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 deviantduck wrote:

Spoiler:

 Xenomancers wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 deviantduck wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
The longer the game goes the more marines are likely to lose anyways - being a glass cannon army with 0 mobility.

I enjoy most of your SM grievances as whimsical hyperbole, but when did T4 power armor become fragile? Who isn't a glass canon then?

Ehh - it's mostly due to the lack of invo saves that I call them glass cannons. I'm not even referring to space marines more like their competitive options - nothing in power armor except devastators are competitive (they are most certainly glass cannnons too).

By that logic, Dark Eldar Venoms are a bastion of invulnerability while Land Raiders are glass cannons

Considering the have the same to wound roll from a las cannon and will get the same saving throw as well. The venom is actually harder to wound than a LR with a las cannon because it has natural -1 to hit.

3 venoms 240 points and has 18 wounds
1 land raidercrusader (the cheapest one) is 308 points and has 16 wounds.

Without even doing the math I can already tell you that venoms are more resilant to las cannons that land raiders are per point. Lets see how bad it actually is.

LR vs BS3+ LC
(2/3)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5)= .1.04 average damage to a landraider = 15.38 las cannons to kill 1 lan raider (308 cost)

Venom vs BS3+ LC
(1/2)(2/3)(2/3)(3.5) = .78 average damage to a Venom = 23.08 las cannons to kill 3 venoms (240 cost)

and Venoms get wounds at a 78% discount compared to a land raider too.

So...it's pretty clear that the land raider is not tough at all in practice.

That's a great argument against 1 gun that ignore toughness and armor saves. Now do the same math for Bolters.

Lol, right? Or any middle-range, commonly-used weapon, like an assault cannon. "If I use the gun that's optimized to kill X unit against both X and Y, Y is clearly the superior unit! Unfair!" I really think he/she is missing the point that invulnerable saves are far from the end-all be-all in determining the resiliency of a unit (notice how quick he was to change his argument from that to "oh, yeah, the -1 to hit *also*").

 Grimgold wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
SM are great but they will never get a fair shake here due to the sentiment prevailing in these parts. Thus it is a waste of time to argue the point.

Robby G ultramarines are really the only competitive list for pure marines, and even that has been kind of limp as of late. It's not like we pulled this opinions out of thin air, If you check the blood of kittens rankings, space marines are decidedly mediocre. Go check the ultramarines winning lists, and you'll see they bring as few marines as possible, especially the most recent ones. The current ITC faction rules muddy the waters, but if you look at the lists it's pretty clear space marines aren't doing well.

The issue is that marines haven't been doing well for a long time, even in 7th ed you had to give them hundreds of points worth of free units and a silver bullet in the form of grav to make them competitive. While there have been many changes with 8th ed, the fundamental challenges of marines haven't changed. Being a master of none puts them on their back foot whenever they fight specialist, which is made worse by the fact they are bad at controlling the flow of battle. Another issue is the game is also so saturated with power armor that everyone brings weapons to deal with power armor just as a matter of course. An issue that GW is only making worse. Primaris marines try to address this by making them master of some, but GW has crippled them with the restrictions on load out.

Here is the thing - top players have always eschewed using Space Marine armies plus they look for spamming and cheap ways to win, they are not always the best players by any means. I am doing very well with my Ultramarines army.

Define very well. Any recent GT victories? How about major recent events? After all this is a thread about COMPETITIVE marine players...

Oh, you are doing good in your local beer and pretzels meta and haven't faced a 30 dark reaper list, or 20 something shining spears, nope no malific lord spam or how about that hot assassin army when it came out. 3x fire raptors, tiggy and gman, morty+magnus, oblits cultists and berserkers, dakka fexes and GS, how's it going against IG lists, plasma scion spam, you know COMPETITIVE LISTS.

Your local experiences do not set the meta for everyone. If you are having a hard time understanding that marines are having trouble in the current meta get outside of your bubble and look at some of the math people present or the recent tournament data. There was a recent podcast breakdown of tournament results that did a good job of breaking down the top factions.

Unless you are the best space marine player in the history of 40k and have some super-secret list that is better than anyone else out there playing your results are an outlier and have little to no bearing on the situation that COMPETITIVE marine players are finding themselves in.

I recently played in a very competitive local league, some of the players won GTs. I did not win every game but I did well like I said.

 Primark G wrote:
Space Marines have scouts and Intercessors which are both excellent troop choices and cheap. Space Marines are generalists so you can't make a case that there is poor internal balance - they can do anything, not that you necessarily should. Alot of the new units are very good in fact such as already mentioned Intercessors, you mentioned Hellblasters... Chapter Approved in general was very good for Primaris units.

"Poor internal balance" doesn't mean that the Space Marines are worse at something than a more specialized army. "Poor internal balance" means that the Space Marine book contains units that are fine and workable (like the aforementioned Intercessors and Scouts) alongside units that are ridiculous and unplayable (Assault Marines, for instance).

Given the vast number of units in the Space Marine Codex and the poor internal balance between those units it is entirely too easy to build a whole army around units that look cool and are actually somewhere from mediocre to terrible (Tactical Marines, Assault Marines, and Land Raiders are the ones I've got personal experience with finding to be terrible) and conclude that the Codex as a whole is terrible. Which is the source of a lot of the griping.

Internal balance is only a real problem if you have to spam a few select units. This is not the case for SM.

But you do have to spam a few select units. The fact that there are many options (ranging from mediocre to terrible) as alternatives isn't very helpful. This is a criticism i have with all codexes, not just marines - there shouldn't be 1 or 2 viable builds. There should be a book worth of viable units, allowing for many viable builds. But sadly there is not, and never has been. :(

 Primark G wrote:
Internal balance is only a real problem if you have to spam a few select units. This is not the case for SM.

Internal balance is a problem any time you open your Codex, find a unit entry, and think to yourself "This is terrible, why would I ever use it?"

The point of "balance" is to allow someone with no knowledge or experience of the game to walk up to a wall in a store somewhere, see something that looks cool, buy it, put it on the table, and have fun. If you buy a unit, put it on the table, and find out that it's never even remotely useful and any time and money you may have spent on it is pointless, then "balance" has failed to serve its purpose.

There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -

Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex...

...So I'm guessing you have a reason why Assault Marines aren't terrible?

Or Servitors. I'd love to see someone argue that servitors aren't complete junk.

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -

Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor

Hellblasters - arguably the best unit in the codex but what do I do with them? Their transport is 300 points - they can't deep strike in any way except for RG infiltrate but then you can't use Guilliman which means they rest of your list sucks now.
Intercessors - not terrible but not great ether - probably need to drop to 16 points to be viable.
Scouts - Scouts are bad - straight up.
Redemptor - Pretty model but terribly bad. Easy to kill because no ino - -1 to hit when it moves - gets shredded by anti tank without doing much damage.
Inceptors - Much better with CA - still not great. Vs the weapons that hurt them the die just as fast as 18 points intersessors - they suck.
HQ including special characters - Ultra marine Chacters are good. The rest of the characters don't matter because you have to play ultra marines.
Assault Centurians - Deployment options - 300 point LR - 80 point drop pod that does nothing but shoot a storm bolter - foot slog expensive AF units up the middle with no invo save - AKA not a viable unit.
Assault cannon RZBs - Great all around weapon platform - crucial weakness - short range/penalty for moving/ gets assaulted because you have no screens making it worthless.
Predators - Our best tank- great firepower - Very mediocre everything else T7/no invo/expensive per wound/-1 to hit if it moves/worthless if it gets assaulted. (compare to a crimson hunter - see why it sucks)
Repulsor - Hilariously high number of light guns - hilariously easy to kill for a 300 point model. Not viable.

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -

Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor

I would take away Redemptor Dread and Assault Centurions (only Stromraven and LR could bring them into range in 8th, Droppod Ass Centurion is long kaput).

I am 50/50 about the Repulsor, it is too expensive and not hard to take down if not buffed by Tigirius, but it has the dakka and is the only way to keep your Hellblaster / Aggressors alive before they get into their optimum fire range. Had it been for 260pts or 270pts mark instead of 310pts mark, I would have no comment about putting it in this list.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -

Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor

Hellblasters - arguably the best unit in the codex but what do I do with them? Their transport is 300 points - they can't deep strike in any way except for RG infiltrate but then you can't use Guilliman which means they rest of your list sucks now.
Intercessors - not terrible but not great ether - probably need to drop to 16 points to be viable.
Scouts - Scouts are bad - straight up.
Redemptor - Pretty model but terribly bad. Easy to kill because no ino - -1 to hit when it moves - gets shredded by anti tank without doing much damage.
Inceptors - Much better with CA - still not great. Vs the weapons that hurt them the die just as fast as 18 points intersessors - they suck.
HQ including special characters - Ultra marine Chacters are good. The rest of the characters don't matter because you have to play ultra marines.
Assault Centurians - Deployment options - 300 point LR - 80 point drop pod that does nothing but shoot a storm bolter - foot slog expensive AF units up the middle with no invo save - AKA not a viable unit.
Assault cannon RZBs - Great all around weapon platform - crucial weakness - short range/penalty for moving/ gets assaulted because you have no screens making it worthless.
Predators - Our best tank- great firepower - Very mediocre everything else T7/no invo/expensive per wound/-1 to hit if it moves/worthless if it gets assaulted. (compare to a crimson hunter - see why it sucks)
Repulsor - Hilariously high number of light guns - hilariously easy to kill for a 300 point model. Not viable.

Sorry this whole post reads like you don't know how to play space marines, no wonder you think their awful.
Scouts are bad? Nope scouts are great at what you need them to do namely block deepstrikers and infiltarators.

Need raven guard to infiltrate some helblasters? Take a RG detachment. The rest of your list can use crunchy Rowboat.

I saw a good list at game kastle (2nd place?), from memory it was something like this:

Ravenguard battalion
Librarian Libraian
3x Scouts

Raptors spearhead?
Issodon + Lieutenant
Banner guy with relic for 3+ dead shoot
3x devastators all with lascannons

Guard Battalion
2x commander
3x guardsmen with mortars
2x basilisk and a manticore

I pretty much ignore Xenomancer now, he has never had anything good to say about SM. Hellblasters have an effective range of 36" - it’s not rocket science.

While I love the Repulsor I don’t use it as much because of the point sink. Redemptors however are really good, I run one with plasma and the other with MOG - they do some work.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex...

...So I'm guessing you have a reason why Assault Marines aren't terrible?

Cheapest Deep Strike capable unit in the codex I think. Takes a FA slot for brigade with a unique role in that slot. People say they suck at melee but imo the most valuable thing about melee sometimes is just forcing a unit to not fire next turn.

Not to mention they would have more of a place if people played with more terrain, particularly ruins. Not every unit has to be equally viable on the sort of tables I see most tournaments run.

Ideally they would be a point less. Assault Marines pay 3 points for their Jump Packs while Vanguard pay 2, which is odd.

 Primark G wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
SM are great but they will never get a fair shake here due to the sentiment prevailing in these parts. Thus it is a waste of time to argue the point.

Robby G ultramarines are really the only competitive list for pure marines, and even that has been kind of limp as of late. It's not like we pulled this opinions out of thin air, If you check the blood of kittens rankings, space marines are decidedly mediocre. Go check the ultramarines winning lists, and you'll see they bring as few marines as possible, especially the most recent ones. The current ITC faction rules muddy the waters, but if you look at the lists it's pretty clear space marines aren't doing well.

The issue is that marines haven't been doing well for a long time, even in 7th ed you had to give them hundreds of points worth of free units and a silver bullet in the form of grav to make them competitive. While there have been many changes with 8th ed, the fundamental challenges of marines haven't changed. Being a master of none puts them on their back foot whenever they fight specialist, which is made worse by the fact they are bad at controlling the flow of battle. Another issue is the game is also so saturated with power armor that everyone brings weapons to deal with power armor just as a matter of course. An issue that GW is only making worse. Primaris marines try to address this by making them master of some, but GW has crippled them with the restrictions on load out.

Here is the thing - top players have always eschewed using Space Marine armies plus they look for spamming and cheap ways to win, they are not always the best players by any means. I am doing very well with my Ultramarines army.

So to see if I'm picking up what you're putting down:

1.) Top players eschew marines for no good reason, have always done so.
a.) Demonstrably false, top players played the gak out of gladius lists. I'd go so far as to say top players out of all players care the least about faction and fluff, they will play whatever is easiest to win with.
2.) It's not because marines are bad, it's just the top players are looking for easy ways to win.
a.) Since the thread is about competition, good is defined having an advantage in competitive games, which makes it easier to win. If marines are not easy to win with, you can't define them as good in a competitive sense.
3.) Top players aren't necessarily the best players.
a.) Best is often subjective, so lets do something quantifiable instead. Since this is a thread about competition, the "best" players are those that are most successful in competitions. So a priori, the best players are the top players.
4.) You are doing great with your ultramarines
a.) Anecdotal, it would be like me saying I'm doing well with my necrons so necrons are great.

I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.

 Primark G wrote:
There are no terribad units in the codex. Some of the really solid units are -

Hellblasters
Intercessors
Scouts
Redemptor
Inceptors
HQ including special characters
Assault Centurians
Assault cannon RZBs
Predators
Repulsor

!Warning wall of text incoming!

I'm curious, can you point me to a competitive list that used any of these units and won or placed well in a major event or GT? Also, why do you think these units are so good?

The only comp I see performing well at major tournies is RG, Stormravens (which didn't even make your list), tiggy and some scouts. I'd also include some of the sicarnian pattern tanks as "good" units (although my local doesn't allow FW )

These units are okay in the marine book but compared to options from other army they are middling at best.

Hellblasters are good but the require a lot of support units to use efficiently. Running them as RG is probably the best bet but then you have 600 points of RG (2x hellblasters, something else to fill out a spear head, captain with a JP, ancient is right around 600) Outperformed by good units from other dexs

Intercessors are okay but don't have a large enough footprint to prevent deepstriking and offensively they are a joke (less than 1 wound per turn of shooting against MEQ, .66 x .5 x .5 x 5 = .825 for 90 points will take you how many turns to earn your points back) there are much better mid-field objective campers (tac squads with heavy bolters, scout squads, dev squads)

Scouts are good mostly for their deployment. Adding a heavy bolter to take advantage of the strat is okay and a storm bolter on the sarge is gravy. Still out-performed by a lot of other options in competitive dex.

Redemptor. We disagree a lot on this choice. Degrading profile, too many points, -1 to hit and move. Running it as IH or RG helps with survivability but it costs too many points to include enough other targets so that it doesn't get shot to pieces. PoTMS would really help this as well as that plasma cannon being 3d3 (which would then put it on my list for good units). It pays too much for its close combat abilities to only use as a dakka platform but it suffers to hit penalties trying to get it into combat so you are spending points for abilities you will only use for 1/2 to 1/3 of the game. Venerable dreads are a much better point investment and again this option is outclassed by many options from other dexs. Considering I coulod get 2x mortis dreads for about the same cost with 24 heavy bolter shots or 27 shots from a sicaran punisher for less points @ 36" I'm not sure why I'd take a redemptor, ever.

Inceptors With the points changes to CA these guys are fun but I find them to be surprisingly fragile. Against armies I can deep strike against they at least get one good round of shooting but by then most of the other good targets for my enemy are gone and they get focused down/assaulted after they land. They work really well in RGs re-roll bubble but don't work so well without those re-rolls. I feel these guys suffer from what most of the dex does is that they are costed with the assumption they are in that re-roll bubble and if they are not their performance falls off a cliff. Good mobility, I'd love if their range was 24" but no big deal. I'd never use the plasma ones as they are way too fragile. Again for the marine dex they're good but compared against good units from other dexs they fall way short.

HQ including special characters I'm assuming you mean ultramarines (and Lias issadon he's fun). Tiggy is great, captians and LTs are pretty much what make the army viable, librarians are okay (I wish they had better powers, null zone is so situational sometimes it's a game winner but others it's a waste) I like chronus but with ITC rules whatever he is driving becomes a point pinata and dies asap.

Assault Centurians Another unit I really disagree with you on and not just because it is impossible to get them up the field without investing another 300 points into the unit. Once you get them up the field they only get to engage what your opponent wants them to and then that's it. They can't sit back and wait for the opponent to come to you and counter charge because they are that slow and expensive. 200+ points for 7 attacks is a bad investment on a unit that can move 4+d6 a turn and dies to anything beyond a light breeze. You're better off spending these points on a contemptor dread or pretty much anything else. Are you sure this isn't a typo?

Assault cannon RZBs Hard to argue with this choice. Amazing vehicle for SM but with ITC champion missions being what they are you can't field 5+ of these guys anymore since most tournies (competitive events) use the ITC missions and only half-assing armor will just get them shot off the table 1st turn. But compare these guys to options from other dexs (for 28 more points you can have a LRuss with 40 shots, no -1 for moving which does about twice the wounds to MEQ, has more toughness and t8 is very valuable with the types of weapons out there, eldar, 6+ on s4s AND gets tactics) Again, excellent for the marine dex but merely good when compared to other dexs options.

Predator Suffers from the same "but other armies do it better" and "you better have 5 of them because 2-3 are going to pop first turn" like most of the stuff on this list. Pred AC is good for 40 points but the -1 ap just isn't enough (-2 ap and then we'd have something). Also T7 3+ might as well be a wet paper sack in the current meta. They perform really well with killshot but that requires a 500ish point investment and goes out the window after turn 1. Works really well with RG (heavy bolters and pred AC) but then that really limits your tactical options because you really want them to stay still with the -1 to hit penalty.

Repulsor Again I strongly disagree with this inclusion as well. 300 points is a major investment and it just doesn't get enough done to be worth it. Get rid of the transport ability and make it cost 225-250 or get rid of most of the guns and let it be a transport for 200 and it might have a spot. A 4++ would go a long way to make it more survivable but there is just too much anti-tank firepower at a competitive table to make this thing work. You'd need to field at least 2 of them and other armor to achieve sufficient target saturation and that is hard to do in marine armies. There's a reason you don't see these or Land Raiders in tournament lists.

TL;DR:Some of these units are good in comparison to other units in the marine dex. Most of these don't appear in any competitive list that has won or placed well in a major and when compared to good units from other dexes almost all of them are inferior by a substantial margin.

I don't see how any of these units are the answer to making marines competitive or making a competitive marine list (unless we are just competing against other marines).

What's the list that you are running that is doing so well against GT winning lists?

Maybe that will give us some insight into what combos/strats you are using to make these units work because I just can't see it while getting my helmets beat in by dark reapers, shinning spears, wave serpants, wraiths, oblits, cultists, berzerkers, noise marines, manticores, basilisks, guardsmen, russes, assassins, plasma scions, mortars, genestealers, carnifexes, flyrants, morry+magnus, DPs, blightlaunchers, drones, celestine+repressors+meltas, hella boyz and the occasional Y'vhra.

Hey bananathug you really crack me up.

How long has eighth been out now? Some Bobby G gun lines have won major events. Gladius was great but that was old edition.

One point I’d like to make is Hellblasters are simply point and click... Ultramarines can burn 1 CP reroll 1s. I run Inceptors with plasma exterminators - five man squad... this seems like the magic number for me and obviously you don’t throw them into melee. They can deep strike, highly mobile and 2d3 shots per model is rock solid with 18" range - they are great with the point reduction now. There might be better units that basically do the same things as the Predator but it’s really good at what it does and is fairly costed... I like it better than RZBs TBH.

I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.

This is as of last September...

Below is the current breakdown of what armies are winning events. The list combines all the top lists for 8th edition 2017 ITC season events only, taking only the top three from each Major or GT.
9 Ultramarines
9 Astra Militarum
7 Daemons
5 Chaos Space Marines
5 Ynnari.
4 Orks.
4 Space Marines
3 T'au Empire

 Primark G wrote:
How long has eighth been out now? Some Bobby G gun lines have won major events.

Didn't these wins occur when Marines were the only/one of a handful of armies with an actual codex?

No that’s not the case.

ERJAK wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Marines are struggling badly in this edition. There is no "silver bullet" style unit like dark reapers in the marine codex.

Ultramarines do okay because of Guilliman.

This is a lot like saying 'oh yeah guard suck this edition actually. They only do okay because of tanks.' Guilliman makes ultras good=Ultras ARE good.


More seriously, here ya go:

http://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/

And Tyranids were good in 6th/7th edition because Flyrants existed.

Seriously, try a little harder.

 Primark G wrote:
No that’s not the case.

Yes that is the case. The only ultra army that has placed since CWE codex came out is RG and stormravens

https://bloodofkittens.com/blog/category/community-2/tournaments/
https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/22/signals-from-the-frontline-574/

SM are the 19th (out of 29) ranked army ranked by average ITC points (bottom 3rd) and that number is inflated by early dominance before other codexes dropped. This is data from thousands of tournaments, the only armies performing worse are:

Tau Empire 59
Imperial Knights 59
Grey Knights 58
Drukhari 58
Dark Angels 57
Adeptus Mechanicus 56
Space Wolves 54
Necrons 53
Deathwatch 52

Tied with nids which won't last long since Nids are performing much better since the codex has come out.

I'm not sure how aware the "sm are okay you're just doing it wrong" are of the current competitive meta so I'd suggest people take a listen to this which breaks down the performance of all of the factions from thousands of games and see how much of an outlier your experiences are:

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/12/18/chapter-tactics-50-year-in-review-and-which-factions-dominated-2017/

10d3 (or 15) shots w/ rerolls, 7 unsaved v MEQ, 5 vs t7 and 3 vs t8+for 300 points and a command point is not really a point efficient points per wound inflicted compared to what other good units from other armies get. (overcharging is dangerous on the unit but with re-rolls only a 50% chance of losing one but to lose a 2 w model that cost about 60 points seems like a big risk to me) With overcharge you are pretty much trading this unit for whatever they end up shooting at (since you need to be within 18" or closer if your enemy has any screen) and there isn't a lot worth 300 points that they kill in one turn.
They work for Dark Angels, not so much for vanilla SM unless you have a very specific target you are going after.

I have beat Nidz every time I played them this edition with their new codex - don’t take me wrong they are the schnitzel but then again maybe I’m just another lucky guy.

So you don’t know a good acumen of tactics for Inceptors - they are a support unit, you don’t throw them away chasing after some hard target you want to erase. If you combine them with other units to finish off a unit they do just fine. Inceptors are really good now.

 Primark G wrote:
Hey bananathug you really crack me up.

How long has eighth been out now? Some Bobby G gun lines have won major events. Gladius was great but that was old edition.

One point I’d like to make is Hellblasters are simply point and click... Ultramarines can burn 1 CP reroll 1s. I run Inceptors with plasma exterminators - five man squad... this seems like the magic number for me and obviously you don’t throw them into melee. They can deep strike, highly mobile and 2d3 shots per model is rock solid with 18" range - they are great with the point reduction now. There might be better units that basically do the same things as the Predator but it’s really good at what it does and is fairly costed... I like it better than RZBs TBH.

I get it, you enjoy playing your marines, and you win quite a bit in your local meta. However, when talking about faction balance, you have to set personal experience aside and look at the data. If you exclude lists that are minority space marines from the space marine top placements, you are basically left with a handful of victories for a faction that is played at twice to three times the rate as the next most played faction.

This is as of last September...

Below is the current breakdown of what armies are winning events. The list combines all the top lists for 8th edition 2017 ITC season events only, taking only the top three from each Major or GT.
9 Ultramarines
9 Astra Militarum
7 Daemons
5 Chaos Space Marines
5 Ynnari.
4 Orks.
4 Space Marines
3 T'au Empire

Check the lists, they aren't marines lists, here is tom leighton:



4 storm ravens, tiggy and robby G, with 10 scouts and two assassins. That pattern holds for all but one of the six most recent wins, that's why I told you to go check the lists. People aren't playing ultramarines, they are playing flyer spam starring Robby G as a cheerleader.

That’s one list.

 Grimgold wrote:

4 storm ravens, tiggy and robby G, with 10 scouts and two assassins. That pattern holds for all but one of the six most recent wins, that's why I told you to go check the lists. People aren't playing ultramarines, they are playing flyer spam starring Robby G as a cheerleader.

Uhhh...how is that not playing Ultramarines? That'd be like me saying, "Tau players weren't playing Tau, they were playing Riptide Wing" or "Eldar weren't playing Eldar, they were playing Scatbikes and Wraithknights" in 7th. That'd be just silly. Spamming the most powerful units for your faction is the norm in tournaments. Emphasis on "for your faction." Like Ultramarines with its flyers. It comes across like you're trying to redefine factions or move the goalposts because you're being proven wrong.

I'm going to jump in with some two cents about some things with the disclaimer that I am not a national level tournament player, but I feel some things should be said about some point raised:

Scouts: decent rules on these guys, mixed with being 2ppm cheaper than Tacticals (and the cheapest troop choice for Marines period) make these a reasonable bare bones choice for someone looking to fill their Troops quota without loading up on a bunch of stuff. A squad of 5 with bolters will only run 55 points which is a steal for Marine players, and even if you go up to ten they'll only set you back 110 points base.

Basically you use these guys a lot like Battle Sisters: slightly more fragile versions of Marines whom you can use to hold objectives or support other units via shooting at a medium to close range (basically just inside of Rapid Fire range).

Now they aren't going to be more points efficient than Imperial Guard, or some things in other armies, but they will at least give you some cheaper troops you can use to do things with if you're one of those people avoiding the Imperial Soup approach to list building.

Marines in General:
We can argue points efficiency all day, but honestly I feel that's better suited as a tool to decide to take codex unit a or codex unit b inside of the same codex. Once you start comparing options inside of different armies with all the different toys they have it gets hard to give fair assessments to things.

Bare bones Tactical Marines running bolters can put more wounds on a wide array of units while not taking as many wounds back. I've crunched numbers on this and this is one of the reasons I actually feel that the current points system actually has a fair amount of balance when we exclude all other factors and bonuses. When we start factoring in all the ways an army can buff itself is when the scale of balance basically gives up and runs home crying tears of blood.

What I've come to see as a problem is less the points costs for specific models, or even wargear, but rather all the things armies are being given for free.

The worst offender of these is definitely stratagems. Marines are currently paying 1-2 more command points for a number of stratagems that other armies have, but only have to pay a single point for. Yes, Marines are "tankier" than other armies, but they're still largely single wound models (outside of more elite units like Primaris and Terminator models), and even then they don't match the potential damage out put or wound count of horde armies of the same points level. 130 points can get you 10 points of Tactical Marines, or 32 Guardsmen, or 32 Termagaunts, or 12 Scouts, or.... you get the point. The slight bump from S3 to S4 for a bolter with no AP value is not enough to make up for lower number of shots (even with the 1/6 increase in wounding against most things, or the 1/6 increase in hitting most things compared to a number of models/units) and the slight bump in toughness and save over some units doesn't give the Marines the staying power to really fix the problem either.

Sure cover gives Marines a 2+ save but the combination of how many ways there are to strip cover, and the number of ways there are to reduce a Marine's armour save means that any cover you have needs to basically block line of sight or it's not going to benefit the unit.

I know this sounds odd considering that I starting by saying that Marines aren't that bad, but remember, that's only in a perfect vacuum where we compare the number of wounds traded, not the points lost from said wounds.

And let's not even get into the mess that is Orders versus Chapter Tactics. I'm still trying to work out how Marines, who have hundreds of years of training and combat experience over normal humans, are less tactically flexible than humans, many of which were only fully trained en route to whatever theater of war they're being sent to die in.

Even Guilliman, the tactical genius who penned the original Codex Astartes which was said to have tactics for just about every situation, every foe known to man at that time, and every possible way to cordinate your forces doesn't even escape this problem. Humans who probably haven't even started shaving yet are more capable of adjusting tactics on the fly than a PRIMARCH. What. The. Smegging. Warp.

I'm not saying Marines should have Orders, oh definitely not, but they should have rules under their Chapter Tactics you can adjust to. Say two, maybe three things that are themed around how the chapter handles things. One for facing foes that outnumber them, one for facing big threats (like Primarchs, knights, ect), and one for dealing with MEQ. Something you can have a unit change from one to the next based on what you want it to do that turn (just like you can with Orders only the unit doesn't need an HQ to turn the rule on, they unit just does it).

Basically, the Marines need the tactical flexibility that makes them stand out in the fluff for them to stand out on the table, and they need to be able to do it without paying extra on stratagems that everyone else gets cheaper at the discount store.

Primaris:
Okay, I'm done venting like a warp core threatening to breach and can calmly state my case about Primaris.

Primaris Marines aren't solely to be what we think Marines "should" be like. I mean it's definitely part of it, and it feels that was part of the design goal with their rules and stats, but I think there is another point to be made for them and their limited wargear options.

See, the Primaris are trying to be what we feel an army of elite post-humans should be while also calling back to the Horus Heresy with specialized units that focus around one task (thinning hordes, killing elite units, ect). Horus Heresy armies play more like powered armoured Eldar with units synergizing with each other to accomplish goals. It's a neat nod to how someone like Guilliman would likely have established the program during the days of the Scouring Era before the final form of Space Marines Chapters were likely founded. Basically they're the Legions given a modern, more chapter focused, take.

Tabletop wise though I feel that they basically suffer from the same problems regular Marines do. They are easily outgunned and can be suppressed due to the high number of wounds enemy armies are currently bringing to the table, and while tougher than regular Marines their extra cost for that additional toughness just makes them face the same problem at an increased rate.

Speaking from experience with Sisters: when you can bring more models to the table than the opponent, your chances of winning increase just because they won't be able to kill everything fast enough.

This whole mess for both kinds of Marines is only compounded further by the fact that the anti-horde weapons of old are basically not functioning well enough. They don't scale well to large units (I really feel they should be on a D3 system with small blasts getting an extra die if the unit has ten or more models and the large blasts getting a D3 for every 5 models in the target unit, with both getting at least one die) nor do they points cost appropriately for what they can do on the table. This poor functionality for anti-horde weapons is frankly why things like the Vindicator aren't seeing games nearly as much as they should.

I loved taking my Storm hawk interceptor as an anti flyer unit seeing as how I play Tau and Eldar a lot.
Now all I see is a disappointment after seeing the Crimson
Hunter Exarch in the CWE codex.
A majority of my games is placing guys, moving them if i get first turn and removing them. I understand having different things in different armies but I'm at a loss here...