Bharring wrote:
Head to head with Guardsmen happens all the time - so Marines lose.

Head to head with Guardians never happens - so Marines lose.

Bharring wrote:
Head to head with Guardsmen happens all the time - so Marines lose.

Head to head with Guardians never happens - so Marines lose.

YeOldSaltPotato wrote:

 akaean wrote:
should always beat them in a straight shoot out between equal points.

Why? Aren't points a balance mechanism, between which you should have a relatively equal potential result between matched units.

Bharring wrote:
Would it be fair to say:
-You want Marines to beat Guardsmen head-to-head, I want Marines to be able to avoid the head-to-head.

-You want Marines to beat Guardians even when not head-to-head. I want Marines to have ways to face guardians head-to-head.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
Hmm at a glance it looks like Dire Avengers should be 9ppm and 2pp weapon. I have no doubt that Fire warriors could stand to be at 8ppm again. I am pretty surprised at how expensive eldar infantry are, but on the other hand oooh battle focus is noice. On the other hand it sounds like people don't dare to use it, opting for wave serpents instead.
As for guard, they should probably be 5ppm. Wouldn't that solve a fair bit of the complaints about them being too numerous, cheap CP farms, efficient bodies and shooters etc. While also giving conscripts a place to function again?
Then there's marines. Y'all have me less confident in either 11ppm as is or 15ppm 2W or even just adding 1A (still rather see bolter and chainsword combo.)

rooster92 wrote:
Maybe make traditional horde killer weapons (large blasts and flame templates), scale based on unit size, much like how the grav flux bombard works. Flamer does D6 shots vs 5 man units but 2d6 vs 10, 3d6 vs 15, ect.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And the thing is that Rangers/Vanguard and Fire Warriors and Kalabites are actually fair for their prices. Are Guardsmen too durable for the cost? Maybe, but at least the former dudes have the offensive capabilities.

A.T. wrote:

rooster92 wrote:
Maybe make traditional horde killer weapons (large blasts and flame templates), scale based on unit size, much like how the grav flux bombard works. Flamer does D6 shots vs 5 man units but 2d6 vs 10, 3d6 vs 15, ect.

A suggestion that is often thrown around is to simply double the number of shots from the flamer-style weapons and restrict the number of hits they can inflict to the size of the target unit.

The more powerful blast weapons on the other hand (demolishers, battlecannons, etc) might benefit from your suggestion instead, as they need to generate multiple hits against heavy targets to get anywhere in this edition.

w1zard wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And the thing is that Rangers/Vanguard and Fire Warriors and Kalabites are actually fair for their prices. Are Guardsmen too durable for the cost? Maybe, but at least the former dudes have the offensive capabilities.

So you are saying we should buff the offensive output of guardsmen and increase their cost to compensate?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
And the thing is that Rangers/Vanguard and Fire Warriors and Kalabites are actually fair for their prices. Are Guardsmen too durable for the cost? Maybe, but at least the former dudes have the offensive capabilities.

So you are saying we should buff the offensive output of guardsmen and increase their cost to compensate?

Um no. Not even close.

Martel732 wrote:
Everything about them is great at 4ppm.

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everything about them is great at 4ppm.

Sure, but if you bump them up to 5ppm then rangers and fire warriors become better then them by miles. By reducing rangers and fire warriors to 7ppm instead of raising guardsmen to 5, they have boxed themselves in design-space wise.

Martel732 wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Everything about them is great at 4ppm.

Sure, but if you bump them up to 5ppm then rangers and fire warriors become better then them by miles. By reducing rangers and fire warriors to 7ppm instead of raising guardsmen to 5, they have boxed themselves in design-space wise.

Maybe ig should have an actual weakness. Like poor troops. I think they're fine at 5. Or even 6. IG would still have their undercosted tanks, undercosted artillery, undercosted psykers, undercosted hqs, and infinite cp. Seems like being weak in one place woudn't ruin them, right?

The marine vs guardsmen comparisons is really only useful to a point.

The codex as a whole suffers from a severe lack of functionality in 8th edition.

They are the most basic faction that follows the majority of the rules in the game with the least number of special abilities. Their faction bonuses mostly amount to rerolls, which are nice but but not enough to outweigh the advantages of other factions.

Their transports are slow, have no fire points, and not being able to disembark after moving makes them very reactionary. They also cost so much that it's rarely worth paying their cost to deliver any of the squads Marines can actually put inside of them.

Chapter tactics not effecting vehicles is also strange.

Their damage focused vehicles are punished if they move because they almost exclusively have heavy weapons. This especially hurts attack bikes and landspeeders, as they are designed to be rapidly moving into position with short range heavy weapons like multi-meltas. Their actual tank vehicles also get shut down very easily in close combat.

For their troops, they have to choose between static heavy weapons or short range special weapons to actually start doing damage, but don't have the mobility to get into range with the special weapons, and the heavy weapons are too focused on 1 shot D6 damage to effectively get past enemy invul saves. They also cost too much.

Defensively, the more aspects of enemy guns you can ignore, the better you are. Having a 6+ armor save means you ignore a lot of the AP on enemy guns. Having an invul save means you ignore AP. Having FNP means you ignore damage and mortal wounds.

In general, most Marine units don't ignore the damage stats of enemy weapons at all, so when you shoot at them you are getting the full use of your firepower.

This goes for their tanks as well. It isn't a coincidence the best marine vehicle, the Leviathan dreadnought, has a 4++. Everything else just dies too easily.

Primaris are a different, very strange, issue. The second wound is useful against very weak guns, but pointless once 2D are aimed at them. The abundance of low invul saves, negatives to hit, and Necron shields make high rate of fire, low AP medium damage like autocannons very effective, and these weapons also vaporize primaris, so it's very likely that a typicalarmy will be able to kill a fair number of them with D2+ weapons before having to use 1D weapons, which are still fairly effective when you look at what the primaris cost.

Because of all this, Marines need to either get significant rules buffs and new abilities, or they need to get much cheaper. Until that happens they aren't going to be able to compete with armies that have wide spread invuls, negatives to hit, FNP, masses of bodies, the fly keyword, smite spam, and high mobility. Right now they aren't actually GOOD at anything, and pay for durability that isn't real.

think if it were up to me, id consider something like the changes below. Maybe not all of them at once, and points would definitely have to move around here and there, but to me the marine issue is less one of simple points cost issues and more of not having the abilities needed to operate in 8th edition. To me these changes are more about making Marines feel like Marines, and be fun and interesting to play again, than just making them competitive. Obviously it's mostly foolish wish listing.

First I'd make a few game wide changes:
1. Heavy weapon movement penalties only effect infantry. Why put them on vehicles if not to offer effective mobility.
2. All <vehicle> units can fall back and still shoot at -1 BS. <Fly> units can shoot normally. Fly can be better (as if the movement abilities aren't enough), but it doesn't need to be night and day.
3. CP generation is based on the number of points spent on troops and HQs, not generated from detachments. Perhaps 1CP per 100 points. Certain units or armies like knights could have special rules giving them extra CP as needed.
4. Change the deepstrike restriction to 25% of the points level, but let it happen during any turn. Deepstrike should be powerful but not overwhelming.
5. All strategems that let a unit deploy 9" away from the opponent on the first turn should be limited to 1 use per game. It's just not fun to have your opponent set up large multible units of aggressors, electropriests, zerkers, cultists, and so on with little to no counterplay other than who gets the first turn.
6. No unit can ever benefit from more than one -1 to hit modifier they give themselves. 1 is really bad enough. The exception to this would be negative to hit modifiers the firing unit gives itself by moving with heavy weapons and so on, and these also cap out at 1, for a max of -2 if you have yourself a penalty, and the target also gives you one.
7. Shooting attacks always hit on a 6 regardless of the modifier.

For Marines specifically:
1. Everything in the codex should ignore the first point of AP that effects their armor. So they always get a their save against anything worse than AP2. This wouldn't effect cover, so a heavy bolter against a marine in cover would still save on a 3+ since it didn't reduce their actual armor save. AP2 against a marine in cover would also save on a 3+ since the cover would be ignored and the first point of AP would be ignored. This notably doesn't make them any more durable against weapons without an AP value, but helps them stick around against heavier guns. This gives marines reasonable durability without making them heavy infantry or require D2 weapons to remove.
2. ATSKNF gets the ultramarine chapter tactic added into it. This let's all marine units fall out of combats they don't want to be in and still shoot.
3. All Marines with 1 attack should be bumped up to 2. This makes up for the loss of the attack they used to gain from charging and makes them fairly effective in close combat against typical troop units of similar cost.
4. Rhinos should have 2 fire points. There should also be a universal rhino 1 point strategem to let a squad disembark and still shoot from a rhino after it moved.
5. Bolters and chainswords gain AP1. Remember that Marines would mostly ignore this AP. It would help them chew through some tougher targets, and give them a slight increase to damage against light infantry (remember that the worse your armor save, the less they are bothered by enemy AP).
6. OC plasma gets a nerf / buff: it causes one mortal wound to the bearing model on any roll of an unmodified roll 1 to hit, whether it gets rerolled or not. Each shot can only cause one mortal wound, so if you do roll a 1 and then reroll to another 1, you still only take 1 MW. This makes Plasma more dangerous to single wound infantry but doesn't nerf its power. It also makes Terminator, hellblaster, and vehicle durability count for something as a plasma platform.
7. Melta and Las get a special rule causing them to never do less than 3 damage. It's worth noting that this only bumps the average damage from 3.5 to 4, but makes them much more consistent and satisfying when it does get through invuls.
8. Drop pods should have to be 9" away from the enemy, but the guys shouldn't have that limitation when they disembark. If you pay that much for a pod, you should be able to use your flamers and assault easier. Otherwise why buy a pod? If you think this is overpowered then look at what units like bloodletters can do the turn they come in (aka kill everything). Also keep in mind i think deepstrike should be limited to 25% of your army.
9. Land raiders should be able to disembark their contents after moving. The unit should then be able to shoot and charge.
10. Smoke launchers should be something you activate at the beginning of your opponents shooting phase, once a game. Choosing between shooting and smoke is a non choice 99% of the time. Makes smoke launchers actually useful.
11. Killshot, line breaker bombardment, and empyric channeling change to only require 2 of the units, but line breaker only does 2D3 if you use two tanks and 3D3 for three.
12. Honor guard, company vets, terminators of all types, vanguard Vets, sternguard, and the similar versions of vets other Marine books have all get BS2+/WS2+.
13. Apothecaries should be able to grant 1 unit within 6" with a 5+ FNP in addition to what they do now.
14. Vindicators should have 3 shots, +1D3 for every 5 models in the unit.
15. Chaplains should cause units to reroll all wounds in close combat instead of hits. This might make them actually worth taking. And doesn't invalidate captains.
16. Flamer weapons need to do 2d6 hits vs units over with over 5 models.
17. Gravguns should be assault 2 and all grav weapons should wound all vehicles and monsters on a 4+.

Finally, chapter tactics need a rework. Obviously they need to also effect vehicles. They also all need to be worth taking. My ideas here might not be as polished as some of these others.
A. Ultramarines can auto pass leadership tests, and overwatch on a 5+. Their strategem should change to allow a unit to fire twice. I would nerf Roboute, though, so that his aura no longer grants re-rolls to anyone but himself. He then no longer removes the need to for captains, Calgar, chapter masters, and LTs. He can then drop by about 100 points and just be a close combat god.
B. White scars should treat rapid fire weapons like assault weapons with half the range but double the shots (so a bolter becomes assault 2, 12"), in addition to their current bonuses. Their vehicles would treat all heavy weapons as assault weapons.
C. Imperial fists should gain +2 to their saves when they are in cover instead of +1, and their vehicles should only need to be 25% obscured to get cover. They lose all of their current bonuses.
D. Black Templars gain have a 4+ save mortal wounds, and reroll their charges.
E. Salanders keep their current trait, but vehicles get it too.
F. Ravenguard keep their current trait, but vehicles get it too.
G. Iron hands get an army wide +1T. Their strat changes to let them use 5+ FNP for 1 unit that turn.

Martel732 wrote:
Looking up from my gutter, ig seem much more bs than nids or tau. 4pt models really shouldnt be dangerous ever because of all the other value you get from them. They could have no shooting at all and still be worth 4ppm.