Is there a place for riflemen in the 41st millenium?

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**Robisagg**

Zelarias wrote:
Isn't most of the problem the fact that "meta" lists used in common play are absolutely disconnected from what an army would deploy based on the stories represented in the fluff?

If we look at the big elephant in the room, the Eldar would be hard pressed to willingly deploy as many wraiths as get tossed around on the table unless you're looking at Lyanden. Wraiths are like a last resort type thing as the use of them is taboo in and of itself. But when you go play somewhere the sight of them is just "meh, whatever, here they are again..."

We get breakdowns of how armies typically behave in our codex, yet many lists don't even deploy what would be typical of their army. Just looking at the typical "Use scouts instead of actual Marines" for the Space Marines is an example, where the durability and dangerous bolters of the Marines are actually feared when they show up by even the Eldar. Scouts would be valuable in seeing what the enemy has and how they're deployed, but they're not going to be the only troops Space Marines are going to send in to a fight. The Tau might not be as scared, but Assault Marines are something they would fear coming from somewhere hidden on the field of battle, even with interceptor possibilities.

The common place strategies used on the table have stepped so far from what your own books tell you that your army would use that you're saying "yeah they don't work because of the mass amounts of top notch heavy items used by us." Yet, that's not going to be what these armies use unless they absolutely have to in an escalated conflict. Marines aren't going to be pouring Land Raiders into every conflict that pops up. The IG aren't going to be approved to send masses of Baneblades, Stormlords, etc to conflicts as the costs outweigh the deployment of them even if they would help. Read the description of the Deathstrike as one example.

Of course the problem comes in that we don't worry about this sort of stuff when making lists to use in battles, as they aren't really part of the game. Yes one can argue that points attempt to simulate this, but they really don't.

That's one of the nice things about formations, they're generally good representations of what would happen in the fluff. A codex adherant chapter would totally deploy with what the gladius gives them.