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Deadnight wrote:

JadeDoo wrote:

One of the unique play style of Space Marines were that they were generalist super soldiers to some extent. Every squad could hold its own against nearly anything and has the flexibility to specialist a bit with one or two unique war gear in each squad. Now a days it seems like with Primaris, each squad has a very specific purpose similar to how eldar plays. Rather than have a squad of intercessors and allowing the squad to take a heavy weapon like a melta or heavy flamer. We now have a squad of all bolsters and a squad of all meltas in the form of eradicators. I feel that this is a loss in one of the unique play style features of space marines.

To be fair rhe 'space marines are generalists' was always at the 'army level'. When you drilled down, squads were always specialised - even in third I was never told 'mix your weapons!' Taca were always las/Plas, devs were always equipped with the same load outs etc.

Negative. The "Generalist" role runs all the way from the army level down to the individual. Their basic stats built for both shooting and melee, their basic equipment for both AT and anti-horde (Frag and Krak). While it's true that mixing Heavy Weapons is frowned upon (although not always!), the Devastator Squad is still a unit that comes with Bolters, Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak, and capable of melee assaults. Traditionally, Veterans were just more elite Tactical Squads, and then Terminators were even more elite generalists, being equipped with better firepower but also Power Fists. The Marine is multi-role all the way down. Even the Scouts. The major exception was Assault Terminators, who were just completely unable to shoot, although they could still mix anti-vehicle/monster and anti-horde.

Yes, 40ks mechanics often encourage some specialization, such as giving all your scouts Sniper Rifles and a Heavy Weapon, but you're still paying for that basic statline and gear, and if you're not leveraging that you're doing it wrong. Moreover, you simply couldn't specialize as well as, say Eldar, because you're still buying that S4T4,3+ and your squads were limited in potency in comparison. You could only take 4 Heavies in Devs, forced to take a non-heavy Sarge, vs. a squad of 10 all with Heavies of Dark Reapers.

Primaris still have the generalist statline for the individual, but their squad organization is geared more to single-purpose. They're missing a critical dimension of multi-role capability.

I agree with most of your points, I play Eldar as well and it always felt odd that GW designed Primaris as if they were Aspect Warriors; I also don't care for the proliferation of new Bolt weapons since it tends to devalue the OG Bolter.

I was looking forward to true-scale Marines, fortunately my CSM have been getting larger as a byproduct.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
But I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that units in 40k are usually better off when kitted out for a specific job.

Ah, but that job can be "generalist", meaning "able to take on a role that reinforces the battle plan appropriately in response to the opposition." The fundamental example is "punch the shooty guys and shoot the punchy ones". But it also means "when the battle as a whole needs AT fire support, be able to contribute. When the battle as a whole needs anti-horde, be able to contribute to that. And when the battle as a whole requires CC, be able to contribute to that." And this generalization helps fight against skew in the opposition list. If they bring a bunch of tanks and you have three excellent AT units, they may be excellent at their job but what if two of them get wiped out in the first turn? Do you have the tools to fight the skew list anymore? General purpose units means that an army gains some redundancy of ability across the entire force, which acts as insurance against skew in the circumstance where specialists get knocked out. It also means that you can be more effective at taking actions not for your own specialty, but in countering the opposition specialty, which can have great value.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
But I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that units in 40k are usually better off when kitted out for a specific job.

Ah, but that job can be "generalist", meaning "able to take on a role that reinforces the battle plan appropriately in response to the opposition." The fundamental example is "punch the shooty guys and shoot the punchy ones". But it also means "when the battle as a whole needs AT fire support, be able to contribute. When the battle as a whole needs anti-horde, be able to contribute to that. And when the battle as a whole requires CC, be able to contribute to that." And this generalization helps fight against skew in the opposition list. If they bring a bunch of tanks and you have three excellent AT units, they may be excellent at their job but what if two of them get wiped out in the first turn? Do you have the tools to fight the skew list anymore? General purpose units means that an army gains some redundancy of ability across the entire force, which acts as insurance against skew in the circumstance where specialists get knocked out. It also means that you can be more effective at taking actions not for your own specialty, but in countering the opposition specialty, which can have great value.

Units that can do a bit of everything decently well tend to be cost ineffective at soaking damage (if they are good at multiple roles then they tend to draw fire) or they become OP with very little room in between (see something like the Dreadknights or Riptides).

Where it works a bit better if when the game as a whole allows for more tactical gameplay in which flexible units can be sorta cost ineffective but still maneuver into a situation where they can do some cost effective damage. When the game is just mathhammering optimal damage output (which was at times problematic in 6th/7th and was double downed on in 8th/9th due to oversimplification of the core rules making mathhammering even easier) then it becomes harder for jack of all trades units to be worthwhile against non skew lists. Even then a lot of generalist units aren't great against a skew, its just not effectively useless against it like an AT unit would be against a green tide or a Burna Boy unit would be against a bunch of Imperial Knights

As someone who started in second edition I have always felt that the old design of the marines(lots of different equipment that doesn't go well with each other) is from a roleplaying game and the rest of the game(Aeldari, Necrons, etc) belong to a wargame.

If I want to be somewhat serious about the wargame I find the generalist approach to be the worst of the worst, and most likely so because balancing a generalist approach probably means a more focused loadout becomes too optimal against its intended targets. In the end the question becomes: How do you balance a game like D&D against Warhammer.

 Vankraken wrote:

Units that can do a bit of everything decently well tend to be cost ineffective at soaking damage (if they are good at multiple roles then they tend to draw fire) or they become OP with very little room in between (see something like the Dreadknights or Riptides).

What draws fire always tends to be the thing that is the most immediate threat, which Tacticals(generalists) are basically never perceived as.

 Vankraken wrote:
Where it works a bit better if when the game as a whole allows for more tactical gameplay in which flexible units can be sorta cost ineffective but still maneuver into a situation where they can do some cost effective damage. When the game is just mathhammering optimal damage output (which was at times problematic in 6th/7th and was double downed on in 8th/9th due to oversimplification of the core rules making mathhammering even easier) then it becomes harder for jack of all trades units to be worthwhile against non skew lists. Even then a lot of generalist units aren't great against a skew, its just not effectively useless against it like an AT unit would be against a green tide or a Burna Boy unit would be against a bunch of Imperial Knights

Imo this is a pretty big oversimplification of the game. Mathhammer is informative as a tool, but the rubber meets the road (still) in maneuvering.

Everything else is just a matter of point costs. At some point value, Sternguard all armed with Plasmaguns will be more efficient than Tactical Marines, but likewise if Sternguard are too costly, Tactical Marines become a more favored choice in comparison. It's just that, atm, GW has gone full r****** and tossed out point values.

 Eldarsif wrote:
As someone who started in second edition I have always felt that the old design of the marines(lots of different equipment that doesn't go well with each other) is from a roleplaying game and the rest of the game(Aeldari, Necrons, etc) belong to a wargame.

If I want to be somewhat serious about the wargame I find the generalist approach to be the worst of the worst, and most likely so because balancing a generalist approach probably means a more focused loadout becomes too optimal against its intended targets. In the end the question becomes: How do you balance a game like D&D against Warhammer.

Emphasis mine.

You're talking about a "serious wargame" but ignoring the fact that real-world units often carry a mixture of weaponry to respond to a variety of threats. Or do real-world squads all run around with recoiless rifles and leave their assault rifles at home. . . you know . . . specialists. . . .
.
Getting generalists to work is merely a function of rules and points. Arguably, since there are a number of people who are already taking advantage of their generalist troops, it means they're in a reasonable place or not too far off.

So when chapters recruit from their homeworlds doesn't it also depend on the build of the locals?