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Made in gb
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dorset

yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are marines. That, incidentally, is part of why Marines are the target of so much ire. Because they're all interchangeable, and because they get more frequent codex releases than anybody else, the chance of any one of them being top dog at a given time is extremely high.

There are a ton of Blue Angels going around right now, for example - the chaosy kind, not the vampiric kind.


i think you might have hit the nail on the head, or at least thats part of the problem. the various SM sub-factions are heavily interposed in terms of playstyle and model range, at least form a non SM point of view. a IG or Nid player doesn't really care which colour the intercessor squad that just shot his infantry off the board are, even if the marine player makes that distinction. and often the difference in counter-play between blue, green, yellow, grey, or red marines is also relatively minor (compared to, say, the approach taken agianst a Nid horde army, or a chaos deamons list).

a marine player might go to a tourney and face Ultras, Iorn fists, salamanders, then Dark Angels, but a SOB player might go to that same set of match ups and say "i faced 4 marine armies", and both are correct, form their own point of view.

thats part of the whining with marines. for non marines, they are everywhere.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 19:53:35


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yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are marines. That, incidentally, is part of why Marines are the target of so much ire. Because they're all interchangeable, and because they get more frequent codex releases than anybody else, the chance of any one of them being top dog at a given time is extremely high.

There are a ton of Blue Angels going around right now, for example - the chaosy kind, not the vampiric kind.


My point was they're almost extinct in the top slot and just kinda holding on. Harlies have been the biggest, longest boogieman of competitive 40k in 9th.
   
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DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 19:57:39


 
   
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 Xenomancers wrote:
"marines just get played a lot" I explained why.

We really need a real stat accumulation center. looking at all of 40k stats data...its saying there are only 8 iron hands list since the start of 9th...that is obviously not true. Where are you getting these stats?




You’re right people play space marines more then any other faction. So what’s wrong with that? I’m not trying to argue and hope you are just speaking the truth. But marines have not always been top tier, and have always been a the biggest seller. In my local game shop, and at the large events that have been held locally they tend to outnumber everything else. Why is this, maybe because people actually like them, they have great backgrounds and the books about them have been for the most part really good. I do stress most have been. They have great characters with Herculean stories, so yeah people enjoy that. Again who cares what plastic Bonnehommes people prefer.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/04/07 20:07:17


 
   
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yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.


What? No. Sisters of Battle are actually regarded as the best faction in the game right now, followed very closely by Harlies.
   
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SoB, DA, DG, Harlies and Chaos Soup are all top-tier. Harlies are no longer number two, that's out of date at this point; if anything they are slipping out of the top tier because they have trouble against DG and DA. You could definitely argue SoB are the top faction, but DA are very much up there too, and it's a much more recent release, that continues to do better and better as people realize that the RW part of the army is at least as good, probably better than the DW part.

I'm not saying DA conclusively are the best faction, but they're firmly in the range where you can make an argument for them.

"Space marines aren't top tier except for the kind that are absolutely top tier and doing better and better since their recent release." Well...yeah?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 20:34:39


 
   
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In the last few weeks I think I've read that the best faction is Marines, Sisters, Harlequins, Deathguard, Ad Mech and even some still holding out on Necrons (I think we can probably discount them). DE can probably now join them.

Realistically, the game is comparatively well balanced at a faction to faction level although going first still has a huge impact. Worryingly if they resolve that, the internet will have to start accepting that the better player wins the game, or they are just consistently lucky.
   
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RW will not hold on to the torch as the best within DA for very long, RW alone are going to be the reason attack bikes will get nerfed (points increase) at which point, a huge source of their current potency will disappear. Why would GW want people using a model that there are loads of in circulation in the second hand market, let alone outside of RW armies, they want you buying and using ATV's. This isn't me bashing GW btw, but it's what will happen.

Also, RW require a lot of skill and finesse to use, many players may go out there and buy 'the list' but not many will be successful with it, bring the DA win rate down. There are also some fairly hard counters out there to RW lists also, namely long range heavy armour with plenty of multi-shot, multi-wound damage output (or the same for psychic MW spam). Too many people are too gung ho with RW and lose too many valuable units in the first turn.

Now, sort of on topic. Would marines be OP again if the old doctrines Mechanic was brought back in (move doctrine when you want too, this is almost a given that it would be OP), or if it was tweaked again. Due to the nature of 9th reliance on mobility, and tables having better LOS blocking terrain, the devastator doctrine is fairly underpowered, to the point it is not worth having in the first turn. What if you could delay the doctrine process, meaning you can start the game in no doctrine, and choose when to start the doctrine countdown (dev on turn 2, then tac turn 3 etc etc).

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/04/07 20:56:20


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 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic that the Marine era is over.
Codex creep during an edition is a fact.
However, Marines are so good and versatile in many ways that their competitiveness will not suffer (much).

We're what, four codices in, and the win rate has been going down. It's just like 8th hahaha

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 jy2 wrote:
BTW, I can't wait to run Double-D-thirsters! Man, just thinking about it gets me Khorney.

 vipoid wrote:
Indeed - what sort of bastard would want to use their codex?

 MarsNZ wrote:
ITT: SoB players upset that they're receiving the same condescending treatment that they've doled out in every CSM thread ever.
 
   
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 Daedalus81 wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
It's just the effect of codex creep. Necrons went from top-tier to mid-tier as well. GW seems to be doubling down on codex creep in 9th edition, and if you listen to people who playtest, they're subtly telling you it's going to continue (i.e. Brian from TT a few weeks ago was asked whether he thinks codex creep will continue and said yes, it will because for a lot of reasons it suits GW's model).

Space Marines will get a 9th edition Codex 2.0 in a year (probably before some other factions even get a first codex) that will once again put them top of the heap.



I've said it before and I'll say it again - perception is everything.

Necrons falling down to mid-tier isn't a bad thing at all - at least as long as they maintain that level.


I honestly don't think they will. As welcome as a big update was for necrons, a lot of it was oddly redundant and didn't solve their problems (or provide tools to solve 9th edition problems)
I mean, sure its great that you don't have to take a Doomsday ark to get high strength AT guns, but your other options for the role are in the same slot in the same kind of numbers.
The new CC units that aren't wraiths are the same price and aren't as fast or durable.
The relative lack of D2 weapons in the army puts them on the back foot against the most common opponents (regardless of their 'power level'), while other armies can full on spam heavy bolters and/or plasma or whatever their signature equivalents are.

There aren't a lot of options for actions or holding objectives that weren't present before. The new version of RP helps some, but getting there relies on the same old shenanigans.

It was a great model update, but its very much an archetypical 'start of the edition' codex, and long run its going to be fairly mediocre (or worse).

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 22:45:00


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yukishiro1 wrote:


The point is that he in fact knows it will continue, because he's playtesting those books. When he says he thinks it'll continue, he's not predicting, he's telling you what's going to happen with a nudge and a wink.

Space Marines were top dog at the end of 8th and the beginning of 9th because in both cases they had a new book that out codex-creeped the competition. They're falling back to "only good" now because of other, newer books that out-codex-creep them. They'll be back on top when the 9th edition SM 2.0 book comes out (and we all know it will happen, don't kid yourself that they'll actually let SM go a full edition with only one codex).


There's a difference between power creep or the sake of creep that sets an army well above others and power creep that sets an army within the scope of the edition design.

When a new book does significantly better than other books ( after people have been allowed to adapt ) like old Ynnari or Castellans then I'll concede the former is true for that instance.





This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 22:55:35


 
   
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yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.


It's more like you're saying,"Space Marines are the best faction in the game right now and are overpowered - well, as long as you play this one specific chapter in one or two specific ways (either leaning fully on Ravenwing or at least halfway on Ravenwing), and every other variation of loyalist Marine is very solid (White Scars, Black Templars) to dog gak (Imperial Fists, Deathwatch).

Dark Angels being top tier means absolutely nothing to an Imperial Fists player who only barely has a chapter tactic.

And no, comparing the various chapters of Marines to subfactions of Eldar or Necrons or whoever is a false equivalency and you know it friendo. There's more variance in how one can play a single chapter of Marine than there is in some entire non-Marine armies. Hate that all you wish, it's still true and as such lumping all Marines together when they are much more different from each other than any other army's subfactions is being intellectually dishonest.

You don't have to try to internally justify your bias against Marines my dude.
   
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I feel like the OP of this post didn't just experience all of 8th edition where whenever the Space Marines dipped below a certain meta point, they got FAQ'd or got a whole slew of new releases to bring them back up to the top.

   
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drbored wrote:
I feel like the OP of this post didn't just experience all of 8th edition where whenever the Space Marines dipped below a certain meta point, they got FAQ'd or got a whole slew of new releases to bring them back up to the top.



....Marines weren't good from 2017 all the way to Oct 2019.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/07 23:50:18


 
   
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Interesting that a lot of people disagree with me for different reasons. I’m going to tackle each point.

-“Marines as a whole are much stronger than you are saying”

chalking this up to the casual vs competitive divide. Winrates at tournaments and tourney victories do a much better job showing the reality of a situation than the internet telling you eradicators are OP or you being crushed by them at your LGS. Having faced both eradicators and Retributers many times I can tell you one scares me a lot more than the other to face.

-“People don’t mind the power level of marines, they mind the disproportionate amount of releases and amount games they have /show up in.”

While I don’t exactly disagree with this, I have to say what did you expect when started this hobby. Marines being the golden child of 40k has at least been the case since I started playing 14 years ago, and I can’t remember a time where things haven’t been this way. It’s annoying for us non-marine players, but GW liking $$$ isn’t going to change soon(ever). Also it’s likely that once the perception that marines are weaker becomes more mainstream, you’ll see less of them played at your LGS. There will always be some marine players, but we are seeing a lot more than usual since 2.0 due to how strong the army was.


-“DA are strong therefore marines are strong”

Poster above me addresses this point well. More marine players are not playing ravenwing than the ones who are. 1 or 2 very competitive options does not mean an army is OP. Also I’d also point out that people where not complaining much about ravenwing before the codex came out, That only happened once it became clear that RW is better than DW.


   
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Salt donkey wrote:

While I don’t exactly disagree with this, I have to say what did you expect when started this hobby.

I expected all the factions in the Rogue Trader book were viable. It was particularly notable that an entire marine squad (Toughness 3, 4+ armor saving throw) could theoretically be wiped out with the Following Fire rule of a single eldar with a shuriken catapult.
They didn't particularly stand out or seem like they were going to get an order of magnitude more model support (especially when craftworlds and aspect warriors came out, vs the three types of marines tac/dev/assault)


but GW liking $$$ isn’t going to change soon(ever)

Not sure how this is supposed to be relevant. They get the money they like from sales of other factions as well.


I'm just going to snip the rest, as it doesn't seem relevant. Arguments about 'perception' and the 'casual/competitive divide' just get an eyeroll.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/08 00:11:24


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 Void__Dragon wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.


It's more like you're saying,"Space Marines are the best faction in the game right now and are overpowered - well, as long as you play this one specific chapter in one or two specific ways (either leaning fully on Ravenwing or at least halfway on Ravenwing), and every other variation of loyalist Marine is very solid (White Scars, Black Templars) to dog gak (Imperial Fists, Deathwatch).

Dark Angels being top tier means absolutely nothing to an Imperial Fists player who only barely has a chapter tactic.

And no, comparing the various chapters of Marines to subfactions of Eldar or Necrons or whoever is a false equivalency and you know it friendo. There's more variance in how one can play a single chapter of Marine than there is in some entire non-Marine armies. Hate that all you wish, it's still true and as such lumping all Marines together when they are much more different from each other than any other army's subfactions is being intellectually dishonest.

You don't have to try to internally justify your bias against Marines my dude.

*Poe's Law intensifies*

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 Luke_Prowler wrote:
 Void__Dragon wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.


It's more like you're saying,"Space Marines are the best faction in the game right now and are overpowered - well, as long as you play this one specific chapter in one or two specific ways (either leaning fully on Ravenwing or at least halfway on Ravenwing), and every other variation of loyalist Marine is very solid (White Scars, Black Templars) to dog gak (Imperial Fists, Deathwatch).

Dark Angels being top tier means absolutely nothing to an Imperial Fists player who only barely has a chapter tactic.

And no, comparing the various chapters of Marines to subfactions of Eldar or Necrons or whoever is a false equivalency and you know it friendo. There's more variance in how one can play a single chapter of Marine than there is in some entire non-Marine armies. Hate that all you wish, it's still true and as such lumping all Marines together when they are much more different from each other than any other army's subfactions is being intellectually dishonest.

You don't have to try to internally justify your bias against Marines my dude.

*Poe's Law intensifies*


Haha, I was thinking the same thing.

The fact is that space marine chapters are interchangeable, and as long as that's true, there's almost always going to be at least one type people can migrate to and still be at a minimum top tier. All the Blue Guard armies that became Blue Hands or even Blue Fists, then Blue Scars, then Blue Angels, and now the other type of Blue Angels attests to this. Sure, you need to get different models, but 90% of the them can still be used as some other kind of Blue Something down the line when that's the best thing, so it's not like being stuck playing any of the other factions in the game.
   
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Voss wrote:
Arguments about 'perception' ... just get an eyeroll.


Eradicators and Outriders were perceived as hugely problematic units. Where are they?
People thought that DA terminator spam would be the winning play. When will that materialize?

Every "imbalance" by GW is whatever the community deems to be too strong. Is it not possible for the community to be wrong?

Do we really need to revive the old Outrider threads?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/08 01:14:52


 
   
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Salt donkey wrote:

Having faced both eradicators and Retributers many times I can tell you one scares me a lot more than the other to face.


Guarantee the Retributor strat gets nerfed hard. It's the only thing that makes Rets scarier than Eradicators. Without it, we get the same number of identically statted shots point for point when focus firing, but Erads do it with 9 T5 wounds, while sisters do it with 5 T3 wounds. We're going to enjoy that stat for the next 30-60 days, but that's about it.

Yes, we get a 6++, and yeah, once per turn we can sub in a miracle die if the rest of the army doesn't need it more. But without that strat, you're golden, and that's exactly why its days are numbered.

Salt donkey wrote:


-“People don’t mind the power level of marines, they mind the disproportionate amount of releases and amount games they have /show up in.”

While I don’t exactly disagree with this, I have to say what did you expect when started this hobby. Marines being the golden child of 40k has at least been the case since I started playing 14 years ago, and I can’t remember a time where things haven’t been this way.


Second ed was the last edition before Marines really ran away with it. Rogue Trader was warband style gaming to low skirmish level and all model ranges were sparse. It was in second when Marines got Angels books, and one faction became 4. But they still had to grow ranges for other factions so it did feel much more balanced. It's just that once all the armies achieved a reasonable range, everyone except Marines stopped growing. It went on for a while like that, then other ranges actually started shrinking while marines continued to grow.

Marines releases have peaked for a while; Heavy Intercessors are coming as separates in May, but now is the time for GW to step up and show us what they're going to do other than marines. We've seen Sisters and Orks on the way- a single Admech kit, and we know Be'Lakor is getting 40k rules. That's a start. By the end of this year, GW could really turn things around on Marine skew, and I'm cautiously optimistic.
   
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 Daedalus81 wrote:
Voss wrote:
Arguments about 'perception' ... just get an eyeroll.


Eradicators and Outriders were perceived as hugely problematic units. Where are they?
People thought that DA terminator spam would be the winning play. When will that materialize?

Every "imbalance" by GW is whatever the community deems to be too strong. Is it not possible for the community to be wrong?

Do we really need to revive the old Outrider threads?


So when the community does get things wrong, it is important to ask why, or how wrong they really were, or comparing what opinion was held to when that opinion was held given what information was available. Sometimes initial community instincts and evaluations are correct at the time, but can be slow to change when rules and units do, especially if the cause of that change isn't a direct nerf.

Eradicators got a 5-point hike, but perhaps more importantly were suddenly being heavily rivalled if not outshined by - of all things - Melta Attack Bikes when GW decided that all the Multi-Meltas should shoot twice and have the +2 damage while in your face, a thing that came with Marines 9th and wasn't true at the launch of Indomitus.

At launch, the community was absolutely right: Eradicators were (and depending on your codex, still are) almost a direct insult to other anti-tank units (particularly Fire Dragons) at their price point. The largely unnecessary "Melta Rifle" in an army that's having enough weapon name problems compounded with a special rule that seemed a flimsy downside to a powerful - and initially unmatched - form of antitank firepower. Generalizing their firepower by making multi-meltas suddenly really good in multiple armies softened this somewhat, so Eradicators no longer completely outstripped all other antitank options in it or other (Imperium-weapon-based, at least) Codexes. Even afterwards, though, Eradicators have not disappeared from competitive lists.

It wasn't totally clear even at the time of Marines 9th that GW fully intended to place all of 9th edition on this tier of power, and some of this stuff was - much like Marines 8th-2.0 itself - disgusting in the then-context of 8th edition.

Outriders also got a 5 point hike IIRC, but I didn't see the Outrider threads, so I'm not clear on what the initial complaints were. If I were to purely speculate as to why they aren't everywhere, I would guess it turned out to be the fate of so many Marine units - They actually are in the "Not bad" to "Quite strong" band, but there's some other option in the book that does the job better, possibly Vanguard Vets. Hell, I half expect that they were blasted off the table by new Melta rules... Except Outriders are seeing a revival with Ravenwing, aren't they?

Which nicely segues: Deathwing Terminators are extremely strong and competitively used, and Dark Angels are by all accounts a top tier army - they just apparently don't work great if trying to use nothing but Deathwing.

"All you 40k people out there have managed to more or less do something that I did some time ago, and some of my friends did before me, and some of their friends did before them: When you saw the water getting gakky, you decided to, well, get out of the pool, rather than say 'I guess this is water now.'"

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The miracle dice make retributors super strong too, it's not just the strat. The big weakness of low volume, high quality shots is that the end output is very RNGy, and Sisters have a way to get rid of the RNG when they need to do so most. That's worth a ton on something like a melta shot.
   
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Heres the thing, people have complained about space marines as long as I played the game. For decades now, for seemingly no reason years back. They had some time at the top but now are around middle which is fine.

The part people find that haunts them is the constant flow of new marine stuff for years. Which at the moment we are almost done with, maybe. If it all starts up again peoples rage will continue because they'd like new or updated stuff sometime soon as well. That complaint won't be about how broke they are but I fear marines will be the boogeymen for quite some time to come yet for others reasons.
   
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As long as half the players in the game and half the factions in the game and half of the releases for the game are all space marine of some variety or another, you're not going to get away from the fact that, well, people are going to get sick of them.

40k's big weakness has always been the unbalanced way that one faction archetype dominates the game - not always in terms of competitiveness, but certainly in terms of lore, background, the limelight, the lion's share of the releases, etc. The fact that it's arguably only gotten worse over the four decades of the game's history, not better, suggests it is a permanent feature of the setting, so griping about it will be a permanent feature as well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/08 06:10:32


 
   
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yukishiro1 wrote:
As long as half the players in the game and half the factions in the game and half of the releases for the game are all space marine of some variety or another, you're not going to get away from the fact that, well, people are going to get sick of them.

40k's big weakness has always been the unbalanced way that one faction archetype dominates the game - not always in terms of competitiveness, but certainly in terms of lore, background, the limelight, the lion's share of the releases, etc. The fact that it's arguably only gotten worse over the four decades of the game's history, not better, suggests it is a permanent feature of the setting, so griping about it will be a permanent feature as well.


As I say to people complaining about the griping: "If you're still showing symptoms, then keep taking your medicine, motherfether."

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/04/08 06:13:43


"All you 40k people out there have managed to more or less do something that I did some time ago, and some of my friends did before me, and some of their friends did before them: When you saw the water getting gakky, you decided to, well, get out of the pool, rather than say 'I guess this is water now.'"

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 Void__Dragon wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
DA are probably the top faction in the game, they're not remotely extinct.

"Space marines - well, except for these space marines that are the best faction in the game right now - aren't at the very top of the meta. The rest are only very good." sorta says it all.


And no, comparing the various chapters of Marines to subfactions of Eldar or Necrons or whoever is a false equivalency and you know it friendo. There's more variance in how one can play a single chapter of Marine than there is in some entire non-Marine armies. Hate that all you wish, it's still true and as such lumping all Marines together when they are much more different from each other than any other army's subfactions is being intellectually dishonest.

You don't have to try to internally justify your bias against Marines my dude.


There really isn't though, which is kind of an indicator on how the supplement system has failed from a design perspective for the Marine Codex.

You'll see greater variances in unit choices and army builds in Necron and Ork armies depending on subfaction than you will for like most Marine armies outside of the ones that have significant numbers of unique units. (So BA, DA, SW and arguably DW)

A big reason for this is poor internal balance and design of the core codex which gives a handful of very excellent units that are universally good no matter what subfaction you're running them as. I've even seen plenty of BA lists that load up on Plasma Inceptors despite their chapter tactics providing no real bonuses, just because Plasceptors are so inherently good. Another aspect of this is the drowning of Core availability and bonuses that benefit Core units that exacerbate the issue even more and further pigeonhole different Marine chapters into basically taking the same list archetype despite having 108 datasheets to choose from and an entire extra book of stuff that tries to make them unique.

Juxtaposed on this you have Necrons, where a Novokh list is going to look majorly different to an Obsekh list, to the point where the only shared units will be Scarabs and a Chronomancer. Or just look at Goff or Deathskullz lists for Orks. Completely different structure, units and stratagems being used.

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 Daedalus81 wrote:
Voss wrote:
Arguments about 'perception' ... just get an eyeroll.


Eradicators and Outriders were perceived as hugely problematic units. Where are they?
People thought that DA terminator spam would be the winning play. When will that materialize?

Every "imbalance" by GW is whatever the community deems to be too strong. Is it not possible for the community to be wrong?

Do we really need to revive the old Outrider threads?


I think you need a broader focus, beyond the limited problems brought by two specific units, and rejoin the general conversation about the strength and ease of the codex as a whole (with answers to everything) and roughly four codexes worth of army selections in terms of models and roughly ten in rules. Having more design space is simply more problematic to balance, grants more options to the marine player, and weirdly even the basic secondary objectives for the edition shy away from rewarding opponents for playing against marines.

Your hyper focus on eradicates and outriders as the only problems you're aware of is exactly why I dismissed 'perception.' And no, imbalance is not just 'this is too strong.' It's also very much that other <factions> lack tools and survivability for the new environment.

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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic that the Marine era is over.
Codex creep during an edition is a fact.
However, Marines are so good and versatile in many ways that their competitiveness will not suffer (much).

We're what, four codices in, and the win rate has been going down. It's just like 8th hahaha

I'm sure they'll get another codex halfway (to the next ed.).

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First of my usual disclaimer in these kind of topics: I so far only collect and have not yet played a game. Therefore all my opinions are based on theoryhammer and what I read in Forums like this. Therefore feel free to take it with as many grains of salt as you want.


I think another angle that often leads to frustration with marines (besides release schedule, lore focus and the other things mentioned) is the feeling (however warranted it is), that over time they tend to get tools that were taken away from other factions. Like copying or taking away what was meant or advertised as other factions speciality.

The example I read about most often was the frustration of GSC as advertised "Deep strike faction" loosing the ability for a first turn deepstrike (as did all factions except...) just to see SM getting an exemption of the general rule and being able to do this. One can argue about if Drop Pods are really worth it (and I lack experience to have a well founded opinion on that) but I fully sympathize with the feeling.
Similarily I can imagine (DG Players correct me if I'm wrong) that before DG got their codex it felt... weird being advertised as the super durable faction and then see SM getting a second wound and lots of Gravis dudes with T5 W3. I'm fully aware that DG are much more durable now, but I think you get the concept.
From what I read in various threads I got the impression that there are barely any tactics/playstyles left for non-SM armies that can not be done equally good if not better by SM (we had a thread a while back and I remember the only thing really agreed upon was "cheap hordes" )
Another thing leading to feelbad moments is having a unit in ones own army that is considered really good (in its context) and then seeing marines getting basically that unit +1. And that frustration is then only increased when reading that the consensus amongst SM players is that this unit is bad because they have better stuff available.
Example: The advent of Gravis armor is (for me, and again on a theoretical level). As an IG Player I look at Agressors and see a unit that costs almost the same as my Bullgryns (that are considered pretty solid), has almost the same defensive profile (3+ instead of 2+), hits more or less the same if not better (worse WS, but better S and AP and get their bonus attack also when they were charged) but on top of that can still shoot pretty good (not overwhelmingly good any more, but much better than a Bullgryn who can't shoot at all) and profit from its chapter etc. while my Bullgryns have barely any synergy with my army. Still after loosing double shoot they seem to be considered a weak choice for SMs.
=> again: I know codizes are different and it is often unfair to compair units out of context. But it is something that comes up quite often. So even givven that Melta rets are better than Eradicators (I just don't know), the latter still seem EDIT: ON PAPER to be more or less any other factions Melta-unit +1.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/04/08 08:01:58


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I feel the argument from perception is relevant as the frequent and large releases has created a surge in Space Marine players. You can't go to a tournament or friendly shindig without a significant majority of the players being Space Marines. Nobody cares if there are chapter differences when a majority of the units behave similarly. Space Marines, for all intents and purposes, have become the faceless NPC that one must grind through for the boss battles, those being non-Marine armies.

Ultimately this is a hole that GW has dug themselves into. They've been giving Space Marines a lot of attention in the past few years and the harvest has been good with the faction numbers swelling up with new and old players. The question remains whether GW will be able to dig themselves out of this particular hole and if not I can imagine players, who have no desire to play Space Marines, will eventually move onto other games. That is not necessarily a bad thing for the industry.
   
 
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