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Space Marines are not top tier, but they can still give a good fight in capable hands. I do pretty well with mono-UM power armor swarm type lists, (No Guilliman) and don't feel too far behind super-soup style lists. Like a Ynnari soup is scary, but I still feel my odds are 40/60ish.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
Space Marines are not top tier, but they can still give a good fight in capable hands. I do pretty well with mono-UM power armor swarm type lists, (No Guilliman) and don't feel too far behind super-soup style lists. Like a Ynnari soup is scary, but I still feel my odds are 40/60ish.

You realize that 40/60 odds means your opponent's list is 50% more powerful than yours, right? "Not too far behind"?

The equation you're using to translate between chance of winning and percentage of power is wrong. Especially because any power discrepancy happens over multiple turns of the game. Plus, you'd have to define "power". If an army had 50% more points than mine (and was well constructed/played) I'd expect to have basically zero chance of winning.

But playing against some more super-soup type armies recently hasn't convinced me that I haven't any chance against them with vanilla marines (as some posters here would suggest), it's just an uphill battle. But the fact that I still have a 40%ish chance of winning tells me that they're closer than many would give credit for.


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Sterling191 wrote:

Karol wrote:

Or to not use me as an example. Imagine someone wanted a nice BA army, bought the cpts with scouts, the IG and the castellan, because mono BA doesn't work. And the nerf happened. And he maybe even did get the option to play with the army. They must feel great right now. Back to the even worse BA now, or should they switch to playing IG/knights, when all they wanted to play is some BA space marines ? Wonderful prospect for the future.

If you're explicitly chasing the meta, with the sole objective of "I must be the bleeding edge of efficacy" you're going to be 100% disappointed.

Words of truth.

 Asherian Command wrote:

Tactical squads and other mainstays of space marine armies are not used at all.

Soup lists are just so contrary to how people have played for decades. I rather play monolist vs monolist as it is easier to play.

Disagree about Tactical Squads, they are pretty good if you're building/playing for them, imo.

Agree about soup, sort of. I stick to one book, but recognize that I can be at a disadvantage for doing so.

 Asherian Command wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Asherian Command wrote:

Tactical squads and other mainstays of space marine armies are not used at all.

Soup lists are just so contrary to how people have played for decades. I rather play monolist vs monolist as it is easier to play.

Disagree about Tactical Squads, they are pretty good if you're building/playing for them, imo.

Agree about soup, sort of. I stick to one book, but recognize that I can be at a disadvantage for doing so.

Why take a tactical squad if scouts have the smoke screen?

Tacticals get tremendously expensive.

The argument in favor of Tacticals is one of damage output. They are the troops choice in the marine book capable of doing the most damage to medium-high-value targets, because they have good access to heavy/special weapons.

Imo Tacticals can be used in two ways. Either you can commit them to backfield objective holding and fire support (good for Salamanders with their native re-rolls). Or you can attack with them using transports and higher density of Specials and Heavies. I think I recall the math being done elsewhere, but a full Tactical Squad with double Plasma and Grav Cannon and non-Guilliman Rerolls can have a higher damage output than the common Riptide (Heavy Burst Cannon?) build. Basically, if you can get them into rapid-fire range they can really put the hurt on. For lots of troops this is a dangerous thing because if you get charged you can't shoot, but the UM Chapter Tactics takes care of that, and you can shoot charge, fall back etc and keep damage output pretty high. I've been charged by multiple Shield Captains, taken the hits and then backed away and shot them dead in several games now, for example.

Also, I've found Rhinos to be super useful recently. I can block LOS, charge enemy units to interfere with their actions, etc. in addition to just transporting my guys. So the Tacticals wind up synergizing pretty well with the Rhinos, and that's very satisfying from a background perspective. It's also really interesting from a gaming perspective, as there's some technical tricks you can pull to try and angle advantages. I'm always shocked at how far you can move out of a Transport, (which helps for that Rapid-fire advantage), or you can move twenty models up 12"(ish) with one transport. It's fun.




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bananathug wrote:

SM have one of the lowest win percentages of any army this edition (think the last number I heard was 34ish percent) vs 60ish for yanarri, DE, Knights and eldar soup.

A lot of not-very-good players play marines, and it's easy to get wrecked with them if you don't know what you're doing.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I really can't believe someone just used the argument "it was mostly bad Marine players".

Like, seriously? Are we really going to pull a L2P here?

Lots of kids play marines. Anecdotally kids with their armies show up to tournaments as an event with their dads, and they lose. I think "nub-bias" skews heavily towards marines, and that can show up in the final statistics.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I really can't believe someone just used the argument "it was mostly bad Marine players".

Like, seriously? Are we really going to pull a L2P here?

Lots of kids play marines. Anecdotally kids with their armies show up to tournaments as an event with their dads, and they lose. I think "nub-bias" skews heavily towards marines, and that can show up in the final statistics.

I'm sorry but kids aren't just gonna show up at a tournament without having gotten in some practice and finalizing lists and everything, especially with BIG tournaments like these.

"Getting in some practice" and "finalizing lists" does not a skilled player make.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I really can't believe someone just used the argument "it was mostly bad Marine players".

Like, seriously? Are we really going to pull a L2P here?

Lots of kids play marines. Anecdotally kids with their armies show up to tournaments as an event with their dads, and they lose. I think "nub-bias" skews heavily towards marines, and that can show up in the final statistics.

I'm sorry but kids aren't just gonna show up at a tournament without having gotten in some practice and finalizing lists and everything, especially with BIG tournaments like these.

"Getting in some practice" and "finalizing lists" does not a skilled player make.

Soooooo just naturally bad players are picking up Space Marines?

You make no sense.

Obvious bad-faith argument is not really worth responding to. You'll have to find some other way to alleviate boredom at work.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I really can't believe someone just used the argument "it was mostly bad Marine players".

Like, seriously? Are we really going to pull a L2P here?

Lots of kids play marines. Anecdotally kids with their armies show up to tournaments as an event with their dads, and they lose. I think "nub-bias" skews heavily towards marines, and that can show up in the final statistics.

I'm sorry but kids aren't just gonna show up at a tournament without having gotten in some practice and finalizing lists and everything, especially with BIG tournaments like these.

"Getting in some practice" and "finalizing lists" does not a skilled player make.

Soooooo just naturally bad players are picking up Space Marines?

You make no sense.

Obvious bad-faith argument is not really worth responding to. You'll have to find some other way to alleviate boredom at work.

Seriously it looks like you are trying to blame this guy for your bad argument.

It can't be that bad if right after my first post someone picked up on the logic:

"Yup. I used to play another game based on star trek (Federation Commander) where the top competitive players would often note how the Feds were the one of the top factions; and they were in the standard tourney format. However, they had either the worst or second worst win rate in tourneys (out of about 16 factions). Lots of different people play in tourneys, and not all of them are competing for top spots (either by intent or hard reality) and if they have a tendency to play specific factions then that faction's win rate will look worse than it might be expected based on what the better competitive players think. When it comes to Star Trek based games the Feds are a faction that attracts a lot of newer players and in that game they were not a tourney friendly faction unless you knew what you were doing, in which case they were very good."

So it's not like the scenario I outlined wasn't understandable. All you need to do is find a counter argument. Note: Reducing it to "L2P" is not a counter argument. Saying an argument is "bad" isn't a counter argument. Explain why it's bad. There's a number of avenues you can take here.

 Excommunicatus wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:
Soup lists are just so contrary to how people have played for decades.

Nyet.

Way back when in 1996 and the glory days of 2nd Ed. you could spend up to 25% (IIRC) of your point totals on Allies.

Yup. Historical Soup:

^I'd rather Soup in Guard over a second marine chapter.