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FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Prediction: There will be a hail of moaning/gnashing of teeth regarding the Custodes getting free reign on their strats again, and there will be massive calls for nerfs.

Orks will be completely silent to avoid anyone looking at how actually well off they are now.

Space Marines will become horde now, as you can kick out 17ppm elite units for some stupid reason. DA will likely take the trophy. If not IH.

GSC will cry in the corner, wondering what might have been if their book writer hadn't been popping hits of meth in between writing lines in their codex.

IG will continue to be mostly meh.

The biggest buff in the recent release for Orkz wasn't an ork change LOL. The biggest buff we got was AoC being removed and basically every faction besides SM not getting buffed to make up for it. Orkz just became significantly better against SoB, Grey Knights, Chaos Marines, Thousand Sons etc. Why? Two reasons, 1: our most common weapon is the humble choppa which was our biggest "Buff" in our 9th edition codex because they gave it -1ap...which they promptly took away with AoC since those guys make up about 70-80% of my opponents. And 2: for ork armies that use SpeedWaaagh, their -1AP bonus now actually works. huzzah.

Killakanz might be a niche unit capable of making it to competitive levels, Flashgitz are still not worth it, Nobz only have a limited role as TrukkNobz and even then they are less impressive than Meganobz and significantly more expensive than Boyz. Naughts are still heavily overpriced and challenge them against a similar value of Knights they will lose every time. the Kustom Stompa? When was the last time anyone saw a Stompa in a competitive list and had that list win something? All of the other "buffs" are useless. Free Bigshootas on boyz units is irrelevant, the Painboy going down 10pts is nice but who is going to pay 60pts for a 3' 6+ FNP bubble?

Nothing anyone has said has in the slightest has changed my mind so far that Marines are going to be Top tier and very well might become the top army. Someone mentioned the gap between Marines and Nidz. Nidz just got beaten to death with the nerfhammer and Marines just got free upgrades and almost universal price cuts. Watch as they run away with the show. And for anyone who says "just take infantry", if I can afford to take 37 Meltas, 12 lascannons and 2 Cyclone missile launchers in a list, what chance does a horde army stand? That kind of Dakka is one shotting most infantry unless they hide out of LOS and if they do that than they aren't getting objectives.

Tyel wrote:

For Daed - if stuff is around 70% of the cost (2000/2883), then doing 50% more damage to it gives you 105% damage. But the Marine unit is also effectively doing 44%~ more damage for its points.
Your point about cover is reasonable, but I'm not convinced the issue was chucking AP-1 into 2+ save Marines.

Can't really agree with your point about bowling ball maths. Infantry having an effective range of 30" - and being able to walk through ruins then fire (no penalty with Iron Hands, reroll 1s all game if you stay in Devestator, which you may do depending on trade offs), is generally speaking the whole table in modern 40k. The terrain is almost never there to set up some model so it can stay 45" away in a corner and shoot all over the board.

The 2883 points is a red herring. There's lots of equipment in that list that will never get used and it just exists because it is free. I agree that it's totally silly for every dev squad to have a thunder hammer. That superfluous gear doesn't translate into a more effective army though.

Another piece here is that you're not restricted to the old army building requirements. People ditched Storm Shield squads because AoC was so effective. Now taking them is a huge plus again as it essentially gives AoC and a 4++ against all these potential meltas. You'll probably see some very fast armies that can weather the shooting and tie up the shooting well enough to shut it down.

Time will tell, I guess.

I agree in principle that entirely superfluous gear shouldn't cost very much (if any) points. Its unclear a thunder hammer on say a Dev squad is going to meaningfully make a list better, as it will very rarely get to be swung in anger. The theory of it doing more damage doesn't really matter.

I'm not sure that applies to the bulk of the list though. Redundancy has value. Some of those squads will get munched before they ever get to shoot their meltas or swing their thunder hammers and power fists. But they will be making space for other squads, that can now get very favourable trades. I'm unclear 25 melta guns, 12 multi-meltas, 12 lascannons, 10 thunder hammers etc should have cost 800ish points before - but I'm confident they aren't worth zero in whatever the new meta comes to look at. This sort of points adjustment is massive - the increase in relative power is likely to be similar in scale.

Tyel wrote:
I agree in principle that entirely superfluous gear shouldn't cost very much (if any) points. Its unclear a thunder hammer on say a Dev squad is going to meaningfully make a list better, as it will very rarely get to be swung in anger. The theory of it doing more damage doesn't really matter.

I'm not sure that applies to the bulk of the list though. Redundancy has value. Some of those squads will get munched before they ever get to shoot their meltas or swing their thunder hammers and power fists. But they will be making space for other squads, that can now get very favourable trades. I'm unclear 25 melta guns, 12 multi-meltas, 12 lascannons, 10 thunder hammers etc should have cost 800ish points before - but I'm confident they aren't worth zero in whatever the new meta comes to look at. This sort of points adjustment is massive - the increase in relative power is likely to be similar in scale.

What does it hurt that a thunder hammer is 2 pts on a Devastator Squad instead of 0 pts? If you really wanted that thunder hammer paying 2 pts would not be a big deal even if it rarely comes up. The problem is for all the people that want to optimize their lists, they have to rip apart their Devastator Sergeants to give them free bling. The fact that nobody has taken the upgrade for decades makes the change even more exploitative of the community. You really want to pay GW for this gak? Hecking no. Buy one for your gaming group if you want to play with the new pts and missions, but don't go out and buy one for each player that's rewarding shoddy design and a complete lack of effort. Vote with your vallets when the new book comes out.

We should be clear that under no circumstance will it be necessary to put TH on your Dev Sarge to be competitive.

You MIGHT kill a model in power armor that gets into your back line.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
We should be clear that under no circumstance will it be necessary to put TH on your Dev Sarge to be competitive.

You MIGHT kill a model in power armor that gets into your back line.

Completely agree. Power fists have better AP

Tyel wrote:
I'm not sure that applies to the bulk of the list though. Redundancy has value. Some of those squads will get munched before they ever get to shoot their meltas or swing their thunder hammers and power fists. But they will be making space for other squads, that can now get very favourable trades. I'm unclear 25 melta guns, 12 multi-meltas, 12 lascannons, 10 thunder hammers etc should have cost 800ish points before - but I'm confident they aren't worth zero in whatever the new meta comes to look at. This sort of points adjustment is massive - the increase in relative power is likely to be similar in scale.

For sure, but what's the weight of AoC? You'll also be replacing whatever people were taking with basic marine bodies. Taking nothing but W2 makes it easier for an opponent to make full use of their gear.

Dudeface wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Christ. . . All my weapons are free now? I mean, I enjoy what this means for my builds competitively but these changes are repulsive for the game.


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 Daedalus81 wrote:
If that list comes anywhere near competitive then just bring contemptors with volkites which will be AP1 for longer and will have no AoC in the way.

Contemptors better be sure they don't die to Multimeltas and Las first.

Semper's list isn't great, but it illustrates the point well enough.

For yuks I got a build with 30 Lascannons. 33 counting Cherub shots. But spend the extra points on Devs to give everyone Multimeltas instead and the 33 Lascannon shots becomes 66 Multimelta shots. (Or 132 Grav Cannon shots)

132x .777 x .777 x .83 x2 = 66 MEQ kills before you get to all the potential free combi-plasma etc you can have going on.

I enjoy the sweet irony here "it's stupid, look how many marines and how easily these marines can kill them".

Personally it's my favorite matchup. Firstborn Marines gunning Primaris down in droves is one of my favorite 40K experiences.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Contemptors better be sure they don't die to Multimeltas and Las first.

Semper's list isn't great, but it illustrates the point well enough.

For yuks I got a build with 30 Lascannons. 33 counting Cherub shots. But spend the extra points on Devs to give everyone Multimeltas instead and the 33 Lascannon shots becomes 66 Multimelta shots. (Or 132 Grav Cannon shots)

132x .777 x .777 x .83 x2 = 66 MEQ kills before you get to all the potential free combi-plasma etc you can have going on.

That's bowling ball math though.

30" range with a move penalty vs 53" with no penalty.

Often what happens in these kinds of threads is we lose sight of how the game happens on the table.

Oh absolutely it's bowling ball math. But in my experience the bowling ball math can inform decisions that can convert to real outcomes. In 8th the bowling ball math told me to switch to Plasma Cannons, and I tell you it paid off handsomely.

Also I play UM so moving and firing works just fine for me. Drop Pods can be leveraged to gain first strike capability and reshape firing lanes. Etc. etc.

The math still adequately displays the ridiculous levels of lethality available, and the shoddy design involved.

As for the Thunder Hammers, having them is better than not having them. I've found my Devs in combat enough over the years (sometimes themselves charging, too!) to see the potential value.

There's obviously no risk in NOT taking them - being free and all. It just isn't likely to change the outcome of a game terribly often.

I'm not a fan of big sweeping changes and I doubt GW spent enough time with these changes to really understand the impacts. I sort of feel like hordes might become a bit more popular ( not like 300 model type hordes ) - probably from guard who have their own free specials on super cheap bodies.

But the devil is in the details of the secondaries and missions.

Depends on how you're using your Devastators

We are talking about post 8th after all, the editions in which models can move, shoot, and assault while firing heavy weapons. Different targets if they want, too.

Drop Pod Devastators, land in short range with Multimeltas. Cook a hard target. Charge a softer one. Press as many casualties as possible for Morale purposes. As UM walk out of the CC and keep on firing next turn.

I wouldn't say Horde exactly but possibly MSU.
I don't think bodies is the key (cos they die too fast to everything) - but units. That can operate independently, trade, hold/deny objectives etc.

Not to keep harking back to it - but this Marine list is MSU. Its got 19 moving parts.

You compare that to say a CSM brick list - with 30 Possessed, Abaddon, a Discolord or two etc. The nerf to Bile probably ends the archetype - but I just don't see how it would survive against these Marines. You'd eat a few units, and then the rest melts you to death. Unless you are really lucky on those invul saves.

I did a quick paw through Goonhammer and found the most recent CoB winning list --

Abadabbadoo
DP
Apostle
MoP
2x10 Cultists
5 Legionaries
10 Termies
2x5 Possessed
3x5 Talons

- Abaddon is +50
- The termies are +35
- Legionaries are the same, but can push specials in free

So the list has to trim a bit, however, both the front line units of talons and possessed have invulns and Talons can prevent fallback.

Four melta shots ( combi, melta, and multimelta ) with no modifiers kill one possessed. And then there's always the chance you roll 1 or 2 damage when outside half. Boy that would suck.
Four Possessed kill 6 marines ( Talons about 4 )

So...yea...I dunno. The CSM certainly have far more flexible movement and more decisive damage.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Another piece here is that you're not restricted to the old army building requirements. People ditched Storm Shield squads because AoC was so effective. Now taking them is a huge plus again as it essentially gives AoC and a 4++ against all these potential meltas. You'll probably see some very fast armies that can weather the shooting and tie up the shooting well enough to shut it down.

Time will tell, I guess.

I wonder what GW is going to give to faction that lost AoC, but who do not have access to storm shields or the plathora of units that dropped in points. My terminators cost 35pts, but power armoured units are still cheaper and more point efficient, just less so then they were before.

For regular marines the good stuff is not free. Hammers, shields on vengard vets all cost points, same with bikes and jetpacks for characters.

All in all, it is a boon to old prior edition players, who can minimax stuff or people who are willing to print stuff which became the meta. For new players starting with just the primaris stuff, their armies got more expensive to get in money, not that much powerful on the offensive, but a lot less resilient.

What ever marines do good in tournaments depends less on them, unless they get a rules update on top of the points cost drop real fast, and how other armies will deal with their changes. Can SoB, demons, Necron still be played good. How are csm dealing with their mini nerfs. What will the eldar players do, there was a lot of Inari players having much success around here, maybe that is what all the harlequin players will do now.

All in all the buffs are not that important at the very end of an edition, and losing AoC will impact marines greatly. Can some sort of IH, Ultramarines or BA army now rise to the top? Possibly, the ability to stay in a doctrin for longer then a turn is probably more impactful then points drops. Without point drops marines were a weak army in general, and very weak for some factions. Now this may change. Question is how much interest there is in playing marines at the end of an edition, and how hard will covid hit the world that now that it is on the rise again.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
There's obviously no risk in NOT taking them - being free and all. It just isn't likely to change the outcome of a game terribly often.

I'm not a fan of big sweeping changes and I doubt GW spent enough time with these changes to really understand the impacts. I sort of feel like hordes might become a bit more popular ( not like 300 model type hordes ) - probably from guard who have their own free specials on super cheap bodies.

But the devil is in the details of the secondaries and missions.

There is still no place for hordes. As mentioned MSU has a chance due to the numbers game and lethality but a true horde is still DoA thanks to the changes to blast, base size and morale. My Ork boyz just got FREE big shootas! Can you believe that? we'll never use them because they were only ever a side-grade to a choppa but yeah....free. So there really isn't a point to me spamming MSU boyz units since their only "Buff" is a free big shoota, a cheaper Rokkit launcha (still not worth buying) and the nob can take a cheaper Kombi-weapon that robs the Nob of his main purpose of being good in CC.

On the flipside, Marines are now heavily incentivized to take as many MSU as possible since they get free stuff for their Sgts and the squad gets free heavy/special weapons.

The key here is that only time will tell who is correct. LVO has said they are NOT using Arks of Omen so we will have to wait for about a month or more before we start seeing Arks of Omen GT tournament results. Generally speaking, with sweeping changes like this it takes about a month after the rules are put into use for the meta to stabilize around the new rules so by the end of March we will have definitive answers as to how powerful these free upgrades are. But I still stick to my opinion that SM are now a top meta army and likely the #1 army.

So Johny space marine will have between 4 to 5 months of fun, before the new edition drops. And that is assuming is not living in a plague region, like some of us do, because of RSV/Flu/Covid thriple threat and people not wanting to play, or even not being allowed, when the stores close. Because if that happens, Johny will have maybe 1-2 months of fun, and that is assuming other people will want to play at the very end of edition. I remember getting PA rules as one of the last factions in 8th ed. I got exactly 3 games with the update rule set , which actualy was fun for terminator armies, before stores came down and 9th started.

I'd have thought a more reasonable whinge is that buying a million combi-meltas, multi-meltas, thunder hammers etc to hand out to everyone is going to be somewhat difficult, assuming you want to stay vaguely WYSIWG.

Tyel wrote:
I'd have thought a more reasonable whinge is that buying a million combi-meltas, multi-meltas, thunder hammers etc to hand out to everyone is going to be somewhat difficult, assuming you want to stay vaguely WYSIWG.

At the friendly level its not a whinge because why would you roll out with 20+ meltas? At the competitive level...You have dudes who buy entire new armies when a new codex drops...you think they will give a damn about picking up a few extra bits on a 2nd hand site or buying a few sprues?

Tyel wrote:
I'd have thought a more reasonable whinge is that buying a million combi-meltas, multi-meltas, thunder hammers etc to hand out to everyone is going to be somewhat difficult, assuming you want to stay vaguely WYSIWG.

well, a lot of people are just resigned to the fact that balance changes force changes to army composition, so its not a HUGE suprise that they are going to be doing something like this. others have deep model collections that they can raid to pull out stuff form the last time it was meta

SemperMortis wrote:
At the friendly level its not a whinge because why would you roll out with 20+ meltas? At the competitive level...You have dudes who buy entire new armies when a new codex drops...you think they will give a damn about picking up a few extra bits on a 2nd hand site or buying a few sprues?

I was sort of responding to Karol's "woe is Marines, they only get to be top tier around 2/3rds of the time".
Your competitive types won't care.

Marines will be A tier, but not overly so, they will be in line.

Yes, they received a nice cut. We are talking around a 25% cut, which is a big one. Past experiences told us that win rate is almost linear with price cuts. Getting 10% increases a faction win rate by 10%. Now, with a cut this big it will probably be a bit more. Possibly even 30%.

But we are talking about a low win rate faction, with a buff mostly pointed to the worst parts of the codex (dev squads and tac squads), while the good parts of it got between 5 and 10% cuts.

At the same time, this buff is coupled with a huge nerf, the loss of AoC, and a buff which is very good for some chapters (Dev doctrine chapters) and mostly a nothing burger for the other chapters.

If the top factions didn't also receive nerfs, I would have seen marines land between 40% and 55% depending on the chapter.

With the nerfs to the top factions, we are probably looking at 45-58% (top tables will have anti marine techs, and marines have always suffered from having specific weapon profiles that maw them).

Edit: There is also to consider that marines received an additional nerf, in the removal of most of their secondaries.

Tyel wrote:
I'd have thought a more reasonable whinge is that buying a million combi-meltas, multi-meltas, thunder hammers etc to hand out to everyone is going to be somewhat difficult, assuming you want to stay vaguely WYSIWG.

I got everything but the Thunder Hammers, but could easily do Powerfists instead.

Not going to change my build queue though because I don't expect this meta to last long. Seems like 8.5 all over again.

Oh, and I'm playing One Page Rules at the moment. . .

SemperMortis wrote:
Just built a list for fun in News and Rumors with the new points cost, this is a 1,993 list with these new numbers. 19 different units including HQs, if you lump Meltas in with Combis it works out to 25 Meltas, 12 Multi-Meltas, 12 Lascannons, 2 Cyclone missile Launchers, 10 Thunder Hammers, 12 Powerfists, and 2 Power swords. Turn 1 you can unload an unholy amount of Melta into your opponent not to mention the 12(Technically 15) Lascannons turn 1. There just isn't much in the game right now that can stand up to that amount of turn 1 firepower. Oh, and if you used the older pts values, that works out to 2,883pts. So in other words this new list is getting 883pts of free upgrades.

Before this slate marines could put together 48 (better) melta shots and 90 (better) plasma shots, a way way higher firepower than the one you mentioned with "883 free points". And they also had Armor of contempt to protect that firebase.
Did you see that list make the rounds? Me neither.

Turns out that "unholy amounts" of firepower don't win games.

Spoletta wrote:
Before this slate marines could put together 48 (better) melta shots and 90 (better) plasma shots, a way way higher firepower than the one you mentioned with "883 free points". And they also had Armor of contempt to protect that firebase.
Did you see that list make the rounds? Me neither.

Turns out that "unholy amounts" of firepower don't win games.

Anyone able to work out how you would have done this?

Tyel wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Before this slate marines could put together 48 (better) melta shots and 90 (better) plasma shots, a way way higher firepower than the one you mentioned with "883 free points". And they also had Armor of contempt to protect that firebase.
Did you see that list make the rounds? Me neither.

Turns out that "unholy amounts" of firepower don't win games.

Anyone able to work out how you would have done this?

By "better" I'm guessing it's something to do with Primaris units as they tend to have an extra +1 on their weapons. But I'm unfamiliar with their units so I dunno.

But Primaris units dont get shield bodies, and their points costs are higher. Their lethality output drops quicker and because the value of each model is higher, opposition firepower reduces "army value" faster. And when dealing with high AP values, AoC isn't a huge help.

Imo it's just the difference between packing lots of firepower into a fragile army build vs the same firepower into a more robust build. Delivery is also a huge deal too, which is why (back when I played regularly) I always swapped some of the bowlingball-mathhammer-build for Rhinos and Pods. Primaris just don't do transports as well as their far superior counterparts

They also don't have Grav. Grav is Great.

Marines in general don't do , or didn't, do transports well in 9th. Maybe storm ravens now with substential point drops and the protection of being in reservs, will help marines with that. But again this is playing proto legacy marine stuff, not a very good thing to do for the future or for new players.

Jump packs primaris units could help a lot, if GW doesn't go overboard with points. Right now I can imagine some nice marine armies going dread heavy, as always, with aggresors and plasmaceptors. Few or no troops, specialy with the new missions puting a penality on units like incursors.

And who knows, for marines, maybe in 10th GW will notice the fact that their primaris transport is somehow both a pick up in looks and a non open topped unit in rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta 808330 11474853 wrote:
Before this slate marines could put together 48 (better) melta shots and 90 (better) plasma shots, a way way higher firepower than the one you mentioned with "883 free points". And they also had Armor of contempt to protect that firebase.
Did you see that list make the rounds? Me neither.

Turns out that "unholy amounts" of firepower don't win games.

Because it couldn't materialise 12-18" away from the enemy turn 1 every time the marine player starts a game. Marine problems aren't that TH or melta guns are bad weapons, or that plasma is bad. It is the fact that with how they are costed and how fast they can move around, they generaly do not reach the opponent to use those weapons in large enough numbers. Other good armies, which were wining by killing opponents, could always catch the opponent and push their own initiative on them. Marines have those wierd one, sometimes two, turns per game when they don't really do anything. At the same time they didn't have secondaries like pre omen necron and sob.

Being able to be in dev doctrin all game is going to be a lot more impactful to marines, or at least some of them, then the free gear. The free gear, lets marines catch up to other good armies, but they still die very fast. So the builds we are going to see are going to be skew heavy, at least that is what people have been testing here for the last few weeks.


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Tyel wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
At the friendly level its not a whinge because why would you roll out with 20+ meltas? At the competitive level...You have dudes who buy entire new armies when a new codex drops...you think they will give a damn about picking up a few extra bits on a 2nd hand site or buying a few sprues?

I was sort of responding to Karol's "woe is Marines, they only get to be top tier around 2/3rds of the time".
Your competitive types won't care.

I have seen only two editions. Never played or seen games under different rule sets, aside for some YT videos. Marines in 8th and 9th NEVER had a time when they were top tier for 2/3ed of an edition. Not even if you took all marines, including GK, chaos etc and counted them as a single faction. In 8th till the PA books came out, marines were horrible. What was the "best" way to play marines in 8th, pre PA? BA, again suprise suprise, minimal troops, max out BA characters, and then get a IG CP generator and a knight, preferably a castellan. Everything else paled in comperation to other factions good lists. And armies like GK or csm didn't really have a good way to play. GK affected me more, but with csm it was really crazy. The prefered way to play the army was to not run csm in your csm army. That is not being top tier 2/3ed of the time. Same thing happened in 9th. Armies like custodes and harlequins were better, then marines with 9th ed books.And not just the bad ones. All of them. Harlis were a tier of their own till DE came out.

And the woe of bad army hits the weak ones more then the armies build out of a power codex.
Tau in 8th, were an NPE codex. Horrible to play against and the tau player had to play a drone spam list, or else playing at all made no sense. In casual games. GK were mathematicly unable to kill some armies, even if they did nothing for 2 turns and just stood there taking shots. IH, Fists, practicaly all csm were horrible to play in 8th. and the same goes for most of 9th too. And while yes, the tournament players don't care, because they will just move to the power lists, an army being bad, especialy a popular one, is a huge problem. GW is extremly slow with updates. Necron had to wait what 2 years to be good, and that is a new model line army? Plus we don't even know if GW made necrons good on purpose or they just missed what their secondaries would do with combination of silent king+certain "chapter" rules.


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SemperMortis wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I'd have thought a more reasonable whinge is that buying a million combi-meltas, multi-meltas, thunder hammers etc to hand out to everyone is going to be somewhat difficult, assuming you want to stay vaguely WYSIWG.

At the friendly level its not a whinge because why would you roll out with 20+ meltas? At the competitive level...You have dudes who buy entire new armies when a new codex drops...you think they will give a damn about picking up a few extra bits on a 2nd hand site or buying a few sprues?

Because it is the most optimal load out for a unit to have. How many non falchion GK armies in 8th ed do you think existed, and I say this as someone who played one without a single falchion in his. If a weapon is mathemathicly better then anything else, people will spam it. If both, lets say plasma ans melta are needed, then maybe some questions about rates of one to the other maybe risen. But Abadon for chaos armies pre Omen? a no brainer, even for stuff like chaos knights. Flamers pre Omen, well there is a reason we got a new faction join the tournament win rates , called "tzeench".
If the point costs between a power fist and a thunder hammer is not substential, no one who can take a thunder hammer will take a power fist over it. etc.

And getting stuff like a bag of 20 weapon X for marines in the age of 3d printing and horus heresy being a thing, enticing the printers to have stuff like volkite, plasma etc on hand is a no problem.

Spoletta wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
Just built a list for fun in News and Rumors with the new points cost, this is a 1,993 list with these new numbers. 19 different units including HQs, if you lump Meltas in with Combis it works out to 25 Meltas, 12 Multi-Meltas, 12 Lascannons, 2 Cyclone missile Launchers, 10 Thunder Hammers, 12 Powerfists, and 2 Power swords. Turn 1 you can unload an unholy amount of Melta into your opponent not to mention the 12(Technically 15) Lascannons turn 1. There just isn't much in the game right now that can stand up to that amount of turn 1 firepower. Oh, and if you used the older pts values, that works out to 2,883pts. So in other words this new list is getting 883pts of free upgrades.

Before this slate marines could put together 48 (better) melta shots and 90 (better) plasma shots, a way way higher firepower than the one you mentioned with "883 free points". And they also had Armor of contempt to protect that firebase.
Did you see that list make the rounds? Me neither.

Turns out that "unholy amounts" of firepower don't win games.

The only thing I can think of that you are referring to was the 3xEradicators build which featured 18 eradicators. So 6MM for 24 shots (double tapping) and 12 melta rifles getting 24 shots for double tapping.

Yeah go figure a list built around 3 units didn't appear like that...ironically modified lists featuring 2-3 units of Eradicators did show up and did place regularly until codex creep killed the build. But just to clarify, 3 eradicator units built like that are 870pts in 18 models. The list I showed for fun has 49 Melta shots and 15 lascannon shots but instead of being in 3 (6 if you combat squad them) squads they are spread out over 18 different units. As far as Plasma..thank you I had forgotten about Plasma inceptors. That 3 man squad just went from 180pts for 3 models down to 120. Should have used those instead of the bikes LOL, 3x6 of them now costs 720pts instead of 1080...but i'm sure those won't be abused either and help bump Marines up to top tier

Tyel wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
At the friendly level its not a whinge because why would you roll out with 20+ meltas? At the competitive level...You have dudes who buy entire new armies when a new codex drops...you think they will give a damn about picking up a few extra bits on a 2nd hand site or buying a few sprues?

I was sort of responding to Karol's "woe is Marines, they only get to be top tier around 2/3rds of the time".
Your competitive types won't care.

fair enough.

Karol wrote:

I have seen only two editions. Never played or seen games under different rule sets, aside for some YT videos. Marines in 8th and 9th NEVER had a time when they were top tier for 2/3ed of an edition. Not even if you took all marines, including GK, chaos etc and counted them as a single faction. In 8th till the PA books came out, marines were horrible. What was the "best" way to play marines in 8th, pre PA? BA, again suprise suprise, minimal troops, max out BA characters, and then get a IG CP generator and a knight, preferably a castellan. Everything else paled in comperation to other factions good lists. And armies like GK or csm didn't really have a good way to play. GK affected me more, but with csm it was really crazy. The prefered way to play the army was to not run csm in your csm army. That is not being top tier 2/3ed of the time. Same thing happened in 9th. Armies like custodes and harlequins were better, then marines with 9th ed books.And not just the bad ones. All of them. Harlis were a tier of their own till DE came out.

And the woe of bad army hits the weak ones more then the armies build out of a power codex.
Tau in 8th, were an NPE codex. Horrible to play against and the tau player had to play a drone spam list, or else playing at all made no sense. In casual games. GK were mathematicly unable to kill some armies, even if they did nothing for 2 turns and just stood there taking shots. IH, Fists, practicaly all csm were horrible to play in 8th. and the same goes for most of 9th too. And while yes, the tournament players don't care, because they will just move to the power lists, an army being bad, especialy a popular one, is a huge problem. GW is extremly slow with updates. Necron had to wait what 2 years to be good, and that is a new model line army? Plus we don't even know if GW made necrons good on purpose or they just missed what their secondaries would do with combination of silent king+certain "chapter" rules.

Thank god for bloodofkittens. 8th edition bud, #1 army with the most top placings.....Space Marines with 158 wins. #2 was Imperial Guard with 103 wins and realistically we know that was Soup with SM Smash captains and knights.

So when you say they weren't good for 2/3rds of the edition you mean...they were only the best faction of the edition but that wasn't enough since they dominated the first 3rd or so of the edition when Index's were a thing and then did ok in the middle of the edition with soup and then finished the edition as the most broken army in the entire game with un-killable ironhands lists.

Oh, and in 9th where they are supposedly garbage tier...they are currently in the top half of the rankings for tournament placings and final note on that whinge, the #s i quoted only include codex SM if you lump in Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights etc, they shoot to #1...and by a long ways.

SemperMortis wrote:

Oh, and in 9th where they are supposedly garbage tier...they are currently in the top half of the rankings for tournament placings and final note on that whinge, the #s i quoted only include codex SM if you lump in Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Grey Knights etc, they shoot to #1...and by a long ways.

The units that currently win do not typically include those who got the free upgrades though.

I am curious to see if people just take the Primaris route and only the old guard with a deep first born model bench show up with the upgrade heaven.

I've been out for a bit - where is this new Upgrades are Free thing, and what is AoC short for other than a video game and a Congresswoman from New York?

I'm assuming this whole Weapons and Upgrades are now Free thing is not as blanket as we're being led to believe if nobody has yet talked about 10 Jumping Flying Death-From-Above Marines with Lightning Claws or TH/SS for 200ish points?


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Karol wrote:

If a weapon is mathemathicly better then anything else, people will spam it.

I wonder if that's why Plasma was FOTM when Hellblasters released, and Melta became FOTM when Eradicators released.


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Finally if this MUNITORUM FIELD MANUAL 2023 MK I is where this is all coming from or some other similar source, I'd say we haven't figured out what is going to be top tier from a cursory glance at it. This is all surface level knee jerk reactions and not the harvest of some in depth sneaky thought. Also if this download IS where the free upgrades came from, let's all have a moment of silence for Company Veterans who someone really owes a dinner or two.

I'm already looking at Firestrike Turrets with Lastalons now. I don't see a weapon points cost AND it looks like they've had a model points reduction too since release. The Repulsor and Land Raider points drops are also potentially intruiging. No weapons upgrade costs. and about a 80-100 (50ish for the Land Raider) point per model nose dive. But they still need terrain/board equalization between Planet Bowling Ball and Planet You're Stuck There. Impulsors look like they went down, but not enough - especially since the Bladeguard bomb you'd want to put in them also stayed the same. Rhinos are still comically overpriced in comparison. Sternguard are in an interesting spot. Assault and Heavy Intercessors are giving me a tingling sensation. Infiltrators are still too high, especially compared to Intercessros and Incursors. But 30 Assorted Assault Intercessors and Heavy Intercessors can now be the backbone even cheaper. Plus the free Heavy XYZ Bolters. Aggressors took a nose dive on cost too - both per model, and now free weapon swaps. Centurions are better, but are they CORE again or not? They're more maneuverable than Firestrikes(which isn't saying much), and they have a little more shooting, but I kind of like the Firestrike quality of shooting better. But I'd swap the Cents for the Strikes before I'd cut points off something else if I needed 20-30 points to fit. Tiggy and Papa Smurf got cheaper. Between that and the nose dive for Troops per model you can almost run two Aura of Death Star Balls. With Papa Smurf, Lieutenant Smurf in one, and Grandpapa Smurf in the other. Wait until you see Lion and Primaris Azrael doing it with Plasma (I was going to say "and Deathwing", but they didn't really benefit) in a few months - especially if Plasma ends up being the next FOTM.

SemperMortis wrote:

nekooni wrote:

xerxeskingofking wrote:
i mean, I dont think semper is actaully suggesting that his list is good, it was clearly chosen to maximise the amount of "free" stuff he could pack in. But is point stands even without the hyperbole: Marines are at the point where they need hundreds of "extra" points now to compete.

but that's not really their point, from what I can tell - semper claims that SM will now dominate. That's a VERY different conclusion, and they're starting from a "marines are already too strong without the changes" point of view, from what I understood in the News thread. No idea why semper thinks that when the actual WRs are sub 50 for the best chapters and far below that for the others.

Just to clarify, I claim that SM will be a top meta army now. I claim that they (in my opinion) are going to be THE top army now. I openly admit I may be wrong. But nowhere in any of my posts did I suggest that my list was "good" nor did I say "Marines are already too strong". That is a flat out falsehood.

And Tneva, I also never said a TH in a Dev squad was equal value to that of an assault squad. I was using it as an example. However, those TH in Dev squads do have value if for no other reason than it allows the Dev squad flexibility and the ability to inflict dmg on a surprise attack against that unit. I can't remember the # of times i've tagged a Heavy Support choice with a unit of Trukkboyz just to slowly grind it down for a few turns, or the # of times i've had my Deffkoptas get stuck in against a unit like Devs, not expecting to kill them, but just denying them the ability to shoot for a few turns.

You keep posting that list as example of why that's bad. So yes you ARE making that claim. Your words and actions don't match and actions ALWAYS trumps words so your words don't matter. Your actions do.

So you are in error in your words compared to actions or you are lying, Either way you are saying TH in dev is equal value to elsewhere.


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 vict0988 wrote:
I think this is a really great change, I hope SM absolutely destroy the game so we can get over this gak with free wargear. We tried it in 7th for feths sake. This is bad and stupid, but less bad and stupid than Armour of Contempt and Hammer of the Emperor so I'll start playing 2k again. We'll see if competitive is broken, I'll just play Crusade or Blood Angels if it is.

Why BA? They didn't exactly benefit from this losing AoC. Troops get sticky objectives. Yey. Except they don't have troops they really want to use. Doctrine change is 100% irrelevant for them as they want assault doctrine T3 and not T4.

Salamanders or Iron hands are much more likely to benefit from this change. Incidentally those have also units that enjoy units that get the free wargear(especially salamander)


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Tyel wrote:
I'd tend to be much closer to Semper than those disagreeing. I'd be very surprised if *something* from Marines wasn't top-tier.

If the proposed melta-spam army has a weakness its probably that its a bit slow aside from the bikes (which have issues over say something with fly or infantry to go through ruins). So its possible you could play around it. But that's a lot of squads to push objectives etc. I think it could do with some dedicated fast assault units that can troubleshoot - but having thunderhammers and powerfists everywhere will add up. If memory serves Siegler won his 2020 LVO semi-final on the back of a Intercessor Sergeant with Thunder Hammer killing 3 Shining Spears. A lucky roll perhaps - but the sort of thing you just aren't doing with a chainsword.

Another weakness. It's on soft bodies. You simply alpha strike out of them...

They are slow. They get -1 to hit. Hide. Don't give them alpha strike. Then move out(you are faster) and then blow up their units. They don't even have bodies to soak up casualties so every kill on those soft bodies is dead heavy weapon.

That list will get outshot. Sure it's impressive shot amount if you get to shoot...But ummm....don't play on planet bowling ball? Slow moving infantry isn't going to shoot anything t1 unless opponentn wants you to shoot them.

Of course you can assume you are playing against newborn baby As anybody above that has intelligence to simply ensure he gets alpha strike against such a low moving army.

I think the free upgrades are super bad for the game, but I don't think this is going to radically alter the tournament meta.

Free upgrades are rediculus when one considers the history of the game.