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JNAProductions wrote: Okay. And what is the baseline?
Would it be the most common army in the game?
Common in game =/= common in fluff which is what y'all messed up on AGAIN. Otherwise you'd have to argue on whether Harlequins are actually more elite than any other Eldar army.
I've been clear that I'm not talking in-universe.
Then what you're saying doesn't matter then
Why does the fictional matter more than the real?
This is not the background forum. This is the general discussion forum.
Because otherwise we would be talking about how 10 point Marines is the way to fix them.
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
And to ask a trickier question . . . Is the reason we don't see many of these units because they're absolute ***t against Marines now that they have 2 wounds? If it takes 13 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a Marine, and Marines are the most common army. . . why would anyone ever take Termagants for anything but camping objectives. And is comping objectives fun for players? Does that make a unit cool?
And once you make Marines 2 wounds, how high do you have to pump the Terminators, Custodes and the like for those to feel elite? And then how do Termagants feel against them? How far behind do you leave the "common" troops, and does anybody want to take them anymore?
If nobody is taking the "lesser" troops, Marines themselves become the bottom tier in practice.
EviscerationPlague wrote: Because otherwise we would be talking about how 10 point Marines is the way to fix them.
But saying "marines are elite, it says so in this novel" isn't a solution either. You can't have a constructive discussion on how to fix the rules for marines if you can't acknowledge how marines being the most common army takes away from the perception that they are elite. Marines on the table are average no matter how many fluff sources you point to saying otherwise.
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VladimirHerzog wrote: so by that definition marines can never feel elite because people IRL will always make lists with them in mind
Even if marines have 10 wounds each and a 1+ save, people bringing the best guns against that profile will make them feel no elite
Exactly. All you will accomplish is that W10/1+ is the average stat line for the game and anything which can't deal with W10/1+ simply won't be played. The game will be 75% W10/1+ armies and 25% non-marine armies tailored to beat marines.
And yes, deeper mechanics could mitigate this a bit (as well as making a better game in general) but that still doesn't address the root of the problem: that an army can't feel elite when it is 75% of the game.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/02/06 18:30:03
JNAProductions wrote: Okay. And what is the baseline?
Would it be the most common army in the game?
Common in game =/= common in fluff which is what y'all messed up on AGAIN. Otherwise you'd have to argue on whether Harlequins are actually more elite than any other Eldar army.
I've been clear that I'm not talking in-universe.
Then what you're saying doesn't matter then
Why does the fictional matter more than the real?
This is not the background forum. This is the general discussion forum.
Because otherwise we would be talking about how 10 point Marines is the way to fix them.
10 PPM marines would be OP, but it wouldn’t make them feel elite.
It’d do the opposite.
Balance and being elite aren’t related-a 1,000 point Questoris Knight is elite compared to 3 PPM guardsmen, despite the guard being far better.
Clocks for the clockmaker! Cogs for the cog throne!
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
And to ask a trickier question . . . Is the reason we don't see many of these units because they're absolute ***t against Marines now that they have 2 wounds? If it takes 13 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a Marine, and Marines are the most common army. . . why would anyone ever take Termagants for anything but camping objectives. And is comping objectives fun for players? Does that make a unit cool?
And once you make Marines 2 wounds, how high do you have to pump the Terminators, Custodes and the like for those to feel elite? And then how do Termagants feel against them? How far behind do you leave the "common" troops, and does anybody want to take them anymore?
If nobody is taking the "lesser" troops, Marines themselves become the bottom tier in practice.
Nobody was taking them when Manlet Marines only had W1, so the notion about W2 changing anything is wrong.
No they aren't. The protagonists are marines. They're the face of the franchise, they get the most lore, they are the literal protagonists in most of the books, they have the largest model range with constant new content, and they're the most common army on the table. Normal humans are background NPCs and secondary factions.
Marines are above average in the stats distribution for the game, or are supposed to be. They can be common, but that doesn't mean their stats aren't above average.
How exactly can a stat line be above average if that stat line is 75% or more of the game? If I have the set of values {3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5} then 4 is very clearly the average. It doesn't matter if some 30 year old reference document says that 3 is supposed to be the average, the reality of the actual game being played is that 4 is the average.
Oh come on, who do space marines fight for again? What's that, the imperium of astartes kind? Humans are the protagonist, they're the reasons marines exist, why they fight.
If you believe 4 is the average strength and toughness across infantry for all factions I think you may be in for a shock.
Dudeface wrote: Oh come on, who do space marines fight for again? What's that, the imperium of astartes kind? Humans are the protagonist, they're the reasons marines exist, why they fight.
If you believe 4 is the average strength and toughness across infantry for all factions I think you may be in for a shock.
Nobody who plays Horus Heresy considers basic Tactical Marines to be 'elite'. It doesn't matter what the background says or that they're considerably better than the Imperial Militia that one dude at the shop might play. In the lived reality of Horus Heresy gaming, a Tactical Marine is as basic a standard cannon fodder footsoldier as it gets, and none of that fluff about him being a peerless superman has any impact on the tabletop. He's the bottom rung on a roster of even more super-duper-elite troops.
40K isn't that far off. It doesn't matter who your fictional toy soldier men are fictionally fighting for when it's Primaris vs Chaos on the tabletop and T4/W2/3+ is the basic statline for both armies.
If you walk into any random GW and look at the armies being played, chances are the most common statline will be some flavor of MEQ. S3/T3 isn't the average because this isn't a game and franchise centered on humans, it's centered on Marines.
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
And to ask a trickier question . . . Is the reason we don't see many of these units because they're absolute ***t against Marines now that they have 2 wounds? If it takes 13 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a Marine, and Marines are the most common army. . . why would anyone ever take Termagants for anything but camping objectives. And is comping objectives fun for players? Does that make a unit cool?
And once you make Marines 2 wounds, how high do you have to pump the Terminators, Custodes and the like for those to feel elite? And then how do Termagants feel against them? How far behind do you leave the "common" troops, and does anybody want to take them anymore?
If nobody is taking the "lesser" troops, Marines themselves become the bottom tier in practice.
Nobody was taking them when Manlet Marines only had W1, so the notion about W2 changing anything is wrong.
I took them, because I'm loyal to my faction. CSMs took them, because they didn't get their upgrade until mid 9th.
But you know what also saw a lot of table time during early 8th? GEQ. Clouds of them, even. And Tyranid armies also featured a lot of Hormagaunts in competetive builds too. Get those hordes back into the game.
Dudeface wrote: Oh come on, who do space marines fight for again? What's that, the imperium of astartes kind? Humans are the protagonist, they're the reasons marines exist, why they fight.
If you believe 4 is the average strength and toughness across infantry for all factions I think you may be in for a shock.
Nobody who plays Horus Heresy considers basic Tactical Marines to be 'elite'. It doesn't matter what the background says or that they're considerably better than the Imperial Militia that one dude at the shop might play. In the lived reality of Horus Heresy gaming, a Tactical Marine is as basic a standard cannon fodder footsoldier as it gets, and none of that fluff about him being a peerless superman has any impact on the tabletop. He's the bottom rung on a roster of even more super-duper-elite troops.
40K isn't that far off. It doesn't matter who your fictional toy soldier men are fictionally fighting for when it's Primaris vs Chaos on the tabletop and T4/W2/3+ is the basic statline for both armies.
If you walk into any random GW and look at the armies being played, chances are the most common statline will be some flavor of MEQ. S3/T3 isn't the average because this isn't a game and franchise centered on humans, it's centered on Marines.
It's going to stay that way until the balance begins to make the little guys more viable again.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/06 20:53:45
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
And to ask a trickier question . . . Is the reason we don't see many of these units because they're absolute ***t against Marines now that they have 2 wounds? If it takes 13 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a Marine, and Marines are the most common army. . . why would anyone ever take Termagants for anything but camping objectives. And is comping objectives fun for players? Does that make a unit cool?
And once you make Marines 2 wounds, how high do you have to pump the Terminators, Custodes and the like for those to feel elite? And then how do Termagants feel against them? How far behind do you leave the "common" troops, and does anybody want to take them anymore?
If nobody is taking the "lesser" troops, Marines themselves become the bottom tier in practice.
Nobody was taking them when Manlet Marines only had W1, so the notion about W2 changing anything is wrong.
I took them, because I'm loyal to my faction. CSMs took them, because they didn't get their upgrade until mid 9th.
Bruh, people were taking Cultists instead of the Chaos Legionaires, pre and post W2.
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
And to ask a trickier question . . . Is the reason we don't see many of these units because they're absolute ***t against Marines now that they have 2 wounds? If it takes 13 Termagants with Fleshborers to kill a Marine, and Marines are the most common army. . . why would anyone ever take Termagants for anything but camping objectives. And is comping objectives fun for players? Does that make a unit cool?
And once you make Marines 2 wounds, how high do you have to pump the Terminators, Custodes and the like for those to feel elite? And then how do Termagants feel against them? How far behind do you leave the "common" troops, and does anybody want to take them anymore?
If nobody is taking the "lesser" troops, Marines themselves become the bottom tier in practice.
Nobody was taking them when Manlet Marines only had W1, so the notion about W2 changing anything is wrong.
I took them, because I'm loyal to my faction. CSMs took them, because they didn't get their upgrade until mid 9th.
Bruh, people were taking Cultists instead of the Chaos Legionaires, pre and post W2.
Some were, some weren't.
The point stays the same though. 2W Marines makes it harder for the GEQs of the setting to compete in ways that make them compelling to take, and 2W Marines also drive up the heights of what "hyper elite" models have to be.
Dudeface wrote: Oh come on, who do space marines fight for again? What's that, the imperium of astartes kind? Humans are the protagonist, they're the reasons marines exist, why they fight.
If you believe 4 is the average strength and toughness across infantry for all factions I think you may be in for a shock.
Nobody who plays Horus Heresy considers basic Tactical Marines to be 'elite'. It doesn't matter what the background says or that they're considerably better than the Imperial Militia that one dude at the shop might play. In the lived reality of Horus Heresy gaming, a Tactical Marine is as basic a standard cannon fodder footsoldier as it gets, and none of that fluff about him being a peerless superman has any impact on the tabletop. He's the bottom rung on a roster of even more super-duper-elite troops.
40K isn't that far off. It doesn't matter who your fictional toy soldier men are fictionally fighting for when it's Primaris vs Chaos on the tabletop and T4/W2/3+ is the basic statline for both armies.
If you walk into any random GW and look at the armies being played, chances are the most common statline will be some flavor of MEQ. S3/T3 isn't the average because this isn't a game and franchise centered on humans, it's centered on Marines.
Given the horus heresy setting is almost exclusively centred on space marines on bith sides to the exclusion of any xenos etc, that's a different context entirely.
But again it's another example of "most players in this room" that is not the same as the range of stats employed across the game.
There are more core infantry across the game with lower stats than marines. Their stats are not common across the rules as written. Do not confuse real world representation with design scope of the armies. In the situation there happened to be more knights players in the room that day would you be arguing that S/T 8 is common/average for the game?
I don't know how else this can be reiterated, it's not about the number of people on the room playing marines, it's about their relative stats etc compared to the rest of the game.
Edit: I'll pipe down now, not worth an extended argument, I'm happy for how each and everyone defines what is elite to themselves.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/02/06 22:12:05
Dudeface wrote: But again it's another example of "most players in this room" that is not the same as the range of stats employed across the game.
It's not the same, but one of these actually matters to how an army feels in practice, and the other is trivia.
An argument for Marines being elite based on where they exist in the range of stats is ignoring the reality that 1. there are still plenty of things with more elite stats than them, and 2. whether an army feels elite on the tabletop depends on how the game tends to actually play out on the tabletop, not a dry analysis of the stats.
And yes, if you show up to the club and find that most players there only play Knights, they are not going to tell you that an Armiger feels like a massive powerhouse of destruction, they're going to tell you it's a weak support unit that gets blown off the board because their reference point for most of their games is a full-sized Knight. See also: Battletech, where a 20-ton war machine is a significant battlefield force in the lore, and the game does have rules for infantry and light vehicles, but in practice most games revolve around 50-100 ton robots and so the 20-tonners are little more than scouts and chaff.
If in some alternate reality most players had Guard, then GEQ would be the baseline, and then Marines would feel elite- although still far from the best of the best, so long as the Marines+1 armies like Custodes exist. But as it stands Marines are de facto the yardstick against which everything else is judged, and that makes them the baseline against which Guard are crappy cannon fodder by comparison.
I think that people do take the "lesser troops" - but they generally don't spam whole armies of them.
I feel you can see say Guard armies right now which are running 40-60 guardsmen (or Cadians etc). But that's 15-20% or so of a 2k point list. Chuck in 2-3 squads of Kasrkin etc. But then you add say half a dozen LRBTs which is the bulk of their army.
If Tyranid players were all running 3*10 Termagants and that's it for cheap/chaff units it would only be 10% of their points. The rest is warriors or monsters.
I think the only codex where we see mass GEQ is GSC. There was a list at the weekend that went 4-1 which was something like 40 Acolytes, 80 Neophytes and 20 bikers.
As Eldar for instance, I think Guardians are still kind of okay. But would you really want to run 200 or something of them? It doesn't seem very sensible.
People took hordes in 8th, Marines players complained that hordes were overpowered, GW nerfed hordes into the ground and now Marines players complain that they don't feel elite because there aren't any hordes anymore.
Tyel wrote: I think that people do take the "lesser troops" - but they generally don't spam whole armies of them.
I feel you can see say Guard armies right now which are running 40-60 guardsmen (or Cadians etc). But that's 15-20% or so of a 2k point list. Chuck in 2-3 squads of Kasrkin etc. But then you add say half a dozen LRBTs which is the bulk of their army.
If Tyranid players were all running 3*10 Termagants and that's it for cheap/chaff units it would only be 10% of their points. The rest is warriors or monsters.
I think the only codex where we see mass GEQ is GSC. There was a list at the weekend that went 4-1 which was something like 40 Acolytes, 80 Neophytes and 20 bikers.
As Eldar for instance, I think Guardians are still kind of okay. But would you really want to run 200 or something of them? It doesn't seem very sensible.
People used to take more in 8th when you got rewarded for taking more detachments. Players complained that it wasn't fair that some armies could fill out detachments easier than others resulting in less starting CP. With flat CP and more limited detachment slots, some armies ended up with more elite lists.
My point about making them "feel" elite has always been about making their plays actually do cost an actual "elite" amount.
What about the idea of paying extra to make your army an "elite Army" full of veterans with buffed stats.
Say instead of 4+/4+ Guard troops, you get all veterans or Kasarkin, with 3+/3+, but instead of 64/squad, you pay 110.
Same with Intercessors. You can take base squads, or full Vet squads for twice the price, with better gear options, and better BS/WS.
There should be an option to actually force an elite army to be ELITE. Right now the only Elite faction is Literally Custodes. No one else pays the 50ppm troop tax.
Nah, just get rid of/nerf Custodes so other elites are elite again.
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Tyran wrote: People took hordes in 8th, Marines players complained that hordes were overpowered, GW nerfed hordes into the ground and now Marines players complain that they don't feel elite because there aren't any hordes anymore.
The circle of 40k.
This is unfortunately true.
Balance was just about right in the two months or so before Marines 2.0 came out in 8th.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/07 01:24:21
JNAProductions wrote: The general usage of elite would be that a single squad of three doing the damage and having the resilience of three squads of ten is the elite one. Using your definition of "It doesn't exist" is not conducive to communication and understanding.
Except the squad of 3 space marines being "elite" to 3 squads of grots doesn't make them "elite" because 3 squads of those same marines are not elite to three squads of Imperial Knights. Nothing is Elite except as compared to something else that may or may not be more elite. So nothing is elite.
EviscerationPlague wrote:
JNAProductions wrote: Okay. And what is the baseline?
Would it be the most common army in the game?
Common in game =/= common in fluff which is what y'all messed up on AGAIN. Otherwise you'd have to argue on whether Harlequins are actually more elite than any other Eldar army.
I've been clear that I'm not talking in-universe. I'm talking real-world.
In the actual world we live in, Marines don't generally feel elite because they're the baseline that most things are measured from.
You can measure from anything and set Elite where you what. If you measure from Navy Seals and call them elite, a lot of National Guard units will not be elite even though you measured from the Seals. Part of the issue may be that "MEQ" has been distrubuted to too many other factions - and that may have some truth to it given the way they backed it out on Necrons.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/07 03:49:39
Tyel wrote: I'll admit this may just be a case of the grass being greener - but I think a lot of this "Marines don't feel elite" is because people only play marines. You therefore don't appreciate the fact your T4 3+ SV 2 wound guys don't die to a stiff breeze of bolter fire like T3 5+ 1 wound guys do.
As it stands a Heavy Intercessor isn't far off a Tyranid Warrior (and will probably get moved closer with surely inevitable 10th edition buffs). Terminators and Bladeguard aren't a million miles away from Custodes.
How much more elite do you want them to be? Should a basic tactical marine be 30 points and have rules to match? With the inevitable uplift of all the "Marines but even better" units to follow?
Actually most of the people posting in favor of making Marines elites are the ones who don't play them. I do play them (though not exclusively) and I'm not really on board - though more from a premise/principle standpoint.
Dudeface wrote: Oh come on, who do space marines fight for again? What's that, the imperium of astartes kind? Humans are the protagonist, they're the reasons marines exist, why they fight.
I don't think you understand what "protagonist" means.
If you believe 4 is the average strength and toughness across infantry for all factions I think you may be in for a shock.
The weighted average, yes. Walk into a typical store and calculate the average S/T of all infantry models on all games being played. Odds are it's pretty close to 4 because most players are playing marines with 4s for those stats. The only reason you'd expect to diverge from that result is that marines also have significant amounts of T5 infantry so depending on the exact marine lists that could push the average higher.
Dudeface wrote: I don't know how else this can be reiterated, it's not about the number of people on the room playing marines, it's about their relative stats etc compared to the rest of the game
So here's a hypothetical: GW introduces a new faction with M1"/WS7+/BS 7+/S1/T1/A1/W1/SV8+, armed with Heavy 1/R1"/S1/AP0/D1 weapons. They cost 500 points per model and $500 per model with some absolutely terrible sculpts so nobody ever plays this army. Are guardsmen now an elite unit? They have considerably higher stats than this new faction and a guardsman is way closer to a marine than to the new faction. Or do you acknowledge that the fact that nobody plays this army means that it doesn't really count and guardsmen are still evaluated relative to the armies people do play, where they are the opposite of elite?
This is not the background forum. This is the general discussion forum.
Your interpretation of the real. The fictional matters because it sets the expectation that Marines are elite, and Guardsmen are not. In the Revolutionary War, the Brits were the "elite", They were also more common than the Continental Army. They were even more common than the German Mercenaries (Guardsmen) that supplemented them. Hollywood and the Victors Writing The History books have turned the Continental Militia as opposed to the Continental Army into the Elite.
No they aren't. The protagonists are marines. They're the face of the franchise, they get the most lore, they are the literal protagonists in most of the books, they have the largest model range with constant new content, and they're the most common army on the table. Normal humans are background NPCs and secondary factions.
Marines are above average in the stats distribution for the game, or are supposed to be. They can be common, but that doesn't mean their stats aren't above average.
How exactly can a stat line be above average if that stat line is 75% or more of the game? If I have the set of values {3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5} then 4 is very clearly the average. It doesn't matter if some 30 year old reference document says that 3 is supposed to be the average, the reality of the actual game being played is that 4 is the average.
Because you're not counting the trillions upon trillions of T2 and T3 "civilians" on all these worlds, and the people who say 3 is the average do not. Compared to the average civilian every military unit is elite.
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Insectum7 wrote: Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
Collecting dust during the era of absolutely horrid blast rules?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/02/07 04:17:49
Marines would/could feel elite in a Necromunda-setting where every other faction is normal humans. In 40K though? There are only about 6 factions with worse baseline stats (IG, GSC, Tyranids, Orks, Daemons, Traitor guard). Then there are factions whose line infantry either has superior or the same Equipment as marines, but some worse stats (Squats, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Sisters). And even fluffwize it's totally fine that these factions are on par with Marines 1:1 on the tabletop. In the scale of 40K a Marine, despite being a genetically altered supersoldier, is just not that awesome because he's facing superrobots, aliens with super tech or aliens that have experience of 10K years.
A whole army of Marines in Gravis armour already stretches the fluff because they're "too elite", their base stats are nearly on par with Custodes who should be much better. 1:1 a Marine shouldn't be better than an aspect warrior, immortal, harlequin or ork nob. Because these are all elite compared to a guardsman, but they're all common units of their faction.
So no, Marines simply aren't elite in the scale of 40K (didn't even touch knights), and it felt really bad for narrative focused play when most other armies had cannon fodder stats compared to them at the start of 9th.
Edited for Daemons
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/07 06:12:47
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Marines would/could feel elite in a Necromunda-setting where every other faction is normal humans. In 40K though? There are only about 6 factions with worse baseline stats (IG, GSC, Tyranids, Orks, Daemons, Traitor guard). Then there are factions whose line infantry either has superior or the same Equipment as marines, but some worse stats (Squats, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Sisters). And even fluffwize it's totally fine that these factions are on par with Marines 1:1 on the tabletop. In the scale of 40K a Marine, despite being a genetically altered supersoldier, is just not that awesome because he's facing superrobots, aliens with super tech or aliens that have experience of 10K years.
A whole army of Marines in Gravis armour already stretches the fluff because they're "too elite", their base stats are nearly on par with Custodes who should be much better. 1:1 a Marine shouldn't be better than an aspect warrior, immortal, harlequin or ork nob. Because these are all elite compared to a guardsman, but they're all common units of their faction.
So no, Marines simply aren't elite in the scale of 40K (didn't even touch knights), and it felt really bad for narrative focused play when most other armies had cannon fodder stats compared to them at the start of 9th.
Edited for Daemons
Is a guardian, the base infantry for eldar, equivalent to a marine? Is a fire warrior as well rounded and capable as a marine?
Even moving on to aspects and nobz, who by fluff are traditionally better at their specialisation than a marine but worse elsewhere. Is a dark reaper as good in melee as a marine? Is a nob as good at shooting?
They keep the old paradigm in place: a marine is better and more well rounded than base infantry for other armies, they're capable of outplaying a foe at what they're weak at and flexible enough that they can pick on that weakness no matter who it is.
That's the fluff and general premise of the marines. It's not super visible any more now that you have things like s5 ap -1 flesh borers knocking about, but they've actually kept that parity going largely.
This is not the background forum. This is the general discussion forum.
Your interpretation of the real. The fictional matters because it sets the expectation that Marines are elite, and Guardsmen are not. In the Revolutionary War, the Brits were the "elite", They were also more common than the Continental Army. They were even more common than the German Mercenaries (Guardsmen) that supplemented them. Hollywood and the Victors Writing The History books have turned the Continental Militia as opposed to the Continental Army into the Elite.
No they aren't. The protagonists are marines. They're the face of the franchise, they get the most lore, they are the literal protagonists in most of the books, they have the largest model range with constant new content, and they're the most common army on the table. Normal humans are background NPCs and secondary factions.
Marines are above average in the stats distribution for the game, or are supposed to be. They can be common, but that doesn't mean their stats aren't above average.
How exactly can a stat line be above average if that stat line is 75% or more of the game? If I have the set of values {3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5} then 4 is very clearly the average. It doesn't matter if some 30 year old reference document says that 3 is supposed to be the average, the reality of the actual game being played is that 4 is the average.
Because you're not counting the trillions upon trillions of T2 and T3 "civilians" on all these worlds, and the people who say 3 is the average do not. Compared to the average civilian every military unit is elite.
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Insectum7 wrote: Again, I'd flip that around and say that Marines don't feel elite because nobody wants to play anything that's "lesser" than Marines. Where are the Guardsmen? Where are the Boyz? Where are the Eldar Guardians? Where are the Termagants and Hormagaunts?
Collecting dust during the era of absolutely horrid blast rules?
I've lost your point several times over amidst all the bluster about how elite is even defined and how, inconsistent and easily changed, fluff somehow matters to that definition. What point were you trying to make again?
Sgt. Cortez wrote: Marines would/could feel elite in a Necromunda-setting where every other faction is normal humans. In 40K though? There are only about 6 factions with worse baseline stats (IG, GSC, Tyranids, Orks, Daemons, Traitor guard). Then there are factions whose line infantry either has superior or the same Equipment as marines, but some worse stats (Squats, Necrons, Tau, Eldar, Sisters). And even fluffwize it's totally fine that these factions are on par with Marines 1:1 on the tabletop. In the scale of 40K a Marine, despite being a genetically altered supersoldier, is just not that awesome because he's facing superrobots, aliens with super tech or aliens that have experience of 10K years.
A whole army of Marines in Gravis armour already stretches the fluff because they're "too elite", their base stats are nearly on par with Custodes who should be much better. 1:1 a Marine shouldn't be better than an aspect warrior, immortal, harlequin or ork nob. Because these are all elite compared to a guardsman, but they're all common units of their faction.
So no, Marines simply aren't elite in the scale of 40K (didn't even touch knights), and it felt really bad for narrative focused play when most other armies had cannon fodder stats compared to them at the start of 9th.
Edited for Daemons
Is a guardian, the base infantry for eldar, equivalent to a marine? Is a fire warrior as well rounded and capable as a marine?
Even moving on to aspects and nobz, who by fluff are traditionally better at their specialisation than a marine but worse elsewhere. Is a dark reaper as good in melee as a marine? Is a nob as good at shooting?
They keep the old paradigm in place: a marine is better and more well rounded than base infantry for other armies, they're capable of outplaying a foe at what they're weak at and flexible enough that they can pick on that weakness no matter who it is.
That's the fluff and general premise of the marines. It's not super visible any more now that you have things like s5 ap -1 flesh borers knocking about, but they've actually kept that parity going largely.
I'd say an Eldar Guardian is more like militia, like a Cultist for CSM and not really the baseline warrior. But I'm not sure if we even have a disagreement?
All I'm saying is Marines are fine overall in comparison to other units. They were too strong at the start of 9th when they were the only ones' with 2 wounds and everything that should have been on par with them was weak (not necessarily pointswize, but statwize). I dislike the Gravis direction, though. T5 3 wound troops as a baseline should be something reserved for... Death Guard maybe, Custodes certainly, but not for Marines.
The real problem is the escalation of AP and damage values which made defense stats less important, but Marines themselves with Ap-2 Bolters started that trend.
Breton wrote: Collecting dust during the era of absolutely horrid blast rules?
i'd argue blast is the lesser evil when it comes to hordes being nerfed
Coherency and engagement range mean that the main draw to playing a horde (board control) is neutered AND your units don't even get to participate 100% in combat if theyre melee-centric
I've lost your point several times over amidst all the bluster about how elite is even defined and how, inconsistent and easily changed, fluff somehow matters to that definition. What point were you trying to make again?
Well considering you just listed my point; I'm guessing you're being dishonest just to get in the insult.
Breton wrote: Collecting dust during the era of absolutely horrid blast rules?
i'd argue blast is the lesser evil when it comes to hordes being nerfed
It may be the lesser of the impediments but it's the first one and it makes the followups moot. Even large throngs of shoota boys or Termagants don't really exist. Or 10 man Marine Squads (Part of that is the free Sergeants but only a small part)
Is a guardian, the base infantry for eldar, equivalent to a marine?
Fairly so. The packaging is different, 2 bases to 1 or so, hidden power swords, support platforms for extra punch or an invuln. 2 Hidden Power swords vs two hidden AGLs, or a Sergeant with a power fist etc... sure - They even have shooty and slashy specific sub-versions. But yeah they end up pretty equivalent point for point in a rules vaccuum.
Is a fire warrior as well rounded and capable as a marine?
I hope not, Fire Warriors - and the Tau in general are intentionally not well rounded on a unit by unit basis.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2023/02/08 06:37:26
Is a guardian, the base infantry for eldar, equivalent to a marine?
Fairly so. The packaging is different, 2 bases to 1 or so, hidden power swords, support platforms for extra punch or an invuln. 2 Hidden Power swords vs two hidden AGLs, or a Sergeant with a power fist etc... sure - They even have shooty and slashy specific sub-versions. But yeah they end up pretty equivalent point for point in a rules vaccuum.
So... no then, a guardian isn't the equal of a marine.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/08 10:11:45
