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Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

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

Easy access to spammable anti elite weapons is the problem, not the bolter (and all its equivalents) "bad" profile.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Not specifically bolters, but troops carrying the most basic weapons. Give them a unique role in the army. It's the same problem most troops currently have and the reasons are obj sec being not particularly useful and easy access to cheap spammable platforms carrying more effective weapons.

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

I don't know about troops being a non-factor, just a minimal factor. I think the main issue is that the game is too fast and too lethal - and you therefore want to lean further in that direction. Meanwhile, not unreasonably, GW have wanted the gap between elites and troops to be greater than it was in say 8th edition. (With some hit and miss).

So for example, if your thinking "bring multiple guardian defender squads" the obvious question you have to answer is "why not max out dire avengers first?" With Boyz you can argue (certainly before they went up in points) that you were mad to bring any before maxing out Kommandos. By contrast in other times these units have costed considerably more than the alternatives - so the conclusion was the other way round.

Really its hard to see how GW could ever write rules such that you are incentivised to both take very few troops - or take all the troops. You can draft rules (and the CP changes I think do this somewhat) to the tune of "thy shalt take a battalion" - in which case you have to have 3 troops units. But that's taking player choice away. You can go down to things like "You can only score Primary points with troops" - but it seems kind of lame.

Do we really want say the new Chaos Codex to encourage you to bring 30-40 Legionnaires along, representing 30-40% of a 2k list? I kind of think it would be cool - and if that's what you want go nuts. I don't want it to be like today where I feel you'd basically be committing suicide. But equally I don't want it to be obligatory.

Tyel wrote:
I don't know about troops being a non-factor, just a minimal factor. I think the main issue is that the game is too fast and too lethal - and you therefore want to lean further in that direction. Meanwhile, not unreasonably, GW have wanted the gap between elites and troops to be greater than it was in say 8th edition. (With some hit and miss).

So for example, if your thinking "bring multiple guardian defender squads" the obvious question you have to answer is "why not max out dire avengers first?" With Boyz you can argue (certainly before they went up in points) that you were mad to bring any before maxing out Kommandos. By contrast in other times these units have costed considerably more than the alternatives - so the conclusion was the other way round.

Really its hard to see how GW could ever write rules such that you are incentivised to both take very few troops - or take all the troops. You can draft rules (and the CP changes I think do this somewhat) to the tune of "thy shalt take a battalion" - in which case you have to have 3 troops units. But that's taking player choice away. You can go down to things like "You can only score Primary points with troops" - but it seems kind of lame.

Do we really want say the new Chaos Codex to encourage you to bring 30-40 Legionnaires along, representing 30-40% of a 2k list? I kind of think it would be cool - and if that's what you want go nuts. I don't want it to be like today where I feel you'd basically be committing suicide. But equally I don't want it to be obligatory.

I honestly think it shouldn't be mandatory but it should be preferable, an army without troops forming a strong backbone should find it an uphill battle on objectives (somehow), which obsec theoretically should enable that, but as you say the lethality race has rendered that fairly moot, alongside an ever growing suite of options to turn it off/grant it to none troops.

Personally, I want my chaos space marine army to be seen fielding chaos space marines and not just for funsies but as a legitimate option.

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

It doesn't make small arms obsolete by any stretch, that train of thought is exactly what's caused the arms race with ap and damage we have now. A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

I mean 150 rounds is 1350 points of bolter wielders to kill a (lets be generous) stock predator destructor at 140 for a 10.4% return. A 9.6% return if you shot an annihilator.

The 180 rounds is 1620 points of bolter wielders to kill 10 naked tac marines at 180 for a 11.1% return

They're still better at killing the infantry in isolation.

What this shows is that a combination of:
A - the durability of a marine is good against small arms
B - the bolter sucks against all targets given in the example
C - predators stock are super cheap due to not being good enough
D - they correctly occupy the niche of the durable but offensively limited basic trooper in isolation

If a *tank* is only <1% more durable per point against small arms than your infantry, perhaps the problem is the infantry are too tough (or the tank isn't tough enough).

And of course everyone is going to spec into killing Marines.

Plasma gun > flamer in 7th because it killed Marines

Plasma gun > flamer in 9th because it killed Marines.

To make Marines feel elite, they have to actually BE elite. And I am not talking within an army, I am talking within the range of foes to face. If the most common foe was, say, Orks then you would probably see a dramatically different preferred weapons loadout.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If a *tank* is only <1% more durable per point against small arms than your infantry, perhaps the problem is the infantry are too tough (or the tank isn't tough enough).

And of course everyone is going to spec into killing Marines.

Plasma gun > flamer in 7th because it killed Marines

Plasma gun > flamer in 9th because it killed Marines.

To make Marines feel elite, they have to actually BE elite. And I am not talking within an army, I am talking within the range of foes to face. If the most common foe was, say, Orks then you would probably see a dramatically different preferred weapons loadout.

I'm confused if you're misusing the term elite to denote less common. Marines can be the most common army as long as their profile is elite enough that the weapons used against them are ineffective against the range of opponents outside the army. If an army geared to kill marines was incapable of handling units of gaunts on a basic level then that would fit. Instead everything is so killy and specialise it simply doesn't matter.

But yes the predator needs some love, that's the biggest takeaway.

It takes on average 648~ BS3+ bolter shots to kill a Leman Russ. I'm not really sure what in isolation this tells you about the game though.

I don't think bolters and similar light guns are obsolete because marines got 2 wounds. Its because "horde units" - which previously had to be dealt with by such weapons - have largely been pushed out of the meta. GW have handed out far too many higher S, AP and damage attacks at too low a price. There are so many units which charge, have a bazillion attacks, and so just mow down low T low save 1 wound models.

It would be interesting if see what the meta would look like if Tyranid players all pivoted to triple Tervigon, 180 Termagant carpet lists. But I suspect they don't do it because taking it out would not be all that difficult for certain competitive builds.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

Took far less Bolters than that when they had AV10 on the rear.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

Took far less Bolters than that when they had AV10 on the rear.

Only if you got behind them

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

Took far less Bolters than that when they had AV10 on the rear.

Only if you got behind them

It was pitifully easy to do that though. Partially why I'm glad we don't have AV now, but that's a whole different topic.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

It was pitifully easy to do that though. Partially why I'm glad we don't have AV now, but that's a whole different topic.

Were that I had the kind of opponents who made it easy to get behind their tanks - and I am fortunate in not being someone who made it easy to get behind *my* tanks.

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?

Well, there's a reason the Emperor used Astartes for the Great Crusade and not Custodes.

I mean of course, with their armor of contempt hot patch space marines were just the more durable choice for the resources.

AOC was a bone tossed to a dead dog. No one is seriously considering the majority of Space Marine Factions.

Dudeface wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

It doesn't make small arms obsolete by any stretch, that train of thought is exactly what's caused the arms race with ap and damage we have now. A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

I have to disagree. Going from, what, 14pts to 18pts in exchange for twice the durability hardly makes it likely that you'll be significantly outnumbered by anything other than Imperial Guard. Especially with many other troops also getting substantial increases in cost, and with far less to show for it.

Indeed, you even say it yourself - people game around taking Marines, so when Marines get buffed to the point that basic weapons are inefficient against them, people take heavier weapons to compensate. And yes, I completely agree that this is what started the trend in increased AP and damage, I just don't understand why you seem intent on ignoring the first link in that chain (i.e. Marines getting an extra wound).

In any case, I think what you might be neglecting is that basic weapons already had a limited range of targets against which they could be effective. They're fine against stuff like Guardsmen and 1-wound Marines, but as soon as you start moving to units with better toughness, more wounds, and/or better armour saves, they get really efficient really fast. So when you take the most common infantry in the game and make them really efficient against those weapons, that's a massive blow for both basic weapons and the units that carry them (predominantly troops). Plus, you have the same issue as AoC causes - it's not even just that you have fewer legitimate targets, it's also that you have to factor in many of the most common armies having no legitimate targets for small-arms fire at all.

You can argue that there are other factors, too, but I do think this is a very important one.

Lastly, there's the fact that this sort of thing can easily turn into a vicious cycle. If some armies begin to move away from troops for whatever reason, then that means fewer bodies around that are vulnerable to small-arms fire. This, in turn, means there is even less reason to include troops, which means even fewer bodies etc., etc.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
AOC was a bone tossed to a dead dog. No one is seriously considering the majority of Space Marine Factions.

i mean some space marine chapters are always going to be below 50% of the power band.

space marins are 16/30 factions so they could occupy the top 16 and somebody would complain that their faction is below the halfway mark at 16th.

That said yes they are not in the best place right now. you can look at them on 40k fight club and see tournament results are not favorable for most flavors of marines

Grey knights, deathwatch, white scars, salamanders, and thousand sons are doing above average.

chaos marines, blood angels, space wolves, dark angels and deathguard are middling.

black templar, ravenguard, imperial fists, crimson fists, iron hands, and ultramarines are doing poorly.

5 strong, 5 middling, 6 weak (I barely count crimson fists as a faction btw so almost 5/5/5)

That said they struggle vs the heavy hitters right now.

Tyranids who have the tools to wipe the floor with them, though they have the tools to wipe everybody.
All flavors of eldar seem to have books designed to fight power armor.
Tau leafblowers anything that isn't tyranids or space elves easily and note the higher tier marines have tools or units to deal with them.

middle tier
Sisters are somehow better marines than marines, same for custodes
gsc play keep away and well enough to confuse marines.

low tier
on the other hand AOC made marines an already mid tier army better against mostly the lower tier armies kicking necrons, orks, demons, knights (both flavors though irrelevant with new codex about to drop), mechanicus and imperial guard. meanwhiel against the top codexes Aoc is just a cute rule that mildly annoyed them

 G00fySmiley wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
AOC was a bone tossed to a dead dog. No one is seriously considering the majority of Space Marine Factions.

i mean some space marine chapters are always going to be below 50% of the power band.

space marins are 16/30 factions so they could occupy the top 16 and somebody would complain that their faction is below the halfway mark at 16th.

That said yes they are not in the best place right now. you can look at them on 40k fight club and see tournament results are not favorable for most flavors of marines

Grey knights, deathwatch, white scars, salamanders, and thousand sons are doing above average.

chaos marines, blood angels, space wolves, dark angels and deathguard are middling.

black templar, ravenguard, imperial fists, crimson fists, iron hands, and ultramarines are doing poorly.

5 strong, 5 middling, 6 weak (I barely count crimson fists as a faction btw so almost 5/5/5)

That said they struggle vs the heavy hitters right now.

Tyranids who have the tools to wipe the floor with them, though they have the tools to wipe everybody.
All flavors of eldar seem to have books designed to fight power armor.
Tau leafblowers anything that isn't tyranids or space elves easily and note the higher tier marines have tools or units to deal with them.

middle tier
Sisters are somehow better marines than marines, same for custodes
gsc play keep away and well enough to confuse marines.

low tier
on the other hand AOC made marines an already mid tier army better against mostly the lower tier armies kicking necrons, orks, demons, knights (both flavors though irrelevant with new codex about to drop), mechanicus and imperial guard. meanwhiel against the top codexes Aoc is just a cute rule that mildly annoyed them

I knew someone might try to break this down by faction, and thank you for doing so in a respectful way instead of just saying "WuT AbOuT GReYKnIghtS?!?!! HUR HUR, yOu DUM!"

Yes, a third of Space Marines, the third that contains Matt Wards Super Special Silver Knights, The Death Watch which have rules specifically designed to help them against the current Meta, and I have no idea why Whitescars and Salamanders are above average.

That being said, the majority of Astartes Factions right now are still kinda crap. I am sorry that I started making an all Primaris Blood Angels force, but I stopped playing 9th. So who knows. Maybe they'l suddenly make Assault Intercessor Chainswords D2.

White scars are fast with tools to get where they need vs tau and eldar.

Salamanders have some of the best tools to beef up the best units in the codex eeking the best performance of vanilla marines.

Ironically with deathguard (this is just an interesting aside) its one of the few positive matchups for orks as they seem to have the lowest win rate against the most common xenos enemy.

Blood angels are above average as a codex but not by much, middle of the middle for power, they are one of the better choppy marine builds in an edition where choppy marines are just fair to middling. also a funny enough situation where their tools actually can be used to great effect vs the current big bad Tyranids, but struggle against to many other armies to reach top tables.

Saying "the majority of marines are kind of crap" when they have 5 top 3rd armies(mostly the bottom of this 3rd), 5 mid 3rd, and 6 bottom 3rd (mostly the top of this 3rd) is just not correct. the faction as a whole basically defines the mid tier. Marines are not overly powerful but not overly flawed.

I would love to see the weaker factions get buffs to be able to match average marines. Then nerfs to the top armies to be more in line there. Of space marines types I think only really grey knights and thousand sons need some minor nerfs, the others placing really is mostly down to meta matchups... except maybe ultramarines and imperial fists who need a chapter tactic buffs

 vipoid wrote:

Spoiler:

Dudeface wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

Tyel wrote:
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....")

You're right, but I don't think being in a situation where your basic infantry is a none factor in the game isn't a good state. Ideally it doesn't want to be accomplished via buffing the gak out of everything, but there needs to be something that makes people want bolters in their army, not in place of specialist units, but they should have enough value that you don't just take bare minimums to meet detachment needs.

Well, wht do you expect when everyone was clamouring for the most ubiquitous infantry in the game to be highly resistant to small arms fire?

Nailed it.

Did anyone expect giving Marines 2 wounds would accomplish anything other than making small arms (including the Marine's themselves) obsolete overnight?

For reference: it takes approximately 150 bolter shots to kill a Predator (you know, a main battle tank), while it takes 180 to kill 10 Marines (you know, the same faction's basic infantry).

It doesn't make small arms obsolete by any stretch, that train of thought is exactly what's caused the arms race with ap and damage we have now. A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

I have to disagree. Going from, what, 14pts to 18pts in exchange for twice the durability hardly makes it likely that you'll be significantly outnumbered by anything other than Imperial Guard. Especially with many other troops also getting substantial increases in cost, and with far less to show for it.

Indeed, you even say it yourself - people game around taking Marines, so when Marines get buffed to the point that basic weapons are inefficient against them, people take heavier weapons to compensate. And yes, I completely agree that this is what started the trend in increased AP and damage, I just don't understand why you seem intent on ignoring the first link in that chain (i.e. Marines getting an extra wound).

In any case, I think what you might be neglecting is that basic weapons already had a limited range of targets against which they could be effective. They're fine against stuff like Guardsmen and 1-wound Marines, but as soon as you start moving to units with better toughness, more wounds, and/or better armour saves, they get really efficient really fast. So when you take the most common infantry in the game and make them really efficient against those weapons, that's a massive blow for both basic weapons and the units that carry them (predominantly troops). Plus, you have the same issue as AoC causes - it's not even just that you have fewer legitimate targets, it's also that you have to factor in many of the most common armies having no legitimate targets for small-arms fire at all.

You can argue that there are other factors, too, but I do think this is a very important one.

Lastly, there's the fact that this sort of thing can easily turn into a vicious cycle. If some armies begin to move away from troops for whatever reason, then that means fewer bodies around that are vulnerable to small-arms fire. This, in turn, means there is even less reason to include troops, which means even fewer bodies etc., etc.

I am in agreement with basically everything vipod says here.

Marines should have never gone to 1w, and AoC is just the cherry on top in terms of gak escalation.

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Saying "the majority of marines are kind of crap" when they have 5 top 3rd armies(mostly the bottom of this 3rd), 5 mid 3rd, and 6 bottom 3rd (mostly the top of this 3rd) is just not correct. the faction as a whole basically defines the mid tier. Marines are not overly powerful but not overly flawed.

That sounds like someone explaining that just because someone from the team made it to 6th place, them being 10th and lower is okey. I have seen it and the reaction of any trainer or sponsor is the same , unless you are like mob sponsored or the son of someone big in the sports union. Take how many eldar get and got in to top in 9th ed, and then compare it to how many different marines got in to top 8th. The difference is staggaring, Specialy when the time spans are concerned. We went , in 9th, from harlis being above everyone in early 9th, then DE being above everyone, then Ad mecha and orks matching DE for a short time, only for them to get nerfed and DE shoot up in wins back again, to then see the craziness which was custodes, eldar, tau and now tyranid codex. Marines couldn't even get a full domination of the playfield, when they were the only faction with codex books in 9th ed. And they had all the early months of 9th dedicated just to them.

Karol wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Saying "the majority of marines are kind of crap" when they have 5 top 3rd armies(mostly the bottom of this 3rd), 5 mid 3rd, and 6 bottom 3rd (mostly the top of this 3rd) is just not correct. the faction as a whole basically defines the mid tier. Marines are not overly powerful but not overly flawed.

That sounds like someone explaining that just because someone from the team made it to 6th place, them being 10th and lower is okey. I have seen it and the reaction of any trainer or sponsor is the same , unless you are like mob sponsored or the son of someone big in the sports union. Take how many eldar get and got in to top in 9th ed, and then compare it to how many different marines got in to top 8th. The difference is staggaring, Specialy when the time spans are concerned. We went , in 9th, from harlis being above everyone in early 9th, then DE being above everyone, then Ad mecha and orks matching DE for a short time, only for them to get nerfed and DE shoot up in wins back again, to then see the craziness which was custodes, eldar, tau and now tyranid codex. Marines couldn't even get a full domination of the playfield, when they were the only faction with codex books in 9th ed. And they had all the early months of 9th dedicated just to them.

We have very different memories regarding the end of 8th and beginning of 9th. Here's a refresher from Jan 2020: https://www.goonhammer.com/meta-analysis-the-lvo-40k-championship/ Marines were 46% of top 5 finishes. Here's one from October 2020, shortly after 9th released: https://www.goonhammer.com/the-october-2020-40k-meta-review/ Marines absolutely got their chance to dominate and have consistently been no less than B tier all of 9th while lots of factions were/are allowed to chill at 40% or lower for years.

Dudeface wrote:

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?

Probably for the same reason I take more Kommandos than I do Boyz. There will always be a better option at a specific target or meta. Your argument is getting dangerously close to "Bolters should be good at everything" and even when that happens there will be units in the elite/heavy slot which are better and as such will be taken significantly more than your base tac Marine with his bolter.

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.

Key words here "Struggled". As in it was an effort...but they were still dominating early 9th along with Harlies as someone else pointed out. It wasn't until DE and Ad Mech got their codex's that SM fell off hard....as did literally everyone else. I'll also point out that generally speaking the first codex is usually the weakest in the edition. 7th edition Orkz were...bad. The difference for SMs is that you get constant updates/buffs to make up for that shortfall AKA AoC.

The only factions outside SM who make "Mass use of bolters" are Sisters of battle who are a tiny faction and don't need better bolters as their tournament results show and Chaos Space Marines who are likely to get something nice in their new codex which is coming soon. As far as why they haven't already gotten something for their bolters like Marines got....ummm....they still haven't gotten 2 wounds

 Blackie wrote:

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.

Its almost like we have a long storied history of SM players moaning about durability, and as soon as they get it moving the goal posts to complain about their weapons not doing enough dmg.

SM already went to 2W and now have AoC which nerfs most factions basic weapons by 100% but that isn't good enough for them, now they want to complain that there bolters don't do enough dmg.

Dudeface wrote:

I'm confused if you're misusing the term elite to denote less common. Marines can be the most common army as long as their profile is elite enough that the weapons used against them are ineffective against the range of opponents outside the army. If an army geared to kill marines was incapable of handling units of gaunts on a basic level then that would fit. Instead everything is so killy and specialise it simply doesn't matter.

But yes the predator needs some love, that's the biggest takeaway.

Glad you brought this up dude. Marines can be the most common and still be elite for the very reason you mentioned. Want to know why that won't happen? Because after 8th Marine players lead the charge in complaining about how Horde armies were stupid, slow and made them have to bring anti-horde units which was stupid because they wanted to be spec'd into killing Knights not hordes. It wasn't fair for those poor Marine players to have to take more Bolters instead of Plasma/Melta/Lascannons. Put another way, Knights were ok to skew because reasons, but horde was just too much for those Marine players to handle and therefore they had to be nerfed. Which is why the GAME rules were changed to make hordes untenable, and with every new codex that used to have horde units coming out, you can see GW wants hordes to be nerfed. So with that in mind you are now complaining that your basic infantry weapons don't have a target worth shooting...well congrats, you guys did that to yourselves

Dudeface wrote:

It doesn't make small arms obsolete by any stretch, that train of thought is exactly what's caused the arms race with ap and damage we have now.

Yes, yes it does. lets go over this again for you. In 4th edition, to kill 1 Marine with Shootas it took 9 shoota boyz. 9 shoota boyz = 18 shots, = 6 hits = 3 wounds = 1 failed armor save.
9 shoota boyz at the time was 54pts, a Tac Marine was about 15pts. So 54pts to kill 15pts, that is a 0.27ppd trade off. To kill that same Marine with shootas today its now 18 shoota boyz to kill 1 Marine. 18 shoota boyz = 36 shots, 12 hits, 6 wounds and 2 failed armor saves for 1 dead Marine (Math changes to 12 Shoota boyz at half range) that is 162pts of shoota boyz to kill 18pts of Marine that is 0.11ppd. So why the ever loving feth would i take small arms when my most common target is roughly 2.5x harder to kill points wise? while at the same time, to assuage Marines complaining that Orkz were too hard to kill en-mass the game rules and faction rules have changed to the point where my Boyz are actually worse point for point than ever before? So again, to summarize, my "Small arms" are in fact obsolete to the point where nobody takes them anymore.

Dudeface wrote:
A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

So again, Marines complained they didn't have tough troops because everyone was taking AP-3 so Marines got a 2nd wound, now your bolters do basically no dmg, especially when combined with AoC so now you want Bolters to be better at killing Marines and the other factions who got a significantly smaller durability boost to compensate for the original buff to Bolters (Doctrines and double tap range). I'll do this for fun. 4th edition, to kill 1 Ork boy it took 1.5 Marines at half range or 3 at Max range. 3 shots = 2 hits = 1 wound = 1 Dead Ork. 1.5 Marines was 22.5pts, 3 Marines = 45pts. Half range it was 0.266ppd, at max range it was 0.133ppd. In 9th edition, without doctrines, with just normal bolter it takes 2.7 Marines double tapping. 2.7 Marines = 5.4 shots = 3.6 hits = 1.2 wounds = 1 dead Ork boy. 2.7 Marines = 48.6pts, so its now 0.18ppd So to summarize, Current day Marines are now doing MORE dmg at 13-24' range and less dmg at half range. Add in tac doctrine and chapter buffs and its significantly more dmg, add in easy access to re-roll hits/wounds and its even better. So all told those Marine with their "crappy bolters' are doing significantly more dmg than before, especially at range.

Dudeface wrote:
What this shows is that a combination of:
A - the durability of a marine is good against small arms

Marines DOUBLED their durability vs Small arms. Sometimes more thanks to small arms units getting a higher (per capita) price increase than those Marines did.

Dudeface wrote:
B - the bolter sucks against all targets given in the example

As demonstrated above the bolter is doing MORE dmg per point against Orkz than ever before, especially when adding in the plethora of easy buffs they have access to. In contrast, the shoota is 2.5x worse vs Marines.

Dudeface wrote:
C - predators stock are super cheap due to not being good enough

K....that is an entire other argument to have. I'll gladly do a comparison between a Predator and a Battlewagon if you want

Dudeface wrote:
D - they correctly occupy the niche of the durable but offensively limited basic trooper in isolation

That is your interpretation, for everyone else not living in a bolter porno, Marines are currently better than they should be in a number of categories and are only doing better than average as opposed to dominating the meta because everyone builds into killing them more than any other faction in the entire game.

SemperMortis wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

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?

Probably for the same reason I take more Kommandos than I do Boyz. There will always be a better option at a specific target or meta. Your argument is getting dangerously close to "Bolters should be good at everything" and even when that happens there will be units in the elite/heavy slot which are better and as such will be taken significantly more than your base tac Marine with his bolter.

So, to clarify, it's not that the intercessors possess better guns at a similar price point?

Dudeface wrote:

I'm confused if you're misusing the term elite to denote less common. Marines can be the most common army as long as their profile is elite enough that the weapons used against them are ineffective against the range of opponents outside the army. If an army geared to kill marines was incapable of handling units of gaunts on a basic level then that would fit. Instead everything is so killy and specialise it simply doesn't matter.

But yes the predator needs some love, that's the biggest takeaway.

Glad you brought this up dude. Marines can be the most common and still be elite for the very reason you mentioned. Want to know why that won't happen? Because after 8th Marine players lead the charge in complaining about how Horde armies were stupid, slow and made them have to bring anti-horde units which was stupid because they wanted to be spec'd into killing Knights not hordes. It wasn't fair for those poor Marine players to have to take more Bolters instead of Plasma/Melta/Lascannons. Put another way, Knights were ok to skew because reasons, but horde was just too much for those Marine players to handle and therefore they had to be nerfed. Which is why the GAME rules were changed to make hordes untenable, and with every new codex that used to have horde units coming out, you can see GW wants hordes to be nerfed. So with that in mind you are now complaining that your basic infantry weapons don't have a target worth shooting...well congrats, you guys did that to yourselves

I've personally noted on these boards that 8th hordes were slow, especially orks when combined with dakkadakkadakka, as someone who runs chaos marines, I've never said "nerf hordes, I only want to take Las cannons". I enjoy chewing through a blob with zerkers etc. It's satisfying.

Dudeface wrote:

It doesn't make small arms obsolete by any stretch, that train of thought is exactly what's caused the arms race with ap and damage we have now.

Yes, yes it does. lets go over this again for you. In 4th edition, to kill 1 Marine with Shootas it took 9 shoota boyz. 9 shoota boyz = 18 shots, = 6 hits = 3 wounds = 1 failed armor save.
9 shoota boyz at the time was 54pts, a Tac Marine was about 15pts. So 54pts to kill 15pts, that is a 0.27ppd trade off. To kill that same Marine with shootas today its now 18 shoota boyz to kill 1 Marine. 18 shoota boyz = 36 shots, 12 hits, 6 wounds and 2 failed armor saves for 1 dead Marine (Math changes to 12 Shoota boyz at half range) that is 162pts of shoota boyz to kill 18pts of Marine that is 0.11ppd. So why the ever loving feth would i take small arms when my most common target is roughly 2.5x harder to kill points wise? while at the same time, to assuage Marines complaining that Orkz were too hard to kill en-mass the game rules and faction rules have changed to the point where my Boyz are actually worse point for point than ever before? So again, to summarize, my "Small arms" are in fact obsolete to the point where nobody takes them anymore.

Yes, ork small arms are obsolete to the point nobody takes them anymore. That has nothing to do with the profile of a bolter though. Again, divorce the bolter from the marine.

You will have 0 difficulty convincing me orks need changes, I've said I think it was in this thread that choppas should go through aoc for example. I'm not advocating Marines good, orks crap as the way forwards.

Dudeface wrote:
A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

So again, Marines complained they didn't have tough troops because everyone was taking AP-3 so Marines got a 2nd wound, now your bolters do basically no dmg, especially when combined with AoC so now you want Bolters to be better at killing Marines and the other factions who got a significantly smaller durability boost to compensate for the original buff to Bolters (Doctrines and double tap range). I'll do this for fun. 4th edition, to kill 1 Ork boy it took 1.5 Marines at half range or 3 at Max range. 3 shots = 2 hits = 1 wound = 1 Dead Ork. 1.5 Marines was 22.5pts, 3 Marines = 45pts. Half range it was 0.266ppd, at max range it was 0.133ppd. In 9th edition, without doctrines, with just normal bolter it takes 2.7 Marines double tapping. 2.7 Marines = 5.4 shots = 3.6 hits = 1.2 wounds = 1 dead Ork boy. 2.7 Marines = 48.6pts, so its now 0.18ppd So to summarize, Current day Marines are now doing MORE dmg at 13-24' range and less dmg at half range. Add in tac doctrine and chapter buffs and its significantly more dmg, add in easy access to re-roll hits/wounds and its even better. So all told those Marine with their "crappy bolters' are doing significantly more dmg than before, especially at range.

I won't disagree, but they've fallen behind the curve of the game. Other small arms (bar orks) have received similar buffs in a lot of ways. Note this thread opened before AoC existed.

Dudeface wrote:
What this shows is that a combination of:
A - the durability of a marine is good against small arms

Marines DOUBLED their durability vs Small arms. Sometimes more thanks to small arms units getting a higher (per capita) price increase than those Marines did.

Dudeface wrote:
B - the bolter sucks against all targets given in the example

As demonstrated above the bolter is doing MORE dmg per point against Orkz than ever before, especially when adding in the plethora of easy buffs they have access to. In contrast, the shoota is 2.5x worse vs Marines.

Dudeface wrote:
C - predators stock are super cheap due to not being good enough

K....that is an entire other argument to have. I'll gladly do a comparison between a Predator and a Battlewagon if you want

Dudeface wrote:
D - they correctly occupy the niche of the durable but offensively limited basic trooper in isolation

That is your interpretation, for everyone else not living in a bolter porno, Marines are currently better than they should be in a number of categories and are only doing better than average as opposed to dominating the meta because everyone builds into killing them more than any other faction in the entire game.

Dudeface wrote:

So, to clarify, it's not that the intercessors possess better guns at a similar price point?

It's almost like a T4 2W Marine with 3+ armor is almost the exact same across the board as a T4 2W Marine with 3+ armor and a different gun..... You want bolters to be as good as intercessors? Take intercessors, you want Tac Marines to have better bolters? Go talk to GW because they've already done that for you, its a new unit called....intercessors. I don't know what your complaint here is, GW has completely fethed up the SM Unit chart with carbon copies of units whose only difference is in weapons profile and a few other small things that in no way differentiate them to the extent that buffing one wouldn't either make the other useless or buff it to the same level as well.

Dudeface wrote:

I've personally noted on these boards that 8th hordes were slow, especially orks when combined with dakkadakkadakka, as someone who runs chaos marines, I've never said "nerf hordes, I only want to take Las cannons". I enjoy chewing through a blob with zerkers etc. It's satisfying.

Cool. You might not have, but several dozen others have. It was the same thing with the squigbuggy, it wasn't actually broken, the problem was the very vocal proponents of the game complained loudly enough that GW took notice. So bolters no longer have a purpose since light troops are no longer taken in large numbers. So now the argument becomes buff light infantry to bring them back into the game or change the bolter to do something it was never meant to do, kill Heavy infantry.

Dudeface wrote:

Yes, ork small arms are obsolete to the point nobody takes them anymore. That has nothing to do with the profile of a bolter though. Again, divorce the bolter from the marine.

You will have 0 difficulty convincing me orks need changes, I've said I think it was in this thread that choppas should go through aoc for example. I'm not advocating Marines good, orks crap as the way forwards.

Glad we can agree at least on Ork Small arms...but lets move that to basically EVERY OTHER faction How many Tau Firewarriors are top Tau lists taking? How many Eldar Guardians? How many SoB, How many Guardsmen etc etc. Its a weird list these days which takes lots of troops and you can expand that to Small arms units entirely. Even Nidz with their new S5 small arms weapons aren't taking them as much as they used to. Your point about divorcing the bolter from the Marine is irrelevant since again they are the biggest faction by a metric fethload that uses them, but even if you did, they are still about average compared to everyone else and realistically they still don't have a target since few are taking light infantry these days.

Dudeface wrote:
A resilient army that's either heavily outnumbered and/or pillow fisted is a perfectly legitimate niche to have, but obviously people game around killing marines so they want bigger guns. We're now full circle to the point where the marines durability didn't matter, so naturally the want was to match the arms race the rest of the game has.

So again, Marines complained they didn't have tough troops because everyone was taking AP-3 so Marines got a 2nd wound, now your bolters do basically no dmg, especially when combined with AoC so now you want Bolters to be better at killing Marines and the other factions who got a significantly smaller durability boost to compensate for the original buff to Bolters (Doctrines and double tap range). I'll do this for fun. 4th edition, to kill 1 Ork boy it took 1.5 Marines at half range or 3 at Max range. 3 shots = 2 hits = 1 wound = 1 Dead Ork. 1.5 Marines was 22.5pts, 3 Marines = 45pts. Half range it was 0.266ppd, at max range it was 0.133ppd. In 9th edition, without doctrines, with just normal bolter it takes 2.7 Marines double tapping. 2.7 Marines = 5.4 shots = 3.6 hits = 1.2 wounds = 1 dead Ork boy. 2.7 Marines = 48.6pts, so its now 0.18ppd So to summarize, Current day Marines are now doing MORE dmg at 13-24' range and less dmg at half range. Add in tac doctrine and chapter buffs and its significantly more dmg, add in easy access to re-roll hits/wounds and its even better. So all told those Marine with their "crappy bolters' are doing significantly more dmg than before, especially at range.

Dudeface wrote:Marines can be the most common army as long as their profile is elite enough that the weapons used against them are ineffective against the range of opponents outside the army. If an army geared to kill marines was incapable of handling units of gaunts on a basic level then that would fit.

Well, that is almost exactly what happened when Marines were at their apex of SM2.0: Armies tooled up to hard-counter Marines, and then we saw sporadic hordes win, because anti-Marine aren't great against tidal waves of Guardsmen.

You can make Marines multi-wound with absurd armor and high Toughness and it won't make them feel 'elite'; they'll still be the absolute basic, common, de facto standard army that every newbie is playing, the yardstick, the reference point, and the weapons taken in a TAC (read: anti-Marine) list will be whatever counters them. Yeah, you might make some minor concessions if a strictly anti-MEQ list can't handle Gaunts, but a rational player is not going to make his army equally effective against the threat that constitutes 80% of the playerbase and the one that constitutes 10% of the playerbase.

From a design standpoint, the ideal defensive profile for Marines is one that makes them firmly middle-of-the-road, where no single weapon archetype can hard-counter them. A design paradigm where the most-played army is an outlier in terms of statline is always going to produce weird results.

Or, I mean, they could push for 40K to not be all Marines all the time so then they actually are elite and weird and different, but that'd be a pretty big change and I don't see it happening anytime soon. If the 10th Ed starter doesn't have Marines in it I'll be shocked.

A major issue is that 40K doesn't have the depth as a game for anything to actually feel elite. The tactical and strategic choices are so limited that it doesn't matter what army you're playing, the choices you have to make are the same.

It doesn't matter how strong you make the bolter, or how tough you make the marines holding them, the feeling of playing them still won't match what they are "meant to be" in the lore because the game is too shallow to allow for it.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
A major issue is that 40K doesn't have the depth as a game for anything to actually feel elite. The tactical and strategic choices are so limited that it doesn't matter what army you're playing, the choices you have to make are the same.

It doesn't matter how strong you make the bolter, or how tough you make the marines holding them, the feeling of playing them still won't match what they are "meant to be" in the lore because the game is too shallow to allow for it.

^^^^This. In the current edition, it seems that the only way anything can be represented as "elite" is with increased killing power/durability, which is a poor representation of something being elite, IMO. Older editions, with more robust core rules, did it better, also IMO. All of those Veteran Skills that my CSM could have always made them feel more "Skilled" and, well, "Veteran" than loyalists. But I don't think that same system could work in 9th, as there's just not enough in the core rules to work with in order to make most of them work anymore.