MeanGreenStompa wrote:Sorry, I meant to say that 'MEQ' is effectively gone as the dominant army style (not mech). It would still live on in SOB and arguably Necrons as well, but I would say neither Eldar nor Dark Eldar fit that bill as armies.

I know if I equip my orks a certain way, they will have greater effect against Codex Marines, Marine Variants (DA, BT, BA, SW), SOB, Chaos Marines and Necrons. That's 8 armies currently where certain principles can be brought to bear, removing fully 6 of them from the equation would significantly alter the metagame and I'm wondering if we'd see far more variable armies from people once that style of force was no longer the overwhelming dominant type seen. I know my optimum builds vs Tyranids would be very different to my optimum builds vs Eldar, but as things currently stand, taking my orks to a tourney or club night, equipping the list to deal with MEQ gives me a great deal of likelihood of success due to the overwhelming saturation of those armies.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:sigh... This again?

You'd have a game that never made it past the Rogue Trader generation of the game. People want to identify with the big supermen, it's basic psychology. Until the fanboys came in and and started complaining that they were getting too popular, everyone wanted to play Space Marines.

Stop complaining that Games Workshop pushes the Space Marines too much. Its the gateway for people to get interested in 40k. In other word, it lets the noobs in for you to pwn then you can feel all 1337, understand?

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:sigh... This again?

You'd have a game that never made it past the Rogue Trader generation of the game. People want to identify with the big supermen, it's basic psychology. Until the fanboys came in and and started complaining that they were getting too popular, everyone wanted to play Space Marines.

Stop complaining that Games Workshop pushes the Space Marines too much. Its the gateway for people to get interested in 40k. In other word, it lets the noobs in for you to pwn then you can feel all 1337, understand?

Hello Solofalcon.

I'm not sure who you're addressing with your response but if it's me as the OP, what I was doing was pondering a 'what if' situation and how the current makeup of several MEQ armies does to the metagame and how it would be altered if there wasn't so much of one type of army, what this would do to other armies as they would be less sure of meeting that one type of army (well armoured elite small armies capable of fielding several AV14 vehicles).

It was a bit of a musing and I was interested to see other people's views on how it might alter the gameplay.

You might want to temper your response somewhat, it's fairly hostile, aloof and portrays you in a bad light from where I'm reading.

Bulletinum Imperiorum wrote:It was the great plague which began in 42.05.765 that nearly caused the downfall of the whole Imperium, and yet, ultimately became its salvation.

The Lords of Terra were horrified to be informed with absolute certainty, that an unknown virus, thought to be of Tyranid origin, had infected several of the most important zygotes of the Adeptes Astartes. Whilst normal humans were immune, transmission between Space Marines was swift and irreversible.

Not only did the infected individuals die miserably in pain and madness, their mighty bodies corrupting to helplessness over a period of years. Worse, the taint was passed on to the sacred stores of geneseed held by each chapter. The only solution was to obliterate every chapter of Space Marines in the whole galaxy, raze their home fortresses to the ground, and purge all with holy fire.

Several of the most noble chapters, such as the Ultramarines, willingly sacrificed themselves in the effort to purge their own tainted flesh, and too, in swift and merciless attacks on certain renegade chapters who refused to submit to the necessity of the Emporer’s need.

After a mere six years, every Space Marine and initiate in the galaxy was dead, or had fled to the Eye of Terror, swelling the forces of Chaos. The Imperium, shorn of its best troops, seemed in dire straits indeed.

The darkest hour is before the new dawn, though.

Abaddon’s 14th Black Crusade, launched as the last of the Space Marines purged their ancient homes with acid and fire, was a disaster, beaten back from the gates of Cadia as its spearhead troops literally wasted away on the battlefield. The Chaos Space Marines had succumbed to the same cruel fate as their erstwhile brothers in arms.

Still the Imperium was faced with many other threats than Chaos. The Lords of Terra, knowing it would take centuries to rebuild the Space Marines, took decisive action to improve the quality of the Imperial Guard.

Elite Guard units were created, equipped with the weapons and power armour no longer required by the Astartes. Taking their lessons from the Sisters of Battle, these so-called Power Guards quickly demonstrated their worth in battle as a spearhead for the regular IG forces.

Despite worries that they would never rival the Adeptes Astartes for morale and battle worthiness, the Power Guards seemed inspired by their new position as the foremost defenders of humanity.

Thanks to the quickness of training and equipping these new troops, and their close integration with the regular IG units, the new system proved much more powerful than the old method in which the IG and Space Marines worked separately.

The successful invasion of the Eye of Terror, which began in 42.17.133 and ended in 42.28.633, fully vindicated what had seemed at first a desperation move.

In 42.30.133, the decision was taken never to recreate the expensive and ineffective Chapters of the Adeptes Astartes. And so a noble, yet now pointless and obsolete warrior elite, was consigned to the pages of history, much like the knights of ancient Earth.

Khisanth Magus wrote:Fluff-wise, without marines there wouldn't be much of a 40k. The Imperial Guard isn't strong enough to stand up to, well, anyone. The Emperor's Great Crusade wouldn't have happened. There wouldn't really be any big war going on, because there would be no one to fight. There would be no imperium of man, at least not outside of the Sol system. The rampant xenophobia that is indoctrinated into the IoM wouldn't be there. The Eldar wouldn't bother with anyone. The Orks would actually be running mostly unopposed through the universe. Provided the astronomicon was still activated somehow, the 'nids probably would have at least tried invading Earth itself.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Would the game be a more balanced thing without them.

Imagine for a moment that we completely remove marines and marine variants, no more DA, SW or BA, no GK or Chaos Marines.

Instead the Imperium just gets Imperial Guard, Ad Mech and Inquisitorial armies, perhaps with the option to take a handful of marines, Chaos gets Lost and the Damned, again with a handful of marines. But in effect, the days of MEQ are gone.

Is the game more balanced without them? How does the metagame alter?

Kilkrazy wrote:Fluff wise that could all be re-written in a few paragraphs.

Bulletinum Imperiorum wrote:It was the great plague which began in 42.05.765 that nearly caused the downfall of the whole Imperium, and yet, ultimately became its salvation.

The Lords of Terra were horrified to be informed with absolute certainty, that an unknown virus, thought to be of Tyranid origin, had infected several of the most important zygotes of the Adeptes Astartes. Whilst normal humans were immune, transmission between Space Marines was swift and irreversible.

Not only did the infected individuals die miserably in pain and madness, their mighty bodies corrupting to helplessness over a period of years. Worse, the taint was passed on to the sacred stores of geneseed held by each chapter. The only solution was to obliterate every chapter of Space Marines in the whole galaxy, raze their home fortresses to the ground, and purge all with holy fire.

Several of the most noble chapters, such as the Ultramarines, willingly sacrificed themselves in the effort to purge their own tainted flesh, and too, in swift and merciless attacks on certain renegade chapters who refused to submit to the necessity of the Emporer’s need.

After a mere six years, every Space Marine and initiate in the galaxy was dead, or had fled to the Eye of Terror, swelling the forces of Chaos. The Imperium, shorn of its best troops, seemed in dire straits indeed.

The darkest hour is before the new dawn, though.

Abaddon’s 14th Black Crusade, launched as the last of the Space Marines purged their ancient homes with acid and fire, was a disaster, beaten back from the gates of Cadia as its spearhead troops literally wasted away on the battlefield. The Chaos Space Marines had succumbed to the same cruel fate as their erstwhile brothers in arms.

Still the Imperium was faced with many other threats than Chaos. The Lords of Terra, knowing it would take centuries to rebuild the Space Marines, took decisive action to improve the quality of the Imperial Guard.

Elite Guard units were created, equipped with the weapons and power armour no longer required by the Astartes. Taking their lessons from the Sisters of Battle, these so-called Power Guards quickly demonstrated their worth in battle as a spearhead for the regular IG forces.

Despite worries that they would never rival the Adeptes Astartes for morale and battle worthiness, the Power Guards seemed inspired by their new position as the foremost defenders of humanity.

Thanks to the quickness of training and equipping these new troops, and their close integration with the regular IG units, the new system proved much more powerful than the old method in which the IG and Space Marines worked separately.

The successful invasion of the Eye of Terror, which began in 42.17.133 and ended in 42.28.633, fully vindicated what had seemed at first a desperation move.

In 42.30.133, the decision was taken never to recreate the expensive and ineffective Chapters of the Adeptes Astartes. And so a noble, yet now pointless and obsolete warrior elite, was consigned to the pages of history, much like the knights of ancient Earth.

Vaktathi wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Would the game be a more balanced thing without them.

Imagine for a moment that we completely remove marines and marine variants, no more DA, SW or BA, no GK or Chaos Marines.

Instead the Imperium just gets Imperial Guard, Ad Mech and Inquisitorial armies, perhaps with the option to take a handful of marines, Chaos gets Lost and the Damned, again with a handful of marines. But in effect, the days of MEQ are gone.

Is the game more balanced without them? How does the metagame alter?

Space Marines are too central to the game and its fiction. 40k is not 40k without the Space Marines. That said, yes of course there is such a thing as too much of a focus and GW does tend to go overboard on them to the detriment of the rest of the game, but removing them entirely would not only destroy the story, but considering how much of the game is designed around them, it'd get very silly very quickly. Removing them as playable armies and attaching them as specialist units to other armies would probably make more background sense (how often are SM's of various types completely on their own and not in support of or leading larger operations?) but would also just too greatly fundamentally shift the game away from its roots in a gaming sense and invalidate far too many armies and tank sales overnight. It's probably how they should have been done from the start, but at this points its a couple decades too late.

As for the metagame, too much of the game is designed around that magical T4 3+sv and the S4 AP5 Bolter. It'd require a fundamental rebalancing across the board of all the other armies considering how many weapons are designed basically to either be specifically in mind with either being "not a huge threat to space marines" or very much "anti-space marines". Look at the IG hellhound and banewolf. Very similar in most respects, they'll wound pretty much all infantry on 2's. The Banewolf wounds anything with a T value on 2's, but 90% of units are T3/4 and most things higher than that aren't exactly in numbers to require a template weapon. The big difference between these two weapons is that AP4 versus the magical AP3. To get that magical AP3 and act as an anti-Space Marine weapon, the Banewolf must sacrifice its ability to throw its template like the Hellhound. There are plenty of other examples of this sort of thing that would become far less useful/pointless overnight if Marines were only very rare specialist units rather than the average enemy one may face.

You'd have to overhaul a huge number of units and armies for the game to make sense after a change like this.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

Khisanth Magus wrote:Fluff-wise, without marines there wouldn't be much of a 40k. The Imperial Guard isn't strong enough to stand up to, well, anyone. The Emperor's Great Crusade wouldn't have happened. There wouldn't really be any big war going on, because there would be no one to fight. There would be no imperium of man, at least not outside of the Sol system. The rampant xenophobia that is indoctrinated into the IoM wouldn't be there. The Eldar wouldn't bother with anyone. The Orks would actually be running mostly unopposed through the universe. Provided the astronomicon was still activated somehow, the 'nids probably would have at least tried invading Earth itself.

The Space Marines don't actually have the numbers to do anything in the first place. Realistically, it would take several dozen chapters (basically how the Great Crusade operated, as far as I can tell, with a single legion of tens of thousands being used to take new worlds, after which the Imperial Army was left behind to garrison it) to take a world, not several dozen marines. The normal scenario seems to be something like "tens of thousands of guardsmen face off against the millions of entrenched defenders; ten space marines land somewhere irrelevant, and spend the whole war standing around shooting randomly and screaming; thank the Emperor those Space Marines saved the day!"

Scribus Magistorus wrote:Freed of the requirement to limit production of SM suits and weapons to only a million for the whole galaxy, the Adeptus Mechanicus quickly recruited 100,000,000 servitors and ramped up production to produce millions of hand-made items per year.

Thus by a remarkable and pious effort, the Imperial Guard was supplied with the equipment needed to save the Imperium.

Kilkrazy wrote:
I don't agree 100%. You are right about the magic balancing of weapons to let them easily kill tanks and fail against SM, however if there were no SMs I think most codexes probably have enough not-anti-SM weapons to be playable against other codexes. After all, weapons that are good against MEq are good against everyone else too, just more expensive than what you might get. For example, Tau Crisis suits would probably still take Missile Pod and Plasma Rifle even if there were no Sv3 or SV2 units in the game.

It is an easy scenario to test, anyway. Just run a campaign or tournament with the rule, no SMs/CSMs, and see what happens.

We all know GW are never giving up the SM crack, so why not play around a bit? It can't do any harm. An SM free weekend might be a very refreshing change of pace.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Would the game be a more balanced thing without them.

Imagine for a moment that we completely remove marines and marine variants, no more DA, SW or BA, no GK or Chaos Marines.

Instead the Imperium just gets Imperial Guard, Ad Mech and Inquisitorial armies, perhaps with the option to take a handful of marines, Chaos gets Lost and the Damned, again with a handful of marines. But in effect, the days of MEQ are gone.

Is the game more balanced without them? How does the metagame alter?