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It has always amused me to no end how gw has failed to grasp how much this creates the "only marines sell" situation theyre in.

Heh. You say that like they don't know:

Manflayer novel wrote:'They wear the heraldry of our milkblood cousins, but they are not like them. They call themselves Primaris Marines, if that means anything to you.’

‘Nothing of any importance. And why are you concerned?’

‘They are larger. Stronger. Faster. Even veterans of the Long War are hard-pressed to match them. They are better than us, Fabius. Better in every way that matters.’

‘As we were better than the Thunder Warriors,’ Fabius said. ‘Is it any surprise that there were yet more horrors waiting in the Corpse-Emperor’s laboratories?’

‘Aren’t you concerned?’

‘Why would I be?’ Fabius gestured, and the image spun slowly. He peered at the genetic data scrolling alongside it. ‘Is this information correct?’

‘I took those samples myself, off one of the few bodies we managed to recover.’

Fabius dismissed the image. ‘Ezekyle wants something to counter them, doesn’t he? How predictable. They make oversized warriors, we make oversized warriors.’ He shook his head. ‘A galaxy of children, squabbling over their toys.’

Reynolds, Josh. Manflayer (Fabius Bile: Warhammer 40,000 Book 3) . Kindle Edition.

What's your thoughts on wraith constructs? My arch-nemesis is already happily dusting off all his wraithboneheads in anticipation of 9th.

In the hands of the right General, it could be a strong army.
It can be hard to remove but is still rather short ranged.
When coupled with the right supporting units, absolutely playable.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Balance isn't always what's important. Armies should be relatively balanced while playing like they should according to their fluff. There was an entire thread about that recently.

I think then we just have to agree to disagree. Fluff doesn't make for fun game at all, otherwise I would just drop Mortarion and declare that my opponent's entire army withers and dies as soon as he casts plague wind, because that is what would happen in the fluff.

There simply is no way to have a fun game when a legion should both outnumber a single chapter and have each individual more powerful than the loyalists.
And I'm not even convinced of that, most of the fluff seems to portrait chaos marine rank and file troops just as powerful as tactical marines. When CSM are vastly more powerful than regular marines, they are usually cult troops, possessed, chosen or other CSM represented by characters on the tabletop - which are more powerful than tactical marines.

We've had morty fight in the fluff.

The enemy army did not, in fact, wither from his sorcerous might.

Mortarian, especially, is beholden to esotericism. His magic relies on his perceptions of secret symbols and signs, and works only according to such strict set ups.

 Jidmah wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Balance isn't always what's important. Armies should be relatively balanced while playing like they should according to their fluff. There was an entire thread about that recently.

I think then we just have to agree to disagree. Fluff doesn't make for fun game at all, otherwise I would just drop Mortarion and declare that my opponent's entire army withers and dies as soon as he casts plague wind, because that is what would happen in the fluff.

There simply is no way to have a fun game when a legion should both outnumber a single chapter and have each individual more powerful than the loyalists.
And I'm not even convinced of that, most of the fluff seems to portrait chaos marine rank and file troops just as powerful as tactical marines. When CSM are vastly more powerful than regular marines, they are usually cult troops, possessed, chosen or other CSM represented by characters on the tabletop - which are more powerful than tactical marines.

Relatively. Csm wouldn't outnumber loyalists if they were better than tacticals and pointed correctly. They would outnumber primaris, but not be as tough having one wound to primaris' two. A simple fix would be making chosen a troops choice for the legions to represent the true veterans with basic csm representing newer recruits, either created by the legions or renegades. It's possible to better represent the fluff without going overboard.

And there's nothing in the lore that would make the average warband vastly outnumber loyalists. Remember most of the legions like the Night Lords, World Eaters, and Emperors Children have broken up. The individual warbands wouldn't be any larger than a chapter, possibly smaller.

Finally gotten around to taking a solid look at the impact of the new points values on my army. Put my updated collection of Sister of Battle models into Battlescribe and found my Battalion of models was 1786 points in 8th Edition. Revised the points to 9th Edition values and the army is now 1993 points. That is 207 points, a 11.6% increase in points value in the transition.

Interestingly, the largest points increase was for the highly mobile Seraphim Squad (8 models with PP, PS, and two 2xHF went from 101 points to 133 points) while my Dominion Squad actually went down in points (6 models with Combi-Melta, Power Maul, 4x Meltagun, Simularum Imperialis and Incensor Cherub when from 145 points down to 137 points).

It seems to me that GW is doing a few things with the adjusted points value:
1) Increasing the value of bodies: Every unit in the list had the base model value increase, excluding the Imaginer.
2) Decreasing and normalizing the value of upgrades: Many expensive upgrades went down in value. Others were normalized to a multiple of 5. And the cheapest upgrades were increased in points (Stormbolter up from 2 to 3, Hand Flamers up from 1 to 2 for Seraphim or 5 for other models).
3) Targeted separation of points values: Many items have different points values if put on characters, Infantry, and/or other models.

So not only is GW shrinking the game, they are also subtly fighting the "less toys, more boys" line of thought. I have to say I am actually rather liking the look of that.