Truth be told, they could be balanced. I don't know, I haven't run the numbers against troops from every list. The problem could be 1.0 Marines. The problem could be the same divide they've had for years trying to balance horde vs elite and continue making the same mistakes over and over with. Why is objective securing model count instead of points value or power level? Why do 11 Grots worth about 30 points (fudged to protect the datasheet) score the objective against 9 Intercessors worth 5 times as much? What we do know is that elite armies need enough staying power to kill enough to earn their keep or enough killing power to stay around long enough to earn their keep, and that too frequently doesn't happen because they don't make elite shooting voluminous enough to make up for the lower number of platforms.

Nit admiting they arn't balanced means you discount them as a balancing measure as they are outside of the target range. Marines should be balanced to the avarage armies not just the most broken choice for each slot.

Because if you make marines the most populous faction in the game go point for point with guard, almost every troop in the game needs a points reduction.

Take firewarriors for example, I would call them a very good troops choice that justify their points cost, they get destroyed by Infanty squads, Choas cultist worse and more points.

You need to find a median and balance towards it or your constantly going to be doing nothing but shortening the turns that actually matter. Firewarriors skitari etc etc arn't perfectly balanced but with a rounding to the nearest point allowance they aren't realy that unbalanced. When your dealing with such limited granularity balance is always going to be a bit swingy, but chasing every unit to match the best in slot is exactly how we'll end up with 5 point marines eventually.

[spoiler]

 Thairne wrote:
Ever since I picked Dark Angels in 2013 as my first army I was happy with that choice.
I liked the lore, the colour schemes, the special nature of the Deathwing and the Ravenwing.
The unique models, the only jetbike and the knightly feel together with the utter hatred for Chaos made them the ideal chapter for me.

I was "lucky" enough that a few years down the line AdMech was released which took the spot light away from the DA, but I expect this year to at least catch up to my planned AdMech army and have a good amount of options ready.

Now I have to start to consider if I want to cross the Rubicon Primaris.

While I like the DA, I cannot convince myself to really like the primaris marines.
From fluff to model to rules... They just don't seem "40k" to me. Too much of a Deus Ex Machina, too much of hover craft and actual sci-fi with hover tanks, visors, this and that pattern of boltgun, infiltrate here, scout there and the ridiculous looks of the likes of the Repulsor. But I also do not want to invest in a factually dead model line. Yes, we will probably have rules for years to come, but I dont expect to see ANY new model, ever.
Considering how DA treat their Techmarines I have a hard time swallowing they'd accept Primaris anywhere except as a cannon fodder, despite the book that tells us otherwise in the end.

On the other hand I do NOT want to bail on the army, not at least because I have a few commission painted models (a stunning Ravenwing Fire Raptor) and the Crucible of Wrath, a DA aligned Freeblade). Having a marine army in itself with terminators etc. is also something I want...
Also, being the first of my armies the paint job on some models is... atrocious. So updating my army with new models and dismissing the old marines has an appeal too...

All in all, I feel I am between a rock and a hard place.
Had I justed started, I'd be free to decide.
Had I already gotten my 10k worth of DA, I'd have all the options I need.
But with my 3k or so I have a really hard time to decide what to do.

And now next month White Dwarf promises some DA Primaris... I need to decide what to do.
Bail and sell?
Stay with Oldmarines?
Go with Primaris?
Have DW and RW be as they are and create a battle company of Primaris Greenwing?

What would you do?

I'm a long-time Dark Angels player. My advice - build a Squad of Primaris Hellblasters to go with your existing force. See if you like them. Go from there.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I'm a long-time Dark Angels player. My advice - build a Squad of Primaris Hellblasters to go with your existing force. See if you like them. Go from there.

Out of curiosity, did you like them? If so, where did you go from there yourself?

giuven the relics of the dark age strat I can't imagine a dark angels player not loving hell blasters

Breton wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:


Not really. "this unit dies when my enemies entire army list focus fires it" isn't really a valid complaint TBH

Well fair is fair, that's not their complaint either. If I give them the benefit of the doubt, their complaint is that it's too easy to mass the firepower necessary to erase a 10 man SM squad. And there is some truth to that - an Tac Squad is about the price of 4 Guard squads once you upgrade them both. 4 guard squads pump out 40-80 24" S3 -0 D1 shots per turn - losing 1-2 shots per heavy weapon and special that would pump out more and/or better shots. The Tacticals pump out 10-20 24" S4 -0 D1 shots - losing 1-2 for specials and heavies that pump out more and/or better shots per turn. The Tacs cannot kill proportionally more guardsmen than those guardsmen will kill Tacticals.

GW is overcharging for Durability and/or undercharging for rate of fire. .

This part of the point I was trying to make. Thank you for showing it better than I did. Seeing the math helps.

AngryAngel80 wrote:Ok, here's the thing, tacs are going to come off worse for wear because with the way the points system works they are kind of priced into a dead end. They can't get much less without just hands down better than other like infantry, like scions, sisters of battle, etc. Intercessors can't do down much more without making tacs utterly pointless but 1 extra wound is good unless you are dealing with damage 2 weapons.

In this edition though defense is basically trumped by offense, so I'd worry less on tacs living and more on squeezing all the firepower you can out of what squads you have.

Also I'd say defense isn't what the game is all about at this point, it's damage dealt. Are intercessors better ? Yeap, for a few reasons. Though there are things you can't quantify with mathhammer , such the fact tacticals are tactical. Taking a special and/or a heavy is good. It's weapon of opportunity which can turn the tide in a battle.

If you just run tacs vs intercessors with base gear of boltguns vs bolt rifles, of course the new beats the old, their guns are better and they have more wounds to shrug off small arms fire.

Take into account the whole battle though and I think tacs come off better because they are more flexible with weapon options with weapons that can make a key difference in a fight with any bit of luck or proper target priority.

Like if I'm dealing wit a knight, I want all the hard hitting heavies I can find in my list.

Now Deathwatch primaris units feel better but they can mix and match and have the illusion of weapon variety, and I can say hell blasters with intercessors feels good.

Ice_can wrote:Let's not try and pretend that Guard are the yard stick for balanced infantry.

Marines werr bad, very true however they are now on a playing field level where with some smart play they can contribute and they are no longer the total liability they used to be.

They atleast now brought a knife to the gun fight instead of a white flag.

Ice_can wrote:Nit admiting they arn't balanced means you discount them as a balancing measure as they are outside of the target range. Marines should be balanced to the avarage armies not just the most broken choice for each slot.

Because if you make marines the most populous faction in the game go point for point with guard, almost every troop in the game needs a points reduction.

Take firewarriors for example, I would call them a very good troops choice that justify their points cost, they get destroyed by Infanty squads, Choas cultist worse and more points.

You need to find a median and balance towards it or your constantly going to be doing nothing but shortening the turns that actually matter. Firewarriors skitari etc etc arn't perfectly balanced but with a rounding to the nearest point allowance they aren't realy that unbalanced. When your dealing with such limited granularity balance is always going to be a bit swingy, but chasing every unit to match the best in slot is exactly how we'll end up with 5 point marines eventually.

Tactical marines perform unfavorably against scions, firewarriors, sisters, and both types of skitarri. Marines equalize or surpass these units when doctrines or cover comes into play. This is as it should be. My original point was not that marines were underpowered for their cost but that marines are turning into scions who have eaten an extra protein bar, the are underpowered for their model count. In my original post I said "Keep marines at the same point cost and give them some compensating ability" I would like a tac squad with a heavy/special weapon to be balanced to cost about as much as a primaris intercessor squad. This means that if you want tactical options you take tacticals and if you want extra meaty bodies you take primaris. As it stands tacticals are discount primaris with some cool toys, not an equal choice unless you change the numbers. To reach this tactical marines will need to be improved, and the most pressing area is defense imo. Maybe make tacticals 15 points (the historic standard) and give them 2 wounds, maybe keep them at 13 points and give them a FNP (and reduce multi damage by 1 for IH) or something similar, but don't make tacticals 12 points. I explicitly advocate against points drops.

I was hoping they'd squash (but not squat) the difference between the two lines; make all Marines the same statline (so Intercessors and Tacs only vary by unit options). And point them accordingly.

That was, of course, not a realistic dream.

AngryAngel80 wrote:
Ok, here's the thing, tacs are going to come off worse for wear because with the way the points system works they are kind of priced into a dead end. They can't get much less without just hands down better than other like infantry, like scions, sisters of battle, etc. Intercessors can't do down much more without making tacs utterly pointless but 1 extra wound is good unless you are dealing with damage 2 weapons.

Which, given absurd D2 proliferation, is pretty much all the time (funnily enough, now primaris were given perfect anti-primaris weapon available on their troops...) so they feel like overpriced tacs a lot. And (unlike in nonsense conspiracy theories spread by 'squatters') it was oldmarines who got most of the buffs and fixes in new codex, pretty much leaving Intercessors hanging by a thread (new troops at least have extra purpose) and Reivers relegated to bottom tier. Go figure...

 Thairne wrote:
And now next month White Dwarf promises some DA Primaris... I need to decide what to do.
Bail and sell?
Stay with Oldmarines?
Go with Primaris?
Have DW and RW be as they are and create a battle company of Primaris Greenwing?

What would you do?

Personally. I'd keep my existing army and play it—you put a lot of time and effort into it.If you're really not keen about some of the old paint jobs (and we've all been there), just strip them with Simple Green (or the equivalent) and repaint those bastards.

If you really curious, pick up a box or two of some primaris and see how they play. But, in my cynical opinion, why give GW any more money than the small fortune you already have unless it's something you REALLY want.