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Everyone knows Primaris weren't great at launch. But even at launch the "better than everybody at everything" identity was already there, it just wasn't pointed correctly.

My comment wasn't meant to be that Primaris will always be overpowered no matter what, but instead that the whole design philosophy for Primaris is "just make them better than everybody at everything."

Now this is a terrible, terrible design philosophy...but it is what it is. The new Primaris releases only go further down this road, so GW seems happy enough with it as a faction identity. Drukhari had vex mask on one model in one subfaction? Let's give it free to a space marine character that anybody can take! Other people have 2W and 3W bikers? Give primaris bikers 4, and 6 attacks! Smite spam giving your characters a hard time? No prob, here's a shield with a 4+++ to mortal wounds, that again anybody can take! Etc etc.

OP conceptually and OP in the design space of the game are separate things. Just look at Custodes. They're stats are super high but as an army they barely function.

Primars are filling out their units and are certainly capable of being balanced. It's their just-pile-on-biggerer-stats game design which is nauseating.

I said this earlier, but the proper unit to compare Eradicators to is Obliterators. They are both mobile, durable, 24" heavy weapon platforms that will mostly be aimed at higher toughness multi wound models (vehicles and otherwise.) Obliterators are also already known for having a lot of firepower even before VotLW and Cacophony.

So how do they stack up?

You get 3 Eradicators for the cost of a single oblit, so that will be the comparison.

Eradicators vs Oblit:
Wounds: 9 vs 4
Armor: 3+ vs 2
Saves: no invul vs 5++
Movement: 5" vs 4" and Deepstrike
Guns: Assault 6 Str8 ap-4(-5 with doctrine), Dd6, melta vs Assault 6 avg Str8 ap-2 D2 (random, so unreliable)
Melee: Str4 ap0 7A vs Str6 ap-1 Dd3 3A

On durability, the Eradicators come out ahead in most cases as their superior wounds is better than the oblit's higher saves against most things except low str no ap. The Eradicators will start losing firepower sooner, but also can't be wiped out by a single high D shot. Which is better will vary a lot depending on what they are attacked with, but my off the top of my head impression is the Eradicators will generally live longer.

On mobility, the oblits are ahead due to their Deepstrike.

On firepower, the main issue, Eradicators are solidly ahead. They are ahead by -2 ap and average 1 more damage even before doctrines and the melta rule. And they don't have the Oblits unreliability, which has gotten worse thanks to command re-roll no longer working on their gun stat rolls.

In melee, the oblits are ahead. But it's one of the least important issues here.

So overall, Eradicators are way ahead on firepower (the most important part) and mostly ahead on durability against a unit known for its firepower and durability. Imagine, if you will, that someone proposed giving Oblits more AP, more D, and less reliability problems. Everyone would call it totally broken.

The randomness of oblits is a massive issue, because it means you can't rely on them to do what you need them to do, which is 100% of the reason you take AT in the first place. AT that at least 50% of the time fails to be good AT (rolling a 1 on either AP or damage really cripples you - you can get around STR7 with vets but there's no way to get around the -1AP or the 1 damage) isn't good AT.

Eradicators are vastly, vastly better than oblits.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The randomness of oblits is a massive issue, because it means you can't rely on them to do what you need them to do, which is 100% of the reason you take AT in the first place. AT that at least 50% of the time fails to be good AT (rolling a 1 on either AP or damage really cripples you - you can get around STR7 with vets but there's no way to get around the -1AP or the 1 damage) isn't good AT.

Eradicators are vastly, vastly better than oblits.

I would have disagreed somewhat in 8th, but now that you cant even cp reroll their gun oblits need a MoP babysitter.

They can still outshine eradicators with double tap etc, but for much more points.

Sure, oblits can usually kill something...if you spend like 400 points and tons of CP on making them work.

Or you could just take 120 points of eradicators and kill a tank as often as not.

Most people would agree Obliterators were already too expensive so I don't see your point.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
Most people would agree Obliterators were already too expensive so I don't see your point.

I'm arguing against oblits. They got harder to use.

well oblits were the parade exemple of stacking buffs , that got seriously limited with the new edition.

Not Online!!! wrote:
well oblits were the parade exemple of stacking buffs , that got seriously limited with the new edition.

Which is part of GWs problem of not pricing buffers correctly and instead pricing units as though they were already buffed.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
well oblits were the parade exemple of stacking buffs , that got seriously limited with the new edition.

Which is part of GWs problem of not pricing buffers correctly and instead pricing units as though they were already buffed.

absolutely, it's why most of the chaos space marine dex suddendly looks more like a limp noodle armed recruit rather then the veterans of 10'000 years as sson as you chose the wrong legion traits and charachters.

And god forbid you didn't want to play the stack game,