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Che-Vito wrote:

Strawman arguments aside; what would be nice is consistency between the writers of the codexes.

Eh, you say tomato, I say reductio ad absurdum. Show me a more guaranteed method of balancing the game.

Tyranids and Imperial Guard, not released too far apart. Who got hosed?
Etc., etc.

I _REALLY_ do not think Tyranids are as hosed as the internet believes that they are.

This reminds me of a debate I had with my friend who plays Guard. We had a game where my Khorne Berzekers munched his guardsmen from start to finish, and needless to say it was a veritable slaughter. He then decided that guardsmen need to be good in close combat to stop them from losing. I tried to tell him that that's not what the guard were about, theyre about unstoppable firepower, there is no reason for them to have any CC upgrades. He was insistent that guardsmen should be able to match dedicated CC units at their own game.
It was the way he was playing the Guard that was the problem. He wasn't using them for what they were meant for. He was taking no upgrades in his squads at all. In fact he packed all his men into one large 50 man unit. It was his fluff. His fluff means his men are poorly equipped and its the tanks thats the strength. This was his downfall. He couldnt accept that it was due to him attempting to build a fluffy army that he couldnt beat a fairly normal balanced CSM army. If he had simply played guard as they were supposed to be played, i.e taking plasma/melta in his units, vets, vendettas and whatnot, he would have thrashed me. But he insisted it was a fault with the codex, not his llist.

I think that Tactical Marines are meant to be a shooty unit. Hence why they all have Bolters and the option to upgrade with just about any heavy weapon you please. They are meant to be an anti infantry support unit. They are not meant to be caught in CC. HOWEVER I do agree that they are weak vs their equivalents in other MEQ codexes, but I am no expert and cannot offer a way to fix this issue.

Oh lord...

Then they'd be CSM, essentially.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Oh lord...

Then they'd be CSM, essentially.

Tacticals ARE good enough. Good enough to survive most initial CC. Then you have to decide whether to send your dedicated CC unit to pull their butts out of the flame or ignore them and let them die. I have a friend who occasionally plays his smurfs 60 drop podding tacticals. Invariably they get overrun and suffer horrendous casualties but quite often he ends up winning the battle. I don't expect tacticals to do everything well but they are good enough - when used well - to flexibly deal with any problem.

So why did you quote me?

And the Black Templars? You know, the most Assault-oriented Chapter? Their Tactical Marines are Tactical from the day they're promoted from neophytes until the day they're promoted to veteran, unless they feel like being an assault marine. How do we assign attack values in this case?

Seeing as Black Templar Neophytes do not have the same starting experience as a vanilla Tactical marine, they certianly should not have 2 attacks. They are Neophytes after all, the equivelent to a vanilla devestator in terms of experience. The fact that Templars are assault oriented does not represent a need for veteran based attack bonuses.

Tactical marines, on the other hand, ARE veterans by design, as well as being assault marine graduates. For them, 2 attacks does go a long way to both fitting the fluff for tactical marines and balancing the tactical marine choice over many other troop choices.

PS

It was the way he was playing the Guard that was the problem. He wasn't using them for what they were meant for. He was taking no upgrades in his squads at all. In fact he packed all his men into one large 50 man unit. It was his fluff. His fluff means his men are poorly equipped and its the tanks thats the strength

Sounds like your friend should have been playing with constripts instead of regular platoons. Fluffwise, conscripts are the poor infantry with no real internal support options, but are always fielded in huge numbers.