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Martel732 wrote:
We have to compare points across codices.

Sure, because all codices have access to the same force multipliers, weapon profiles and stratagems.

Wait, they don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
They aren't.

Very well-founded argument here Mr. Martel.

I'll just conclude that everything you are posting is wrong by default.

Do whatever you want.

"Sure, because all codices have access to the same force multipliers, weapon profiles and stratagems."

That doesn't make them incomparable.

Martel732 wrote:
Do whatever you want.

"Sure, because all codices have access to the same force multipliers, weapon profiles and stratagems."

That doesn't make them incomparable.

One counter-example to prove you wrong:

No one fields conscripts right now. How much play do you think they would see if they were in a marine codex? How about the imperial knights codex?

Units need to be seen in the context of their faction.

 Jidmah wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Do whatever you want.

"Sure, because all codices have access to the same force multipliers, weapon profiles and stratagems."

That doesn't make them incomparable.

One counter-example to prove you wrong:

No one fields conscripts right now. How much play do you think they would see if they were in a marine codex? How about the imperial knights codex?

Units need to be seen in the context of their faction.

That doesn't prove me wrong at all. We can still compute mathematical efficacy of a unit both in a vacuum and in the context of possible buffs and compare to other codices. I can tell you right marines have nothing remotely as efficient as a ravager in the whole codex. Maybe FW, but not the codex.

Plague marines are solid. Death Guard just have better options. Poxwalkers are flatly too durable, especially when paired with Cultists.

The attitude that marines are complete garbage isn't really fair. Tactical squads are hurting, but that's not because T4 3+, it's because they lack synergy.

All of the best troops in the game possess some synergy with what is around them.

*For the cost*, T4 3+ is a poor defensive stat and their offense is even worse. Sisters on the other hand are quite good for the cost, despite T3.

Lemondish wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Lemondish wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Personally, I agree. I just don't know what mathematical outs gw has left. Custodes needed t6 w5 to leave room.

Is there any justification for a space marine captain being superior to a custodian guard? Nope. Not in the least.

Why not? Stuff the fluff.

Or are we going to let stupid story logic get in the way of balancing again?

Fluff is the justification for relative power level. Not the justification for point costs associated with that power level. A custode should be superior to all astartes. The are practically primarchs - all of them. The whole army should be 130-150 point heros. I guess the figured that wouldn't be fun to play against - ehh...they are wrong but okay. Only a chapter master should be able to face a custodian mono A mono.

Blah, enough of that nonsense. The fluff has been rewritten and retconed a million times over, why must it be held as gospel today?

Free this game from these draconian fluff limitations. It will never be balanced otherwise. After all, how many times have battles in the fluff been held between two suspiciously equal forces in capability and firepower? The game needs some freedom from the fluff to balance itself, and that's an issue caused by the fluff, not the game rules.

Not saying abandon it of course, that would be silly. Just...loosen that grip.

I don't care much about that per say - I only care that it pidgeonholes space marine options which are supposed to compete at that point cost but don't. Because I assure you - everyone will say - "they can't be better than custodes" or...what? "that's practically a custode"

Fluff wise marines are correctly represented by T4 3+. If you read some books, you will notice that marines actually die really easily. A single hit from a genestealer or a bonesword is usually lethal for them, even in terminator armor.

Maybe that they shouldn't go down so easily to light weapons, so a rule like "Reduce by 1 the strenght of shooting attacks against this model" could be applicable.

What is not correctly represented is that they should fell enemies by the dozens both in melee and with the bolters.

Martel732 wrote:
*For the cost*, T4 3+ is a poor defensive stat and their offense is even worse. Sisters on the other hand are quite good for the cost, despite T3.

Only because you're looking at their current level of synergy with the overall marine army, and offensive output. T4 3+ is durable enough. And sisters are undercosted.

I think sisters are appropriately costed. Marines don't need synergy if they get cheaper.

Martel732 wrote:
I think sisters are appropriately costed. Marines don't need synergy if they get cheaper.

That's incredibly short sighted.

Unless you're prepared to run all your marines as Deathwatch. In which case, more power to you. Although deathwatch are already a good army. So, yeah.

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think sisters are appropriately costed. Marines don't need synergy if they get cheaper.

That's incredibly short sighted.

Unless you're prepared to run all your marines as Deathwatch. In which case, more power to you. Although deathwatch are already a good army. So, yeah.

Well it's case of quality or quantity. Tacticals can me made equal with deathwatch by point cost differences. Deathwatch might be better but there's less. After all isn't that what points are supposed to be for?-)

Martel732 wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Do whatever you want.

"Sure, because all codices have access to the same force multipliers, weapon profiles and stratagems."

That doesn't make them incomparable.

One counter-example to prove you wrong:

No one fields conscripts right now. How much play do you think they would see if they were in a marine codex? How about the imperial knights codex?

Units need to be seen in the context of their faction.

That doesn't prove me wrong at all. We can still compute mathematical efficacy of a unit both in a vacuum and in the context of possible buffs and compare to other codices. I can tell you right marines have nothing remotely as efficient as a ravager in the whole codex. Maybe FW, but not the codex.

Look who just rolled a six to advance with his goalposts

Your original argument was ork point costs = marine point costs, which is wrong.

For finding a proper cost for a marine, it doesn't matter how much an ork with completely different stats, gear and rules costs.


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 Marmatag wrote:
Plague marines are solid. Death Guard just have better options. Poxwalkers are flatly too durable, especially when paired with Cultists.

I wasn't saying they are bad, I was just responding to the suggestion that all infantry and bike marines should get +1 wound across the board (which I think is a great idea). Plague marines won't be utterly broken at 2 wounds for 17 points even if they keep all other rules.

The Newman wrote:
What worries me is the possibility that GW won't take any corrective action to address Marines at all between the FAQ and the next CA.

What it would signal (and what I suspect is the case) is that GW doesn't actually see the various flavors of Marine as factions. They see Imperium as a faction with Guard, Knights, AdMech Sisters, and Marines as sub-components. As long as Imperial Soup is doing ok then there isn't a problem, and if you take a handicap by playing a monobuild list then you have only yourself to blame.

I hope I'm wrong.

Marines or no Marines, I think there's generally been a trend over the past year of Codex releases that, Index-to-Codex, most armies got significantly more damage output buffs than defensive buffs for their armies.

- Astra Militarum, Eldar, etc.. saw tanks double their shooting.
- "Chapter Tactics" and equivalents added more re-roll 1s, more range,
- Stratagems, etc.. also serve to make units more killy, allow you to ignore cover, add bonuses to wound rolls, shoot and/or fight twice, etc, etc....

An average Astra Militarum army Index to Codex, with the identical models, probably does maybe some 40%-50% (numbers could be wrong, just making it up) more damage in the Codex version thanks to Cadian/Catachan/whatever traits, double shooting tanks, Strats, etc., etc.. Same for Eldar, Drukhari, etc., etc., etc.

But the durability of models (especially but not only Marines) in the game, by and large just hasn't gone up by the same 40-50% with two notable exceptions. The first being -1 to hit armies like Alaitoc, Stygies, etc.. The second being plain point drops allowing you to field more models in a game.

There're some exceptions (Custodes, being new, Knights perhaps, Hive Tyrants getting a 4++), but in an overall, broad trend of things getting more "lethal" on the damage output side but not comparatively more "survivable" on the defensive side, it's inevitably gonna squeeze out all the stuff that survives by anything other than super-hordes or super-resiliance/nullifying weapons through invuls, character-rule, etc..

Sunny Side Up wrote:

The Newman wrote:
What worries me is the possibility that GW won't take any corrective action to address Marines at all between the FAQ and the next CA.

What it would signal (and what I suspect is the case) is that GW doesn't actually see the various flavors of Marine as factions. They see Imperium as a faction with Guard, Knights, AdMech Sisters, and Marines as sub-components. As long as Imperial Soup is doing ok then there isn't a problem, and if you take a handicap by playing a monobuild list then you have only yourself to blame.

I hope I'm wrong.

Marines or no Marines, I think there's generally been a trend over the past year of Codex releases that, Index-to-Codex, most armies got significantly more damage output buffs than defensive buffs for their armies.

- Astra Militarum, Eldar, etc.. saw tanks double their shooting.
- "Chapter Tactics" and equivalents added more re-roll 1s, more range,
- Stratagems, etc.. also serve to make units more killy, allow you to ignore cover, add bonuses to wound rolls, shoot and/or fight twice, etc, etc....

An average Astra Militarum army Index to Codex, with the identical models, probably does maybe some 40%-50% (numbers could be wrong, just making it up) more damage in the Codex version thanks to Cadian/Catachan/whatever traits, double shooting tanks, Strats, etc., etc.. Same for Eldar, Drukhari, etc., etc., etc.

But the durability of models (especially but not only Marines) in the game, by and large just hasn't gone up by the same 40-50% with two notable exceptions. The first being -1 to hit armies like Alaitoc, Stygies, etc.. The second being plain point drops allowing you to field more models in a game.

There're some exceptions (Custodes, being new, Knights perhaps, Hive Tyrants getting a 4++), but in an overall, broad trend of things getting more "lethal" on the damage output side but not comparatively more "survivable" on the defensive side, it's inevitably gonna squeeze out all the stuff that survives by anything other than super-hordes or super-resiliance/nullifying weapons through invuls, character-rule, etc..

Exalted.

I agree, we are currently playing games where almost everything is a glass cannon. Hordes are the one notable exception, but for most units the game has become more lethal than ever before. When units like Mortarion, Land Raiders or Monoliths die turn one by default, how is a squad of marines supposed to hold an objective over multiple turns?

So in the end ot boils down to, either an army has low enough cost to go all out swarm and fuel something with its CP. OR it does not swarm, but has some very powerful rules that entice players to use the army or unit even with the handicap of being fewer in numbers.

So the way to fix any w40k army, is either by making it able to be horde or give it enough very powerful rules. If a tac squad had an option to run one special or hvy weapon for every 3 dudes on top of the combi the sgt can get people would definitly run tacs, even with the cost they have right now. And if GW did something extra, like add some rule to make them shotier if they don't move or do something special, people would call them the best troop in game.
In a game where most armies can take chaff or kill units from multiple books, having middle of the pack units means the chance those will ever see play is close to zero.

In fact the only time when I could imagine a mid tier units to be used is in a situation like DW primaris ended up in. Primaris are meh, but if you give them 2-3 special rules, and let them mix different units they suddenly aren't as bad.

I imagine if a pure marine detachment of lets say GK, to pick the worse marines right now, got an extra full page of special rules for each of their units aka new 2-3 rules per unit. GK would probablly be flavour of the week in no time.

GK need something that protects them from being wiped off the board despite having low numbers. In 5th edition it was almost impossible for orks to wipe 2000 points of ward knights.

Now? I can accidentally shoot them dead. And ork shooting sucks big time.

"For finding a proper cost for a marine, it doesn't matter how much an ork with completely different stats, gear and rules costs."

The rest of the game absolutely matters. Marines are bad in part because guardsmen and kabalites are so cheap.


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tneva82 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think sisters are appropriately costed. Marines don't need synergy if they get cheaper.

That's incredibly short sighted.

Unless you're prepared to run all your marines as Deathwatch. In which case, more power to you. Although deathwatch are already a good army. So, yeah.

Well it's case of quality or quantity. Tacticals can me made equal with deathwatch by point cost differences. Deathwatch might be better but there's less. After all isn't that what points are supposed to be for?-)

That's my point.

Martel732 wrote:
"For finding a proper cost for a marine, it doesn't matter how much an ork with completely different stats, gear and rules costs."

The rest of the game absolutely matters. Marines are bad in part because guardsmen and kabalites are so cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I think sisters are appropriately costed. Marines don't need synergy if they get cheaper.

That's incredibly short sighted.

Unless you're prepared to run all your marines as Deathwatch. In which case, more power to you. Although deathwatch are already a good army. So, yeah.

Well it's case of quality or quantity. Tacticals can me made equal with deathwatch by point cost differences. Deathwatch might be better but there's less. After all isn't that what points are supposed to be for?-)

That's my point.

I think marines, and similar units, would benefit a lot if they were able to perform certain tasks more points-efficiently than say guardsmen, kabalites or cultists. In my mind, they should have better resilience to small arms fire than them. The problem, really, is the overuse of AP in high volume fire weaponry. This would also make invulnerable saves less of a must-have for a unit to be considered tough or survivable.

This is an September FAQ thread. Can we rewrite Space Marines somewhere else?

SM are "bad" if you play them solo because of their point cost. In my example, I don't want to play a soup, I want to play my Chapter, the army I collect. When I play against DE for example, I need to surprise my rival from the beginning, starting at my list, deployment, movement, use of os strats...

One mistake and game over. The DE player can do what he wants, so many troops he has, his special rules, cheap units...

It is well knowed the problem in the game is the high death in shooting. Well you have cover but the high AP makes it bull s#&1/.

In the next FAQ and CA aproved we need some rules and points balance. I would like to see my SM a little bit cheaper, but thats not generall.

Las week I played my first Kill Team match. I like the rule that if you shoot more than half of the range of the weapons you have a - 1 to hit. Maybe for 40K we could see a - 1 to AP or something like this. I also like the idea of the use of CP for who it generates. And as a personal dream, for SM an 6++, just to give them as "small" army an opportunity to survive.

This becomes marines discussion, but how about staying in topic and screaming FAQ WHEN GW PLZ FIX GAME NAU

Seriously, 20sept and 0 info about SEPTEMBER FAQ? no leaks besides last one regarding castellan/spears/taloses (hope its true)?

FAQ is gonna be underwhleming. They are gonna kick CP and capt smash. And guess maybe Castellans?

Forfiter wrote:
This becomes marines discussion, but how about staying in topic and screaming FAQ WHEN GW PLZ FIX GAME NAU

Seriously, 20sept and 0 info about SEPTEMBER FAQ? no leaks besides last one regarding castellan/spears/taloses (hope its true)?

But you could replace space marine with every other bad army and the fixs would be the same, get cheaper or, maybe even and, get more powerful rules. If one army has cheaper dudes, and most armies use the same kill units, then the army that is cheaper is going to fit in more of the kill units, and in an edition where something like unkillable units don't really exist outside of someone ploping 400 models, this makes marines with a higher cost weaker. Look at adeptus stuff, if you don't want to hear about marines, the fix to their units that never get used is the same. Either the electro priests stuff needs more rules or rules interaction with other stuff, or it has to be slash 50% points for a melee unit without transport that walks on foot.

I don't know enough about GW though , if they do care about their own rule set. From what they say online or write in aritcles the view is rather odd, as if they did not play their own games. I mean when the fix to my GK are getting shot to bits, is ask your opponent to not shot your stuff, then my raction is this =>

The last FAQ was so disgustingly underwhelming that people really need to check their expectations.

There will be a change to the CP system and a possible points increase for the castellan (if they deem that removing the CP battery isn't enough, which they might not).

I wouldn't expect more than 1.5 pages.

I don’t see how the FAQ will fix much of anything. The new AP system is partially to blame for crippling the game and distorting points values etc. and I don’t see that getting addressed in two pages of notes. I’ll be surprised if BA get any clarification to discrepancies and problems in the codex beyond smash captain getting smashed.

Yeah. Like I said, I think the FAQ has been slightly delayed until the first week of October, and I wouldn't expect any huge changes in it. Maybe some refinement of the current beta rules, and a couple changes to a couple of OP units. The rest will just be clarifying existing rules to make sure no one is mis-interpreting them. In all honesty, most of the discussion on here is more inline with stuff I would hope to see in the new Chapter Approved, not in the FAQ. And even with that, I wouldn't bet on it.

Process wrote:
The last FAQ was so disgustingly underwhelming that people really need to check their expectations.

There will be a change to the CP system and a possible points increase for the castellan (if they deem that removing the CP battery isn't enough, which they might not).

I wouldn't expect more than 1.5 pages.

Actually the last FAQ was exactly what we expected:

1) Confirmation or modification of the beta rules
2) New Beta Rules
3) Fixes to spam
4) Point cost changes to the most glaring problems (Dark Reapers, Dark Talon, Flyrants and a few other)

So i predict the following:

1) Confirmation of the rule of 3. Confirmation with a slight modification of the tactical reserves rule.
2) New Beta Rules to prevent CP sharing.
3) Cost changes to Discannons, banana captains, castellan and a few other.

Bremon wrote:
I don’t see how the FAQ will fix much of anything. The new AP system is partially to blame for crippling the game and distorting points values etc. and I don’t see that getting addressed in two pages of notes. I’ll be surprised if BA get any clarification to discrepancies and problems in the codex beyond smash captain getting smashed.

Personally, I think the AP system of 8E is leaps and bounds a better system that prior editions, due in part to it allowing lower AP weapons to actually have some measure of affect on decently armoured targets.
The problem is that GW decided to hold onto the old armour save values fro prior editions. Terminators, for example, would be far more appealing in 8E with a 1+ armour save. 1s would still fail as normal, but their armour would actually matter in more situations than now.

-

 Galef wrote:

Bremon wrote:
I don’t see how the FAQ will fix much of anything. The new AP system is partially to blame for crippling the game and distorting points values etc. and I don’t see that getting addressed in two pages of notes. I’ll be surprised if BA get any clarification to discrepancies and problems in the codex beyond smash captain getting smashed.

Personally, I think the AP system of 8E is leaps and bounds a better system that prior editions, due in part to it allowing lower AP weapons to actually have some measure of affect on decently armoured targets.
The problem is that GW decided to hold onto the old armour save values fro prior editions. Terminators, for example, would be far more appealing in 8E with a 1+ armour save. 1s would still fail as normal, but their armour would actually matter in more situations than now.

-

Yeah, they should have adjusted the armor across the board to go with the AP changes. Another half-arsed decision on their part.