Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Same in Helsreach, tbh, Grimaldus and friends are said to be overwhelmed by a mob of 30 Boys in melee. We're talking 5-6 Marines there, with a Reclusiarch and his command squad.

Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't generalize like that, there's some good fluff that has Marines playing to their strengths.

That's not the sort of stuff I see people referencing when they complain that their Marines aren't heroic enough on the tabletop, though.

People, in general, go for the fluffy interpretation they prefer (I do that, too).

When someone wants changes to the game according to the lore, they really should be saying according to MY prefered lore, because it's so dang inconsistent. Personally, I prefer the Marines to be a lot more toned down than most, for reasons explained in my previous post in this thread.

 catbarf wrote:

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

catbarf wrote:From a gameplay perspective I would be interested to hear from bolters-need-buffs proponents what Marines should be good and bad at for the points. Because the power fantasy of Marines being highly lethal, highly durable, and also lightning-fast can not hold up in a balanced game; at a macro level you don't get to be good at everything. It's historically been that Marines are pretty middle of the road in terms of mobility, but had higher durability at the cost of raw firepower. Give Marines an offensive boost and hike their base cost, and then the complaint will be that they're too fragile for the points.

Keen to hear your take on Custodes too. Not trying to play gotcha... just genuinely curious to know how you feel about their playstyle.

Part of the problem is that 40K's design space is fairly limited, so Custodes are pretty much more Marine-y Marines. Army-wide heroic intervention is good, but I like the idea that they're constantly wargaming and have a contingency for every threat, and they could lean into that further than the current ka'tah system. Something more along the lines of picking a stance for each unit per turn, for example. They also strike me more as 'stoic guardians' than the lightning-strike ethos of Marines, so shouldn't be reliant on abilities like Shock Assault for peak effectiveness. Layer those on top of models that are individually superior to Marines, but otherwise have a similar balance of offense/defense/mobility for the points, and you'd get an army that plays pretty differently and has the capability to punch above its weight if used well.

As with Marines, the problem with a jack-of-all-trades approach is that at a macro level they need to out-shoot the melee specialists and out-melee the ranged specialists. This is where I think expectations derived from fluff are an issue; nothing you read in Marine/Custodes fiction primes you to think 'I shouldn't get into melee with Slugga Boyz because point-for-point they'll tear me apart'. There's a disconnect between the power-fantasy themes of the novels and the needs of a balanced tabletop wargame.

point for point marines kick the teeth in of ork boyz in melee. when orks were 7 points per model you were right, at 9 points.. not really

10 boyz w/nob who has a big choppa 95 points

10 T5 bodies, nob has 2 wounds 11 wounds total

9x3 ork boyz attack hitting on 3/s 27 attacks, 17.8 hits, wounding on 4's 8.9 wounds. power armor ignores the choppa AP, saves on 3's, 2.8 wounds.

big choppa swings, 3 attacks, 2 hits, wounds on 3's so 1 wound, ap ignored because reasons, .5 wounds, if it goes through kills that second marine wasting the damage2.

so assuming they get the charge the dedicated melee unit takes out 1-2 intercessors meaning 20-40 points. if the intercessors get the charge bring that to 1 casualty.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

catbarf wrote:From a gameplay perspective I would be interested to hear from bolters-need-buffs proponents what Marines should be good and bad at for the points. Because the power fantasy of Marines being highly lethal, highly durable, and also lightning-fast can not hold up in a balanced game; at a macro level you don't get to be good at everything. It's historically been that Marines are pretty middle of the road in terms of mobility, but had higher durability at the cost of raw firepower. Give Marines an offensive boost and hike their base cost, and then the complaint will be that they're too fragile for the points.

Keen to hear your take on Custodes too. Not trying to play gotcha... just genuinely curious to know how you feel about their playstyle.

Part of the problem is that 40K's design space is fairly limited, so Custodes are pretty much more Marine-y Marines. Army-wide heroic intervention is good, but I like the idea that they're constantly wargaming and have a contingency for every threat, and they could lean into that further than the current ka'tah system. Something more along the lines of picking a stance for each unit per turn, for example. They also strike me more as 'stoic guardians' than the lightning-strike ethos of Marines, so shouldn't be reliant on abilities like Shock Assault for peak effectiveness. Layer those on top of models that are individually superior to Marines, but otherwise have a similar balance of offense/defense/mobility for the points, and you'd get an army that plays pretty differently and has the capability to punch above its weight if used well.

As with Marines, the problem with a jack-of-all-trades approach is that at a macro level they need to out-shoot the melee specialists and out-melee the ranged specialists. This is where I think expectations derived from fluff are an issue; nothing you read in Marine/Custodes fiction primes you to think 'I shouldn't get into melee with Slugga Boyz because point-for-point they'll tear me apart'. There's a disconnect between the power-fantasy themes of the novels and the needs of a balanced tabletop wargame.

point for point marines kick the teeth in of ork boyz in melee. when orks were 7 points per model you were right, at 9 points.. not really

10 boyz w/nob who has a big choppa 95 points

10 T5 bodies, nob has 2 wounds 11 wounds total

9x3 ork boyz attack hitting on 3/s 27 attacks, 17.8 hits, wounding on 4's 8.9 wounds. power armor ignores the choppa AP, saves on 3's, 2.8 wounds.

big choppa swings, 3 attacks, 2 hits, wounds on 3's so 1 wound, ap ignored because reasons, .5 wounds, if it goes through kills that second marine wasting the damage2.

so assuming they get the charge the dedicated melee unit takes out 1-2 intercessors meaning 20-40 points. if the intercessors get the charge bring that to 1 casualty.

5 intercessors - 100 points. 16 attacks soesnt matter who charges, 10 hits, 3 wounds, a slim chance one is saved but let's assume not. 27 points. Which I admit that's not a melee unit, intercessors are flat better, but their melee output is comparable. At 7 points they kill 23 points of orks, the orks kill 60 points of marines which seems OK.

The downside is dropping them to 7 points doesn't fix the root issue of boyz units.

the orks are not killing 60 points of marines though, 3-4 wounds if they get the charge. so dedicated melee unit nets 1/3 more wounds and the intercessors have worthwhile guns to plink the orks down on the way there.. I do think ork boyz need more than a points drop, but I am unsure GW cares enough about orks to give them the armor of contempt treatment (not the same rule, it would be useless to them, but some rule armywide to help them compete)

In general all horde units (except Guardsmen and conscripts) are hilariously over-costed, specially as the introduction of AoC seriously defanged them.

Dudeface 804013 11364492 wrote:
5 intercessors - 100 points. 16 attacks soesnt matter who charges, 10 hits, 3 wounds, a slim chance one is saved but let's assume not. 27 points. Which I admit that's not a melee unit, intercessors are flat better, but their melee output is comparable. At 7 points they kill 23 points of orks, the orks kill 60 points of marines which seems OK.

The downside is dropping them to 7 points doesn't fix the root issue of boyz units.

The problem with this argument is that the marine player has to and often wants to run those intercessors, while the ork players, if he could, would run 0 of them. That is like those IG example where the IG or conscripts are show to be point for point inefficient. Which is all true, and nice, till one realises that they exist as cheap filler so that the real IG unit is something like a tank. Marines actualy have to play with their marines stuff, most other factions do not play with their troops and if they do, it often is some super skew, because the basic "faction" trooper is a open topped gunboat full of non basic weapons. Even for nids the basic trooper is warriors, and they too are taken to be cheap, with the majority of the list being different types of big monsters.

What kind of argument is that?

Marines are the faction with the highest amount of datasheets. A Marine player doesn't need to run intercessors, they can just run minimum squads of tacticals.

Also plenty of ork players love green tide lists, too bad they suck. The same goes for Tyranids, plenty of nid players would love to run swarm lists.

Karol wrote:

Dudeface 804013 11364492 wrote:
5 intercessors - 100 points. 16 attacks soesnt matter who charges, 10 hits, 3 wounds, a slim chance one is saved but let's assume not. 27 points. Which I admit that's not a melee unit, intercessors are flat better, but their melee output is comparable. At 7 points they kill 23 points of orks, the orks kill 60 points of marines which seems OK.

The downside is dropping them to 7 points doesn't fix the root issue of boyz units.

The problem with this argument is that the marine player has to and often wants to run those intercessors, while the ork players, if he could, would run 0 of them. That is like those IG example where the IG or conscripts are show to be point for point inefficient. Which is all true, and nice, till one realises that they exist as cheap filler so that the real IG unit is something like a tank. Marines actualy have to play with their marines stuff, most other factions do not play with their troops and if they do, it often is some super skew, because the basic "faction" trooper is a open topped gunboat full of non basic weapons. Even for nids the basic trooper is warriors, and they too are taken to be cheap, with the majority of the list being different types of big monsters.

I want to take ork boyz. I like alternating list styles for my fav army and have a low of models. I didn't paint over 500 ork boyz to have them sit on a shelf being useless (on a shelf in foam trays). A full green tide with nothing but infantry is truly a thing to behold on the tabletop except as the game stands the opponent kills 6 per squad to force morale then I lose 6 more per squad, rinse and repeat turn 2 killing 6 for an extra 6 to run since below half strength, then turn 3 there are only a handful of boyz left.

The argument that a marine HAS to bring intecessors when they have more and better more cost effective troop choices already (and had better ones before AoC was brought into the mix). To be clear I don't want marines nerfed, I want ork boyz buiffed, our other troops are gretchin (worst troop model per point in the game, and competes for worst stats per point period) or beast snagga boyz who are just slightly better but more expensive boyz with the same issues as normal boyz, not enough damage or survivability for the points.

My point there in the first post replying to was more that the person is saying ork boyz will beat marine troops in combat which... they don't really, 1/3 better performance if they get the charge is rather pathetic. Pre AoC the boyz did better but now the marines sort of hard counter orks

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Karol wrote:

Dudeface 804013 11364492 wrote:
5 intercessors - 100 points. 16 attacks soesnt matter who charges, 10 hits, 3 wounds, a slim chance one is saved but let's assume not. 27 points. Which I admit that's not a melee unit, intercessors are flat better, but their melee output is comparable. At 7 points they kill 23 points of orks, the orks kill 60 points of marines which seems OK.

The downside is dropping them to 7 points doesn't fix the root issue of boyz units.

The problem with this argument is that the marine player has to and often wants to run those intercessors, while the ork players, if he could, would run 0 of them. That is like those IG example where the IG or conscripts are show to be point for point inefficient. Which is all true, and nice, till one realises that they exist as cheap filler so that the real IG unit is something like a tank. Marines actualy have to play with their marines stuff, most other factions do not play with their troops and if they do, it often is some super skew, because the basic "faction" trooper is a open topped gunboat full of non basic weapons. Even for nids the basic trooper is warriors, and they too are taken to be cheap, with the majority of the list being different types of big monsters.

I want to take ork boyz. I like alternating list styles for my fav army and have a low of models. I didn't paint over 500 ork boyz to have them sit on a shelf being useless (on a shelf in foam trays). A full green tide with nothing but infantry is truly a thing to behold on the tabletop except as the game stands the opponent kills 6 per squad to force morale then I lose 6 more per squad, rinse and repeat turn 2 killing 6 for an extra 6 to run since below half strength, then turn 3 there are only a handful of boyz left.

The argument that a marine HAS to bring intecessors when they have more and better more cost effective troop choices already (and had better ones before AoC was brought into the mix). To be clear I don't want marines nerfed, I want ork boyz buiffed, our other troops are gretchin (worst troop model per point in the game, and competes for worst stats per point period) or beast snagga boyz who are just slightly better but more expensive boyz with the same issues as normal boyz, not enough damage or survivability for the points.

My point there in the first post replying to was more that the person is saying ork boyz will beat marine troops in combat which... they don't really, 1/3 better performance if they get the charge is rather pathetic. Pre AoC the boyz did better but now the marines sort of hard counter orks

I'm a little on the fence about armour of contempt, I'm glad they went with a durability fix rather than arms-racing again, but it needed to be the game losing ap rather than power armour negating it. The 3+ and 2w is a decent defensive profile if ap-2 and d2 isn't everywhere.

Edit: for clarity a choppa should take 1 off a marines save imo and it would restore that balance a little, but I think ap has been handed out too readily of late, just like d2 has.

I am talking about faction realism here, in relation to how GW wrote already existing books. I play GK termintors, I like termintors, I don't like power armoured GK models. I also don't like NDKs, I like regular dreadnoughts esthetics a lot more. The problem is that, if I want to have a working list I shouldn't want to have termintors, other then paladins, in my army. So can I imagine that some ork player wants to play a green wave army, or even an army with 60-70 foot orks? Sure, but him wanting them to funtion and comparing them to units that do function, ends the same way as me wanting termintors to be as good as strikes or interceptors. Everything else is a lot of would have/should have etc on side of GW. Right now an unknown is an IG book and I guess we could speculate about that one. Will some new units be the optimal thing, will mecha or regular infantry be core of the army, and I mean in lists not in lore? only the playtesters and their friends know. with orks and marines we know what those armies are made out of, how they are build etc.

A real interesting argument could be one about orks vs marines in the aspect of ork units being less optimal, post AOC. something like a bladeguard/venguard vets comperation to manz etc.

Karol wrote:
I am talking about faction realism here, in relation to how GW wrote already existing books. I play GK termintors, I like termintors, I don't like power armoured GK models. I also don't like NDKs, I like regular dreadnoughts esthetics a lot more. The problem is that, if I want to have a working list I shouldn't want to have termintors, other then paladins, in my army. So can I imagine that some ork player wants to play a green wave army, or even an army with 60-70 foot orks? Sure, but him wanting them to funtion and comparing them to units that do function, ends the same way as me wanting termintors to be as good as strikes or interceptors. Everything else is a lot of would have/should have etc on side of GW. Right now an unknown is an IG book and I guess we could speculate about that one. Will some new units be the optimal thing, will mecha or regular infantry be core of the army, and I mean in lists not in lore? only the playtesters and their friends know. with orks and marines we know what those armies are made out of, how they are build etc.

A real interesting argument could be one about orks vs marines in the aspect of ork units being less optimal, post AOC. something like a bladeguard/venguard vets comperation to manz etc.

sigh... this again

Terminator-heavy GK lists work, especially now that you get AoC. Just because theyre not the top tier OP build doesnt mean the lists cannot work

 Insectum7 wrote:
Out of curiosity I went back to 3rd/4th edition and did some math for Tau Firewarriors vs. Tacticals:

4 Tacticals for 60 points
6 Fire Warriors for 60 points

Fire Warriors shooting: 6×0.5×0.666×0.333×15= 9.98 point return

Tactical Marines firing: 4×0.666×0.666×0.5×10=8.8 point return.

Tau edge out the win, while also having greater range and therefore better Rapid Fire range as well.

Edit: Also, gosh those numbers are easy to calculate and look at. No doctrines, stratagems, mitigating circumstances, reroll buffs, etc. How refreshing!

In 3rd and 4th (and 5th, from what I remember), rapid fire range was 12" regardless of the actual range of the gun. The real advantage of the 30" range of the Pulse Rifle was the restriction on moving and shooting where if you moved with a rapid fire gun you could only shoot up to 12". So Fire Warriors could get two rounds of shooting off at other basic infantry before said unit could return fire with basic weapons (Fire Warriors shoot at space marine squad 30" away, Space Marines then move 6" forwards to get in maximum range but can only shoot up to 12" that turn, Fire Warriors shoot again, Space Marines can now return fire).

Kaied wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Marines, that are more durable than and have much better close combat than Fire Warriors, shouldn't be shooting as well as they are.

That's my point.
They are 50% more durable (against D1 shots anyway), but half the shooting. Neither one wants to be in melee, but regular Boltgun shooting is so bad that their melee is almost the same. So sure, if you want your shooty troops to spend half of their damage budget on melee... that just makes their role confused?

If you were given the option double your ranged shooting at the cost of not being able to melee at all, would you take it on a unit whose primary role is shooting? That's how budgets work.

That would be called a "Specialist" unit. Marine troops have historically been jack of all trades rather than specialists. Sadly in 8th and now into 9th Marine players are constantly arguing for why their Generalist troops choices should be better than assault oriented infantry in CC and better than ranged specialists at range point for point.

Kaied wrote:
Now do Grav-gun.

No. Pretty simple counter argument really. If your point revolves around focusing on a specific weapon system that impacts Marines more than basically any other faction and which can only be taken by that faction and you are using that as a balance point...no. That is a piss poor argument.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:

Definitely not useless. AM sergeants can't equip a lasgun for some reason, so a 1pt boltgun is the only way to give your sergeant a 24" rapid fire weapon that can contribute at ranges over 12" (+1S relative to a lasgun, but can't FRFSRF).

Definitely was useless. Nobody did this except to spend their last few points remaining because it is a USELESS upgrade. Going from 1 shot at 12 at S3 to 1 Shot at S4 at 24 sounds good but on a 6pt model it makes no sense. So again, nobody took it for any reason except they had a few points left over until it became FREE. So again, using this as the basis of an argument for buffing ALL Bolters because IG Sergeants need them is again a piss poor argument.

 I_am_a_Spoon wrote:
But that's not a case for maintaining the status quo. If anything, it supports the notion that the status quo should change.

They have a purpose, they aren't under powered and they function fairly well. So this is again an argument based on assumption that sisters of battle need their basic troops choices to do more ranged dmg as opposed to being ablative wounds for their special/heavy weapons. And if you think that is a reason to change the status quo...well I have bad news for you, that has been a tried and tested design mechanic for decades.

 Bobthehero wrote:
People, in general, go for the fluffy interpretation they prefer (I do that, too).

When someone wants changes to the game according to the lore, they really should be saying according to MY prefered lore, because it's so dang inconsistent. Personally, I prefer the Marines to be a lot more toned down than most, for reasons explained in my previous post in this thread.

Well said Bob, this might be the smartest post in this thread. using fluff to push a point is stupid since the fluff doesn't even agree with itself.

Karol wrote:
I am talking about faction realism

And in comes Karol to immediately prove your point that wanting the game to match the fluff has always been a bad argument.

Karol wrote:

The problem with this argument is that the marine player has to and often wants to run those intercessors, while the ork players, if he could, would run 0 of them. That is like those IG example where the IG or conscripts are show to be point for point inefficient. Which is all true, and nice, till one realises that they exist as cheap filler so that the real IG unit is something like a tank. Marines actualy have to play with their marines stuff, most other factions do not play with their troops and if they do, it often is some super skew, because the basic "faction" trooper is a open topped gunboat full of non basic weapons. Even for nids the basic trooper is warriors, and they too are taken to be cheap, with the majority of the list being different types of big monsters.

Well thank god Karol is here to inform us stupid Ork players that Marines want to take Intercessors but Ork players don't want to take boyz. I mean...its not like we just had all of 8th edition where the most competitive ork build was Green Tide backed up by characters...or 7th edition before that where our "real" super formation was called the Green Tide and consisted of 10 units of boyz and a Warboss. Yeah, we totally don't like the idea of massive blobs of Boyz. And players like me and Jidmah absolutely abhor the idea of taking Trukk Boyz and Battlewagon boyz.

One day Karol you will come up with a good argument. I'm cheering for you bud.

Dudeface wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Karol wrote:

Dudeface 804013 11364492 wrote:
5 intercessors - 100 points. 16 attacks soesnt matter who charges, 10 hits, 3 wounds, a slim chance one is saved but let's assume not. 27 points. Which I admit that's not a melee unit, intercessors are flat better, but their melee output is comparable. At 7 points they kill 23 points of orks, the orks kill 60 points of marines which seems OK.

The downside is dropping them to 7 points doesn't fix the root issue of boyz units.

The problem with this argument is that the marine player has to and often wants to run those intercessors, while the ork players, if he could, would run 0 of them. That is like those IG example where the IG or conscripts are show to be point for point inefficient. Which is all true, and nice, till one realises that they exist as cheap filler so that the real IG unit is something like a tank. Marines actualy have to play with their marines stuff, most other factions do not play with their troops and if they do, it often is some super skew, because the basic "faction" trooper is a open topped gunboat full of non basic weapons. Even for nids the basic trooper is warriors, and they too are taken to be cheap, with the majority of the list being different types of big monsters.

I want to take ork boyz. I like alternating list styles for my fav army and have a low of models. I didn't paint over 500 ork boyz to have them sit on a shelf being useless (on a shelf in foam trays). A full green tide with nothing but infantry is truly a thing to behold on the tabletop except as the game stands the opponent kills 6 per squad to force morale then I lose 6 more per squad, rinse and repeat turn 2 killing 6 for an extra 6 to run since below half strength, then turn 3 there are only a handful of boyz left.

The argument that a marine HAS to bring intecessors when they have more and better more cost effective troop choices already (and had better ones before AoC was brought into the mix). To be clear I don't want marines nerfed, I want ork boyz buiffed, our other troops are gretchin (worst troop model per point in the game, and competes for worst stats per point period) or beast snagga boyz who are just slightly better but more expensive boyz with the same issues as normal boyz, not enough damage or survivability for the points.

My point there in the first post replying to was more that the person is saying ork boyz will beat marine troops in combat which... they don't really, 1/3 better performance if they get the charge is rather pathetic. Pre AoC the boyz did better but now the marines sort of hard counter orks

I'm a little on the fence about armour of contempt, I'm glad they went with a durability fix rather than arms-racing again, but it needed to be the game losing ap rather than power armour negating it. The 3+ and 2w is a decent defensive profile if ap-2 and d2 isn't everywhere.

Edit: for clarity a choppa should take 1 off a marines save imo and it would restore that balance a little, but I think ap has been handed out too readily of late, just like d2 has.

I'm fine with many weapons getting AP-1, but they either increased in strength or got D2 or get easily met bonuses.

Whats wrong with the average marine bolter profile? You hit on 3s, wound infantry on 3s, and most non-power armor factions are saving on 4+ or worse. Marines get extra AP during the tacticool doctrine, and unless its an AOC mirror then the AP actually counts. Seems quite good when you compare it to other troop choices who aren't nearly as durable as marines for the cost.

 DominayTrix wrote:
Whats wrong with the average marine bolter profile? You hit on 3s, wound infantry on 3s, and most non-power armor factions are saving on 4+ or worse. Marines get extra AP during the tacticool doctrine, and unless its an AOC mirror then the AP actually counts. Seems quite good when you compare it to other troop choices who aren't nearly as durable as marines for the cost.

A bolter wounds *some* infantry on 3's, not all bolters are carried by loyalist Marines, if the bolter was OK, why do people take intercessors over tac marines?

 DominayTrix wrote:
Whats wrong with the average marine bolter profile? You hit on 3s, wound infantry on 3s, and most non-power armor factions are saving on 4+ or worse. Marines get extra AP during the tacticool doctrine, and unless its an AOC mirror then the AP actually counts. Seems quite good when you compare it to other troop choices who aren't nearly as durable as marines for the cost.

We're talking about marines, the bulk of SM players always complains about their army not being top tier. Now that they had a boost to their save of course they demand a boost in their AP to counter that. Nothing new here.

Bolters are perfectly fine as they are, I'd actually even remove the doctrines entirely. It's a couple of enemy anti infantry weapons that MIGHT be a bit too powerful and should be toned down, not the other way around. If bolters get better, there's a plethora of basic weapons that would need a buff as well, nullifying that buff on bolters.

Dudeface wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:
Whats wrong with the average marine bolter profile? You hit on 3s, wound infantry on 3s, and most non-power armor factions are saving on 4+ or worse. Marines get extra AP during the tacticool doctrine, and unless its an AOC mirror then the AP actually counts. Seems quite good when you compare it to other troop choices who aren't nearly as durable as marines for the cost.

A bolter wounds *some* infantry on 3's, not all bolters are carried by loyalist Marines, if the bolter was OK, why do people take intercessors over tac marines?

Because better standard guns for minimal (too low) an upprice, also probably better stratagem integration.

Dudeface wrote:

 DominayTrix wrote:
Whats wrong with the average marine bolter profile? You hit on 3s, wound infantry on 3s, and most non-power armor factions are saving on 4+ or worse. Marines get extra AP during the tacticool doctrine, and unless its an AOC mirror then the AP actually counts. Seems quite good when you compare it to other troop choices who aren't nearly as durable as marines for the cost.

A bolter wounds *some* infantry on 3's, not all bolters are carried by loyalist Marines, if the bolter was OK, why do people take intercessors over tac marines?

Some combination of preferring the models and a misguided notion of what makes a unit good. Tacs are generally superior because of their access to heavy/specials.

How has this gone 36 pages? NO, Bolters do not need better profiles. Space Marines are already fluff breaking as well as game breaking. Somehow a lowly Initiate of the Iron Fists can shoot a bolter BETTER than a 500 year old Custodian Guard, who has been in more battles than the Initiate will ever see. Bolter Discipline is dumb, and needs to go away. Can we just stop trying to improve the shooting?

Considering that marines struggled to dominate the game in 9th ed, even when they were the only ones with a codex, the claim that they are somehow "game breaking" sounds odd. The Imperial Fist example is an even more odd. They are one of the worse marine armies in the game. With a rule set writen assuming they can do things, which they can't do since the doctrine got nerfed way back in 8th ed.

The argument put forth also, somehow skips the fact that there are factions, who make mass use of bolters and which do not have access to doctrines.

Karol wrote:
Considering that marines struggled to dominate the game in 9th ed, even when they were the only ones with a codex, the claim that they are somehow "game breaking" sounds odd. The Imperial Fist example is an even more odd. They are one of the worse marine armies in the game. With a rule set writen assuming they can do things, which they can't do since the doctrine got nerfed way back in 8th ed.

The argument put forth also, somehow skips the fact that there are factions, who make mass use of bolters and which do not have access to doctrines.

I don't remember 8th-9th Iron fists, but for a while, they had infinite shooting bolters. Then they had flat shoot twice. Then they had something else. They've always had the best "shooting" of all the Factions, I would say. Especially concerning Bolters. I would love for ALL Bolter weapons to be uniform, no matter what it's duck taped to, who's holding it, or how the other person feels about the Emperor. Bolter buffs based off faction are dumb, and have given rise to the mindless growth of "Special bolters". We should just go back to Bolt Pistols, Bolters, and Storm Bolters. Feth all the Bolt Rifles, X-pattern Bolters, 30k Bolter variants, and Primaris Bolters.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
How has this gone 36 pages? NO, Bolters do not need better profiles. Space Marines are already fluff breaking as well as game breaking. Somehow a lowly Initiate of the Iron Fists can shoot a bolter BETTER than a 500 year old Custodian Guard, who has been in more battles than the Initiate will ever see. Bolter Discipline is dumb, and needs to go away. Can we just stop trying to improve the shooting?

How is the initiate shooting better? Last I checked the Custodes had BS2+ and had the AP-1 innately.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
How has this gone 36 pages? NO, Bolters do not need better profiles. Space Marines are already fluff breaking as well as game breaking. Somehow a lowly Initiate of the Iron Fists can shoot a bolter BETTER than a 500 year old Custodian Guard, who has been in more battles than the Initiate will ever see. Bolter Discipline is dumb, and needs to go away. Can we just stop trying to improve the shooting?

How is the initiate shooting better? Last I checked the Custodes had BS2+ and had the AP-1 innately.

The standard initiate can use bolter discipline, Bolter Drill, and Rapid Fire. All the Guardian gets is 2 shots, and maybe Rapid Reactions. And it's baked into the cost. The Custodians lost their archotech munitions, their double shoot strat, and their Shoot again strat.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
How has this gone 36 pages? NO, Bolters do not need better profiles. Space Marines are already fluff breaking as well as game breaking. Somehow a lowly Initiate of the Iron Fists can shoot a bolter BETTER than a 500 year old Custodian Guard, who has been in more battles than the Initiate will ever see. Bolter Discipline is dumb, and needs to go away. Can we just stop trying to improve the shooting?

How is the initiate shooting better? Last I checked the Custodes had BS2+ and had the AP-1 innately.

The standard initiate can use bolter discipline, Bolter Drill, and Rapid Fire. All the Guardian gets is 2 shots, and maybe Rapid Reactions. And it's baked into the cost. The Custodians lost their archotech munitions, their double shoot strat, and their Shoot again strat.

One of which requires being still, and doesn't matter since you arent trying to factor in the random buffs from the Salvus Karate stance.

You're not proving your point like you think you are to be honest.

Honestly, there has been nothing funnier in this thread than someone saying, without a hint of jest, that bolters are fine because Imperial Fists exist.

 Vilgeir wrote:
Honestly, there has been nothing funnier in this thread than someone saying, without a hint of jest, that bolters are fine because Imperial Fists exist.

No, its that bolters are too good because imperial fists are better than custodes*

There's a lot wrong in everything fezzik said, start to end.

The issue continues to be that no one makes mass use of bolters - and this is likely to continue to be the case.

You could obviously buff up bolters to the point mass tactical marines, Sisters, Chaos marines were "meta" - but its unclear why you'd want to.

Even examples of better infantry guns are generally not spammed. Eldar do not spam Guardians for instance. Tau do not spam fire warriors. Tyranids may be today's terror of the tables - but it isn't on the back of mass fleshborers.

You get back to the point that you could boost bolters to say S5 - and it would have almost no impact on the game. Beyond being a further ratchet up in the power level. ("Well if bolters are S5, a Heavy bolter must be S6... and if a heavy bolter is S6 then....")